Multi-style Labels

I have added Multi-style labels to side bar. My credit go to Ramani at Hackosphere. You will find a couple of neat and flawless hacks for Blogger beta there.
And another two good hacks I've implemented are Converting to 3-column template and adding del.icio.us icon to every post. Cool!

Editing HTML On Blogger Beta

Today Blogger Buzz update one more feature on Blogger beta that we can now edit HTML code in template, probably that's a second breaking news since their announcement on Blogger in beta. But be cautious before you open the template. You should learn first what is new in it.

One quick warning before you all dive in, though: The new template language is completely different from the old one. So even if you're used to working with classic templates, you'll need to learn some new tricks to directly edit the new templates for Layouts-enabled blogs.

No One Cares Blog T-shirt

No one seems to give a second look to your blog! Don't worry, check out 10 Reasons Why I Don't Like Your Blog to find some points that you haven't noticed. ProBlogger Darren Rowse also writes persuasive blogging about getting the readers attention. Or the last thing you can do is buying no one cares blog T-shirt for $ 25 to show anyone around you how disappointed you are for that!

Blogger comment feed tips

New comment feed per post is good especially for the visitors come to the site, by subscribing it they are notified when someone reply to their comments. That's a big blow for the service like coComment! To subscribe, you've got to go individual post entry, at the end of the page you'll see the link as Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom).

But I'm expecting overall comment feed, like Haloscan do, so that I know instantly even comments are from old post from archive which are not so obvious to be noticed. Alternatively Blogger sent e-mail notification. But you have to enable it, to do this go to Dashboard >> Settings >> Comments, and scroll down the page till you see the Comment Notification Address box at the bottom, then type in your address and save the settings. You've done!

Tips [ update ] : Use Gmail with Gtalk or Gmail Notifier so that as soon as someone comment on your blog, you'll get noticed, even more faster.

Technorati Tags: blogger comment tips

Switching to Blogger beta

Well, I've switched to a new layout. Needless to say, I'm in love with the excellent new features Labels. Combination of blog archive and previous post entry under single click pull down menu style is fantastic. Now my sidebar is simpler than before, neat and clean. It's easy to customize the link list which means you don't need to change the template anymore, like in old Blogger just to add a friend's blog. Using third party tool like Google Reader to add your favorite posts or reading lists is simply unnecessary with this easy to edit layout. Publishing the new post is extremely fast now because the process of republishing the entire blog have been left out.

But still I don't see the feed icons in the Firefox browser address bar so as to add feed as live bookmark. I've also noticed that it seems my old Blogger Atom and Rss feed is gone with the old template. The feed url for beta version is completely different, you know. Do I need to burn a new Feedburner feed as well? And I also am still finding a way how to implement the Google Adsense and some other codes, since Blogger beta hasn't allowed to edit raw HTML in a template yet.

Apart from that I'm enjoying with my blog in a new look, hooray!

Technorati Tags: Blogger beta

Beta version of Blogger

When you log in to the Blogger to post, you may notice the sentence, just above the Username and Password bar, stating "Sign in with your Blogger or Google Account". So I've tried with my Google account. I've been given a choice whether to create a blog or to switch from an old account. Because I've already a Blogger user, I've tried to switch. But make sure you read three things before you switch it, which are stated clearly by Blogger.

You’ll need a Google Account
After you sign in with your Blogger account, you can create a Google Account or link to your existing one.
We’re still adding features
Some features aren’t part of the beta yet, but will be in an upcoming release. See what’s missing
You can’t “undo”
Your blogs and profile will stay the same — but you can’t go back to the old Blogger application.

However for me, I could not move to a new blogger. It said;

Thanks for your interest in the new Blogger in beta! For now, we are only switching a limited number of users to this new version. We can't switch your account at this time, but hope to be able to do so soon. Please check back through your dashboard for when you'll be able to try switching again.

Blogger in beta? Google is moving another closer step to take a full control over Blogger blogspot.com. In the near future, you might need to register with Google account to use a Blogger service. Techcrunch think that's a cheap move of Google, saying;

One thing that’s clear so far is that Google appears to intend that only readers with Google Accounts logins will be allowed to accept permission to read private blogs.

