Creative COW Blog FAQ

Blogs aren’t just popular. They’re exploding: 70 million of them as 2007 begins, and 100 million expected by the end of they year.

While hundreds of COWs already have their own blogs, there’s never been a community of blogs created by video and film professionals.

Until now.

Why does The COW have blogs?
One of reasons why The COW is so successful is that we match the tool to the task. We don’t do many tutorials in the magazine, because tutorials work better online. We don’t make half-hour video podcasts, because long tutorials work better on DVDs. And so on.

Well, there are some aspects of community building that work better in blogs than they do in forums.

Conversations are nonlinear. Discussions in The COW forums are linear: specific tasks, specific toolsets. That’s not how conversations work. They might start out on one topic, but they naturally include others as well. That’s where blogs come in. A single blog entry can cover multiple topics, which doesn’t work as well in a forum thread.


There’s more to talk about than problems. We’re geeks. We keep our eyes peeled for new technology. And not just work-related technology. Sometimes we have strong feelings about what we see, and other times we have questions. In any case, we’re ready to talk.

To use one early-2007 example, there’s not a forum to talk about Apple TV….even though it’s something that we’re all talking about privately.

And yes, there are already blog entries about Apple TV at the COWBlogs.


Communities are made of individuals. Forums let you be an individual, of course, but blogs are an even better way to express yourself as individual. Talk about what you want to talk about, including things that have nothing to do with technology at all.

These are jus a few of the reasons why blogs are the best tool for The COW to take the next step in community building.

To take a look at the COWBlogs yourself, click here.

To learn how to use COWBlogs and build your own, read on.

How do I update my account?
In the links at the upper left of your blog, you’ll see the link to My Account. The View tab shows you how the world sees your profile. We’ll enter some of this for you when we set up your account, but you’ll want to fill in the rest.

Next is the Edit tab, which has two parts.

The first is Account Settings. At the very top you'll see a link for "TinyMCE rich-text settings." This allows WYSIWYG text entry. It's on by default. You can either turn it off here, or on a post-by-post basis. You'll probably want to leave this on unless your browser has problems with it.

After that you can change your User Name, password, and the email account where you'll receive your subscription notices.This is where you can add your company name, URL, location, and any other information you'd like to.

We recommend uploading a picture. It will be used in various places around the site, such as your blog’s front page and the author list. You can fill in a signature that will be used in your posts.




Themes change the way your blog looks, both to you and to your visitors. There aren't many to begin with, but keep checking back. More are on the way.


How do I enter my personal information?
That's on the next tab of My Account, Edit. It's pretty straightforward, too. Your real name and company name are required. Your location is optional.




So is "Other things to know about me" field, which is just below that. It's as free-form as it sounds. Put anything there you want.

(The box there is very small by default, but you can use the resize handle in the lower right to make it bigger.)


What's the "My Subscriptions" tab for?
You can have information from the COWBlogs sent to you via email. If you selected Autosubscribe in your account set-up, you'll already be subscribed to any thread you start or add a comment to...but you can do much more than that.



The only subscription you can actually add from the My Subscriptions tab is Categories. For example, checking the After Effects box will alert you to every blog entry on the subject of After Effects from every blog writer.




You'll set other subscriptions as you travel the COWBlogs. On each post, you'll see two links at the bottom. "Subscribe post" will send you updates such as new comments for that specific blog entry. "Subscribe Blog will send you updates of all new entries from a specific author.




Once you've added threads and blogs to your list of subscriptions, you can now manage them on the "Subscriptions" tab of your My Account page.


How do I make a blog entry?
Click on the My Blog link in the upper left of the page. Once you get there, you’ll see the “Post a new blog entry” link. That will open a new page where you can get to work.

What’s that list of topics and why do I have to choose one?
The whole COWBlogs site is organized by topics. Click a topic name you see in any post, and all the blog entries with that topic will show up on a single page. The COWBlog search area sorts by topic, and COWBlog readers can request to be notified of all new entries on their favorite topics. That's why choosing at least one topic is required.

That's also why selecting more than one topic is a good idea -- your entry will be seen by anyone who searches an of those topics. For example, an Apple TV entry might also include some information about Apple Inc. In the example below, Blu-ray is also a topic.To select more than one from the list, control-click (Win) or command-click (Mac).

I get it, but how do I add more topics?
Swing by the COWBlogs Help forum and let us know what you'd like to see on the list.

Keep in mind that our goal is to keep them as general as possible so that they can apply to as many people as possible…but we’re definitely open to suggestions.

What are those icons in the text entry area?
Each of the buttons has a tooltip when your mouse hovers over them, but here's some more information.

Most of them are similar to what you’ll find in any word processing application: bold, italic, justification, bulleted or numbered lists, choose fonts, set highlights, etc.

Use the Undo and Re-do buttons here. They work only inside the text box, and multiple undos are supported. The Undo button on some browsers isn’t looking inside the text box, and frequently only supports a single undo: all reasons to use the buttons here instead.

There are also a few special-use buttons.

The Preview button (the magnifying glass) lets you see how your text is going to look. This is different than the Preview button at the bottom of the post page, which previews the whole page, including its summary. Again, this one just previews the text all by itself.

The eraser icon removes the formatting applied to selected text.

Bessie loves smileys, so there’s a collection of them that pops up when you click that icon.

How do I add a link to my COWBlog entry?
One way is to just copy a link from your browser and paste it into your text window. A better way is to select the text you want to embed the link into. Once you do, the link button is highlighted.

Press it and a pop-up window opens. The “Link URL” box is where you paste the link.

“Target” is a drop-down list that allows you to decide if the link opens in the same window as your post, or opens a new window. By default, Target opens the link in the same window your blog is in.



We recommend the “Open link in a new window” option, shown here. After all, why send people away from your fantastic COWBlog before they’re ready to leave?

The text in the “Title” box will show when someone mouses over your link.

Ignore that “Class” button at the bottom of the window. It doesn’t do anything yet. Yet.

How do I add pictures to my posts?
The "Insert/Edit image" button is the first one on the second row of icons in the text entry window.

When you click it, a dialog box pops up. Next to the Image URL box, there's a small browser icon.

Click that and another dialog box opens. The "Browse" button at the bottom lets you navigate to the file on your drive.



Once you've chosen the file, press "Upload." The picture will appear in the list at the top of the page. (You can also upload a bunch of pictures at once from the "Personal Files" section on your "My Account" page.)





When you're done, either click the "add" button beside the picture listing at the top of dialog box.

There are some additional options. 



"Title” is the text that will show when someone mouses over your picture. You can enter the number of pixels you’d like your “Border” to be. The vertical and horizontal space defaults are usually fine, but if you want to ensure some white space around your pictures, add the number of pixels here.

You can also have multiple pictures per post by repeating the process.

Try it. It's much easier to do than it sounds.


How do I edit my COWBlog entry later?
Select the blog entry you want to edit by clicking on the subject headline. On the page that displays the full post, you'll see the Edit tab at the top of the page. Make your changes and press the submit button at the bottom of the page, just like you would a new post.


How do I delete one of my COWBlog entries?
Follow the steps above for editing your post. Next to the.Submit button is one for Delete. You'll get a message asking you if you're sure about this, because it can't be undone. On that page you can select Delete again, or cancel if you decide you were being hasty.