Welcome to mo’time

How do I create my blog?!?

In 3 minutes from now, you can be online with your first web log, also known as a blog, visible from any computer on the planet with Internet access.

Now that you've got a pretty good idea about why you've decided to publish a web log and, perhaps, what type of blog you'd like to create, it's time to get your first post online!

The first step is to register

You must be at least 13 years of age to create a blog on mo'time.

1) On the home page of mo'time, in the central section just under the header, you will see a button that says "Create your blog!" You can also click here if you want to get started right away. The registration page will open in a new browser window.

2) Clicking on the button, you will be brought to the form where you will be asked to choose your username and your password. Enter your email address, read and accept our privacy policy and terms of use, certify that you are over 13 years old, type in the three letter verification in the appropriate field and click the "Create new Account". (The three distorted letters are generated and entered into the field to thwart software robots from registering false account on the system.)

3) Our system will immediately send an email to the address indicated in order to confirm your registration. Download your email, open up our email, click on the verification link. It will open your browser to a page that says, "Your registration has been successfully confirmed. You can login using your username and password."

4) Enter your username and password and click log-in.

5) You will be brought to the Quick Launch page, one of the 2 main screens to manage your mo'time activities.

6) Click on the "Add new blog" button in "Blogs" section of the page. You can create up to three blogs, returning to this page and clicking the "Add new blog" button for each blog you would like to create.

7) Ok... You're almost there...

Create your new blog

Assuming that everything has gone according to plan so far, you should be looking at a page entitled "Create a new blog".

Here you will choose your blog's title, URL ("uniform resource locator", a fancy expression which means your Internet address) and a description of your blog.

Choose whether you want your blog to appear in the "Recently updated" list on the home page, and click the "Create" button to save your new blog's settings.

All of these settngs may be modified by you at anytime in the future, so don't worry about locking yourself into a choice.

Choose a template for your blog

You will have arrived at the template choosing page after having created your blog on the previous screen.

The "template" just refers to the ready-made graphic layout for your web log. Here you will see the thumbnail graphics of various layouts. Clicking on the adjacent text link, you can preview a pop-up with an enlargement of the template so you can have a closer look before deciding. (Just close the pop-up when you have finished examining it.)

When you have decided on your template, just click the "Click to choose" button or the thumbnail itself.

Don't worry about locking yourself in to any one "look and feel". You can change your template whenever the mood strikes, and you will not lose any of your posts or archives!

You are now ready to publish your first post.

Note for expert members: After logging in and arriving in your blog's control panel for the first time, you will have full access to the source code of your template and can customize it to your heart's delight.

Next: Posting and other features...

The "Blog" tab

Now that you've created your blog, it's time to learn how to write, publish and edit posts.

Notice how mo'time's menus are organized, the controls are three main sections: Blogs, Community and Account.

You can see this organization on the main pages from which you will manage your blog -- on the page you see when you first log-in to motime.com, the home page, and on the "tabs" visible across the top of page.

There is a link to the home page on the top right of this page, if you're curious to see it now. Then click the 'back' command of your browser to return here.

From the home page view you can get to the most common commands quickly and easily. From other pages on mo'time you will see the tabbed pages above for easy navigation from wherever you happen to be.

When you first log-in to motime, you will find yourself on the home page where you will see a list of your blogs, or the "create blog" button if you do not yet have a blog.

If you already have a blog, click on the name of your blog or on the icon represented by the plus sign. Voilà, you will be in the "Blogs" tab. Across the top of the page you will see the other tabs: Community and Account.

The submenu tabs of the Blogs tab are: Post, Template, Links, Connections and Settings. Each tab contains its own specific set of sub-commands. Under Post you will find: Write, Edit and Tags.

To learn how to use the Post editor to write in your blog, go to the next page...

Blogs->Post->Write & Edit & Tags

Blog ->Post ->Write

The full-featured mo'time post editor works on Windows computers with Internet Explorer (version 5.5 or higher), Firefox and Mozilla browsers. It does not work with Safari on the Macintosh, Opera or Internet Explorer for the Mac. Macintosh and Linux users are encouraged to use Firefox 1.0 or higher.

You get to the post editor from the Home Page by clicking on the name of your blog (or the "plus" icon on the same line). Notice that you now have a tabbed menu across the top of the page which allows you to navigate through all of our features. You will find yourself in the Blog tab, in the Post submenu, in the Write sub-submenu. From now on will refer to such locations using this kind of path-like notation: Blog ->Post ->Write.

It may take a minute for the editor to "load", depending on the speed of your Internet connection, the speed of your computer and network traffic. Once it loads you will be greeted with an interface very much like a typical word processor, such as Microsoft Word, for example.

Compose your post, select the text that you would like to format and choose the effect you want by clicking on the appropriate icon. If you want to view or edit the HTML code of your post, click on the "Source" button. When you're done, click it again to return to the display view.

Notice that there are icons for adding links directly into your post and for posting photos.

As for the links, decide on the phrase that you want to appear as linked text and select it. Click the link icon and a pop-up form appears with fields for the URL and link attributes. If you do not know HTML, you can simply paste in the link into the URL field ("www.link.com"), click OK and you will see that you selected text is now highlighted and underlined. If you are a more expert user, you may use the other fields to modify the links attributes.

