Open Source Web Design Software

A recent EDTECH listserve email asked recipients to recommend free web design software. The overwhelming response, so far, has been Nvu. Those responding cited several features, including ease of use, availability of support/forums, and multi-platform (Mac, PC, Linux) format, in their recommendations. For more information and download, visit:

http://www.net2.com/nvu/

Adding a Link to Your Blog

Do you want to add a link to your blog, but you're not quite sure how to do it? Here are the steps for adding a link on a blogger.com site. Other blog creation software/tools will be very similiar:

1. Open your post in "edit" mode, or select "new post."
2. Type in the text as you want it to appear on your blog.
3. Find the URL (website address) that you want to link to.
4. In your blog post, highlight the text that you want to turn into a link.
5. Mouse over all those cute little icons at the top of your editing window. One of the little pictures will say "link." The image probably looks like a small link on a chain. Click on it.
6. In the little window that pops up, copy/paste in the URL for the page you want to link to.

Want to be a little bit tricky? Right click on your snazzy new link. Hopefully, you will see a whole list of things - select "Open link in a new tab." This will keep your visitors from navigating away from your page.

Ta Da!!!!

Troubleshoot Blog Audio Problems

Are your students having trouble getting audio files on your blog to play on their computers at home? You will find a detailed post on my school blog: http://blog109.org/communities/kiplingmusic/archive/2008/05/22/33456.aspx

If you are a Firefox user (if not, it is worth investigating!!!!) you can easily add plugins by visiting https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:7

FYI - Plugins allow your browser to display various graphic formats and play multimedia files.

Client Services

Looking for more than helpful hints? Do you want a website but want someone to set it up for you? Here is a website I created for a local children's author using RapidWeaver (Mac software). After developing and publishing her site, I taught Mary to maintain and update it herself.