This weekend is the Blissdom conference in Nashville, where hoards of women and the unsuspecting dude will meet Tanis and her sparklecorn walking cane, so in honor of that I thought we’d talk about how to bedazzle blog posts and comments. Why? Because sometimes you need flair, and sometimes you’ll want to use this for COMMENTS. You can do almost anything is a blog comment, if you know how.

Now, making text change in a post isn’t all that complicated. Most blogging platforms will give you the tools to do it with a click. If you already know all of this stuff, please enjoy Unhappy Hipsters and have a great weekend. If you don’t, won’t you join us in class after the jump?

Examples? We has them. (Click to make them bigger)

paid wp

squarespace

free wp

Typepad

blogger

(PS: To use “click to make them bigger”, just upload your photo at full size but insert into your post using medium or thumbnail. Your blog will do the rest.)

For comments, you have to know how to do it.

As you can see, you get progressively less tools as you go down the payscale. But that’s okay; all of those things can easily be done for free, and easily, if you just know the right html. If you click HTML, or edit HTML, or Raw HTML when you’re composing your posts, you can change how your words look by wrapping the following around them.

Strike out: If I wanted to cross out asshole and say jerk, but wanted to leave asshole in there, all I do is go to the word asshole. Before it, I tell my blog I want to change the html with “<” That is always the opening command for, like, everything. Then I tell it what to do. < strike >asshole. Then tell it to stop after the asshole* by closing the command with “</” That’s how you end any command, like, ever. < / strike > It’ll look like this: < strike >asshole< / strike >, just take the spaces out.

And that is the basic idea for most of your edits. To make Italics, replace stirke with em. So, < em >italics< / em >; again, no spaces. Bold? < strong> Bold < / strong >

Now, to use a Blockquote, which is handy for quickly identifying a, you guessed it, quote, and your platform will automatically have some weird formatting for it, just type < blockquote > and then your quote and close it with < / blockquote >. And then you will have

a lovely Blockquote, formatted however your blog is set to do it automatically. It will typically be centered in the post and emphasized somehow, maybe with italics, maybe with a great big quotation mark, maybe just centered and spaced. (See? My blog did is automatically.)

To change Color or Size, you need a slightly different command. This time it’s “span style”. You open the command with < span style = ” color : #(that means color number)(now pick one)(this pink is #ff00ff) then ; ” > here is the word who’s color you’re changing < / (that’s always END, remember?) span > It will look like this, just without spaces: < span style = “color: #ff00ff ; > Color < / span >.

Font size is also a style, so start the same by opening the command: < span style = ” font-size : x- large ; ” > Size < / span >

To link to a webpage, you have to open a command with < a href = ” Write that down. You’ll use it a ton. Then tell it where you want the link to go http : // heymrlady . com “> Now write the text you want linked: Hey Mr Lady {dot} com and close the tag with < / a > All together? < a href=” http : // heymrlady . com ” > Hey Mr Lady {dot] com < /a >, no spaces.

If you want that neato subtext for people to read when they hover over your link, which I like to use A) to leave funny notes and B) to tell you where you’re clicking before you bother to click there, you just change that slightly. You just have to tell it there is a title with < a title = ” Hey Mr Lady {dot} com ” href = ” http://heymrlady.com ” > Hey Mr Lady {dot} com < / a > See? Go on, hover over this. Hey Mr Lady {dot} com

You can also add a link that bumps people to email. Like, if you want me to email you from your comment, you can say, “Bitch, email me!” (click it, see what happens) and add the link directly to your email by putting < a href = “mailto: heymrlady @ gmail . com ” > before the words email me! or whatever you choose and then closing it with another one of those lovely < / a > things.

Want to add pictures? Yes you can, to posts OR comments. ANYWHERE. It’s the same basic principle. The thing is, you have to already have the picture uploaded somewhere to use it in a comment box. You cannot upload pictures to people’s comments, but you CAN tell people’s comment box to see your picture. All you have to do is this:

Tell it where the picture is: < a href = ” http://mrlady.posterous.com/masochistic-fish-and-adorable-preschoolers ” > If you right click or command click (mac) a picture, then choos “Copy Link”, that’s the url you want. Now you have to tell it to pull the picture into the comment with the image address, which is DIFFERENT that it’s url. Right click on the picture or command click (mac) and choose “copy image address” < img src = ” http : // posterous.com / getfile / files . posterous. com / mrlady / 6BmdhOsz57hJHW1rfknR6tGNm7UnFhFSIqO1fEnpOVmFEOaQCpFkh7JpjCM3 / IMG00272 – 20100204 – 2125 . jpg . scaled . 1000 . jpg ” / > Then close it all with < / a >

All together? < a href = ” http://mrlady.posterous.com/masochistic-fish-and-adorable-preschoolers ” > < img src = ” http : // posterous.com / getfile / files . posterous. com / mrlady / 6BmdhOsz57hJHW1rfknR6tGNm7UnFhFSIqO1fEnpOVmFEOaQCpFkh7JpjCM3 / IMG00272 – 20100204 – 2125 . jpg . scaled . 1000 . jpg ” / > < / a > Again, no spaces.

Sites like Flickr will give you all of this already, so if your photo is on Flickr, just click “All sizes” above the photo, choose SMALL for a comment box, then copy the code it gives you, throw it into the comment box, and it WILL appear.


If you click that picture, it will take you to the Flickr Page you’ll want to look for. Just for your own reference.

My brain hurts. Does yours? Good, my job here is done.

Your weekend homework is this: Leave a comment, linking me to your favorite post you’ve written this week or photo you’ve taken. Use at least one of the tricks (strike, color, size, etc) and in the link to your post, leave us all a sub-text hovery-thingy note. Preferably filthy in nature. If you leave a picture, ACTUALLY LEAVE IT IN THE COMMENTS. If you’re at Blissdom, stop reading my blog and go socialize. But leave us a photo of the conference, k’s?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see if I can still drink at altitude. Denver, here I come….

*Always stop after the asshole. Just sayin’.