As for images, you must have the picture file that you want to post hosted on a web server somewhere in order to have it appear on your blog. Click the icon and fill in the URL of the picture. Once again, more experienced users can add attributes to the fields in the pop-up, or modify the HTML of the post directly in the Source view. Click OK and, if you did it correctly, you should see a preview of the picture in the edit window.

If you have post titles activated in your blog settings (covered later in this manual), then you will also see a field at the top of the editor to enter a title which will appear above your post in bold.

Notice the field labeled "Tags" to the right of the main editing area? Tags, explained more fully below, are keywords that you can assign to each individual post. You can assign multiple tags to a post, like travel and Italy, for instance. Just separate the words with a comma in the field.

The concept of tags, and their usefulness, is explained further, below.

Once you are happy with your post, click the "Post and publish" button!

When the page refreshes you will see an editable preview version of your blog. You can get to this view anytime that you want to:

Blog ->Post ->Edit

In this view you can update posts, or delete them, by clicking on the buttons that you see on your blog. You can also delete comments by opening the commment section and clicking the delete button associated with the comment.

You can navigate your blog's archives and update or delete any post.

Blog ->Post ->Tags

Don't get confused with by term "Tags" which also refers to individual HTML commands. In this context the term refers to the assignment of a keyword or words to each individual post. The keywords then appear automatically in your archive links on your blog so that your readers can just click on "travel" and see ONLY your travel-tagged posts. It's a convenient way to automatically organize your blog and makes navigating through your posts easier for your readers.

You can see the tags in use on mo'time at a glance on the latest posts page, in the left column.

Read all about tags here, from the original launch announcement, and the comments from other members. It is a powerful tool and can help increase your readership, too! Read the post and start using tags today.

Blogs->Template

Current:
This is where you can customize your blog's template. Note that editing your template requires that you already have some knowledge of HTML, including style sheets (CSS). Learning these basics is beyond the scope of this manual, but we have collected some links for you, if you'd like to learn how to tinker with your template:


Beginner's HTML
HTML Basics
HTML Validator
CSS Level 1
CSS template tool
CSS template tool2
CSS Validator


If you are conversant with these standards, just enter your code into the textarea window and click "Save changes". Remember, however, that apart from the basic html and CSS code, you must understand the mo'time-specific Blogger tags to take full command of the customization of your blog! Those are found in the Tags section, described below.

We also have group blog dedicated to template issues. If you have questions, suggestion or want to participate as a helper, please visit the template blog and have a look around.

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Blogs->Template->New:
If you would like to simply change templates by choosing a new one from the mo'time gallery, click the New button in this section.


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Blogs->Template->Tags:
The key section of a blog template is made of up special "Blogger" tags, each of which takes data from your database and imports directly into your blog. These tags are "case-sensitive", meaning you must never hange a capital "B" into a small "b", for example. Doing so will render the tag invalid; it won't work anymore!


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The following tags may be place anywhere in your template:

<$BlogTitle$>
Places the title of your blog

<$BlogDescription$>
Places your blog description

<$BlogLinkOut$>
Places your links list

<$BlogCounter$>
Places your blogs page view counter

<$BlogArchive$>
Places your archive menu

<$BlogCategories$>
Places your archive menu sorted by category

<$BlogSubscribeButton$>
Places the old-style mo'time subscribe button

NEW<$BlogPhotoAlbum$>
Places a photo album on your blog (not yet activated!); it must be placed immediately before the tag: <Blogger> Note: you must also place specific styles in the CSS section of your blog to support this tag. See examples below.

NEW <$BlogRecentPhotos$>
Places the last 3 photos from your album in your blog's menu (not yet activated!)
Note: you must also place specific styles in the CSS section of your blog to support this tag. See examples below.

<$BlogPager$>
Places page-numbering navigation links (this is mandatory for blogs that use categories and photo albums).
Note: you must also place specific styles in the CSS section of your blog to support this tag. See examples below.

NEW <$BlogFeeds$>
Places a RSS/Atom news feed on your blog
Note: you must also place specific styles in the CSS section of your blog to support this tag. See examples below.<



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The following tags MUST be place in between: <Blogger> ... </Blogger>:

NEW <$BlogNavigation$>
Places a post navigation bar (previous - home - next) when viewing single posts or comments
Note: you must also place specific styles in the CSS section of your blog to support this tag. See examples below.

<BlogDateHeaderDate><$BlogDateHeaderDate$></BlogDateHeaderDate>
Must not be changed! Places the date on your post

<$BlogItemTitle$>
Places post titles

<$BlogItemBody$>
Places the post itself
Note: you must also place specific styles in the CSS section of your blog to support this tag. See examples below.

<$BlogItemAuthorNickname$>
Places your username (usually in the signature of the post)

<$BlogItemAuthorURL$>
Places the URL of your main blog

<$BlogItemCategories$>
Places the name of the category of your post (usually in the signature of the post)

<$BlogItemDateTime$>
Places the date and time of your post (usually in the signature of the post)

NEW <$BlogItemPermalink$>
Places the "permalink" at the bottom of your post, technically generated as: http://myblog.motime.com/post/1234

NEW <$BlogItemCommentList$>
Places the comments below your post on the same page (replaces the old-style commednt pop-up window) as your post, including a text area for writing the comments
Note: you must also place specific styles in the CSS section of your blog to support this tag. See examples below.

