Owner: Blogger Buster URL:http://www.bloggerbuster.com Join Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2007 14:34:13 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Blogger Buster provides a lighthearted look at blogging hints, hacks, tips and tricks for bloggers across all platforms. Site statistics:Click here
Create a custom Google search engine for your blog 2007-06-27 06:34:00 Visitors to your blog will often be looking for specific information, which all too often is lost amidst the archives and categories or labels in which you have organised your posts. The best way to ensure readers can find the posts they are interested in is to include a search function in your blog.Most blogging platforms already have some sort of search function installed. Blogger blogs, for example, have a "search this blog" box in the navbar. However, the best search method I have found is to create a custom
search engine for your blog using Google
's free Custom Search Engine service.This custom search engine has many advantages. You can:Include a search box in your blogCustomise the results pages to match your blog styleInclude only your blog, selected websites/blogs, or even the whole world wide web!Incorporate Adsense in the search resultsCheck if all your posts and blog pages are being indexedAlso, your search engine is hosted by Google and has it's own page which others can
Blogger hack: Add a sticky post/Adsense/search box in the main column 2007-06-27 04:21:00 Let's suppose you want to feature a sticky post at the top of your Blogger
posts, or perhaps you'd like to insert an AdSense box or site search facility. At present, there is no facility to do this in the default Blogger layouts system. But there are two ways around this problem.Change the post date to a future time:This is the easiest method, and is most useful for those who need a sticky post, perhaps about a future event after which time the post need not be at the top of other posts. To do this, simply click on "Post Options" beneath the type box when you are editing your post and change the date to somewhere in the future. Blogger doesn't have the facility to publish posts on a future date, so your "sticky post" will remain at the top of your main column until this date has passed.Add a new page element:This is a more permanant, neater and convenient way to add a "sticky post" to the top of your main column. Uses for this may include a search box
, a message about your blog, or Read more:Adsense
How addicted to blogging are you? 2007-06-26 07:56:00 73%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?Apparently, I'm 73% addicted (though I wouldn't have been surprised if this was higher!).To find your own rating, visit Mingle2.com
Use selective post summaries in New Blogger 2007-06-26 06:22:00 Thanks to Hackosphere's excellent Blogger
hack, I've now been able to use selective post summaries in some of my lengthier posts! Phew, what a relief! I hated having such long posts taking over my blog pages. Instead, you can now see summaries of each post and choose to read the whole post by clicking the "Read more..." link instead. This way, you can find the information you need more easily, and scan posts on my front page without having to go through every other post first!Would you like to include this hack in your own Blogger blog?To use this particular hack, you need to be using the Blogger "Layouts", rather than the classic (old) Blogger template. Make a backup of your template by going to Layouts>Edit HTML>Download full template in your Blogger dashboard. Then hop on over to Hackosphere's post and follow the instructions to the letter!It took me a couple of attempts to get this right; my advice is to copy and past the code provided, as any extra spaces or line breaks could p
Feature Adsense in Blogger post pages only 2007-07-02 06:55:00 After some trial and error, I've discovered how to include Google AdSense in post pages only. This ensures that no more than the allowed three ads are ever shown on my blogs front page, and I feel it's less intrusive advertising too.
I am already using selective post summaries which features only the first paragraph of my posts on the front page, and expands to the full post when the "read more" link is clicked on. My inline AdSense ads are displayed after the "read more" link, and so are only displayed on the posts unique page.In order to do this on your own blog, you will need to take the following steps:Install Hackosphere's selective post summaries hack.
Once you've done this, go to Settings>Formatting in your Blogger
dashboard.
Ensure that "Convert line breaks" is off! If you don't do this, Blogger will break up the AdSense code and it won't display properly (if at all!). Or alternatively, make sure your AdSense code is all on one line (though this can be tricky to i Read more:Adsense
Adsense beneath Blogger post titles or at end of posts 2007-07-02 04:50:00 A key placement of AdSense is within the body of a blog post. You can easily feature ad units beneath every post title or at the end of each post by adding AdSense code to your templates HTML. Here's what to do to achieve this.
Log into your AdSense control panel and choose the ad unit you would like to be displayed. Be sure to keep the width of your posts
in mind: some are wide enough to feature a 468x60px banner, while others may be restricted to the half-banner width of 234px.
