I recently had an advertiser that wanted to place an ad on one of my other blogs. I gave some him some options and prices, but what he really wanted was something I didn't think was possible. He wanted a link in my sidebar, but he just wanted that link on the home page of the blog and not on all the other pages. I'm not sure exactly why he wanted that, maybe thought it would cost a bit less?
Whatever the reason, I had to tell him that I didn't know of any way to do that. Whatever is in the sidebar is on every page and post of the blog. That's just how it is. So no ad. Then I read this article the other day that explains how to have some of your sidebar content on the home page only. I don't know how she figured out that it was even possible or how to do it, but I'm definitely saving these instructions so I can do it if anyone asks again.
Besides ads, what other reasons would you have for showing some sidebar content on just the home page and not the rest of your blog?
Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
What's So Great About Wordpress?
Image by Colin ZHU via FlickrSince I've started blogging, I've heard so many people say that self-hosted Wordpress is the only way to go. It's like you can't be a 'real' blogger if you're not using Wordpress. I'm not sure exactly why. I've been very happy with Blogger. I can do pretty much anything I want with my blogs - customize my templates, use my custom domains, add widgets, etc. And, in the 5 years I've used Blogger, last week's outage was the first time I'd ever had a problem.
Image via WikipediaNow, I have a few web pages I do for our church. About a year ago, I decided to try Wordpress for a couple of those pages. I don' t see a huge difference. I can find and customize templates, use custom domains, add widgets and plug-ins. It works. However, I have had to repeatedly clean out spam links in every single post. I remove the links, I change passwords, and a few days to a week later, the links are back. This is getting beyond frustrating. I never had this problem with Blogger. Never had this problem with regular html web pages.This has me wondering what's so great about Wordpress? I haven't seen enough advantages to be worth the frustration of dealing with this. Maybe there's some simple fix I just don't know about, but I'm about ready to go back to regular webpages and scrap Wordpress altogether. I'm certainly not thinking about moving my blogs from Blogger, where we're perfectly happy.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Intense Debate for Better Comments
I've installed Intense Debate on this blog and my recipe blog. Now, every time you guys comment, your comments will automatically be better! OK, it doesn't work exactly that way, but I do think it will make comments overall more relevant.While I am mostly satisfied with Blogger, the comments have left a bit to be desired. Not that people can't comment with the Blogger system, and there are options that allow anyone to comment - provided the blogger sets it up that way. The problem is that there has never been a way to actually have a conversation through these comments. Commenters can subscribe to comments, but then they end up getting every single comment on that post, whether it's relevant or not. Either that, or they have to remember to check back later to see if there are any relevant comments. And all the comments run in a linear fashion, making it hard to actually see which ones are relevant to which other ones. Well, you get the idea.
So, when I saw Intense Debate being used on another (Blogger) blog, I had to check it out. It was really easy to install. They give you two options - widget or template. I chose the template because they say it provides better integration with the blog. They also said it was a bit more complicated to install than the widget, but they walk you through the whole process so it's not complicated at all. Don't let that worry you.
Once installed, there is some customization you can do, but it seems to work pretty well with my theme without any need to customize anything. It's nice to know there are options, though. Now, with Intense Debate, I have all these great features for the comments on my blogs - email notification, comment threading - you can reply and carry on an actual conversation, the ability to reply by email, comment moderation, and more. Commenters can subscribe to the replies to their own comments, so they'll know when someone says something relevant - or at least when someone says something that's supposed to be relevant.
I really think it can add a lot to the comments, so everybody start commenting so we can try it out! Talk to me.
Friday, April 8, 2011
New Look
I decided it was time for a change around here. It's not a drastic change, just a bit of freshening up. I've been wanting to play with the new Blogger Template Designer for a while, but just haven't taken the time to do it. Mostly I was putting it off because I knew I'd need to re-do the header. It really had to have rounded corners to look right. And that ended up being the hardest part of the process.
Re-doing the blog design was really easy to do and means anyone can have a nice looking blog. If you can click, you can do it. So, with some clicking and some dragging and dropping, I got a fresh, new look. I love that you can try everything out and actually see how it's going to look on your blog before committing to anything. The best part, at least for me, is that I can still get into the html and add/remove/tweak things. I like easy, but I hate sites that just offer the 'easy' ways to do things but take away our control to do anything else we might wish to do.