NEW <$BlogItemCommentLink$>
Generates a direct link to the comment


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NEW These are examples of the kinds of styles that you need to add to the CSS section of your blog, found in between <Style> ... </Style>; you can modify these styles as you wish:

/* ******************************** */
/* Classes for the tag: <*$BlogItemBody$> */

#read-more {
font: normal .76em Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
padding:0px 10px;
text-align: right;
}

/* ******************************** */
/* Classes for the tag: <*$BlogItemCommentList$> */

.comment {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
border-bottom: 1px solid #003399;
padding: .5em;
margin-top: 1em;
background:transparent;
width: 395px;
}

.comment-body {
text-align: left;
padding: .2em .0em .9em .0em ;
font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal;
color:#000000;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:.75em;
}

.comment-tips {
background:transparent ;
text-align: left;
padding-left: .5em;
font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal;
color:#555555;
font-size:.68em;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

.comment-form-title {
background:#003399;
color: white;
font: .8em "Courier New", Courier, mono;
letter-spacing: 0.09em;
font-weight:bold;
padding: .2em .5em .2em .5em;
}

.comment-form-user {
background:transparent ;
text-align: left;
font-size:.65em;
font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal;
color:#555555;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
line-height: 1.3em;
padding-left: .5em;
}

.comment-top {
background:transparent ;
text-align: right;
padding-bottom:.7em;
font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal;
font-size:.65em;
color: #003399;
font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

.comment-bottom {
background:transparent ;
text-align: left;
padding-top:.7em;
font-style:normal; font-variant:normal; font-weight:normal;
font-size:.65em;
color: #003399;
font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

}

/* ******************************** */
/* Classes for the tag: <*$BlogNavigation$> */

.navigation {
background: #FFFACD;
border: 1px solid #666666;
color: #000000;
font: 9pt/11pt Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;
margin-bottom: 6px;
margin-top: 4px;
padding-bottom: 1px;
padding-left: 4px;
padding-right: 2px;
text-align: center;
}

.prev {
float: left;
text-align: left;
width: 45%;
}

.next {
float: right;
text-align: right;
width: 45%;
}

.home {
text-align: center;
}

/* ******************************** */
/* Classes for the tag: <*$BlogPager$> */

.blog-pager div {
padding: 1px;
font-weight: normal;
display: inline;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #000000;
font-size: 0.83em;
}

.blog-pager a {
text-decoration: underline;
display: inline;
margin: 3px;
}
<
/* ******************************** */
/* Classes for the tag: <*$BlogPhotoAlbum$> */
#album {
background: transparent;
color: #000000;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 9px;
text-decoration: underline;
text-align: left;
}

#album img {
padding: 4px;
background: #DDDDDD;
border: 1px solid #BBBBBB;
}

#album td {
text-align: left;
vertical-align: top;
}

#album table {
text-align: left;
vertical-align: top;
}

#album .title {
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 9px;
padding-top: 4px;
padding-bottom: 10px;
}

/* ******************************** */
/* Classes for the tag: <*$BlogRecentPhotos$> */
#recent-photos {
background: transparent;
text-align: center;
padding: 10px 0px 15px 0px;
}

#recent-photos img {
background: #DDDDDD;
padding: 4px;
border: 1px solid #BBBBBB;
}

/* same font and size as section titles */

#recent-photos .album-link {
font: bold .8em "Book Antiqua", Palatino, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;
color: #003399;
background: transparent;
text-align: center;
margin:0px 10px;
text-decoration: underline;
}

#recent-photos .title {
color: #FF6633;
font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 10px;
font-weight: bold;
width: auto;
padding: 5px;
text-align: center;
}

#album-link {
vertical-align:top;
}
#album-link a:link {
vertical-align:top;
}

/* ******************************** */
/* Classes for the tag: <$BlogFeeds$> */
#blog-feeds {
line-height:0.2;
padding-left: 15px;
}


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Most of these tags can be found in our prepared templates, but you can modify them to suit your needs.
If you have modified your template in any way, we strongly recommend that you copy the code from the edit window, and paste it into a text document on your computer. Save the file so that if you ever make further changes or accidentally corrupt your code, you can always just paste your good copy into the textarea to start over again!
We hope that this brief introduction to our blogging platform will enable you to play with your template so that you can make it look just the way you'd like it to, using your preferred fonts, colors and layouts. If you have other questions or would simply like to give us your feedback, please visit our template blog. Our staff carefully monitors all comments, criticisms and, well, even compliments! Happy Blogging...

Blogs->Links

Links:
We have designed a really easy way for you to manage your links on your  mo´time weblog, using a simple form.



Link text: Choose the name of link as you wish it to appear on your blog in your link menu. This is the text that people will read and click on.

URL: Directly underneath you will see the URL field. Type in the web address of the site or blog that you want to link to. Enter the text very carefully! Any mistake, no matter how small, will cause the link not to function properly.

Link title: The third field is the link title field. This is the text that you see when you place your mouse pointer over the link; it is usually a further description of the link.
When you have double-checked that you have entered the text, url and title correctly, just click on the Add button. That's all there is to it. Your links will appear immediately on your blog in alphabetical order.
Modifying links: You can modify your links whenever you want to. Once you create a link, a table will appear near the top of the Links. Choosing edit allows you change any part of your link. Clicking the hide checkbox will preserve the link in your database, but will remove it from the link menu. Delete does just what you'd expect...it eliminates the selected link.

When you have finished working with your links, click on the Save changes.

