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Ever since I started my blog, to the greeting “How are you?” I reply “Great, thanks. I got myself a blog!” Too often the response is silence and a very slow: ”A what?” and then I get myself an attentive listener. I found out that while many of my friends are using computers at work, send and receive E-Mails, open links, which are sent to them, they still don’t know anything about blogging.
This is how my tutorial was born. It’s a very non-technical, general explanation, which is intended for non-techies (as myself) out there.

 
1. What is a blog.
Blog is a type of a web site. It contains information on a certain topic (niche), it could be just a plain diary, a collection of stories, written by the owner of the blog, or, as in my case, mix of topics (news, helpful tips, useful information), which I choose to highlight. The blog may or may not contain pictures, video clips, offerings of various products. Blogs are maintained by one or more individuals, or they may be an extension of a large newspaper, where sometimes, readers need to log in order to participate in discussions on  different topics.

 
2. Articles in the blog.
The articles in the blog are called posts. Sometimes you can see a post in its entirety, sometimes just a few lines, followed by the word “more”. Click on the word, which is a link, to see a whole post. Posts are posted by the blogger, (the proprietor of the blog) with a frequency they choose: daily, a few times a day, weekly. Sometimes, the blogger invites other people, who are experts on a specific subject, to write a guest post. This action often brings a new prospective to a subject, attracts attention to the guest writers, who, in many cases, have their own blogs, encourages people to ask questions and participate in the discussion. 

 
3. Links in the Blog.
When bloggers refer to someone else’s opinion, published somewhere else or offers to the readers to check out a book from the Amazon, they do it by posting a link to that page. Links, as you know, are usually long, may contain a lot of characters, differ from the regular text in color (blue, red, green), and look very unsightly. In order for the link to look better, the blogger can camouflage it. For example, if I include a link and write “click here”:(don’t click yet, do it later) http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/, you would know what to do. But I may write it like this click HERE, where the word “here” is in blue, and contains a link. If you hold a cursor over this word without clicking, you’ll see it become a hand, and in the horizontal bar at the bottom of your screen you’ll notice a line, containing the address of a link. The link may be hidden under any word or phrase a blogger chooses: a book title, a site address, a person’s name, etc.  Once you click on the link, usually a new browser window will open up. Pay attention, because it may lead you away from the original site. In this case, after reading the info, click the back arrow at the top of your browser.
One more thing: sometimes you receive an E-Mail with a link in it. Upon opening the post you see, that it’s already 3 months old. How do you find the newest post? Go to the address bar and erase all the characters after the extension .com, .net, .org or .info and click on the new shortened link.
Now you know how to recognize a link, follow it and come back.

 
4. Orienting yourself in the Blog.
Each post is usually posted under a particular category or a tag. Depending on the design of the blog, the categories’ list may be positioned on the left or the right sidebars of the screen, or at the bottom of the screen, in the “footer”. You’ll have to scroll down to see it. Categories or tags contain lists of posts, which belong to a certain topic. For example: “Wine”, “Cheese”, Glasses”.
If you click on the title of the category, you’ll see all the posts of the month (in chronological order), written about this topic.
All the older posts are saved in the archives, where they are filed monthly. The archives may be positioned on either a side or at the bottom of the screen.
In many cases you may find a “Recent Posts”, “Most popular posts” or “Read this First”, categories, which is self-explanatory.
Blogs also have pages, which are usually positioned somewhere closer to the top. Pages contain more info, and you can see what they are by the title: “About” (info about the blog and/or the blogger, “Contact Us” info, “Pictures”, etc.

 
5. Searching and Finding Info in the Blog.
Most blogs have a search bar, where you may search for the info within this particular site or on Google. The search bar I have on the left side lets you search Google only. (I am working on adding an option to search within my site, too). Why and what would you want to search on the site? Well, if you visit this particular site often, you may want to retrieve some information you remember seeing a few months ago, or you may guess, that a health site should have some info on “treating a cold” and search for this topic.
If a site doesn’t have an internal search option, then you should try your luck by checking the categories. The last thing you could do, is search Google by listing the “required words+site name”. It might work.

