How to leave Comments

So a lot of folks out there who read this blog regularly have told me that they were unsure of how to leave comments. I wanted to give a little insight into that question, in case more of you want to respond to things we post or ask questions.

To access a page where comments can be left, click the "# Comments" link just below the post you want to respond to. I used "#" to denote whatever number of comments already exist - this will usually be "0" for a new post, but can be any number from there on up. That will take you to a login page (unless you are already logged in) where you can write your comment, provide your identity, and then post.

To protect the comment system on my blogs, I have set the requirement that someone log in with a Google account or OpenID to use it. This was done to avoid spam, which can be a pain to go through and clean constantly. Both of these options are completely free, and will appeal to different folks in different situations.

To use a Google account, you can either sign up for Gmail (Google's version of email) or create a Blogger account with your existing email address. Both of these are easy to do:

- To use an email address you have already, just select "Google/Blogger" when going to leave a comment and then click on "Sign up here". That will let you create an account to use throughout the Blogger system, both on my blogs and others.

- To use Gmail, just sign up for an account. That will give you access to Gmail, Blogger, and a host of other Google services online. I really like their email service, as it isn't tied to your internet service provider as many types of email are.

The alternative to this is OpenID, which is useful if you don't trust Google (gasp!) or want to avoid being tied into one company for login services. I've not played around much with OpenID, but here are a couple informational links and the official site where you can get an ID:

Wikipedia Page

OpenID.net

Once you have one of those, just pick the OpenID option on the comments page and paste in your ID link.

Hopefully that helps anyone out there who has wanted to leave notes for us :) If you have any questions, feel free to comment to this post - or email me directly, if you are still having trouble logging in.