Blogs->Connections

The Connection section of your control panel is where you can invite friends, co-workers or relatives to share privileges on a group blog.

Members, Awaiting and Invite:
The members page contains a list of the members of your blog. Inviting members means turning your blog into a group blog, allowing users to post and administer the blog. Invite members to your blog by clicking on the Invite button and use the simple form to invite friends to participate in your blog, via username (mo'timers only) or email (for non-mo'timers), and include a welcome message if you'd like.

When you click "Invite a user", the page will refresh and it will take you to the Awaiting page. There you will see the invitee listed in the pending invitations table. Set the level of permission that you desire and then click "Save Changes". If you want to allow the member to change some of the blog's settings and have the power to invite others, in addition to posting, then choose "can admin" from the awaiting table. When the invitee accepts your invitation, they will disappear from this table and appear in your Members list.

Blogs->Settings

Blogs->Settings->Basic:

This page is identical to the one that you encountered when you first created your blog. On this page you can change the title of your blog, its address (URL) and description.


1) Title -- Enter the name of your blog into the first field. This will be the name displayed as the title of your page.

2) URL -- This will be the Internet address of your blog: http://yourURL.motime.com. This is the address that you will give to your friends so that they can come to visit your blog. Take an extra minute to decide upon a URL that you would like to keep for some time. Changing the URL will mean that the link to your that your readers have in their bookmarks will no longer be viable.

3) Description -- This description will appear in the layout of your blog page, so try to compose a clear and brief subtitle for your blog.

4) Show blog on 'newly updated' menu on the home page -- This setting allows you choose whether you want your blog to appear in the newly updated menu on the home page AND on the latest posts pages.

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Blogs->Settings->Format:



Number of posts on your home page: This is just what it sounds like. When the number of posts exceed the number that you choose (up until a max of 30) they go to the archives of that month, always available to you and your readers by simply clicking on the month in question. Your archive links are automatically placed on your blog. No further action on your part is needed.

Enable blog pager: Choose 'yes' if you would like to have one of those cool '1-2-3 next-page last-page' style links on the bottom of every page of your blog whenever you have more posts than can be seen on a single page.

Order of posts: Traditionally, the most recent posts are shown at the top of the page and then placed in descending order. That way your regular readers see your latest posts without having to scroll. But you can reverse the order if you want to.

Enable post titles: The default is set to No, but this is a cool feature to try out. It allows you to place a headline or title for each of your posts. It can help to clue your readers into the subject of each post or simply be another occasion for your creative writing skills to shine.

Time: Since mo'timers blog from all around the globe, we have created this panel for you to adjust the time zone of your blog. Click on the arrow of the pull-down menu and click on your local time. All posts and comments will reflect your choice. There are also formatting options for your time stamps which are self-explanatory.


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Blogs->Settings->Access:
This panel controls who can see and comment on your blog.


Blog viewing: choose between "Everyone" (for a public blog) and "Members only" (for a private blog open to invited Motime members only). There is a space for a custom message that univited members will see if they try to access a private blog. This message is shown if the blog is PRIVATE and the user is anonymous or not a member of the blog.

Commenting access: you can choose among the following self-explanatory options: No one (comments disabled), Anyone (unrestricted), Motimers only or Invited Mo'time members only. If you intend to block certain Mo'time members from commenting, you must choose 'Motimers only' and then from the Community->Contacts panel you can specify who to block.

There is a space for a custom message which is shown to users who are NOT authorized to comment on this blog.

When you have completed your selections, click Save Changes at the bottom of the page to enable your preferences.

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Blogs->Settings->Syndication:


Turn on syndication: Publish site feed: Choose "yes" to turn on service.

Descriptions: Choose 'Short' to syndicate a short abstract of your post. Your subscribers will then have to come to your blog to read the full text. Choose 'Full' to place the entire post within the news feed which is then readable in the news readers of your subscribers.

Language: Choose the language from the pull-down menu.

Feed URL: This shows you the URL to your feed which can be inserted into a new reader directly or emailed to friends that wish to subscribe to your blog. ALternatively (and more commonly) your subscribers will use the button on your blog's home page to subscribe.

The links "preview" will display the actual XML content of your feed.

Confused? Here is a further explanation: What Are Webfeeds (RSS), and Why Should You Care?

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Blogs->Settings->Info:

This panel is informational only. There are no preferences to set on this page. It is your blog settings profile, a snapshot of your blog. It will make more sense to you after having gone through the entire control panel first.


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Blogs->Settings->Delete:

Click on this button if you want to delete the current blog. Deleting the blog will permanently remove all posts and comments from our database and cannot be undone. So think carefully before doing it! Don't worry, we give you a warning and second chance to think about it, but after you do the deed, there's no turning back.

Blogs->Icon panel (right side)

Look to the right side of the light blue strip, the color of the Blogs tab itself. There you will see a series of icons and a drop down menu. Here is an explanation of these controls:

: Click this icon to see your blog in a new window.

:  This icon shows the public status of the blog. This open lock means the blog is public, whilst the the closed lock indicates a blog visible only to members. Clicking on this icon opens the Blogs->Connections->Access panel, which allows you to modify this setting.

:  If you see this icon, it means that the current blog is your main blog on mo'time. Clicking on it brings you to Account->User->Profile where you may change this setting if you so desire. If you do not see it, it simply means that this blog has not been yet chosen as your main blog. If this is your only blog, it should be your main blog. So, if you don't see the icon, go to Account-> User-> Profile and select it as your main blog right now!