I like that Blogger gives us all the options. Beginners who don't know much about design can still have nice-looking blogs, and people who have more knowledge of html and css and design can use that knowledge. I'm kind of in the middle. I like a place to start, a template, and then I like to tweak little things to make it exactly (or as close to exactly) how I want it.
Re-doing the blog design was really easy to do and means anyone can have a nice looking blog. If you can click, you can do it. So, with some clicking and some dragging and dropping, I got a fresh, new look. I love that you can try everything out and actually see how it's going to look on your blog before committing to anything. The best part, at least for me, is that I can still get into the html and add/remove/tweak things. I like easy, but I hate sites that just offer the 'easy' ways to do things but take away our control to do anything else we might wish to do.
I like that Blogger gives us all the options. Beginners who don't know much about design can still have nice-looking blogs, and people who have more knowledge of html and css and design can use that knowledge. I'm kind of in the middle. I like a place to start, a template, and then I like to tweak little things to make it exactly (or as close to exactly) how I want it.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Blogger's New Dynamic Views
Here's something new in Blogger - 5 new dynamic templates. Right now they're just in preview, but Blogger is promising we'll be able to customize and use them for our blogs soon. I've been playing with them a bit today, and I'm really liking them.
The new views use the latest in web technology, including AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3, to deliver a host of benefits:
I think it's going to be fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the customization will work. Also, what about ads, banners, sidebars, etc.?
The new views use the latest in web technology, including AJAX, HTML5 and CSS3, to deliver a host of benefits:
- Infinite scrolling: read more posts without having to reload or click to a second page
- New layouts: different views suited to different types of blogs
- Speed: download images as you view them, not all at once in advance
- Interactivity: there are now more ways to experience and engage with blog content
I think it's going to be fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the customization will work. Also, what about ads, banners, sidebars, etc.?
Monday, April 12, 2010
Keep Your Widgets (updated)
I updated the template on my photo blog yesterday. I've pretty much ignored that one for a while, and I was still using an OLD Blogger layout. Anyway, I found a template I like and decided to install it. And that's when I noticed that Blogger now lets you choose to keep your widgets when you upload a new template - instead of having to lose them all, or manually find them in your old template and insert them into the new one. I'm not sure when this started because I haven't changed a template in a while, but this is going to make changing your template so much easier.
Thank you, Blogger, for realizing that after we put all that work into adding our widgets, we don't want to lose them just to change the look of our blogs!
Thank you, Blogger, for realizing that after we put all that work into adding our widgets, we don't want to lose them just to change the look of our blogs!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Delightful Templates
I found another site for free Blogger templates tonight. It's called Delightful Dots, and there are a bunch of really nice looking templates available. Each one comes with html and instructions for installing it on your blog. Some of the templates come with matching headers. They're just all really cute, and I'm having a hard time picking a favorite.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Blogger Backup
Quite a while ago I mentioned that I used the import feature at Wordpress.com to back up my blog. I haven't been doing it regularly, like I should be, but I thought that would be good enough for blog backup. Today, though, I was trying to back up my other blog, after not having done it for several months. Right in the middle of importing, it just stopped, and wouldn't go any further. When I attempted to view the blog in a new tab to see how many posts had actually transferred, I got an error message telling me the blog had been archived or suspended due to TOS violations. Since I wasn't even really using the blog as a blog, merely transferring posts as a backup, I'm not sure what I supposedly did. If they don't want me to use it as backup, they shouldn't provide the import feature.
Whatever - forget Wordpress. I went searching for a better way to back up my blogs and found this handy little tool - Blogger Backup. It makes it really easy to back up your blogs. Sign into Blogger, and it finds all your blogs. Then you just select the blog you want to backup from the list, decide how you want your files named, whether you want each post to be a file or just one file with all posts. You can get the lastest 10, 25, 50, 100 posts, or just download them all, or you can specify a date and time and only download new posts since that date. Since it was my first time using it, I backed up all my posts, and then I can just backup all the new ones in the future.
