blog@USF is a weblog ("blog" for short) hosting system for users with email accounts on mail.usf.edu. It's easy to setup and easy to use. Just click on "Create a blog" to get started!
blog@USF features:
- Based on WordPress.
- Includes a digital photo album manager based on Gallery
- Includes FeedReader -- a web-based RSS/Atom news aggregator
- Uses your USF NetID and password. One username and password to access your blog, Email, and MyUSF
- Integration with the del.icio.us online bookmarks manager. Store your bookmarks in del.icio.us and display them on your blog!
- Integration with Flickr, an online digital photo management system. You can use your blog as a photo album or set it up to use Flickr.
- Comment Spam filtering with Spam Karma 2
- Easy HTML markup using Texturize and/or Markdown
blog@USF makes it simple to:
- Publish content on the web.
- Distribute a Podcast and list it in the iTunes Podcast Directory.
- Store and share digital pictures.
- Maintain lists of links to your favorite sites, documents you intend to read or find interesting, pictures of your friends/family, etc.
- Read all the latest news from your favorite websites.
- Write reviews of movies, books, CDs and more using Structured Blogging templates.
- Syndicate your content to be read with "News Aggregator" software such as Bloglines or NewsMonster.
- Change the look and feel of your site. Personalize it any way you want!
- Create "shared categories" with colleagues/friends.
- Engage in cross-blog conversations with comments and/or "TrackBacks."
- Use your blog as the centerpiece to your online identity.
Mon 31 Oct 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
General1 Comment
Your department or organization can now have their own blog@USF blog! Blog@USF provides your group with the latest web technologies and allows you to quickly and easily build a useful and informative website.
Features
- All of the features of a blog@USF blog
- Multiple blog users — all of your staff/members can post their own content
- Increased storage space — 300MB+
What can we do with a group blog?
- Post details on your department’s latest research
- Promote your group to the USF community and beyond
- Share pictures of your organization’s events
- Publish a RSS feed of the latest news from your group
Much, much more!
(more…)
Sun 23 Oct 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
NewsComments Off
University administrators met this afternoon and are canceling classes and closing offices for Monday, Oct. 24 on all USF campuses. Essential offices and services are open. Please call your immediate supervisor if you have any questions. Click Here for More Information
Fri 14 Oct 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
News[12] Comments
We’re experiencing some hardware/software problems. I’ve moved blog@USF/myweb.usf to the backup server and everything seems to be running smoothly right now. Leave comments here if you are having trouble logging in/posting.
-Eric
Tue 11 Oct 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
Features ,
News1 Comment
FeedReader is now available to all blog@USF accounts!
What is FeedReader?
FeedReader is a RSS/Atom news aggregator. It saves you time by grabbing the latest info (”feeds”) from all your favorite websites and building a customized news page just for you!
Is FeedReader better than a desktop RSS reader (NetNewsWire, NewsGator, etc)?
Yes and no. Since FeedReader is web-based, you can read the latest news when you’re on the go. All that is needed is an Internet connection and a web browser. Your FeedReader news can even be used as a feed itself, so you can share your news with others. However, FeedReader does not have all of the features you’ll find in a desktop reader like NetNewsWire.
How do I get started?
- Go to http://NETID.blog.usf.edu/feeds
(example: http://epierce.blog.usf.edu/feeds )
- Click on login; Enter your NetID & password
- Click on Admin
- Add RSS feeds — If you don’t know the address of the RSS feed, you can enter the URL of the website and FeedReader will try to locate the RSS feed
- Click on Refresh
That’s it! Repeat these steps for all of the sites that you want to aggregate.
FeedReader couldn’t find the RSS feed for my favorite website, what should I do?
FeedReader does a pretty good job finding the RSS feeds, but some sites may not advertise it correctly. Go to the website and look for a RSS link on the page — it may also be labeled XML. It is also possible that the website is not publishing a RSS feed. In this case, the only thing you can do is Email the web-master for that site and request that a RSS feed be added.
