Some people have had problems registering and/or posting comments. Here are a few things that might be helpful:

1. Registration: To register (which will enable you to post comments), look for the “READERS” heading on the right and click the “Register” link. Click the link and follow the instructions. Note that you will be sent a password that you should CHANGE the first time you login.

2. Password retrieval: Once you register, your password is sent immediately from “wordpress@ethankbirchard.com.” Unfortunately, there is a chance it will go to your spam folder. Check there and you should be able to copy and paste the password to login. After logging in for the first time, you should CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD. Otherwise it will remain the automatically-generated password that you were sent initially. Also note: if the password e-mail was marked as spam, you can add “wordpress@ethankbirchard.com” to your address book to prevent missing anything in the future.

3. If you have forgotten your password: Just e-mail me! I will change it to something simple and e-mail you back. Once you’ve logged in again, you can change it to anything you want.

4. Login: When you login, you should be taken to a page that lets you update your profile, etc. Here you can change your password and other basic information. THE FIRST TIME YOU LOGIN, YOU SHOULD CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD TO SOMETHING YOU WILL REMEMBER. When you are ready to read or comment, click the “View Site” link at the top.

5. Commenting: At the bottom of each post is a link that says “Comment.” Once you click this, you will be taken to any previous comments for that post, plus a box at the bottom where you can enter and submit your own comment. Once you submit a comment, you may not see much happen. Don’t worry — as long as you hit the “Submit” button, your comment should go through. I have to “approve” first-time commenters (to prevent unsavory characters from spamming or spreading their evil ideologies on my blog), but I will try to do this as promptly as possible so your first comment can display. After that your comment should display almost immediately.

6. RSS Confusion: Some people are confused about the “RSS” stuff that appears in the side menu. If you don’t know what this is, just ignore it. But also note: if you use Firefox, you can use the orange RSS symbol RSS Symbol that appears in your Firefox’s URL bar to “subscribe” to my blog, making new posts visible through your bookmarks (so you don’t have to visit the site every time to see if there are new posts). To do this, just click the RSS Symbol button in your Firefox’s URL bar while you’re on my “HOME” blog page, and you can set up a “live” bookmark. RSS stands for “Really Simply Syndication.”

Please let me know (by e-mail or comments) if you run into any problems that aren’t addressed here. I will update this whenever I have new information about issues/solutions with using the blog. Thanks!