Overview

To start using the Song Journals, you need to create an account and profile. Creating an account is very easy and fast. The steps below will guide you on how to create your account, adding a Song Journal to your profile, adding a photo to your profile etc.

 

1) How to create your Account

To create a new account enter this url on your web browser http://www.songjournals.com/  and click on the Registration Link http://www.songjournals.com/index.php?page=registration or click on the button Registration on the grey panel. The registration screen looks as shown below.

 

 

 

You have two ways in which you can be registered as a song Journals user.

 

Via facebook

You can be registered by loggin in to your facebook account if you already have one. This will give you connectivity to great features and all of your Facebook friends. All you need to do is to click on the facebook connect button shown on the screen above  and you will be presented with the log in screen where you will be required to enter your facebook log in email and password.

 

Via quick registration process

If you do not have facebook account you can register by inputting your details (user name, email address, password, password confirmation, First name, last name and photo) in the small form shown in the figure above.

 

Please note that there are fields marked with a red star *, those are mandatory fields that cannot be left blank. Let us look at each field in detail.

 

• User Name

This a unique name that you will use to identify yourself with. It can be your nickname, the name of your pet or any other sophisticated name that may come to your mind. It is a required field and therefore during registration process it cannot be left blank. The "Must be unique in database" means that the User Name that you have chosen must not be the same as the one that is already in the database. How would I know that a user name is not in the database? When you input a user name, for example, TK then you proceed to the next field. If the user name is already in the database you will see the following information displayed " This user name is already used. Try another one", if it is not in the database you will see "Great user name" meaning that its unique and not in the database yet.

 

• Email Address

It is also a required field. Usually email addresses have the format name@email.com etc. If you omit the character "@", "." or leaving the email field blank you will get the message " You have entered a wrong email address". Entering the correct format of email address give you the "Great email address" message.

 

• Password

Your user name and password should not be the same. Therefore, choose a unique and strong password. By strong password, ensure that its atleast 8 characters long. If you type a password with less than 6 characters, you will get the message "too short", characters less than 8 characters will give you the message "This password is weak" over 8 characters of password but containing only the alphabetic letters is regarded as a weak password. Therefore, for a strong password make it alpha numeric with some characters like @ for example r2d2@rookie.

 

• Password Confirmation

Password confirmation is a required field, it verifies that the password you entered above is the correct password. If you enter a different password from what you entered above, after clicking on the register button you will not be registered but will be prompted with the message "Please, confirm passwords correctly"

 

• First Name

 It is a required field. Enter your first name

 

• Last Name

Also a required field.

 

• Upload Photo

It is not a required field, therefore you can live it blank or you can attach your photo. The photo should not be more than 256KB in size.

 

When all is done correctly, click on the register button. You will receive a confirmation mail in your email account's inbox or spam mail box. After the completition of registration you will be directed the page below

 

 

2) I have created my account, what next?

Congratulations for successfully creating an account with song Journals, you can log in your account and play around with your profile, add your own journals, comment on other people's journals etc. To log in to you account click on the "Sign In" link at the page header panel or simple enter this link on your browser http://www.songjournals.com/index.php?page=sign_in and issue your user name and password.

 

 

If you have a facebook account you can use it to sign in to the songs Journal, click on the facebook button the screen below enables you connect to song Journals with your facebook account

 

 

After successfully signing in the page below will be displayed

 

 

From the page above, you can view featured journals, latest journals, create you own song journal, view your journals, comment on other posted journals and play around with your profile. Signing in with you facebook account will also take you to the page above.

 

3) Creating a new Song Journal

On your page, click on the menu "New Song Journal". See the page below for illustration

 

 

Follow the step by step instruction on creating your song journal

 

• Step one is to search for Artist and/or song name

If you know the name of the artist and the song sung by an artist, check both boxes, type the name of the artist and the song and click on the "Search" button. But if you only know the name of an artist or the name of a song, check either of them, type the name and click on the "Search" button

 

• Step two: Select the song/artist for which you want to enter a Journal

You will be provided with a list of Artist name and song, and from this list you can choose the song you want.

Note: You may notice that the list contains the name of the artist performing as a duo with other artists and when you select one, you get another list of songs done by the artist together with the other artist, as shown below

 

 

Choosing a song takes you to the page shown below, where you can choose video or Album cover from either MTV, Youtube or Cover Art.

 

 

 

 

 

• Step three: Write your journal

Here you can write a story that triggered the memory of that particular song. You can make it a private or public journal. A Private Journal can only be viewed by you and a Public one will be viewed by other users and they may also comment on your journal. You can also include a tag for the journal, for example, if its a love song, you can include a tag called "Love" or "Romantic".

What is the purpose of the tag? A is a non-hierarchical keyword or term assigned to a piece of information, in this case a video clip.That helps describe an item and allows it to be found again by browsing or searching.

When all is done and you are satisfied click on the submit button shown above and if you have a change of heart of a song, you may click on the link "Try a different Video!" shown on the screen above.