 
6. Getting the Updates.
Once you find the blog you like, you may want to get the updates every day or as soon as they’re posted. There is an easy way to achieve it.
Somewhere on the screen, usually at the top (in my case it’s on the left side, under the header) you’ll see a variety of the icons, which represent many ways of receiving the updates. The easiest is to sign up for the free E-Mail delivered to your inbox. To do that you click “Sign up by E-Mail” line, fill out the short form (your E-Mail address and answer to an easy math exercise), which appears on your screen and click “Submit”. A few minutes later access your inbox, open the verification E-Mail, which you’ll find there, and click on the long link to confirm your subscription. That’s it. The process is completed. You’ll be receiving the updates (one or a few posts) as soon as they are posted or at the intervals, set by the blogger (once a day). If you find more than one blog, which you like, you may sign up for the updates from all of them.
When you receive your updates by E-Mail, I recommend clicking on the title of the blog to get transferred to the site. Sometimes the E-Mail contains not one, but a few posts, and you may miss it.
If you didn’t receive the verification E-mail, it means you made a typo somewhere in the form and now you can’t be reached. In this case repeat the process of signing up again. 
The RSS Feed button (options appear when clicked on) lets you sign up for updates by Google Reader and other channels. Often, some symbols are displayed outside too, as on this site. If you don’t know what a RSS Feed or Google Reader is, don’t despair, you’ll learn later. Try googling it or ask a friend. It’s simply other ways to get updates.

 
7. How to E-Mail a Post.
It happens to all of us: we like an article or a post so much, that we want to send it to all of our friends. For example, you are reading a blog, which has a few posts. The post you like, is second from the top of the screen. Click on the title of that post and have it opened by itself on the screen. Next, right click, copy the link, shown in the address bar (it will display a site, a title and/or a date of the post).  Then open a new browser window, go to your inbox, compose a new E-Mail, paste the link in there and send it to all of your friends. Done.
When you are reading a newspaper on line, under an article you wish to share, you may find an option: “Send E-Mail to a friend”. It pertains to this particular article only, and in this case you don’t have to copy or paste anything: just send it from yourself to yourself. You’ll decide what to do with it later. 

 
8. How to Comment on the Post.
In the end of each post (or sometimes right under the title) you’ll see a word “Comments” with or without a number. If you want to leave a comment, click on it (it’s a link), see a short form, fill out your name or nickname, E-Mail address, (it will not be published), enter your comment and submit.
You may (or may not) immediately see another form pop-up on the screen; answer a simple math question posed in there and submit again. It’s a security process that some sites employ. Sometimes your comment doesn’t appear on the screen right away, because many sites put all the comments thru a screening process first.
You may also click on the comments field (if it has a number) to view what other people said about this particular post.

 
9. The Forum.
Some sites in addition to comments run a Forum. This way any discussion raised may be continued and saved separately from the comment field.

 
10. Social Media Sites.
This explanation is very general.
Very often when reading a blog, you’ll notice a row of small icons underneath each post. . Those are Social Media Sites’ symbols. There are many Social Sites on the Web (Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Technoratti), where people belong to some on-line community, and whose members have many interests. When one of the members finds on the Web an interesting article or the post, they click on the symbol, corresponding to a certain Social site and send it out there for all to read. You don’t have to be a member to visit and read those sites.  It’s a kind of a popularity contest for the member who finds a lot of a good info, and for a blogger who is honored by the attention of the flocking to his blog members of the Social sites. To get a feel for it, click www.digg.com and see what’s there. That’s the basic idea.
Here are the definitions of a few Social Media Sites:
Wikipedia about Digg 
Wikipedia about StumbleUpon 
Wikipedia about Reddit 

 
11. What’s with the Ads?
The ads you see on the screen are usually related to a content of the post you are reading. If the blogger writes about gifts or the purses for rent, then you might see an ad from the company, which sell similar items.

 
12. Coffee Cup or a Beer Mug.
Bloggers spend a lot of time and put a great effort in maintaining their blogs. And while they do it, because they like it, the comments and little tokens of appreciation are always welcome. If you see an icon, depicting a coffee cup or a beer mug, and are moved enough to send some funds to a blogger (click on the icon, send via Pay Pal) you may just do it.

 
13. Enjoy your new knowledge, share it with friends, and happy surfing the Net!