Posting Mechanism

Question:

Last week for the teamwork post my group posted them as comments on our "Weekly post" page. For the A1 assignment we have to make a post and title it and when ever we try to make a post it always goes to our home page. How should we go about posting it?

Response:

Without looking at your blog I cannot be certain about this answer, but it sounds to me as though you're probably doing the correct thing. The idea behind a blog is that the latest post is always at the top of the list, with previous posts following on the page.  To see previous posts you can:

• Scroll down the main page - usually a limited number of posts will be scrollable
• Search the blog for key words
• Use the "labels" (sometimes called "tags") to click and see the posts with those labels
• Use the chronology to show those posts happening at a given time.

Note that you don't want to "comment" on a previous post, you want to create a new post each time.   You add comments only when you want the comment to stick with the post as a comment.

To get the URL of your specific post:

1. Display the post on your page - that's what happens usually when you "publish" your post or search for it
2. Click on the title of the post
1. That displays that post only, with the URL in the  "Location Bar"
3. Copy the URL from the location bar

How to Capture and Post Images

This post was created to show you how to capture and post images to your blog. I used a PC (Windows-7) so some of the information is PC-specific.

Tools

• Windows-7 has a built-in screen capture tool - "Snipping Tool"
• On a home machine just searching for snipping
• On a "locked down" Drexel machine in which searching isn't available you may be able to go to windows help (F1 when on the desktop) and search for "snipping".  In the help that comes up there will be links to the snipping tool.
• You can also use PrintScreen - which has good instructions on how to use it.
• There are many good, free screen capture utilities.  One that I use is PicPick

How to Add an Image - How I created the image above

I'll assume you have access to Snipping on a PC - other programs will be similar

• Get the image you want to capture on your screen - e.g. the bridge design
• Start the program Snipping 
• If it's already started create a new snip from its menu
• The screen will go white
• Draw around the area you want to capture
• That will capture it to the program  Snipping
• Save the image to a file somewhere where you can get it again
• I used the default "png" format to create the image above
• Open Blogger and put the cursor where you want the image to appear.
• Click on the link of the image in Blogger for to upload it to your blog - see below

• Accept it within blogger

WPBD Registering to Local Contest

Registering for the West Point Bridge Designer Contest

Our contest ID is DUPA - Please register as individuals

Here are the instructions from the authors of WPBD on how to set up your copy so you're scores will be entered in our "Local Contest".

(1) Instruct all of your students to register for the West Point Bridge Design Contest at http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/login.htm.  If any of your students are not “eligible contestants,” as defined by the WPBDC rules, that’s OK.  They can still register in the “Open Competition.”   (Anyone in the world can enter the Open Competition, though there are no prizes associated with this category.)

(2) On the final page of the web registration system (the same page on which teams are asked to provide their e-mail address and password), your students will see a text box labeled, “If you are participating in a local contest organized by your school, a local engineering association, or other organization, enter your Local Contest Code here."  Students should enter the Local Contest Code in this text box.

(3) The website will check that the code is a valid one and will post a confirmation on the Team Home Page.

(4) If a contestant has already registered and did not enter the Local Contest Code at the time of registration, he or she can add it at any time by logging into the Team Home Page.

(5) Once your project or contest is underway, you can view your own Local Contest Scoreboard on the following web page: 

http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/standings/local/DUPA.htm