The pull down menu: The last element to the right is the pull down menu. If you have more than one blog, this is the way to move from one blog to another without leaving the tabbed Control Center environment.

Next: The Message tab...

The "Multimedia" Tab

Please be patient. The help files for the multimedia features will be online soon!

The "Community" tab

Understanding the "Community" concept

All of the features and functions in this section are designed to help you to keep in touch with the mo'time people that interest you the most. Once you find a blog that you enjoy reading, you can subscribe to it. Once you do so, you will find the latest posts and comments to that blog conveniently listed for you in the 'Digest'.

You can also use our built-in chatting system, keep track of mo'time friends online and block users who bother you.

When first click on the Community tab, however, you see your Community Center, a convenient "one-stop shop" to get an overview of Community activity.

Community->Messages

Community -> Messages -> mo'Mail

Mo'mail is mo'time's own private message system. It works much like many "webmail" systems. Here is how it works:

By clicking on the Messages tab, you arrive at the basic interface. From here you can see your Inbox and, on the menu on the left side, you can view your Sent Messages, too.

You can also get to your Inbox through the link on the Mo'time home page under the Community heading. If you have any unread messages, there will be a red number in between the parentheses to tell how many, like this: (2).

The ! symbol that you see alongside a new message means that it is unread and, next to a sent message, it means that the recipient has not yet opened it.

You can organize and save your mo'mail any way that you'd like by creating new folders and moving your messages there. Click on the 'Create new folder' link next to the heading Folder, above the folders menu on the left side of the page.

Work with the messages that you want to move or delete by clicking on the checkbox to the right of the message and then 'Delete' or 'Move to' button according to what you wish to do.

Messages->Mo'mail->New

To compose a new message, just click on the 'New' link, type in the mo'time username, subject of the message, content and then click the 'Send mo'mail' button near the top of the page.

Your sent mo'mail is immmediately visible in your 'Sent Messages' folder.

Community->Contacts->Friends

After a little while on Mo'time, you will probably make friendships with those other members with whom you exchange comments on a regular basis. The 'Friends' feature allows you to maintain a list of these people so that you can, at a glance, see who is online when you are. In this way you can chat, write mo'mails or leave comments when you know they are online.

Wherever you see the profile symbol next to the username of the person that you want to make a Friend, click on the profile icon. In the profile popup, click on the Add a Friend button . When you get to the Add a Friend page, click 'Add' and the deal is done.

You can also add Friends by going directly to Community->Contacts->Friends and filling in the username manually.

Friends can be removed just as easily from Community->Contacts->Friends. Just click the Delete checkbox of the person that you would like to remove and click 'Save changes'.

The Mo'time home page also contains a link to Friends under the Community section. The number in parentheses indicates the number of Friends currently online.

Community->Contacts->Blocked users

Community->Contacts->Blocked users

What is a blocked user?

Unfortunately, there may be people who bother you so much that you wish to block them from contacting you or from commenting on your blog.

Wherever you see the Block user icon next to the username of the person that you want to block, click on the icon. Doing so will bring you to Community->Contacts->Blocked user with username automatically filled in. Click 'Add' and the deal is done.

You can also block users by going directly to Community->Contacts->Blocked users and filling in the username manually.

Blocked users can be just as easily unblocked Community->Contacts->Blocked users. Just click the checkbox of the person that you would like to unblock and click 'Save changes'.

Community->Contacts->Friends of

Community->Contacts->Friend of

What is a 'Friend of'?

When someone make you a friend, they are shown on this page. You can satisfy your curiosity about this by consulting this list.

If, for whatever reason, you wish to not be on their friends list, you can simply and discretely take yourself off of that list by selecting the Delete checkbox and clicking Save Changes.

Community->Contacts->Subscribers and ->Linked In

The Subscribers page is a list of your blogs and those who have subscribed to them. Next to each member's name are the icons which you can click to view their blogs, their profiles or to send them a mo'Mail.

You can also see if they are currently online and if they have their mo'IM turned on (built-in chat/instant messenger). If they do, you can add them to your buddy list and ask them if they'd like to chat.

The Linked In page is a list of Mo'time blogs that contain links to your blog or blogs.

Community->Digest

All about subscribing to blogs

The first time you come to the Digest->Latest news page, if you haven't yet subscribed to any blogs, your digest will be empty. When you have subscribed, coming to this page (which is also linked directly from your logged-in home page) you will see a list of recent posts and comments in most-recent-first order, with 'Read me' links for each one.

Digest->Subscriptions

Once again, if you haven't got any subscriptions, the Subscriptions page will be empty. Once you have subscribed, however, you will see a list of your subscriptions (indicating whether you are subscribed to post, comments or both), a check box for deleting individual subscriptions and the 'Save Changes' button at the bottom of the page.

To delete a subscription, simply choose the blog by clicking the checkbox and then the 'Save Changes' button.

Digest->Add blog

The Add Blog page is where you can choose the blogs that you want to subscribe to by entering the URL of each blog in the field: http://_URL_here_.motime.com. The 'URL' is NOT the name of the blog as it may appear on the blog, but its internet address that you see in your browser's address bar!

However, the easiest way to subscribe to the blog is to click on the 'subscribe' button located on the blog itself. Doing that brings you to this page with the field automatically filled in.

