As a registered member of The Environmental Illness Resource you are able to write your very own blog. Blogs can be used in a variety of ways, for example, you may wish to use your blog as a diary and write about how your illness is affecting you day to day. Alternatively you can use your blog to write about issues relating to environmental illnesses or health in general that are important to you. You can choose whether other site visitors can view your blog entries and whether or not they are permitted to add their own comments in response to what you have written.

How you use your blog is entirely up to you but whatever you choose to do we hope you enjoy writing your EIR blog and look forward to reading it (if you want us to of course!)

Registration

To write a blog you first need to be a registered user of the site. Registration is free. To register just click the 'Register' link at the bottom of the User Login module on the right of any page. If you need help with the registration process please see the help item Site Features & Registration.

Once you have registered and logged in you will see the User Menu at the top of the left hand column of the site. The 4th option down is 'My Blog'. Clicking this will take you to your blog 'dashboard'. For more information on the User Menu please see the help item Profile & User Menu.

Getting Started

The blog dashboard will open in a new browser window. The home page shows your blog description and when you have posted blog entries these will be listed at the bottom of the page along with various stats and options.

The first thing you will need to do is write a short description for your blog. This can be anything you like but we'd suggest writing a little about yourself and what the focus of your blog will be. When you've finished typing click the 'Save' button. Your description will now always be displayed in the window on the blog editor home page as well as on the main site when your blog is viewed. You may edit your blog description on the blog dashboard home page at any time. Simply make your changes and click 'Save'.

You are now ready to write your first blog entry.

Writing a Blog Entry

To write a blog entry click the 'Write' tab at the top of the page. The blog entry page will now be displayed. In the main body of the page you will see the 'Blog Content' box. Give your blog entry a title and then you can write the main body of text in the box below. The editor allows you to add text formatting and other options the same as an email editor or word processor would.

Images - You may wish to add an image to your blog entry. Click the '+' symbol on the 'Images/Files' panel to expand the panel. From here you can upload images from your computer to use in your blog entry. To upload an image simply click 'Upload' in the bottom right corner of the panel. In the new window that opens click 'Browse' to locate an image file on your computer and then 'Upload' to upload the image to the site. Your image will now appear in the large window in the 'Images/Files' panel. You can now drag the image into the main blog entry window by holding down your left mouse button. Once the image has appeared in your blog entry you can position it using the alignment buttons and the 'Return' and 'Backspace' keys on your keyboard. You can also change various other variables for the image such as giving it a description and border by clicking on the image and then clicking the 'Insert/Edit Image' button (a little picture of a tree).

Additonal Options:

Permanent Link - should be left BLANK. This feature is currently not supported on EIR.

Trackback - should contain the URL's of any blogs or articles you have referenced on other sites. This provides an easy way for readers to find other relevant information. You may also get a link back to your blog from the blog/article you referenced. To learn more about trackback links please visit this Wikipedia article.

Left Column Options:

Publish Status - set this to 'Publish' if you wish your blog entry to be automatically published to the site when you save. If you want to save your entry as a draft so you can work on it more later simply select 'Draft' before saving.

Entry Date/Time - will be added to the top of your entry. This should show the current date and time so this section can normally be ignored. If for whatever reason you wish to alter these settings you can do so here.

Search Posts - allows you to search for related blog entries using keywords and then link to them from your current blog entry by dragging the title into the blog editor area. At the present time this feature only works with the FIrefox web browser.

Tags - please enter keywords here that relate to your blog entry. For example, if your blog entry discusses chronic fatigue syndrome and viruses your 'Tags' might be "chronic fatigue syndrome, CFS, virus, Epstein-Barr". Adding tags makes it a lot easier for readers to find your entry and other blog entries with related information.

Once you have completed all this and are happy with your blog entry click 'Save'. Your blog entry will now be published to your blog!

You can now view your blog by clicking the 'View Blog' tab in the dashboard.

If you require any further assistance please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it