How your blog can help victims of Hurricane Katrina

Ever since Monday, I have been touched by the amount of support shown by my fellow co-workers to those of us here at Six Apart who have family and friends living in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina. I myself have over 20 relatives who live in the city of New Orleans, including my parents, 5 aunts and uncles, 3 cousins, and a large extended family. Jay Allen has family in New Orleans as well, and many more of us have friends there. We suspect that we here at Six Apart are not unlike many of you - we all have been affected by Hurricane Katrina, and are wondering, "what can we possibly do to help?"

Believe it or not, one of the best things you can do is also the easiest: send money, and encourage others to do so as well. It only takes a moment to add one of the following badges to your weblog:

In an area where people have no food, no potable water, no electrity, no shelter, and in many cases: nothing at all, a little bit can go a long way.

How to Add American Red Cross Badges to Your Weblog

1. Login into TypePad and click on the TypeLists tab.
2. Select "Notes" from the "List Type" pull down menu, and give your TypeList a name. Then click the "Create new list" button.
3. Click the "Add Item" link at the top of the page just below the tabs. On the subsequent page, leave the Label field empty and copy and paste the following HTML into Note field:

   Animated Badge

   <p style="text-align:center"><a href="http://www.redcross.org/"><img alt="Donate to the Red Cross" src="http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/news/images/badge-rc-anim-125x125.gif" width="125" height="125" /></a></p>

   Static Badge

   <p style="text-align:center"><a href="http://www.redcross.org/"><img alt="Donate to the Red Cross" src="http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/news/images/badge-rc-static-help-125x125.gif" width="125" height="125" /></a></p>

4. Now, navigate to the Design tab for each weblog you wish to add the badge to and click the "Change Content Selections" link.
5. Select the TypeList you just created under "Your TypeLists" and click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page.
6. Finally, click the "Change Order" link in the "Your Content" section under your weblog's Design tab, and drag and drop the TypeList you just created to the top of your weblog's sidebar. Click "Save Changes" once more and you are done.