There's also an option to restore posts, which worked on my test blog, but I keep getting an error message when I try to restore a post here. I noticed in the discussion that some other people have had the same problem, so hopefully there's a fix in the works. I'm wondering if it has something to do with using Custom Domain instead of a blogspot url, but that's just a guess.
Then, as I'm writing this post, Zemanta suggested the following article, and I found out that Blogger now has the option to export and import your blog, so I could have just backed up straight from my Dashboard. I guess I should look at it more, and read Blogger Buzz to keep up with things, huh?
What I'm really saying here is - no matter how you do it, be sure and back your blog up. Hopefully you'll never need the backup, but if you ever do - you'll be glad you did it.
Whatever - forget Wordpress. I went searching for a better way to back up my blogs and found this handy little tool - Blogger Backup. It makes it really easy to back up your blogs. Sign into Blogger, and it finds all your blogs. Then you just select the blog you want to backup from the list, decide how you want your files named, whether you want each post to be a file or just one file with all posts. You can get the lastest 10, 25, 50, 100 posts, or just download them all, or you can specify a date and time and only download new posts since that date. Since it was my first time using it, I backed up all my posts, and then I can just backup all the new ones in the future.
There's also an option to restore posts, which worked on my test blog, but I keep getting an error message when I try to restore a post here. I noticed in the discussion that some other people have had the same problem, so hopefully there's a fix in the works. I'm wondering if it has something to do with using Custom Domain instead of a blogspot url, but that's just a guess.
Then, as I'm writing this post, Zemanta suggested the following article, and I found out that Blogger now has the option to export and import your blog, so I could have just backed up straight from my Dashboard. I guess I should look at it more, and read Blogger Buzz to keep up with things, huh?
What I'm really saying here is - no matter how you do it, be sure and back your blog up. Hopefully you'll never need the backup, but if you ever do - you'll be glad you did it.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Templates and Tools
This looks like the most comprehensive list of Blogger template sources I've ever seen. I'd heard of some of them, but there are a whole lot I hadn't, so I'll want to check them out. Do I need a new template? Well, I don't think so, but that doesn't mean I can't look!
If you're looking for a new template, I'd say this is the place to start.
If you're looking for a new template, I'd say this is the place to start.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
More Free Blogger Templates
I've noticed that a lot of people who visit this blog are looking for new Blogger backgrounds and layouts. I'm always on the lookout, too - even when I find one I really like, you never know if an even better one is out there somewhere waiting for me.
I just recently found a new site full of great looking Blogger templates, so of course I had to share. It's called Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates, and I haven't looked at all of them, but the templates I've seen are really nice. There are also some nice tutorials to help you change your template, add and configure your widgets, and add custom text to your header.
I just recently found a new site full of great looking Blogger templates, so of course I had to share. It's called Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates, and I haven't looked at all of them, but the templates I've seen are really nice. There are also some nice tutorials to help you change your template, add and configure your widgets, and add custom text to your header.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Add a Favicon to Your Site
Are you tired of that bright orange B (if you're using a Blogger blog) in the address bar and on the tab? You can display your own icon on the browser address bar when visitors view or bookmark your web page instead. It's really simple, too.
Here's a great tutorial on adding a favicon to your Blogger blog.
- Choose an image you like - ideally it will be very simple because a favicon (short for favorites icon) is pretty small, and complicated pictures don't translate well. It should be an image you want people to associate with your blog.
- Upload your image to this Free Favicon Generator, and it will create your favicon for you.
- Then you can either download it so you can upload it somewhere else, or just host it there. They even give you the code to copy.
- Once you've copied the code simply go to your Blogger Dashboard, select Layout, and edit HTML. Paste the code into the head of your page, right before the < /head> tag and save it.
- Now, you should have your very own, personal favicon.
Here's a great tutorial on adding a favicon to your Blogger blog.
Friday, August 29, 2008
How'd They Do That?
I haven't checked out this entire list of 50 Amazing Blogger Tricks and Hacks, but it looks like there are some very useful links here. If you've ever seen something on a blog and wondered, "How'd they do that?" you just might find the answer somewhere on this list. I love it when people know how to do something, and they share with the rest of us.