Copy the code and paste into a text editor (such as Notepad). You'll need to change some of the characters in this code in order for it to display in your blog. Don't worry, this doesn't contravene Google's T&C's for AdSense, as I'll explain later.
Your code will look something like this:
<script type='text/javascript'><!--google_ad_client
= "pub-1469326100994945";google_ad_width = 234;google_ad_height =
60;google_ad_format = "234x60_as";google_ad_type = "text_image";//2007-06-30:
blogger Read more:Adsense
, Blogger
Adsense in Blogger posts (the basics!) 2007-07-01 14:50:00 Like many bloggers, I see no harm in including AdSense (and affiliate ads) in my blog, as a way of making a little money to help me pay for my blogging costs. This short series of posts
will explain methods you can use to feature AdSense in your Blogger
blog, including how to feature ads in the body of your posts.
Google's AdSense seems to be the most popular system of advertising in blogs. This free service for web-publishers is easy to use, especially as ads are contextual (they change depending on the content of a particular page to display relevant ads for your readers). Most bloggers are eligible to sign up for AdSense, which you can do using this link.Ensure you are aware of Google's policies for AdSense publishers, including sites which are prohibited from featuring AdSense, site and ad behaviour, and the number of ads allowed in a page.How many ads can be displayed in a single page?In any single web page, you can have:Up to three ad unitsTwo AdSense for search boxesUp to t Read more:Adsense
What is a blog meme? 2007-06-30 08:27:00 Here are some definitions of "meme" from the Urban Dictionary: A thought or thought pattern that replicates itself via cultural means; a parasitic code, a virus of the mind especially contagious to children and the impressionable.An idea that is spread from blog to blog.
In blogspeak, a "meme" is an idea or series of questions that is spread from blog to blog, usually because a blogger is "tagged" to make a meme post in their blog, and then to tag five others.
There are literally hundreds of memes (or "blemes" as they are often called) flying around the bloggosphere, one of the most popular being the "why do you blog?" meme. In fact, memes remind me of "chain letters" which did the rounds in the years before the Internet came to life...If you are "tagged" by another blogger to participate in a meme, consider this an invitation to blog your meme answer and then tag five others to do the same (by invitation I mean that you shouldn't feel compelled to participate if you don't want to
Add social bookmark buttons to your Blogger posts 2007-06-29 03:48:00 An easy way for readers of your blog to bookmark pages is to add social bookmark buttons to the end of every post. My posts
feature "Add-This" buttons at the end of each post, which readers can use to bookmark the post page using their favorite social bookmarking service (eg: Del.icio.us, Google Bookmarks, Technorati). Give it a try, it opens up a new window so you can easily get back to this page and read how to include this feature in your posts.
Here's how to add social bookmark buttons to the end of each post:
Visit the Add-This widget building page. Select the "Bookmarking widget". Choose the style of button you prefer, and that you want the widget to appear on a Blogger
blog (the code is slightly different depending on the type of website it features on).If you want stats of bookmarks made with your button, you'll need to create an account. This isn't nescessary to create and use the buttons, so it's up to you. You'll be presented with the code to paste into your blog te
Create a "tag cloud" for your blog 2007-07-05 17:23:00 You may have seen "tag clouds" in other blogs which feature keywords from the blog posts in a cloud format. These are different to "label clouds" which are constructed of the labels you use for your Blogger posts. You can see an example of a "tag cloud" I constructed for Blogger Buster here:
I created this tag cloud for free over at ZoomClouds, which allows you to customise the size, colour scheme and included tags of your cloud. To create a tag cloud for your own blog, here's what you'll need to do:
Head on over to ZoomClouds and create your free account. This will allow you to use the tag cloud service and store your designs on site.
Now it's time to create your first tag cloud! Sign in to your ZoomClouds account and click on "create cloud|" near the top of the page.
Give your cloud a name and description, and submit your RSS or Atom feed. For Bloggers this will either be "/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss" or /atom.xml" at the end of your blog address (eg: http://yourblog.blog
Create an animated advertising banner for your blog 2007-07-04 17:03:00 Have you ever wondered how to create an animated
banner to advertise your blog? Here's an example of one I created earlier:
You could use a banner like this to advertise your blog on other sites, or even to draw attention to pages on your blog.
