Getting Started

Remember when you were new to the blogosphere? And all the options were so confusing? Those were the days, right?

Well, new folks join the blo­gos­phere every day, so we thought it might be a good idea to give an overview of some of the key options for interacting with this site.

Also, we know that it requires a certain degree of trust to submit your per­sonal infor­ma­tion (name and e-mail address) to LunaCafe when you register. Thus, we promise that we will never share your personal information with anyone, not for any rea­son whatsoever. Not gonna happen. Not now. Not ever.

You may occasionally receive e-mail from LunaCafe, especially if you specifically request it or we are responding to your e-mail. We promise not to flood you with advertising, however.

There are lots of ways to inter­act with LunaCafe, all of them easy:

Book­mark the  URL (https://www.thelunacafe.com)

• In Inter­net Explorer, from the tool­bar, click Favorites, click Add to Favorites, select the folder to which you want to add the link, and then click Add. Now, when you want to visit LunaCafe, sim­ply go to your Favorites folder, locate LunaCafe in the list, and click to launch the blog.

E-mail us

• On the LunaCafe home page, from the top navigation bar, under About Us, click Contact LunaCafe. Type your information into the form, enter the CAPTCHA code in the designated text box, and then click Submit.
• On any LunaCafe post, from the left margin or at the end of the post, click the Email icon. In the email form that opens, simply jot down your comment, and then click Send.

Reg­is­ter at LunaCafe

• Reg­is­tra­tion is free and required for activ­i­ties on the blog that go beyond read­ing the posts and com­ment­ing. To receive e-mail noti­fi­ca­tion when new posts are added, or to sub­scribe to an RSS feed reader, you must be a reg­is­tered user. Of course, we love it when you reg­is­ter, because it means that you are a reg­u­lar reader of the site.
• To reg­is­ter, on the LunaCafe blog, from the right sidebar, under Connect, click the RSS feed icon. A form will dis­play that asks for your user­name (this name will dis­play to the world when you com­ment on a post), e-mail address, first name, last name, and pass­word. On this form, you also have the oppor­tu­nity to sign up for e-mail noti­fi­ca­tions for new posts.
• We value your pri­vacy and will NEVER share or sell your per­sonal information.

Com­ment on a Post

• Com­ments are the lifeblood of a blog. They let us know that you are read­ing the posts and give us an oppor­tu­nity to chat with you. Com­ments are also where you can share ideas that oth­ers might appre­ci­ate and engage in con­ver­sa­tions with them.
• At the end of each post, under Com­ments, in the Speak Your Mind text box, type your message, and then click Post Comment. Then in the popup box that appears, add your com­ment name (moniker, first name, or blog name), e-mail address, blog URL if you have one, and your com­ment. It’s easy and it’s fun.
• The Com­mentLuv fea­ture is enabled. Thus, when you leave a com­ment, a line is appended that gives the name of your blog (if you have one) and the linked title of your most recent blog post. This encour­ages oth­ers to visit your site. In addi­tion, I always vis­it the sites of folks who com­ment on LunaCafe and rec­om­mend sites I love in blog posts and on Twitter.

Connect with LunaCafe on Other Channels

• On the LunaCafe home page, in the right column, under Connect, you will see an RSS feed icon, Twitter icon, Facebook icon, Delicious icon, and StumbleUpon icon. Use these icons to connect with LunaCafe on each channel. I love these sharing channels, because that’s the way folks stay con­nected and informed around the blo­gos­phere. When I like a post, I share it with my fol­low­ers everywhere. That spreads the love around.

Share Posts with Friends

• On the LunaCafe blog, at the end of each post, next to Share this, there is an email icon. When you click it, a form dis­plays that allows you to enter your name and e-mail, your friend’s name and e-mail, and a com­ment.
• Other sharing options for Share this are Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Google+, and Pinterest. When you click any of these icons, you have the oppor­tu­nity to share the post with your followers on these channels.

Get an E-mail Noti­fi­ca­tion for Each New Post

To enable this option, you must first reg­is­ter for the blog.

• On the LunaCafe blog, under LunaCafe Links in the right side­bar, click Sub­scribe to E-mail. A dia­logue box opens that lets you choose the cat­e­gories for which you want to receive noti­fi­ca­tion. You also have a choice between receiv­ing the noti­fi­ca­tion as HTML or Plain Text and either an Excerpt Only or a Full Post.

Sub­scribe to an RSS Feed Reader

A feed reader is a cool tool. It is used to pub­lish fre­quently updated works, such as blog posts and news head­lines, in a stan­dard­ized for­mat. It allows you to quickly and eas­ily track the blogs you love and reg­u­larly visit. It’s also free. LunaCafe offers a feed, to which you can sub­scribe. To access the feed, you need a feed reader.

1. On the LunaCafe blog, in the upper right side­bar, click Sub­scribe. A page dis­plays with a list of feed read­ers. Let’s use the Google feed reader as an exam­ple. That’s the one I use for track­ing the dozens of blogs I love.
2. Locate the Google icon and click. On the page that dis­plays, click Add to Google Reader. The next page asks for your e-mail address and Google account pass­word. If you don’t have a Google account, there is an option to cre­ate one at this point. This is all free.
3. After you sub­scribe, you see a list of all recent LunaCafe posts. You can expand the entries to see more text or open an item to see its entirety. I drag the Google Reader icon to the top menu bar so that it is easy to locate when I want it. Rather than tediously locat­ing each of the blogs I track, I sim­ply go to my Google Reader and access recent posts from there.