何妨吟嘯且徐行 Dedicate to life

For ur convenient, i will quote the entry of michaelhyatt (in fact i dont know him pun) and add my two cents when necessary.

1. Determine a theme. Most bloggers take one of three approaches. Some write on whatever happens to interest them at the moment. In this sense, their blog is truly a “web journal.” Others, select a single theme and stick to it. Frankly, this takes a lot of discipline. Still others, like me, focus on a primary theme but occasionally deviate from it. If you want to develop a following of loyal readers, I think the latter two approaches are best. People who have similar interests will keep coming back for more.

(my two cents: besides themes, i think the language u wanna to use in your blog is another important issue. The active blogger community in malaysia up to this moment is majority use english. Using chinese may be easier and convenient but the readers are restricted to chinese ethic only. The language u choose will determine the service/blog host u choose later. If u choose to use chinese singly, taiwan/china blog hosts are the extra alternatives )

2. Select a service.I use TypePad.com. My daughters use Xanga.com. These are only a few of scores of services available. Some of these are free, such as Blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, Blog-City.com, and MSN Spaces (also Xanga.com). Others charge a nominal fee. Examples include SquareSpace.com, BlogIdentity.com, and Bubbler.com(also TypePad.com). However, even the fee-based services usually offer a 30- to 60-day free trial. Why do I use Why do I use TypePad.com? Because I think it offers the best balance of power, customizability, and ease-of-use. Your mileage may vary.

(my two cents: the service mentioned above also always regarded as blog host/ blog hosting services. There are a lof of blog hosts but i think we just simply pick up the free host. Perhaps the most popular blog host as i know is blogger.com/blogspot.com, blogger or blogspot is the same host which is owned by the google now. We can observed that many of the malaysian chinese commentators use this service due to the pupularity and simplicity to use thought there is a little additional functions like calendar, categories and so forth. I use the blogsome due to the strong recommendation by shinshin as blogsome use one of the most promising publising platform. The most powerful publishing platforms are movabletype and wordpress (to the best of my knowledge). Besides the conventional entries/posts, we can manage the extra pages (for instance, pls dont mind to visit to my blog). Spent sometimes to visit other blogs to check the differences. However we may add extra features such as counter etc. to a simple blog host too ).

3. Set up your blog. Most of the blogging services I have looked at make this a very simple process. Don’t be put off because it sounds technical. It usually isn’t. You won’t need to become a geek. However, you will have to make some decisions about how you want your blog to look. You’ll have to decide on a “theme,” meaning the colors, number of columns, and the overall look and feel of your blog. You may want to include your picture. If so, you’ll need a digital copy. Regardless, this is something you can tweak as you go.

(my two cents: the steps—1. choose a blog host, 2. register, 3. decide ur blog url, 4. decide ur blog name, 5. choose the blog theme (template))

4. Write your first post. Okay, now you’re ready to create your first post. If you haven’t done a lot of writing, this may prove to be the most difficult part. If you don’t have a lot of experience, keep your posts short. Develop momentum. Get the hang of it. Stick to what you know. You probably take for granted the fact that you have a great deal of specialized information that others will find helpful—possibly even fascinating. If you don’t know where else to start, begin with a “Welcome to My Blog” post. Tell your prospective readers why you have started your blog and what kinds of things you intend to write about.

5. Consider using an offline blogging client. This isn’t a necessity but it will make blogging much easier. An offline blogging client is like a word processor for blogging. It enables you to write when you’re not online and then upload your post when you connect to the Internet. The two most popular are BlogJet and ecto (yes, the lowercase “e” is part of the branding). BlogJet is my favorite, but it’s not available for the Mac. ecto is available on both Windows and Mac platforms. You can try both programs before you buy.

6. Add the bells and whistles. Most blogs allow you to post the books you are reading, albums you enjoy, and various other lists. TypePad is especially adept at this. You can also incorporate third-party services like Bloglet. This enables your readers to subscribe to your site and receive an e-mail whenever you post a new entry. The best way to get an idea of what is available is to read other people’s blogs and take note of what you like.

7. Publicize your blog. You’ll want to make sure you’re “pinging” the major weblog tracking sites. Most of the blogging services handle this automatically, as do the offline blogging clients. Don’t worry if you don’t understand this process. You don’t need to understand it to use it. (Here’s a simple explanation.) Basically, your service or software will send a notification to the tracking sites to alert them that you have posted a new entry. If your software doesn’t allow this, you might want to make use of pingomatic. This is a super-easy service that will ping fourteen different services. All you have to do is enter your blog address whenever you post a new entry. If you want to manually enter a comprehensive list of ping services, here’s a list to get you started.

(my two cents: the ping services/blog portals/blog aggregators/blog directory of malaysia bloggers: 1. Project Petaling Street 2. Blogsmalaysia 3. Penangbloggers 4. Malaysian Chinese Bloggers Directory 5. Bloglah (chinese) 6. etc)

8. Write regularly. This is the best advice I could give you for building readership. If people like what you write, they will come back. However, if there’s nothing new to read, they will eventually lose interest. So, the more regularly you post something, the more your readership will grow. I suggest you schedule time to write. It won’t happen on it’s own. At some point, it comes down to making a commitment and sticking to it.

(my two cents: hey, brother! I think this is the most important part—keep writing and keep writing, which is the part i failed to fulfill. As a consequent, my blog become the store room of my writings or selection of others’ articles.)

That are the simple steps to set up a blog. Don’t forget to have a Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents .
These all my few cents to give today. Hope the info help other frens too.

Enjoy blogging! Keep blogging as a style of living!

In solidarity of blogger community,
KianKeat