How to Start a Blog at Blogger.com -- A Beginner's Guide

So, you finally decided to have your own blog, but you don't know how to go about it. In this post, I'll do a step-by-step guide on how to set-up a blog at Blogger.com. You may 'right-click' the pictures to better  understand this tutorial.
  • Type www.blogger.com in the address bar of your web browser, and click "CREATE YOUR BLOG."


  • Click "More options."


  • Create your Google account by filling out this form.


  • After accomplishing the form, click "Next Step." Don't forget to read the Blogger's Privacy and Terms [formerly this was Terms of Service (ToS)] before clicking "I agree."  (I have heard about bloggers who were suspended from using Google Adsense because they violated some items in the ToS. Blogger operates in this manner -- you violate its stipulations and your account gets suspended.) Click "Continue to Blogger."


  • You will be asked to confirm your Google+ profile.  For this demo blog, I'm choosing the limited Blogger profile option. 


  • Click "Continue to Blogger," and click "Create new blog."



  • Write your desired title and address.  The title is the name of your blog, e.g., Student Interns. The address is its Uniform Resource Locator or URL, e.g., http://studentinterns.blogspot.com.   


  • Choose the theme of your blog, and click "Create Blog!"
  • Now, you're ready to write your first blog post. 


  • Write the title of your first blog post in the title bar. 



  • Click "PUBLISH" after you have written everything you want to say in this maiden post.
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Socialgo.com: No Longer A Free Webhosting Site

Socialgo.com once hosted the two websites I made for my high school students. I liked it because of the many features that it offered to its users, specifically my students.

About a month ago, I prepared a Powerpoint presentation for a group of Education students where I talked about the advantages of integrating technology with classroom activities. I was able to access the two sites and to take several screenshots of their pages.


As of this writing, however, the VSULHS Literary Minds and the VSULHS Budding Writers can no longer be accessed. They completely disappeared from the world wide web. I checked Socialgo.com's home page and I didn't find the familiar "Login" button. Instead, there's that "pricing and sign-up" button: that means we have to pay before we can avail of Socialgo.com's services.


For classroom teachers who want to build websites for their students, you may try team blogging at Blogger.com or at Wordpress.com. It's not easy setting up a team blog especially when your students are not tech savvy, but this is the only option that I can think of at this time. Why Blogger.com and Wordpress.com? Both sites allow publishing without any fees; hence, you need not worry about the possibility that your posts might suddenly disappear without any trace.

Two Waray Words -- Ohataw and Ipo

Ohataw is a food container. It's a concave vessel with a round shape. In some parts of Samar and Leyte, it is called yahong. An ohataw is typically used as a soup bowl.
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Ipo is another Waray word for misay/misai. It’s also called idingiringmisay, or uding by other Waray speakers. All these five nouns Waray terms for cat.




carricaturesbysusan.com

I know my mother tongue very well, yet I haven't come across a specific Waray word for kitten. Whether it's a cat or a kitten, it's always called ipo. To refer to a kitten, Waray speakers -- especially those from Northern Samar -- usually say anak sa ipo (a cat's offspring).




This Site Has A New URL

I immediately bought my own domain name after I discovered that the two sites I made for my students could no longer be accessed. Well, that's the major drawback of using free webhosting sites.

Technically, this blog is only a day old and that means I have to start all over again in order for me to regain its original rankings. My Page Rank of 1/10 (it's not much, but I had to wait for several months before this site got ranked by Google) is now back to N/A. All the backlinks are gone and there's no data available for www.warayblogger.com at Alexa.com.


The good thing about not having the "blogspot" in a blog's URL is that, it's shorter and it can easily be remembered. That and my blog's security -- meaning, it won't be deleted without any warning -- are enough to keep me going. And to make me continue blogging. Oh, I also have my own email address at warayblogger.com. Yes, that's right, www.warayblogger.com is now officially mine.

Waray Tutorial -- What is Iroy?

Knowing that Cebuano-speakers think of "iroy" as a swear word, I am not and will never be comfortable using the word in front of a Cebuano-speaker. To use the phrase, "an im' iroy" is rude. It is, in this case, a swear word. This side of iroy, is what most of my Cebuano-speaking friends know.

To refer to our mothers, we lovingly say: "Siya an ako nanay" (She is my mother). I would be offended if a friend suddenly asks me, "Hain an im iroy?" (Where is your mother?). Nanay and iroy are synonymous, but we use them in different ways and in different occasions. In ordinary conversation, we refer to our mothers as nanay, not iroy. The latter suggests disrespect for the person (mother).


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It’s interesting to note that we use the same word (iroy) when we want to be dramatic or when we are emphatic, particularly when delivering a siday or lowa (poetry). Kanta Para Sa Akon Iroy ( ASong for my Mother) and Mga Rayandayan San Akon Iroy (My Mother's Wealth) are acceptable because they can pass as titles for a literary work. The Philippines is not our nanay nga tuna. We always refer to it as iroy nga tuna (motherland) as in “An iroy nga tuna matam-is pagpuy-an.” ("How sweet it is to live in our motherland!). The same word is used in reference to Mary as in, "Santa Maria, Iroy sa Diyos"  ("Holy Mary, Mother of God") and in, "Maghimaya ka Rayna, Iroy san Kaluoy" ("Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy").

Nanay is conversational and informal; hence, we use it in everyday language and in ordinary discourse. Iroy, on the other hand, is formal. While it is true that “iroy” is a swear word, it is also the literary term for mother.

Would you like to know how to pronounce the words nanay and iroy correctly? I made a video for you. I also provided subtitles.