Whatever it is, I love Google for giving us a lot of fantastic free stuffs, Blogger is just one of the good example of them. What's more you can expect, now they are launching this new version, giving us ways to do more with Blogger. So what is new in it?

New ways to customize your template
Drag and drop page elements and easily change your template's font and color scheme.
Private blogs
Create a blog visible to just your friends and family, not the whole world.
Labels
Give your posts a category label so that you and your readers can easily sort by topic.

They are the most obvious one, of course there are many more take the tour or read a post about what's new in Blogger for more information.

With Labels, Blogger's new feature, we no longer need to go around delicious or any hacks to appear category in blog, though I have a vision of myself, painfully going through the process of adding labels and republishing all of my 60 over old posts, which is what might happen to me after having a switch!

Playing with a Blogger Template.

Well, I 've happened upon some good Blogger hacks to tweak your template a bit. Some of them might be old and well known for some of you, but they still are worth to repeat here. All the tricks I'll mention are already tested by myself and I found no problems using it. However, your browser must be Java Script enable to see them working. So if you've installed Firefox extension "NoScript", disable it first. Ok, here we go!

The first one called Peek-a-boo comments from Blogger Help are explained here. This hack is particularly suitable for those who earn just a few comments on their posts, say maximum 3, 4 hits on every 5 posts, like me! Because double clicking the comment link make them appear just below that post which is on main page, without having to go to the post page. So it's not a good idea to use this script for those probloggers who usually get around 25 comments on popular post!

Now you can edit your comments on Blogger's commenting system. Though it's not an official announcement from Blogger. Fast and easy way to do this is visiting to this page. It's copy and past only! Or else you can also add simple code to your template next to this <$BlogCommentDeleteIcon$> code by using A Consuming Experience's third method.



What we bloggers normally do when we are making a new post is to include links from old posts as many as possible, correct? But they should be related to each other, huh? Well you still can cleverly put a link from the previous post in the top of your blog. Check this hack at Blogger templates.

Related Posts:
Cool scripts,
Blogger Comment and TrackBack Trick

Blogger Comment and TrackBack Trick

I have redesigned my blog again. I used to use templates from Gecko & Fly. They are free for individual use and I like their design. Because I know nothing about html coding and web design, and especially because I find it always boring to learn from reading books and online tutorials, I used their templates and learn from it at the same time. I've noticed the two web sites this and this also are providing good and free stuffs. Though this time I took the one from blogger itself and modified it a bit.



Another major change is that I switched back the comment box from Haloscan to Blogger. Although Haloscan is giving me a good service and I enjoy having an excellent time with her, I cannot completely run away from my old love. Some strong points about Blogger comment are that enabling Google back link so that I know who is linking my post, with Haloscan somehow I'm not seeing that back link in my post footer. And Blogger comment is compatible with coComment that make easy for my fellow bloggers to keep track of their comments on my posts*. Moreover most of the posts about how to hack and the tips and tricks of comment are based on blogger comment. And I want to try some.

But I've still liked to keep Haloscan's TrackBack system. So I googled to find how to do it and came up with one decent post explaining the process. In fact I just want to be confirmed whether it is possible to do so. Then I browse back to Haloscan auto-install for blogger page again and went through the steps untill I find their code for Blogger template, that is at step 4. Instead of procedding the following steps, I copied them to replace with Blogger comment code as mention in above article. After saving the template and republishing it, I checked the result. It works!

* update: I've jsut noticed Haloscan is also compatible with coComment. What the hell! Technology today is changing in minutes!

Technorati Tags: blogger template, blogger hack, haloscan trackback

Technorati New Look

One of the great blog search engine and tool for bloggers, Technorati has redesigned their site adding several features like Discover, Popular, Tags, Favorites. I found their new look appealing, if you haven't noticed yet, better check it.
See a post and video for more information.
What other bloggers' views on upgrade: Techcrunch and Problogger.

Bloggers and their personal life.