So far I started with #51 (on a list of 50, I know) - make your blog dofollow.
So far I started with #51 (on a list of 50, I know) - make your blog dofollow.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Free Blogger Templates
Once again I am talking about free blog templates. I can't help myself - when I see a blog layout I like, I want to know who designed it, where they found that layout. So, I click. This time I found Our Blogger Templates. They have over 100 free templates available and the instructions for installing them on your blog and adding your own header image. There is even a tutorial for designing your own template. With all these great, easy to customize templates available, I don't know that I will ever need to design my own, but I would love to learn how.
I installed one of the free templates from Our Blogger Templates, created and added my own header image, and customized all my colors. I actually found another template I thought would go with my new header better than the one I originally installed, but I was having some troubles getting Blogger to cooperate with me, so I just changed the colors of the one I had already installed. I wasn't sure I was going to like the 'New' Blogger, but it does make changing colors easy. Most of these free templates say that 99% of the colors can easily be changed, and I have to believe them, because I changed an awful lot of the colors.
I grabbed my header image from Pixdaus. I hadn't heard of it before, but Our Blogger Templates used some images from there for their blog headers, so I clicked and found all kinds of interesting images. I liked the frogs, 1) because I like frogs, and 2) because they look like they're so excited about something that they just can't keep their mouths shut and they 'just gotta share this' - or am I stretching things a bit? Anyway, lots of images on Pixdaus.
When you click template installation guides and instructions on the Our Blogger Templates site, there's a link to more sources for header images. I figure, with enough sources, you're bound to find the right image or template, right?
I installed one of the free templates from Our Blogger Templates, created and added my own header image, and customized all my colors. I actually found another template I thought would go with my new header better than the one I originally installed, but I was having some troubles getting Blogger to cooperate with me, so I just changed the colors of the one I had already installed. I wasn't sure I was going to like the 'New' Blogger, but it does make changing colors easy. Most of these free templates say that 99% of the colors can easily be changed, and I have to believe them, because I changed an awful lot of the colors.
I grabbed my header image from Pixdaus. I hadn't heard of it before, but Our Blogger Templates used some images from there for their blog headers, so I clicked and found all kinds of interesting images. I liked the frogs, 1) because I like frogs, and 2) because they look like they're so excited about something that they just can't keep their mouths shut and they 'just gotta share this' - or am I stretching things a bit? Anyway, lots of images on Pixdaus.
When you click template installation guides and instructions on the Our Blogger Templates site, there's a link to more sources for header images. I figure, with enough sources, you're bound to find the right image or template, right?
Thursday, August 14, 2008
More Free Blog Designs
Finding that perfect design for your blog is important. After all, you want your blog to represent you, and you don't want it to look like anyone else's blog. That's why I'm always on the lookout for blog designs and layouts, and especially FREE designs.
Smitten Blog Designs has an entire gallery of free blog designs, easy to understand instructions for downloading and installing them, and a very helpful tutorial on saving your sidebar elements when changing your template. I really need that, because I just switched to the 'New' Blogger, and I thought the point was that you could easily switch things up without losing everything. Not true. I changed my template, and it wanted to delete my widgets. Huh? Then I had to rebuild them and add them back. If I don't have to do that next time, I'll be very happy.
Smitten Blog Designs has an entire gallery of free blog designs, easy to understand instructions for downloading and installing them, and a very helpful tutorial on saving your sidebar elements when changing your template. I really need that, because I just switched to the 'New' Blogger, and I thought the point was that you could easily switch things up without losing everything. Not true. I changed my template, and it wanted to delete my widgets. Huh? Then I had to rebuild them and add them back. If I don't have to do that next time, I'll be very happy.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Cute Blog Backgrounds
I found this site today - The Cutest Blog on the Block. There are lots of really cute free blog backgrounds as well as some tutorials on creating your own backgrounds and headers.
I followed the instructions and installed one of the backgrounds on a blog I hope to get going soon. It's not really something new. I just want to update my recipe website and blog, and I think I can use this new blog for that. The background was easy to install following instructions on the site. I'm thinking I might look for something new for this blog - either use one already there or follow the instructions to make my own.
