Mobile blogging made easy
Who says you have to be stuck at the computer in order to post to your blog? If you have a mobile phone or PDA with e-mail capability, you can post blog entries to your MSN Space while you're on the road. This article shows you how.
Mobile blogging with MSN Spaces involves two simple steps:
| • | Set up your site to receive e-mail postings, and |
| • | Phone in your blog entries and photos. |
On the go? Sign up the mobile way
If you don't yet have your own MSN Space, you can create one by going to http://spaces.msn.com and clicking Create your space. Or if you prefer, you can sign up for your space using your mobile phone. Just use your Web access setting on your phone to go to http://spaces.msn.com, and MSN Spaces will display a text menu that will walk you through the process of creating your space.
Note: If for some reason the page doesn't load correctly on your model of cell phone (all cell phones are not created equal!), navigate to http://mobile.spaces.msn.com to access the Get your own space option.
Set up mobile posting
Posting to your MSN Space is really as easy as sending a message—including text and photos—from your phone to your MSN Space. Once you've set up your space to receive posts by e-mail, the rest is simple. Here are the steps for setting up your MSN Space to receive mobile posts:
1. | Sign in to your MSN Space. |
2. | Click the Settings tab. |
3. | Click the E-mail Publishing tab. |
4. | Click the Turn on e-mail publishing checkbox.  Figure 1: Click the E-mail Publishing tab to set up mobile blogging. |
5. | Enter the e-mail address from which you'll be sending your blog posts. You can type up to three different addresses. Not sure what your cell phone e-mail address is? Typically providers assign your 10-digit cell phone number as the primary portion of the e-mail address; for example, in 1234567890@tmomail.net, the cell number is (123) 456-7890 and tmomail.net is the service provider. Contact your service provider for specifics. |
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6. | Enter a secret word that is at least five but not more than 10 characters long (for example, secretwd). This word will be used to create an e-mail address that only you will know. |
7. | Let MSN Spaces know whether you want to save the received messages as drafts or post them directly to your site. Tip: For best results, start out with the Save As Draft option selected until you have used e-mail publishing a few times and are certain your posts are formatted the way you want them to look. Some phone services may produce messages that require some extra formatting before they appear correctly on the page. |
8. | Finally, copy the e-mail address that MSN Spaces gives you and add it to the address book that you use on your mobile phone. Your e-mail address will look something like this: 1234567890.secretwd@spaces.msn.com (this is used as an example only). |
9. | Click Save to save your changes. Now you can capture your thoughts and photos and e-mail them directly to your MSN Space—whenever inspiration strikes.  Figure 2: Copy the e-mail address to your cell phone's address book. |
Make sure that you are familiar with your service provider's charge for sending e-mail messages—these charges will also apply to mobile posts.