Choose whether you are interested in subscribing to just posts, just comments or both.

We recommend subscribing to the comments of your own blog or blogs so that you can be notified here when you get a comment!

If you use our built-in instant messenger (chat program), you will also receive update alerts from your subscriptions in real time when you're online! Read more about this in the Chat section of the manual.

Community->Mo'timeNow

This section explains the various ways that mo'time keeps you in touch with your personal "blogosphere" in real time, hence the name mo'timeNow.

Not only can you chat with other mo'timers, the system is integrated with our subscription system. Think of it as "live blogging." Simply put, if you download and open the instant messenger, you can:

• receive alerts in "real-time" whenever a blog that you subscribe to is updated. The alert contains an excerpt of the first sentence and a hot link directly to the post or comment;


• chat one-on-one with other motimers and, in most instances, with your friends on AOL, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo and all Jabber/XMPP instant messaging systems; and

• create group chats or conferences with other motimers and Jabber/XMPP users.

Community->Mo'timeNow->Chat & Alerts

This page describes how to utilize a number of different instant messaging applications to take advantage of some of mo'time's coolest features.

The quickest and easiest way to try the chatting and alert features of mo'time is by using mo'IM.

mo'IM is a one-click instant messenger that pops up directly from within the browser. You can open it up by clicking the direct link ("Open IM client") on the mo'time home page, if you're logged-in, on the same line as the Community headline.

When the pop-up window opens up (it may take a minute or so, depending on the speed of your Internet connection and your computer) you will see one buddy already in your list, evdisp, our software agent which will deliver your blog update alerts to you.

To add another user (or any friend of yours with a Jabber-compatible username in this format: jabberid@domain.com) just choose Add Contact from the only menu on the popup, aptly named "Menu." :-)

The Menu also allows you to:

Change contact view: toggles back and forth between showing all contacts or just online contacts.
Set my Status: change your "presence" settings.
Change Avatar: change the photo which appears next to your name.
Sound on/off toggle: Turn sound alerts on and off.
Motime Alerts: Opens a popup in which your alerts will appear.
About: Credits.
Logout: To end your instant messaging session.

Community->mo'timeNow->TipicIM

TipicIM is a 'desktop' instant messenging program for Windows. It works much like MSN Messenger, AIM, ICQ and other similar applications. If you set it up right, you can also chat with your buddies on these other systems when you are online with TipicIM through your mo'time account. Try it!

Step one: download the TipicIM client

(If you use a computer that does not allow downloads, you can use mo'IM our browser-based instant messenger instead as described in the previous page.)

Tipic, Inc. is the company that brings you motime and, apart from hosting this blogging community is a provider of Jabber/XMPP instant messaging technology.

Click here to go to download page (Windows users only.)

Macintosh and Linux users can use any Jabber/XMPP client to take advantage of the service:
We recommend iChatAV (available only as part of Apple Macintosh's Tiger OS, 10.4) and GAIM for Linux and PSI for Macintosh.

Step two: install the TipicIM client



Double-click on this icon and follow the installer\'s instructions. Choose your installation preferences and click "next".


First screen of the setup process.

You will then be asked to choose the directory of the installation and how to set up your Start menu preferences if you chose that shortcut, above.

In most cases, you will be just fine using the default settings that we built into the installer.

At the completion of the installation process, the TipicIM client will be present in your Start menu and probably on your desktop with this icon:



Double-click to launch the program!

Step three: Setting up the TipicIM client

Upon launching the application, you should see this window:



Do not check "new user"!! All motime members are automatically registered on the service.

Type in your motime username: your username is the name you see at the bottom of your posts. You must use this format: username@motime.com!! NOTE: this is not a valid email address; Motime does not give you an email address. Technically speaking this is your Jabber ID, or JID.

Type in your motime password, the same one you use to login to the site. Check "save password" only if your computer is securely under your own control. Otherwise, leave it unchecked and type it in each time you login with the TipicIM client.

Click Enter.



