Congratulations on your decision to build green, and to help others by sharing your story! We’re confident that through blogging you’ll also gain a number of benefits including:
• an improved understanding of your process through the reflection that comes with blogging
• a way to share your progress with friends and family members both near and far –save time by avoiding separate emails to update everyone
• the opportunity to connect to interested readers. You never know what may come of it.

How to Write Your First Post
1. Login to Raising Spaces at http://www.raisingspaces.com/wp-login.php. You will arrive at the dashboard, which is the main page of the ‘back end’ of Raising Spaces. Feel free to take a peek so you’re comfortable with how things look and feel in the back end and within Wordpress, the software used to edit and manage Raising Spaces.
2. Click on the link called ‘Write’ on the top of the page in the dashboard.
3. Enter the title of your post in the ‘title’ field.
4. Compose your post in the field below the title. Remember to save as you go to avoid losing your work!
5. Once you are finished press the ‘save’ button, and complete your formatting.

Formatting
If you’ve used Microsoft Word before, formatting your entries will be a breeze. In between the title and blog entry fields is your formatting toolbar. You will likely never need to use some of the options, but here is a quick explanation for your reference. From left to right, the top row options include:
Bold, Italics, Underline, Bullets, Numbered List, Undo Indent, Indent, Left Justify, Center, Right Justify, Link, Break Link, Image, Font & Style, More, Next Page, Spellcheck, Find, Help, Toggle Full Screen Mode.

Links – Please include only links related to your post, title your links appropriately, and set them to open in a new browser tab.
Font & Style – Please change the font and style only on occasion. Too many variations will detract from the readability and consistency of your blog.
More – This option inserts a ‘more’ link into your posts and is helpful for fairly long entries.
Next Page – This option is not currently recommended.
Toggle Full Screen Mode – This option is helpful especially when resizing a large image or table. Some may prefer to write in full screen mode when editing and for greater visibility.

The second row of options includes Anchor, Draw Table, Table Row Properties, Table Cell Properties, Insert Row Above, Insert Row Below, Delete Row, Insert Column on Left, Insert Column on Right, Delete Column, Split Table Cells, Merge Table Cells, and Show or Hide Advanced Toolbar.

As a general rule, we recommend that you use only the formatting options that you are familiar and comfortable with. It’s a great way to keep it simple and avoid technical errors. For the same reason we also recommend that you edit your posts in the visual tab rather than in the code tab unless you are experienced with html code. From time to time, some code editing may be needed, and in these cases please contact us at info@raisingspaces.com for assistance.

Images
We ask that you include only images that you have permission to post. To use another’s photos or any other material without permission is a violation of copyright law. To include images, you will need to subscribe to a free image hosting service such as Image Shack. You can register for Image Shack easily and quickly at www.imageshack.com.

When adding your images, we ask that you select the image resizing option for web sites and email. This will prevent your blog entries from loading slowly. Once you have uploaded your image to Image Shack, you can insert it into your blog entry using the following steps:
1. In Image Shack, select the image you want from those that you have uploaded.
2. In your Wordpress blog entry editor, click on the image button from the formatting menu. A small ‘insert/edit image’ window will open.
3. Back in Image Shack, click on the icon next to the image called ‘image details’. It will be the second icon from the top, to the right of your selected image.
4. A new tab or window will open with the details for that image. Copy the URL listed in the ‘Direct’ field
5. Paste it into the ‘Image URL’ field in the Wordpress ‘insert/edit image’ window
6. Title your image, press insert, and resize or move the image as needed.
7. To place the image beside a particular section of text, simply click on the image, and then click on left justify or right justify in the formatting toolbar. Then simply drag your image up or down to where you’d like it.

Video
The best way to post video of your building or renovation project into your blog entry, is to upload it to youtube, and then embed the code for the video into the page on the code side of the editor.

To prevent code errors, embed the video code into your entry before adding text or other content. Once the video code is inserted, you may return to the visual editing side to complete your blog entry.

Categories
Once your post is ready to be published, please select the correct categories from the choices on the right hand side of the page. There will be a category specifically for your personal blog. Please select only this category and the ‘blogs’ category. Please do not change the discussion settings, nor password protect your post. Remember to review your post at least once, and to check your spelling and grammar before you save and logout. Your post will be published shortly.