Logging in to Your Blog and the “General Settings” Page

Logging in to Your Blog

To log in to your blog, use your web browser to go to its url, for example, the url of the Teruko Ikeda ICT blog is http://terukoikeda.wordpress.com. Your blog will then open, and you will be on its main page.

Now move down the page until you reach the “Meta” heading. Under this heading you will find a list of links. The first one is the “log in” link. Press enter on it, and wait for the “log in” page to load.

On the “log in” page, you can type your user name and password, and then press the log in button.

After a few seconds, your blog’s dashboard page will load. This page contains information about your blog, such as the number of posts and pages, and your blog’s theme. It also contains some useful statistics, such as the number of times people have viewed your blog, and your most recent comments.

The “General Settings” Page

Make sure you are on the Dashboard page, then move down until you find the “settings” link, and press enter. This will open the general settings page. On this page you can change the way your blog looks, its title, its description, and other basic information.

Move down the page until you reach the “blog title” edit field. You should have given your blog a title when you created it, but you can change that title if you wish.

Move down again to the “tagline” edit box, and type a very short description for your blog, for example, the Teruko Ikeda ICT blog’s tagline is “Accessibility and technology news, tutorials and information for Teruko Ikeda ICT trainees.”

Now move down again to the “language” combo box. By default, your blog’s language is set to English, but you can change it if you want.

Move down again to the “email address” edit field, and make sure that your email address is entered correctly. WordPress uses this email address to communicate with you about your blog, so it is important that the email address you enter here is your current address.

Move further down the page to the “time zone” combo box, and choose your time zone. The Teruko Ikeda ICT blog’s time zone is “UTC +9,” which is the time zone of Japan. You should be able to find your country’s time zone in this list.

Now move down the page again until you reach the “date format” radio buttons. Make sure that you select one of these radio buttons so that the date of your posts and comments is displayed properly. The default is the first radio button, which is the date format used in the United States.

Move down the page again until you reach the “time format” radio buttons, and choose a time format for your blog. Again, the default is the time format used in the United States.

Finally, move down to the “week starts on” combo box, and choose the day on which your week starts. In the case of the Teruko Ikeda ICT blog, the week starts on Sunday.

Now move to the “save changes” button, and press space to save the changes you have made. Your settings will be saved, and then you will return to the “general settings” page.

To go to your blog’s front page and start writing, find the first heading at level 1 on this page, which is the title of your blog plus the words “visit site.” This heading is also a link, so press enter here to go to your blog’s front page.