Help page for blogs
This page is for participants who have or are going to create a personal blog.
This page gives instructions and tips to update your blog. Please read this page carefully, hopefully most of your questions will be answered here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for the most common questions. Add a question by e-mailing Kine Fredheim
How to create the blog for new users.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Where is my blog?
There are several ways to locate your home page:
1. You can always type the username of the participant after www.fredskorpset.no/ to go directly to the page. If you want to find your own page and you remember your username, just type it in the address field of your web browser. This is a perfect way to share the link to your blog with others.
2. Search for the participant’s name in the search engine above the calendar on each page! You will probably get many hits, but scroll down to the page named the participant’s name and there you go!
3. On every page containing a link to either the partner or project you were involved in, just click that link and all participants connected to the partner or the project will be listed and linked (if they got a blog). Try for instance Around the world, List of all partners and List of all programmes.
How do I log in?
Easy! Log in by typing your username and password in the text fields below the calendar on any page. Click on “Log in” after typing username and password, do not click on Enter. You are logged in when the link below the boxes change to “Logout” and your username is displayed in grey in the first text box. Forgot your password? Send an e-mail to Kine Fredheim to get a new one.
How do I change my home page?
First log in (see How do I log in?), then go to your page (see Where is my blog?). If you are logged in, you see the following buttons under the biographic information on the right hand side:
Click on Edit page to edit the front page (Profile information, Personal links and some of your biographic information; education and occupation). Some information on your blog, like your e-mail address, are connected directly to Fredskorpset’s administrative database. Send an e-mail to Kine Fredheim (kinef@fredskorpset.no) to change uncorrect information.
How do I change articles?
Articles are displayed on the front page. The most recent article appears in full text on the front page, followed by a complete list of all articles published on your page. To change old articles, click on the Read more link in the complete list, then click on the Edit button on the top right hand side of the page. Remember to Save when you are done.
How do I delete an article?
Yes, you can delete articles! Just click on "Read more" and "Edit" when you see the whole article, you now have two new options: Delete (obviously to delete the article) and Save & view (to save and see the article in view mode instead of edit mode).
How do I write a new article?
Easy! Log in, go to your blog and click on “New article”.
In the Heading box, write a poetic headline for your story instead of the suggested today’s date and time.
Heading:
Write a short introduction in the Introduction text box. Even though you have a lot of space in this text box, write only two-three sentences! In the list of articles on your front page, only the headline and the introduction is displayed, don’t waste the readers patience by adding loooooooooooooong introductions.
Write the body text in the Editor, the last text box. Write the story here! Add images, links, documents and whatever you like to spice up your story. Above each major text box, a set of tools are available. Here are how they work:
From left to right:
Bold: Makes the text appear in bold.
Italics: Makes your text appear in italics.
Underline: Underlines the text. You can combine any of these three basic formatting tools.
Font: Choose font. You won’t be able to change the font in the future. Our basic font is Verdana.
Numbered list: Guess what, this tool makes a numbered list!
Bulleted list: If you don’t like to number your list, try this one. You have seen these two lists in Word as well, haven’t you?
Align left: Aligns text or image to the left
Center: Centers text or image
Align right: Aligns text or image to the right
Search: Search the text in the text box
Undo: Undo any editing or formatting. You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+Z
Redo: Redo what you undid by undoing! You can also use the shortcut Ctrl+Y
Insert bookmark: Insert a bookmark on the page, so you can link to this particular section of the page. This help page is an example how to use bookmark, on the top of the page you find a link to different sections of this page. Never mind this tool if you do not understand this explanation, I know several people who have lived happily on the web without knowing the secret of bookmarks.
Insert image from file: But this tool is useful. Click on the button to add images to your stories. A new dialogue box appears. In the folders list on the left, click on “Page files” be able to upload a new image. (You won’t be able to save images in other folders, but you can browse and choose images from the other folders). Click on “Browse” right to the filename box, locate the image and click “Insert” to insert the image in the story. Remember to keep the file size small. Images should not be more than 500 pixels width. The portrait image on the front page should be exactly 120 pixels width. Refer to your camera’s software for instruction to resize images. Uploading images as they are from the camera is not a good idea, the images will probably be way too big to put on a web site.
Insert document: A new and useful tool to share documents and files, like PDF-files, Word-files and PowerPoint presentations. Click on “Page files” to be able to upload documents, “Browse” for the file, write the text that will be the link to the document in the “Text” field and finally “Insert” to insert the link to the document.
Insert hyperlink: A new and again useful tool to add (hyper)links in text and on images. You can add links to bookmarks, other web pages and e-mail addresses. The system will automatically create links if you write an e-mail address or web address in the text, choose “Clear” if you want to delete the link.
