Book helps bloggers get glitzy

Dan Gookin, the Coeur d’Alene wunderkind behind those how-to computer books for dummies, has done it again. He’s put together a short labor of love for people like you and me who are relatively clueless re: how to doll up online conversations. Think: smiley faces squared. In his 26-page “Blogger’s Guide to HTML,” Dan tells you how to make your reader see red – literally. Or blue. Or green. Or whatever color. In simple terms, with illustrations, he also tells bloggers, commenters and blurkers how to post bold, italic and strike-through text. How to add a link to posts (so readers can click on it and read more from other sources). How to post photos. How to center paragraphs. How to publish text in gray-screened boxes. Et cetera. Dan said he got the idea for the manual from reading the lively comments section of Huckleberries Online. Occasionally, he or one of the other computer text-wise commenters would post something with a feature, like blinking text, and someone else would ask how he did that. The material for the blogger’s guide has been scattered on Dan’s hard drive for some time, some bits dating back to 1991 when he launched the how-to computer series with “DOS for Dummies.” That was more than 100 books in 32 languages, including Swahili, and 7 million to 14 million sales ago. Dan told Huckleberries he was going to write a cheat sheet for the motley crew at Huckleberries Online. But it grew into a tutorial. (You can find a link on HBO by 9 a.m.) Now, HBOers will be armed and more zany than ever. Alas.