Either way, I want to be able to find this site again.
I followed the instructions and installed one of the backgrounds on a blog I hope to get going soon. It's not really something new. I just want to update my recipe website and blog, and I think I can use this new blog for that. The background was easy to install following instructions on the site. I'm thinking I might look for something new for this blog - either use one already there or follow the instructions to make my own.
Either way, I want to be able to find this site again.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Free Blogger Templates
I'm always looking for cute Blogger templates, because I just might see one I just have to use. So, when I see a blog design I like, I look for the little link telling me who designed it or where the design came from. Tonight I clicked a link for suck my lolly and found some really cute ones. There's quite an extensive design gallery, templates for both the New Blogger XML and Classic Blogger, as well as information on how to use the templates
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Backing Up Your Blog
I've been blogging with Blogger for quite a while. I've never had any problems with it, but there is always that possibility. I hate to admit that I had never backed my blog up until very recently. I had more than a year's worth of posts and comments that I would hate to lose. I saved each archive page to my computer, which will give me the posts but not the comments.
Recently I found out about another option. I can import all my Blogger posts and comments to my Wordpress.com blog. I had signed up for a free account and created a blog a while ago, but I'm not really using it, so tonight I imported all of the posts from this blog. It was really simple and quick - of course, I don't have nearly as many posts on this blog as on my other one, so that one will probably take a bit longer. I will also have to change it to the New Blogger, at least long enough to get it backed up.
To back up your own blog - first, if you haven't already done so, sign up for a free account at Wordpress.com. Go ahead and create a blog there. You can have as many as you want - all for FREE. (I love free stuff!) Once you have a Wordpress.com blog, select your blog from the "My Dashboards" drop-down menu. Once on the blog dashboard, select "Manage" and there will be an option called "Import" - choose that. There are several options, for our purposes, and because that's what I did, choose "Blogger" and it will ask you for permission.
How cool is that? Now, since it's a back-up, I will probably eventually set my Wordpress blog to private, because I don't really need duplicate content out there. What I do need is the peace of mind I get from knowing everything is backed up - just in case.
Recently I found out about another option. I can import all my Blogger posts and comments to my Wordpress.com blog. I had signed up for a free account and created a blog a while ago, but I'm not really using it, so tonight I imported all of the posts from this blog. It was really simple and quick - of course, I don't have nearly as many posts on this blog as on my other one, so that one will probably take a bit longer. I will also have to change it to the New Blogger, at least long enough to get it backed up.
To back up your own blog - first, if you haven't already done so, sign up for a free account at Wordpress.com. Go ahead and create a blog there. You can have as many as you want - all for FREE. (I love free stuff!) Once you have a Wordpress.com blog, select your blog from the "My Dashboards" drop-down menu. Once on the blog dashboard, select "Manage" and there will be an option called "Import" - choose that. There are several options, for our purposes, and because that's what I did, choose "Blogger" and it will ask you for permission.
Howdy! This importer allows you to import posts and comments from your Blogger account into your WordPress blog.Hit the "Authorize" button and grant access when Google asks. Once you authorize it, you will be taken back to Wordpress.com where you will see a list of your Blogger blogs. Select the blog you wish to import, and hit the "Import" button. Magically, all the posts and comments from that blog will be imported to your Wordpress.com blog! In the future, when you want to do a back-up, any posts and comments that have already been imported will be skipped.
To use this importer, you must have a Google account, an upgraded (New, was Beta) blog, and it must be on blogspot or a custom domain (not FTP).
The first thing you need to do is tell Blogger to let WordPress access your account. You will be sent back here after providing authorization.
How cool is that? Now, since it's a back-up, I will probably eventually set my Wordpress blog to private, because I don't really need duplicate content out there. What I do need is the peace of mind I get from knowing everything is backed up - just in case.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Blogger and OpenID
The comments on Blogger have changed recently, making it harder for bloggers without a Google/Blogger account to leave a link to their blog. Before they could select the 'Other' option and leave their name and link. Now, there's just a 'Nickname' option with nowhere to put the link in. Yesterday, I read on LadyBanana that there is a fix for this:
Hopefully this has given you a few options for commenting on Blogger and being able to link back to your blog. Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll see if I can find the answers.