Step four: your ready to begin! Here's what you'll see next: This is your main messenger window. Notice that you already have one contact on your list: evdisp@alerts.tipic.com is our "event dispatcher", the technology that reads your subscription list and sends your alerts. [We have nicknamed it "Ed", but we have left his technical name as the default so that you can see "his" real address. This way you can manually add him to any other Jabber-compatible messaging software, or back here in case you accidentally delete him. You can change his nickname by selecting Ed and right-clicking on his name. As you can see, from this menu you can also manage other aspects of this contact.] In general, we think you will find the menus and right-click mouse menus rather intuitive and self-explanatory. Just explore a little bit and in a minute or two you'll find everything you need more or less where you'd expect it. Just in case, here's a quick-start rundown of the options: File menu: Change your online status / Disconnect / Close. Action: Add contacts / Join-create group chats / Manage profile Tools: Headline and News (your alerts appear here) / Options An example of how the menu bar works. Your "avatar" in the last menu item refers to the little picture that you see next to your name. If you have a small jpg graphic, in square format (32x32, or 16x16 pixels work best), you can upload it to the server and use it as your personal avatar. Otherwise, just use one of the canned ones. Using the instant messenger (IM) Step six: Using TipicIM client After you've set up the IM client, your main window could look something like this: 1: Using groups: You can create new groups and organize your contacts into these groups. Clicking on the group name toggles between show group members and hide group members. Instructions for creating and managing your groups are found below under 3. Username. 2: Change view: Clicking on this double-arrow icon will toggle between show online contacts and show all contacts. 3: Username: If you right-click with your mouse on the username, you can see the menu choice Create new group. In this menu you can manage all aspects of your contact list, including moving users from group to group, deleting users and blocking users from contacting you. Alerts: "the beauty part" When you are online, and your status is Available or Away, you will receive an alert from Ed, the event dispatcher, every time somebody posts or comments on the blogs on your subscription list. Using the TipicIM, the alert will be a "toaster pop-up" that will appear for a few seconds in the lower right hand corner of your screen. It looks like the image below and is a clickable link that brings your right to the blog and entry in question. You can also see your alerts after the pop-up disappears in your Headline window, available under the Tools menu of your main TipicIM window! This feature is very cool, especially if you're online for long periods of time at a stretch. You *feel* the site come alive as your favorite bloggers post and comment on the blogs you love to read. It really is "live" blogging. The pace of commenting and posting can reach frightening speeds if you have a large group of friends online! Check it out. Adding Contacts Step five: Managing your contact list (also known as your roster) Go to your Actions menu and choose "Add a contact": Your can add addresses that you know, or search with partial information. Searching for a user: Click the top radio button and then click the Next button at the bottom to advance to the next window. Adding a known address: If you know the correct Jabber ID (JID) of a motime member or any other user of a Jabber IM client, enter here in the form of "username@jabberserver.com". The click Next. Communicating with other networks: If you'd like to try instant messaging with MSN, AOL, ICQ or Yahoo contacts, click the "configure the transports" links and follow the directions. This service is offered on a best effort basis. We cannot guarantee the interoperability between Tipic and these other services, but we try to keep up with their protocol changes. If you chose "Search": Note: the descriptive text in this window may not correspond with the text as shown here. Enter whatever information you have, even if just partial. In the example above I entered "how" even though I wanted to find "howard." It would have found "andhow", "show" or "howdy" too. Here are the results, though: Search results appear showing usernames containing the letters in your search string. Click on the user that you'd like to add to your contact list and then the Next button. Follow the rest of the instructions and that's it! The other user will receive an authorization request and can choose whether or not to let you add his or her name to your list. Next: Commmunity->Mo'timeNow->TipicME (mobile) Community->mo'timeNow->TipicME (mobile) Interested in receiving update alerts on your blog subscriptions via your mobile device? Want to chat with friends on your contact list on your cell phone or PDA? Try TipicME! Visit the TipicME download page to see if your device is compatible. The "Account" tab The Account section contains all of your personal settings and controls that are not blog-specific, but relate to your account in general. All the settings are found in Account->User: Profile, Password, Email and Privacy. Account->User->Profile Your homepage: On this form you can choose your main blog, the one that will be linked to your username in various contexts around mo'time, like in your comment signature. You can even choose to use a non-motime blog if you wish, just fill in the full URL in the space provided. My photo: You can link to a photo or graphic file that will shown in your profile and on the online page by filling in the URL of file in the space provided. The file (which must be in .gif or .jpg format) will be resized to 102x86 pixels by our system, in order to fit the space provided. To avoid distortions of your photo, you should crop it to 102x86 in an image-processing program, and then place it on your image server. If you do not know how to place a photo online, see the relevant manual section, how to insert images in your blog. About me: In the About Me section, you can write a few lines to describe yourself. be creative. Contact custom message: This appears on the Contact Me page if someone clicks on the contact icon next to your name as it appears in a comment or other places on mo'time. Name: If you wish to, you can place your first and last name in the appropriate fields -- but only if you want to. - - - - You are not required to fill out the profile information if you choose not to. It is entirely up to you. First name: Account->User->Password If you want to change your password, you can do so on this page. It must be least 5 letters, but no more than 8, containing letters or numbers only, no special characters such as _ or -... Account->User->Email You can change the email address that we have on record for you. This email is used automatically by the system when you ask for a new password. We will occasionally use this way to contact you in case of problems with your account if we cannot reach you in any other way. Our privacy policy about email is very strict. We NEVER give out your email address to ANYBODY. Account->User->Privacy At mo'time we respect your privacy and have given you some additional options to tailor your experience to suit your desires. Privacy settings: This is a simple list of yes/no options. You can show or hide your profile, your name, online presence, adjust your contact options for unlogged visitors and choose to receive or not receive our newsletter. Hide blogs in my profile: Anyone viewing your profile can see all the blogs that you own or are a member of unless you choose to hide them. This section gives you that option. Hide my membership: If you belong to any group blogs, your