If you're new to blogs...

I think it's a fitting way to celebrate Isaiah's 5th birthday, as we once again upgrade the technology used to help Joe and Jen communicate the events of their life. We're now on Zaya 3.0 and have moved from bulletin boards to blogs. We've had a few kinks in the last couple of days, so thanks for everyone testing it out--please email one of us if you are having problems and I'll try to help you out. Also, please note that you can now access this page directly at www.armstrongvoss.com, so update your bookmarks.

For Newbies
If you're new to blogging, let me give you a quick intro to what it is. You've probably heard about it in the news, but it's been around for years. It's short for Web Log, and it used to be the domain of geeks and design freaks, though now it is becoming a lot more accessible for the everyday user due to free tools like Blogger, which is owned by Google. That's the brand we're using here.

In essence, it's just a rolling log of entries in chronological order, and in that aspect it's not much different than the boards we were using here before. It's a lot better at spam control though, which is what we were struggling with on the old system, and it's even easier to create entries.

On the page, you will find links and details on the sides, and the main posts written by Joe or Jen in the middle. The posts are sorted by date, and each post will usually have a title. At the end of the post, you can click on the "comments" link to view and add comments. If you don't have a Google account (which is free), you can just click anonymous, though you might want to sign your name in the body of the comment. When you're done, go ahead and publish your comment, and then the whole world can see it. And yes, I do mean the whole world, so don't go putting in your email address, snail mail address, or phone number unless you want to meet people from far away lands offering you large sums of money if only you would wire them $1,073 as an advance (don't do it).

Blogs rule: the advanced user
There's a lot of fun things you can do with blogs once you get used to it. You can do link-backs and leave trails that will lead interested readers in a fascinating journey through other peoples personal stories. Or you can take advantage of the XML feeds, which allow you to put this blog and others directly into your news readers or my.Yahoo.com frontpage, as I've done here:



No doubt, I've offered you more information than you really need. Back to the story...