I used AnimationOnline to create this banner for free. There are a variety of designs to choose from, including boxes such as these:
To create your animated banner, head over to AnimationOnline and choose your design. Key in your titles and text, and click "make banner". You can then right click your animated banner to save to your PC.In order to display your banner properly in your blog, you'll need to link to host the image elsewhere and link to it using HTML code. Photobucket and Imageshack provide free image hosting if you don't already have a hosting account elsewhere. Don't try to host your animated gif at Blogger, as the image will be static! Make a note of the web address your image is hosted at as you'll need this soon.Now, t
Get a free animated header for your blog 2007-07-04 10:57:00 Would you like an animatedheader
for your blog like the one below?
Using the free service over at FlamingText.com, you can easily create an animated header in a variety of styles, sizes colours and fonts. You can also find glittery headings like this:
Just visit "headings" page and scroll down a little to see the animated design menu on the right of the screen (watch out for those pesky pop-ups though!).
Choose your style, font and colour scheme and click "generate" to be forwarded to your completed header. It usually takes up to 15 seconds for the page to load, so try to be patient. Once your header is on the screen, right click on the image to save it to your computer.Unfortunately, if you upload your animation to the header widget in layouts, the image will be static. In order for your animated header to display properly in your blog, you'll need to upload it to a different server and link to it using HTML code. Photobucket and ImageShack both offer free hosting for images.
How to upload Blogger templates 2007-07-03 15:27:00 If you're bored of the generic templates supplied by Blogger
, you can easily upload a customised XML template, such as the Blogger Buster templates found here. Here's a step by step guide.
Download your favorite Blogger XML template to your computer. If the template is contained in a zip file, ensure you have extracted the XML template.
Log in to your Blogger dashboard and go to Template> Edit HTML
Ensure you back up your old template in case you decide to use it again. To do this, click on the "download full template" link and save the file to your hard drive.
Look for the section near the top where you can browse for your XML template:
Enter the location of your template and press "upload".
The HTML of your new template will now appear in the box below. You can preview your template or simply save to start using it!
For more Blogger templates, try these sites:
BlogFlux Blogger themesBlogCrowdsHackosphereTechnorati Tags: blogger | templates | 3+column | upload | XML
Customised 897 three column template download 2007-07-03 11:26:00 I've customised the 897 Blogger template
to feature 3 columns (instead of the usual two) which you can download for free here.
Here's a screenshot for you:
I've altered the sidebars so both are rounded, and have also taken care of the margins so the elements don't run into each other.To download, right click the link below and choose "save as" to save the template to your computer. To upload the template to your blog, go to Template>Edit HTML and look for the section at the top where you can browse your hard drive for template files.Download customised 897 three column template herePlease feel free to leave your comments and opinions below
Girly 3 column Blogger template download 2007-07-03 11:24:00 Since there aren't many feminine Bloggertemplate
s around, I decided to create a rather girly 3 column template based on the 897 template. Sorry guys, this one's for the female bloggers!
Here's a screenshot for you:
I've also modified the template so that you can easily add elements to the header and main area in layouts, for example, to create your custom header design, or add a description to the top of your blog.To download, right click the link below and choose "save as". To upload to your Blogger blog, go to Template>Edit HTML and look for the section near the top which says "Upload a template from your hard drive". Browse for the template and click upload. Then you can view your blog to see the changes.Download "Amanda 3 column template" here.If you use this template, I would be grateful if you would link back to Blogger Buster somewhere in your blog.Feel free to leave your comments and opinions below. Read more:Girly
Set up your free GoDaddy hosting account 2007-07-09 04:01:00 When you purchase a domain from GoDaddy
, you will be entitled to a free ad-supported hosting account. This is great for bloggers who may need to set up a redirection page to their true blog address. I've been asked a few times now how to set up this free hosting account, so I thought it was about time I posted a walk through!
Assuming you have already purchased a domain name from GoDaddy, you should have your login details and be able to log in to your GoDaddy account. Once you have your login details to hand, this is what you should do:
Log in to your GoDaddy account manager.
Select "Hosting account list" from the "Hosting and email menu" in the navbar near the top of the page. This will open the "manage hosting page"
On this page, you should see a link saying "Use credit" next to "Free Hosting Credits". Click on this link to open the next page.
On the right, you should now see "set up free hosting". Select the domain you would like to associate your hosting account with, and cho
Create a redirect page for your blog 2007-07-08 10:12:00 If your blog's web address has changed, or if you are using Blogger's custom domain service, you may have need of a redirect page for your blog. A redirect page stays at the location of your old blog (or at the http://yourblog.com address if you are using a Blogger custom domain) and automatically redirects users to your blog's true address.
