Blogs and the Microsoft Office Blog
This week the computing tip is designed to introduce users to the Microsoft Office Blog, Inside Office Online, and also introduces users to blogs!!
If you have not visited the Microsoft Office Online site, I strongly recommend visiting both Office Online and the blog. They are both full of great information about MS Office programs.
Remember, if you have ideas for the Computing Tip of the Week,please send them to Pat Fellows.
What is a Blog?
According to Wikipedia:
"A blog is a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.
Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), videos (vlog), or audio (podcasting), and are part of a wider network of social media .
The term "blog" is a contraction of "Web log." "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."
Wikipedia is a well known online encyclopedia which is also a Wiki. We'll get to wikis another week.
One of the very cool things about blogs is that they usually provide readers with an RSS feed. This means users can subscribe to the blog and each time there is a new posting, the user is notified via their RSS reader. For more information on RSS, see the bottom of this CTOW. There is a link to a WisLine Web training on RSS.
Many individuals use blogs to post personal views, diaries, or anything they chose to about their life. Companies sometimes use blogs to keep interested parties up to date on happenings. For example, Desire2Learn has a Patent-Info Blog with postings about litigation with Blackboard.
Blogs will often allow others to add comments about posts to the site.
Inside Office Online Blog
The creators of Microsoft's Office Online site have created a blog that provides news and views of what is happening with MS Office.
One of the reasons users might find the Office Online Blog useful is they post new items that sometimes are buried or users don't happen to see them on the MS Office Online site. They usually post click art links for the current month and templates for PowerPoint and Word. There are several contributors, so there is variety in their postings.
The site is searchable, previous posts are archived and allows browsing of the blog by "tags" or keywords.
Other Blogs
Check out Wikipedia's site about blogs. They discuss several aspects of blogging and in the process provide links to several interesting blogs.