Some important areas are:

1. My Sites – lists the blogs you have access to.
2. Visit your webspace by clicking on the underlined title
3. Right Now column gives a quick snapshot of how many pages, posts, categories and tags exist

The Dashboard is where you will control your site. (Click to Enlarge)

Screen Options Menu

Found on the top-right corner of your screen, the Screen Options menu allows you to customize the look and feel of your dashboard.

It controls the visibility of certain areas (e.g. Right Now and Recent Comments in the Dashboard Home) or the visibility of information in certain pages (e.g. the Author or Date column in the Media Library).

Check the Screen Options menu first if you cannot find a particular item in your the Dashboard.

The Screen Options menu can be found at the top-right corner of your screen.

Pages & Posts

WordPress employs two fundamental content types: pages and posts. These content types behave quite differently and therefore it is important to understand when to create a page or a post. [NOTE: As of now, as “authors” you only have the ability to “post”.]

Pages are static. They are a good way to publish information that doesn’t change much, like an “About” or “Contact Us” page. Pages are usually linked from the main navigation bar on the Homepage.

Posts are dynamic. Posts are always associated with a date and are meant to update your audience.

Some key differences:

• Posts are:

  1. dynamic (you may create a couple of Posts a day!)
  2. displayed in reverse chronological order (placing the most recent content at the top of the page)
  3. can be assigned tags and categories (helps with search engines!)
  4. meant for updating your audience
  5. syndicated via RSS

• Pages are:

  1. static content that will not change – or very, rarely anyways (Examples are ‘About Me’, ‘Contact Me’, ‘Services’, etc.)
  2. not related to categories or tags
  3. do not appear in RSS feeds
  4. may have sub-pages (this gives the appearance of a more traditional website)

Change your display name and password

Unfortunately, usernames cannot be be changed. However, if you wish to publicly display something other than your username please do the following:

• Go to Dashboard and under Users, click Your Profile

You will find Your Profile under the Users section of your blog’s Dashboard.

• Under the Name section, fill out all the fields and then choose a name from the drop-down menu Display name publicly as

Your display name can be a combination of your username, first name, last name, and/or nickname.

• Click on the Update Profile button at the bottom of the page