I have just set up the facility on this blog for commenters to sign in using not only their Google/Blogger account but also their own sign in from Wordpress, Aol/Aim, LiveJournal, Typekey or any OpenID.
This option is currently only possible to set up through Blogger in Draft
I'm not sure exactly what Blogger in Draft is, and that's a question for another day, but I went in and set it up. It looks just like your regular Dashboard. Go to Settings - Comments, and you have these options, allow comments from:
I thought that would solve things and let people go back to commenting and linking back to their blogs all in one step. That works fine for people with blogs on those services, but what about the ones with their own domains and their blogs hosted elsewhere? What exactly is this OpenID, and can that solve the problem? I started looking and found this list that says, if you use one of these services, then you already have an OpenID. Some of them are already on the drop-down list for comments, so it looks like Blogger has taken some of them and made it easier to sign in with that ID. For instance, instead of typing in: username.livejournal.com, a LiveJournal user can simply select 'LiveJournal' in the comment drop-down and type in their username. Once their comment is submitted, the username will link to their LiveJournal blog.
My question is still - what about those who have blogs hosted elsewhere? If they're not on the list? One option, if they have a Technorati account, is to choose 'any OpenID' and type in: technorati.com/people/technorati/username - This will leave a link to their Technorati profile, which isn't bad. From there, anyone who is interested can find all of their blogs.
Still, I'm not sure that's the best answer, either. I ended up signing up for ClaimID - a free, easy way to manage your online identity with OpenID. There I found an option for setting up your blog or website as an OpenID. I'm not sure if you can view this page without having an account and being signed in, so I'm going to quote it here:
Of course, your code will have your username. ClaimID generates it for you. I had to add some extra spaces in the code for Blogger to accept it in a post, but you get the idea.- Anyone - includes Anonymous Users
- Registered Users - includes OpenID
- Users with Google Accounts
- Only members of this blog
I thought that would solve things and let people go back to commenting and linking back to their blogs all in one step. That works fine for people with blogs on those services, but what about the ones with their own domains and their blogs hosted elsewhere? What exactly is this OpenID, and can that solve the problem? I started looking and found this list that says, if you use one of these services, then you already have an OpenID. Some of them are already on the drop-down list for comments, so it looks like Blogger has taken some of them and made it easier to sign in with that ID. For instance, instead of typing in: username.livejournal.com, a LiveJournal user can simply select 'LiveJournal' in the comment drop-down and type in their username. Once their comment is submitted, the username will link to their LiveJournal blog.
My question is still - what about those who have blogs hosted elsewhere? If they're not on the list? One option, if they have a Technorati account, is to choose 'any OpenID' and type in: technorati.com/people/technorati/username - This will leave a link to their Technorati profile, which isn't bad. From there, anyone who is interested can find all of their blogs.
Still, I'm not sure that's the best answer, either. I ended up signing up for ClaimID - a free, easy way to manage your online identity with OpenID. There I found an option for setting up your blog or website as an OpenID. I'm not sure if you can view this page without having an account and being signed in, so I'm going to quote it here:
How do I delegate my OpenID...
With OpenID, you can easily set your webpage or blog up as an identity URL using delegation. For example, say your blog is "myblog.com", and you'd like to use this URL as your OpenID rather than your claimID URL (we promise not to be too offended). By inserting a little bit of code into your blog or website, you can easily make this blog or website your OpenID.
Rather than logging in with http://claimID.com/username, you'd log in with http://myblog.com. Of course, claimID will still be providing the backend (no need for you to install your own OpenID server!) so you'll be asked for your password by claimID. However, when you show up as a commenter on a Livejournal thread, for example, your blog or website will be your OpenID url.
To set your blog or website up as a delegate, simply add this snippet of code into the of your page. It will need to go between the and elements on the page.
Brilliant! And now you can log into all of the great OpenID sites with your blog or webpage.
Hopefully this has given you a few options for commenting on Blogger and being able to link back to your blog. Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll see if I can find the answers.
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