• 54 percent of bloggers are under the age of 30.
• Women represented 46 percent of bloggers versus men at 54 percent
• 76 percent of bloggers say the reason they blog is to document their personal experience and share them with others.
• 64 percent say they blog to share practical knowledge or skills with others.
• 54 percent of bloggers say they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else versus 44 percent who said they have.
• 37 percent of bloggers believed that 'my life and experiences' were the primary topics of their blog.
• 87 percent of bloggers allow comments on their blog.
• 72 percent of bloggers post photos to their blog.
• 41 percent of bloggers say they have a blogroll or friends list on their blog.
• 8 percent of bloggers earn money on their blog.

Read more @ More bloggers get more personal

Cool scripts

Here I'd like to share some more cool scripts resided in my blogger template. Trust me they rock!

Adding Del.icio.us icon for all posts

Just to appear this icon inside my all posts, I had spent days before I found the right way! Put that code into your template, next to the comments and permalink, also know as link to this post, your code must be between <Blogger> and </Blogger> section.

<a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>&title=<$BlogItemTitle$>" target="blank" title="Post to del.icio.us"><img src="http://del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif"</a>

It make your readers life more easy to bookmark on delicious.com by clicking on any of your posts they are interested.

Browsing by topics or categories



This is the latest script i put to my template. I've been imaging to display delicious tagrolls to my blog ever since I've noticed that feature. But I found it's one and only draw back that it take too much space to put all the tags I have. I don't like that style so I drop it! Worth waiting though I came across this excellent site which allow me to choose various type of tag display. Here I selected a drop down menu bar for Zero Topic.

Update : It's not working when I test after posting this! Yet I'm not removing it right away, hoping they might fix it soon!
Now settled, no problem using it at all. Posts will be found just below the drop down menu bar after selecting from the list. Check the follow up answer in comment. Thanks Greg.

Adding Pandora to your blog sidebar



I've put this for fun! I like Pandora and it's fabulous songs. I came to know a good deal of fantastic new songs on Pandora. So I thought that it would not be a bad idea letting them in my blog. Some of you guys likely to find them useful. To add them, you have to register yourself here first, then create stations based on artist or song. You need to listen of course to acquire songs. After that bookmark them and generate html code to copy and past to template so that your songs will bee seen on your blog.

Comments!

Are you a comment lover? Can you keep track of all your comments on your blog? If comments are on your current post, of course it is easy to find. Then how about the new comment but on the old post in the Archive list, which is let's say about 3 months ago? Pretty difficult to know, huh? In fact, it's just a click on a feed away! You would probably know I'm going to recommend Haloscan commenting and trackback system. It's cool, man, you'd better check it.

But it's still have some point. How about comments on others blog? It is annoying to go every blogs you have visited, over and over again just to see whether somebody reply to your comment you had dropped on it. Even more just imagine you lost the URL of that blog, it's a pain in the a$$, you know. Haloscan is unable to help you this time. But don't worry we have an awsome service called coComment. What can it do for you? Let's check it out what they say first,

coComment is free, and will help you keep track of the comments and conversations you and others are making on blogs. coComment will address these issues by giving you an easy and seamless way to track and follow your online comments and conversations. Sign in, add a tiny bookmarklet to your browser, and put that smile back on your face!

Not just that, they also have firefox extension for tracking immediate respond on your comments and some cools code for your template as well. So just click on the link and see by yourself, I bet you will love it.

MyBlogLog

Site Meter or Stat Counter whatever you may have, they are fantastic at keeping track of visitors, but one function they don't offer you presently which MyBlogLog.com do is, tracking how many clicks your visitors hit the links you've provided on your blog. I've just finished copying and pasting their code to template and seeing result now. It works well so far, exactly doing it's job just I expected. The are offering 3-day compulsory free trial pro to feel it's full advantage. They said you will be switched to free version after three days. So I have no comment on how cool their free version is for the moment. But it's a worthwhile code to have a go.

Technorati Tags: blogging tools

Why I blog?

• First of all, blogger is available for free on the net.
• Then curiosity as to what the blogging is all about, after that I want to learn more.
• It's good to have a job to do instead of wasting time doing nothing.
• Surfing is no fun if you can't tell people what you've found.
• To gain confidence in what I do.
• My brain need to think seriously!
• Because I have a great fun of Zero Topic blog lol, guess who, it's me, myself.
  
• The comments, feedback from readers is the main advantage of blog, I'd like to say.
• Last but not least, the feeling, some people are reading my blog is incredible.