Setting Important Options Before You Blog

The options in this section help you get started and well on your way to managing your own WordPress.com blog. In this section, you discover how to setthe primary options that personalize your blog, including creating your user profile, setting the date and time stamp (based on your own time-zone settings), and uploading a picture of yourself.

Setting your General options

To begin personalizing your WordPress.com blog by setting the General options, follow these steps:

1. Click the Settings menu in the navigation menu.

2. Click the General link on the Settings menu.

3. Enter the name of your blog in the Blog Title text box. You can revisit this page any time and change the blog name as often as you like.

4. In the Tagline text box, enter a slogan or a motto that describes you or your blog.

The tagline should be a short (one line) phrase that sums up the tone and premise of your blog. Figure 3-6 shows I used a quote from a song by a group called Timbuk 3: The futures so bright, I gotta wear shades. Although my tagline doesnt give you a description of my blog, it does give you an idea of my optimistic nature.

5. From the drop-down Language menu, choose the language in which you want to publish your blog.

Below the drop-down menu is a link that says modify the interface language - referring to the language in the WordPress Administration panel. So you can have your blog published in English but have the Administration panel displayed in Spanish, for example.

6. Type your e-mail address in the E-Mail Address box. Enter the e-mail address that you used to sign up with WordPress.com.

You can change this address, but be warned: If you change the e-mail address here, it wont become active until you confirm that you are in fact the owner of said e-mail address. This confirmation is accomplished through a simple process: WordPress.com sends an e-mail to that address, providing a link you can click to confirm that you are the owner. This e-mail address is used for administrative purposes only, which consists mainly of communication between you and WordPress.com.