Insert table: To add tables to your page. This is also a very good tool to use when you insert pictures. First make a table, and then insert the picture in the table. If you want three pictures next two each other, this is the way to do it.
Spelling: If you have Microsoft Office installed, this tool starts the spelling tool. No more excuses for not having a perfect language!
Show/Hide HTML code: For experts only, if you want more control over the page’s layout. If all the other tools are greyed out, click on this button.
How do I insert images?
You must upload images by using the tools in a table, so the first thing to do is to insert a table.
Create the table according to how many images you want to insert. Example: you want three pictures placed next to each other. Create a table with 1 row and 3 columns. FK recommends that you insert images in articles.
Place your marker in the table cell, and choose the Insert image from file (looking like this 
). A new dialogue box appears.
"In the folders list on the left, click on “Page files” to be able to upload a new image. (You won’t be able to save images in other folders, but you can browse and choose images from the other folders).
Click on “Browse” right to the filename box, locate the image and click “Insert” to insert the image in the story. Remember to keep the file size small. Images should not be more than 500 pixels width.
How do I resize images?
Refer to your camera’s software for instruction to resize images. Uploading images as they are from the camera is not a good idea, the images will probably be way too big to put on a web site.
If you have Windows Office installed on your computer, you can use Windows Picture Manager to resize your images.
You can also use online services like http://www.resize2mail.com/ or http://www.shrinkpictures.com/ to resize images without installing any software.
Delete the full size image from your web page, and upload the resized image.
I can’t upload images! What do I do?
See above how the tools in the table work. Remember that you must choose the folder “Page files” in order to be able to upload images and documents from your computer. (You can browse other folders as well, but you can not save any new pictures in these folders.)
The tools in the text box are greyed out!
The tools in the text box are unavailable when the Show/Hide HTML code button are in use. We have experienced that copying and pasting text from other documents activate the show HTML code. Just click on the Show/Hide HTML code button again so the tools are available, and try to paste in the text again. A good advise is to right click and choose Paste Unformatted.
There are no spaces between paragraphs!
A well-known problem. Even if you make new spaces with Enter (on your keyboard), the spaces disappears when saving the page. Try to make the spaces between paragraphs by holding Shift down while pressing Enter (then you make something called a soft line-break). This problem is most likely to appear when copying and pasting text from other documents. Please report to Kine Fredheim if you experience this problem.
Unsupported browsers
Internet Explorer 6.0 and above for Windows are unfortunately the only supported browsers for editing the page. We will upgrade Episerver soon, and make sure other browsers are supported as well.
How to create the blog
Welcome to Fredskorpset’s blog. This guide will guide you through the necessary steps to create your own blog at www.fredskorpset.no. For further assistance, see the last paragraph.
Registration
You must register in order to edit your home page. Log in with username participant and password participant to register. Choose Registration from the menu.
Enter a username of your choice. Please remember it and make it simple, because the address to your blog includes the username.
Enter a password and confirm the password. Click on the buttom left to or below the SuperOffice ID to find your name.
Search for your name to find information your partner has sent to us. Choose Select and then Save.
You have now made your home page!
Editing your home page
You really should add more information to your home page. After the registration, your name will appear with links on all lists on our web page.
Log in with your new username and password. (Do not log in with participant/participant anymore!)
To find your page, either use the search function or just enter the username after www.fredskorpset.no/ in your browser, like www.fredskorpset.no/username.
When you are logged in, you can click on Edit page to add profile information and personal links. The profile information and links will always appear on your front page. To add the portrait picture, click on Browse next to Change picture, locate your picture and click Save page to see how you look like. Smile to yourself, you have done a terrific job creating a page on the Internet Highway. Just remember that the picture should be no more than 120 pixles in width. In order to resize a picture, you can go to this web page:http://www.shrinkpictures.com/.
You can add new articles by clicking New article. You have three options: Heading (by default today’s date and time), Introduction and Editor. Write a short introduction, this text will appear in bold, and should be only two-three sentences long. In the Editor text field, write the rest of your article.
Save when you are done. You can also write your article before you log in and copy and paste it from a text document.
Note that the most recent article appears in full text on your front page, while the rest of your articles (when you make more of them) appear below in a list only with the heading and introduction visible. Click Read more to read the full article.
You can add pictures to your articles and links to documents you want to share. Pictures should be maximum 400 pixels in the width and maximum 100 kilobytes heavy. In order to resize a picture, you can go to this web page:http://www.shrinkpictures.com/.
Click on the link below the Editor to go back to your front page.
Trouble?
Do you still need help? Please feel free to contact Tonje Westby in Fredskorpset by mail: kinef@fredskorpset.no. Please be specific if you’re stuck: Tell me what you did, let me know any error messages you are presented and tell me what you have done in order to solve your problem. The more specific you impart your problem, the more specific my assistance will be!