I’ve installed a Markdown plugin on the blog, which should make writing nicely-formatted posts and comments a lot easier and quicker. This is the same system that the Stack Overflow site uses (and that’s where I found out about it). Here’s the Markdown syntax cheatsheet, cut from this page:

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Syntax Cheatsheet:

Phrase Emphasis

*italic*   **bold**
_italic_   __bold__

Links

Inline:

An [example](http://url.com/ "Title")

Reference-style labels (titles are optional):

An [example][id]. Then, anywhere
else in the doc, define the link:

  [id]: http://example.com/  "Title"

Images

Inline (titles are optional):

![alt text](/path/img.jpg "Title")

Reference-style:

![alt text][id]

[id]: /url/to/img.jpg "Title"

Headers

Setext-style:

Header 1
========

Header 2
--------

atx-style (closing #’s are optional):

# Header 1 #

## Header 2 ##

###### Header 6

Lists

Ordered, without paragraphs:

1.  Foo
2.  Bar

Unordered, with paragraphs:

*   A list item.

    With multiple paragraphs.

*   Bar

You can nest them:

*   Abacus
    * answer
*   Bubbles
    1.  bunk
    2.  bupkis
        * BELITTLER
    3. burper
*   Cunning

Blockquotes

> Email-style angle brackets
> are used for blockquotes.

> > And, they can be nested.

> #### Headers in blockquotes
> 
> * You can quote a list.
> * Etc.

Code Spans

`<code>` spans are delimited
by backticks.

You can include literal backticks
like `` `this` ``.

Preformatted Code Blocks

Indent every line of a code block by at least 4 spaces or 1 tab.

This is a normal paragraph.

    This is a preformatted
    code block.

Horizontal Rules

Three or more dashes or asterisks:

---

* * *

- - - - 

Manual Line Breaks

End a line with two or more spaces:

Roses are red,   
Violets are blue.