Tue 2 Aug 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
General ,
Features ,
News1 Comment
iTunes PodCast Directory
In case you haven’t heard, iTunes can now handle podcasts. (if you don’t know what podcasting is, take a look at the wikipedia article about it.) You can even have your podcasts listed in the iTunes Podcasting Directory. However, Apple requires some new tags in the RSS2 feed for your podcasts to be listed properly. blog@USF now generates those tags, so if you want to advertise in the iTunes Directory, you should be all set. Please note, this adds your PodCast to the general iTunes Directory, not the “iTunesU” page for USF
Subscribe to Comments
If you look at the comments that have been posted on a blog@USF blog, you’ll notice that there is a new checkbox at the bottom of the comments form: Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. If you select this when you post a new comment, you’ll get an email whenever a new comment is posted to that blog entry.
Thu 14 Jul 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
GeneralComments Off
ShortStat
Have you ever wondered if anyone was actually reading your blog? If people are leaving comments on your posts, do you wonder how they found you? Well, with the new ShortStat plugin, you can answer these questions and get lots of other interesting information about the people who visit your site. To access your ShortStat page:
- Login to the Admin interface of your blog
- Click on the “ShortStat” tab
Blogs of the Day (BOTD)
The blog aggregator lets you see what other people are saying at USF and lets the rest of USF see what you’re writing. We want to expand that idea to the world outside of USF. Enter Blogs of the Day. BOTD is a directory of new and popular blog articles. It tracks each participating site’s traffic (unique page views) and highlights the most popular articles in ordered lists. Basically, BOTD lets the world outside of USF know what’s going on at blog@USF and it lets you compare the traffic that you’re getting on your blog to many other blogs.
Thu 30 Jun 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
General ,
NewsComments Off
blog@USF and myweb.usf.edu have been moved from a Sun Enterprise 220R to a dual-Xeon box running RHEL 4. This should improve performance considerably. If you have any C code in your myweb.usf.edu account, it will need to be recompiled for Linux. PHP and PERL code should work without any modifications. If you have any problems with the new setup, please post a comment or email us at usg@mailman.acomp.usf.edu.
Wed 15 Jun 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
General ,
Features ,
NewsComments Off
The upgrade to Blog@USF is complete! Here is a list of new features for blog@USF users:
- Upgraded WordPress to version 1.5.1.2
- Upgraded Gallery to version 1.5
- Structured Blogging templates
- Technorati Tags using Jerome’s Keywords
- Comment-Spam filtering using Spam Karma 2
- New default theme (based on Scattered) and 11 other new themes
- Gravatar support on comment pages
- Export blog postings to multiple formats — you can even export directly to blogger
Mon 13 Jun 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
GeneralComments Off
After upgrading to Blog@USF 2, you may have problems logging into the admin interface of your blog. The cause of this is a “cookie” which was set by the old version which interferes with the new version. To fix it, you’ll need to clean out the cookies for all blog.usf.edu pages from your browser. Instructions for removing cookies from most browsers is available here
Mon 9 May 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
GeneralComments Off
Due to a hardware issue, all Blog@USF blogs and webpages at myweb.usf.edu will be unavailable for several hours on Wednesday, May 11th. We apologize for the short notice that is being given for this outage, but a serious problem has been detected and must be repaired. This outage will not affect mail.usf.edu Email accounts or the USF WebMail application. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Wed 13 Apr 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
General1 Comment
Well, we’ve only been officially available for two weeks and we are almost at the 500 user mark. Not bad for something that hasn’t been announced to our entire user population yet. There’s a great story about us in the USF Oracle today. We’ve also been noticed by Matt Mullenweg, one of the main developers for WordPress.
Sat 19 Feb 2005
Posted by Eric Pierce under
General[2] Comments
Welcome to blog@USF! This is a new service that is still in beta, but we think it will be very useful to the USF community. Sign up for your blog here . If you have any comments, questions, or problems, please let us know