Here's how to create your own redirect page:
Copy the whole text in the box below and paste into a simple text editor such as Notepad. Change the text in red to reflect your true blog address, and the text in blue to something which better suits your needs.
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="8; url=http://www.yoururlhere.com" />
</head>
<body bgcolor="#cceedd">
<center>
<p>
<font color="#446666"><b>Your text and images here</p>
<p>For example: My blog is located at www.mydomain.com. You will be redirected to my blog in about 8 seconds. Please update your bookma
Rounded corners for header and sidebars 2007-07-07 17:02:00 Thanks to Beta Blogger for Dummies, I've discovered an easy way to create rounded header
s and sidebar enclosures: Cornershop!
Using CSS and HTML code, you can create rounded corners for your header or sidebars in a variety of colours to blend seamlessly with your colour scheme. Simply visit the Cornershop website, specify the colours of the box and background and the roundness of the corners you require. Cornershop will then generate four corners and the CSS/HTML code to paste into your blog template.Here's how to do it:
Head over to the Cornershop website. Choose the colours of your background and foreground in the boxes provided. If you need the HEX values for your chosen colours, try Cedges Colour Calculator which will generate the values for you.
Choose the roundness of your corners: as a guide I'd say that 10 is neatly rounded, while 20 is very rounded.
If either your foreground or background is patterned or transparent, choose transparency for this element of your design. Read more:Rounded
Tell Blogger which features you would like to use! 2007-07-06 17:49:00 If there is a feature you would particularly like to use in the Blogger
platform, you can vote for it in the Blogger Wish List! Just select the feature you would most like to see and submit your vote. Alternatively, you can suggest a new feature of your own.
For me, Blogger enabled trackbacks would be a great feature to include. What's on your Blogger wish list?
Read more:features
Create a favicon for your blog 2007-07-14 05:13:00 A "favicon
" is the icon which appears in the left of your address bar and in your "favorites" menu in your Internet program. I've just added a favicon to my blog, which you should be able to see in the address bar above (Internet explorer users must have Blogger Buster bookmarked before the icon can be seen, as I will explain later).
To have a favicon for your own blog, you'll first need to create an icon which is 16x16 pixels in size, and save this as a .ico file to your computer. I used Gimp to create my favicon (which is a free program with most of the functionality of Photoshop), though you could also use paint or any other graphics creation program. Alternatively, you could visit one of these sites which have pre-made favicons available for free download:
MpP Favicon Gallery
Delta-Tango-Bravo favicons
Clickfire free favicons
Once you have your favicon, you'll need to upload this to a hosting account. If you already have a hosting account somewhere, you can upload it there.
Create a table of contents for your blog 2007-07-13 10:27:00 Today I discovered an excellent hack over at Beautiful Beta: a widget which enables you to automatically show a table of contents for all of your blog posts! I've now added this to my template so you can easily access all of the posts here, and sort them by title, post date or label. Simply click on the "Show table of contents" link near the top of my right sidebar.
Hans' hack is remarkably easy to implement into your blog, since he has provided the code ready for you to copy and paste into the relevant sections.In order to use the Table of Contents widget, you will need to alter your template slightly so you can add a page element to the top of your blog posts. This is so the table of contents can expand into this area, leaving your posts in place beneath.After this, it's a simple case of copying and pasting code into HTML page elements in this new section, and also in a sidebar widget.Use this link to read Hans' post featuring the code and implementation of this great Blogger
Create an email subscription box with FeedBurner 2007-07-12 17:05:00 Email subscriptions enable your readers to receive your posts by email, and can be a great tool for helping develop a regular readership to your blog.
In order to offer your blog posts by email, you will need to sign up with a feed management service who will then manage email subscriptions for you, and will send updates to your subscribers each time you update your blog. I use Feedburner's free service for email subscriptions. You can see my email subscription widget in the sidebar to the right. Here's how you can set up an email subscription box for your own blog:
Visit Feedburner.com and insert your blog URL into the box, then click "next".
On the next screen, select the feed you would like to offer subscriptions for. The default for Blogger is Atom, which you can customise to be long (full post), short (first paragraph) or simply headlines in your Blogger dashboard.
