Dear Blogger-Blogging Friends:

The time has come again for another friendly public service announcement about privacy issues, email addresses, and commenting.

I have had a lot of comments over the past few months that I've been unable to reply to, because there is no email address left in the comments section of my blog.

I really want to communicate with you! And so does everyone else whose blogs you're leaving comments on ... but it simply isn't possible, because you haven't completed a few critical steps on your Blogger Profile in your Dashboard.

We all understand how important privacy is, therefor, before you proceed to do the following steps, please take a moment to analyze your email address. Is it going to give any personal information out that you don't want anyone to know? For instance, is it something like: Firstname_lastname@myemail.com ? Because you may not want anyone to know either your first or last name! If this is the case, I would strongly recommend that you open a new email account with Yahoo, or whatever free email provider you choose. Might I suggest that your email name look something like this? yourblogname@yahoo.com ... or yourcutenickname@yahoo.com .

Once you have that cleared up, it's really easy to change the necessary items in Blogger... Here are step-by-step instructions (with pictures!): (As always, email me if you need help!)

Step 1 -


When you are logged into your blog (in Google's Blogger), you will see three words at the far top/right corner of your window: Dashboard Help Sign out -- When you find those three words, click on the word DASHBOARD (see picture to right).

Step 2 -


Once you are at your Dashboard, you will be able to edit your User Profile by clicking on the words User Profile off to the right (see picture to right).

Step 3 -

Once you are in your Profile, you will see 9 major sections titled in Orange: Privacy, Identity, Photograph, Audio Clip, General, Location, Work, Extended Info, and a box that says Save Profile. You want to be in the "Privacy" section, and you want to click on the box next to SHOW MY EMAIL ADDRESS (see picture below).








Step 4 -

Now you'll want to go to the "Identity" section. You will see several options here. The first one is your USER NAME (which is your email address), and it is already filled out for you. The second one is requesting your EMAIL ADDRESS -- please fill this in! The third one is requesting your DISPLAY NAME -- please fill this in, too (this is where you'll put either your screen name, your blogger name, your first name, or whatever you want people to know you by).













Step 5 -

Your final step is to save your profile edits by clicking on the orange box at the bottom that says "Save Profile."

That's all you need to do.

Phew. I feel so much better ... and now, I can start replying to the wonderful comments you leave me! And as always ... rest assured that your information will not be sold, or miss-used in any way when appears in my email box (which no one can see) or blog comments.

Thank you!