username could appear on that blog's membership menu unless you turn off that option here. Next: Common problems and questions... Common problems and solutions (inlcuding posting photos!) Now that you're online and have acquired a basic knowledge of how to use Motime to create and maintain your web logs, you may have some nagging doubts or recurring problems that you would like to solve. This chapter is designed to help you through the most common problems and fixes as "painlessly" and as quickly as possible. How to insert images in your blog This is probably the most frequently asked question of all time! The solution is not difficult, but you must have access to a webserver and know how to use FTP (file transfer protocol). If you've got both, the rest is relatively straightforward. If you lack access to a webserver, you cannot place images on your blog at this time. Click here for free hosted webserver space: free web servers but there are many that will not serve photos to web pages to your blog, so you may need to experiment. As of this writing, Photobucket is one free service that works well for this purpose. Photobucket offers a free and even easier and faster photo hosting site called Tinypic. Check it out, it's great. 1) Using your preferred graphics application (such as Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Flash) create your web-optimized graphic element, making a note of its dimension in pixels. For the purpose of this example, let's suppose that the name of the graphic element is "picture.jpg", 100 pixels wide and 50 pixels high. 2) Upload the image to a directory on your webserver, in this case let's just say that you have put it on: http://www.yourwebsite.com in the directory called images. 3) If you are using the Windows operating system and IE Explorer version 5.5 or later, you can insert the image into your blog using the control panel interface by clicking on the Insert Image icon and then entering the URL of the image in the indicated field and clicking OK. Otherwise, if you know basic html, you can place the image in the template or within a post, as you wish. In the case of our example, here's is what the tag should look like: <IMG SRC="http://www.yourwebsite.com/images/picture.jpg" WIDTH=100 HEIGHT=50> You may place the image tag in the HTML of your template (accessed by clicking on the manage template link in the top menu bar) or in the text editor of your post. To understand how to align your images on the page and in relation to any text that you place next to it, check out this link. If you follow all the above instructions and your images still don't appear, it is very likely that the free server that you have chosen does not allow the posting of images off-site. Formatting images with adjacent text You can control the distance between images and text by using the tags HPACE and VSPACE. Using these two attributes you can define the distance in pixels between the images and surrounding text. HSPACE defines the horizontal distances to the left and right of the image with respect to whatever other elements it is next to. VSPACE defines the vertical distances to the top and bottom of the image with respect to whatever other elements it is next to. This is the correct syntax: <IMG SRC="immagine.gif" WIDTH=178 HEIGHT=180 BORDER=2 VSPACE=3 HSPACE=3> How to edit or delete a published post If you're not happy with what you have written, you can easily update or delete any post. ou must first be logged on with your username and password. Then all you have to do is go to the Blogs->Edit Blog->Post panel of your blog by clicking on its link from the Quick Launch page. You can see your blog entries in the preview pane below the post editor. Navigate to the post that you want to update and delete in the preview pane, find the update or delete button which you see on top of each post and click the appropriate one. If you are updating, the content of your original post will appear in the text editor ready to be modified. Simply make whatever changes you want, and click the publish post button to update your post. That's it. If you are deleting, after you click the OK button on the pop-up, the post is deleted and your task is completed. Adding background music to your blog In order to play background music on your blog, you need to make sure that the music file itself is hosted on a server connected to the Internet, and you must know the full URL, for example: http://www.musicfile.com/musicfile.wav The file can be in midi, wav, mp3, wmv or other commonly compatible formats. You must then open your template code and place an "embed" tag in your template code. It is explained in detail on this site: http://www.pageresource.com/html/embed.htm Please let us know if this link no longer works, thanks. You don't see the editor's toolbar in the control panel? The WYSIWYG HTML text editor* for your blog currently works in Windows and IE Explorer 5.5 and later, and on the Macintosh and Linux systems on Mozilla and Firefox. It does not work with Safari, Opera or other browsers. Write a question to the help blog if you are using a compatible system, but still do not see the editor. *An acronym meaning "what you see is what you get". In this case it means an interface that looks like a word processor, with buttons for Bold and Italic, text color and other formatting options. Inserting an "Add to favorites" link In order to let your readers add your blog to their list of favorite sites in Explorer (also called "bookmarking"), simply add the correct code to the <head> section of your template, anywhere in between these elements: <HEAD></HEAD> This is the code to paste into your template: <script language="JavaScript1.2"> var bookmarkurl="http://yourblog.motime.com" var bookmarktitle="blogname" function addbookmark(){ if (document.all) window.external.AddFavorite(bookmarkurl,bookmarktitle) } </script> You should enter the name of your blog as you would like it to appear in the list of favorites, even if it differs from your actual Web address, but the URL in the http string must be exact. Finally, paste the following tag into the place on your template where you would like the "Add to favorites" link to appear: <a>Add<acronym title="HyperText Markup Language">blogname</acronym> to my favorites<br></a> How to link to something on the same page Sometimes, on longer pages which require scrolling to read all of the text, you may wish to place a link which refers to another place on the same page. We will use the standard link tag, <A>, in a slightly different way. We will create an "anchor" in the place that you want to link to, and then a simple <A> link which refers to it. 1) To create the anchor (the destination for the link), place the following tag around the text or image that you wish to link to: <A NAME="anchorname">destination_text_or_image</A> In the above example "anchorname" is the name of the anchor (and will be invisible on the blog), and "destination_text_or_image" is the exact location that you are guiding your reader to. 2) To create the link, place this tag around the text or image that you want to become clickable link: <A HREF="#anchorname">Go to destination</A> That's all there is to it. Try it! How to create link descriptions on "mouseovers" It is often useful to place brief descriptions, which appear when you pass over the link with your mouse, within your links. To do so is relatively easy. When you create the HTML tag for the link, you simply add a Title "attribute". Here is the format of the link tag with a description included. (The Title attribute is in bold for emphasis.): <A HREF="www.motime.com" title="Motime: Create your own web log in 5 minutes and publish your thoughts to the world!"><b>Motime!</b></A> And here is what it looks like after it is pasted into a post or template. Hold your mouse over the link for a second to see the descriptive text: Motime! Cool, huh?