 

You have just created your first Song Journal, the screen shown below will provide you with a link to the journal you have created.

 

 

Note: If you want to talk about your song journal and find out what people are saying about it song journal, you can click on the "Twitter About Your Song Journal" 

 

If you Copy and paste the permanent link to the journal you have just created to a URL, you will see something similar to the screen below with your song choice.

 

 

4. Deleting and editing a Journal

If you no longer wish to have the journal you created you can delete it from  "My Journals" menu or delete it from "My Profile" menu. Click on the icon If you want to delete the journal, perharps adding more stories to your journal click on the edit icon and to edit your tag for the journal click on the edit tag icon. The page where you can delete or edit your journal is shown below. You can also change your journal from public to private or from private to public from the same frame. After confirming that you want to delete your journal by clicking on the "OK" button, the message you will get from "My Journals" page will be "You have no journals"

 

 

You can also change your journal to be private or public, by clicking on the current status. In the example above the status in "Public", to change it to private click on the "Public" link and select "Private" from the small window that will appear then click on "Submit" button for changes to apply or "Cancel" button if you want to dont want to change the status. See the figure below for illustration.

 

 

5) Share a Journal Page with friends

If you would like to share a journal page with your friend, you can do so on "My Journals" page. Click on the link

Share this page with your friends!

Enter your friend's email address and click on "Submit" button to send the message or "Cancel" button to go back to the previous page as shown below

 

6)  What can I do with my profile settings?

You can edit/change your profile settings by clicking on the menu "my profile". You can edit your Journal, Upload/Change photo, change password, edit profile by changing your personal information like name, address etc, edit your Journals as already discussed above and delete your profile. My Profile page is illustrated below.

 

 

• Edit My Journals page

You can use this link on my profile page to edit or delete your profile

 

• Upload/Change Photo

Click on this link if you want to upload a new photo or delete an existing photo. The photo to be uploaded should  not exceed 256KB

 

• Change Password

If you feel that your password has been compromised or for security reason you want to be changing your password every fortnight, you can click on this link to change it. You will be required to type in your existing/current password, the new password that you want to change and to re-type the new password. Click on the button "Apply" to save the changes. Remember the password should be at least 8 characters long.

 

• Edit profile

You can edit your profile to change your name, state, zip etc. To do this, click on the link "edit profile" and enter the new information, then click on update to save your changes as shown below.

 

 

 

• Remove profile

If you no longer wish to be a member of Song Journals, you can delete your account. To do this, click on the link "Remove Profile" from  "my profile" menu. You will be prompted with a message, and if you are sure that you want to delete your profile, you may proceed and click the "OK" button, otherwise you click on the "Cancel" button.

 

 

After successful profile deletion, you will be directed to the page below telling you that your profile has been successfully removed, clicking on the link "Continue" will direct you to the homepage of the site.

  

Note: When logged in with facebook account My Profile page will look different from the SongJournal application.

 

• Enabling email notifications

If you want to receive notifications in your email when a comment is made on your journal, your friend adds a new journal or when a new journal on your favorite artist has been added you can do so on "My Profile" page by clicking on the "On" option button or on the "Off" option button if you dont want email notification. Cick on the "Submit" button for changes to be effected.

 

7) Facebook Log in Profile settings

When you log in with your facebook account, this is how the "My Profile" page will look like

 

On this page you can

• view "My journals" page and play around with it.
• Remove your profile. Please note, removing your profile while logged in with facebook account does not mean that you will be deleting your facebook account.
• Directly go to your facebook account when you click on Facebook Account
• Add the SongJournals application to your facebook profile. To do this click on the button "Add to Profile"
• View your friends if you have added any.

Note: The process of adding friends in both ways of signing in is explained in the section below

 

8) Adding friends

You can add friends in your song journals account. A simpler way to do it, is to check on the songs added by other users, click on the user name. It will open the user's song journal profile. Below the profile there is a link "Add as a friend", click on it and an offer of friends request will be sent to the user. If the user accepts the friends request, it will appear on your profile

For example, I have seen a song posted by user "Khristienne" at the homepage and I like her song choice, if I want to add Khristienne as my friend. I would click on the song clip as shown below

 

 

I would then click on the user name "by Khristienne" to open up his/her profile page as shown below

 

 

Below the user profile, you can see the link "Add friend" I would click on the link to request for friendship with the particular user.

When user Khristienne logs in and checks his profile, he/she will see at the bottom of the page on My friends (new friends 1 ) as shown below.

 

 

Clicking on the link "new friends 1" will take user Khristienne to a page where he/she can accept or deny the friendship request. If Khristienne accepts your requesthe/she will be directed to a page confirming that "Friend was successfully accepted".

When you check your profile again, you will notice that you have a friend "Khristienne" listed under My Friends as shown below.

 

 

You can click on "View all friends" link to view all the friends you have added. You can also delete friends, when you click on "View all friends" you will see a link for removing friend as shown below.

 

 

Note: You may not find the link "Add as a friend" in some users Journals. This is because they have put their Journal status to be private