Once you've chosen the feed you would like to publicise, you can then edit the title of the feed and the URL Read more:FeedBurner
"Recent comments" widget for Blogger 2007-07-11 06:08:00 Blogger Templates have a great "recent comments" widget
available which you can use to display recent comments in blog. You can see an example of this in my right sidebar.
To use this widget in your blog, head over to Blogger Templates and choose your options, including the Blog*Spot url of your blog. Click "apply" then "Add widget to my blog".You will then be taken to your Blogger dashboard where you can automatically insert this widget into your Blogger layout.If you have a custom domain, you can still use this widget! Simply go to Template>Page elements in your Blogger dashboard and open up the recent comments widget. The code should look like this:
<script src="http://giga.ovh.org/rc"></script><script>var a_rc=3;var m_rc=true;var n_rc=true;var o_rc=100;</script><script src="http://yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentcomments"></script>
You need to change only the red section of the URL to your cu Read more:Recent
, Blogger
How much is your blog worth? 2007-07-11 05:56:00 I found this great applet over on Dane Carlson's blog which gives an estimation of how much your blog is worth:
My blog is worth $11,290.80.How much is your blog worth?
The applet was inspired by Tristan Louis's research into the value of each link to Weblogs Inc. Dane Carlson then created this little applet using Technorati's API which computes and displays your blog's worth using the same link to dollar ratio as the AOL-Weblogs Inc deal.To find out how much your own blog is worth, head on over to Dane's Business Opportunities weblog and input your blog's URL. You'll then be presented with an image similar to the one above displaying the value of your blog, and the code which you could use to insert this into a post or even your blog sidebar. The applet will automatically change to ensure your blog's value is kept up to date.Why not give it a try? You may be pleasantly surprised...Technorati Tags: blog+value | blog | worth | business+opportunities | dane+carlson | applet
"Blues" three column template download 2007-07-10 16:10:00 I've now finished work on another 3 column Blogger template
(XML format). This one's in a classic "Blues
" colour scheme (hence the name), featuring two sidebars on the right of the main posts section. Here's a screenshot for you (click to enlarge):
This template features many customisations including:
Complete control of background colours for all sections
Social bookmarking buttons
Post calendar widget
Label cloud
Rounded corners
Add/remove page elements in blog header and posts section
Download Blues Template (XML)For instructions on uploading this template to your blog, please read this post.You can also preview the Blues template in action here.I'm also developing a few more Blogger templates to download which I'll post as soon as they are ready. Please leave your comments and opinions below.Technorati Tags: blogger | templates | free+templates | 3+column+templates
Create a three column Blogger template 2007-07-16 16:01:00 In this tutorial, I'll explain how to create a three column template
in Blogger
layouts, using the Minima template as a starting point.
The Minima template is the easiest Blogger template to customise, as this is the simplest two column template, and has few parameters regarding margins, padding and the like. Once you have developed the third column, it will then be easier to alter font-size, colours and such so leave this until later on. We're going to concentrate on the actual layout first.First of all, set your template to Minima (not the stretch template, but any colour will do!), then follow these instructions:
Go to Template>Edit HTML, leaving the "Expand widget templates" box unchecked.
Now, find this section in the HTML code:
#sidebar-wrapper {
width: 220px;
float: right;
word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */
overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */
}
Copy this entire section, and pa
"Sweet Dreams" Blogger template available for download 2007-07-16 10:50:00 After a week of hard work, I've finally completed a new template
: "SweetDreams
". Unlike other Blogger
templates I've created, this is a two column template with the option of a wide or narrow sidebar. I'm really rather happy with how this one has turned out. Here's a screenshot for you:
...though I have to say that the screenshot doesn't do the template justice!
The "Sweet Dreams
" template includes:
Option of wide or narrow sidebar two column layout, with three separate sidebar containers (separate XML files for wide and narrow contained in Zip download)Animated header and sidebar title iconsBackground music and search widgets included in zip fileImage "gray scale" filter for all posted imagesSocial bookmarking buttons on each postAdd page element to the header and post sectionsLabel cloud configured to match template colour schemePreview the Sweet Dreams templates hereFor this template, I've included everything you need in a zip file, including XML files for the narrow and Read more:available
Add background music to your blog 2007-07-18 06:37:00 After uploading the "Sweet Dreams" template, I was asked how to embed background
music in a blog. It's actually quite simple to do this, and there are various methods you can use.
In this post, I'll concentrate on actually embedding the music (rather than adding widgets such as Last.fm playlists). You can see an example of embedded background music here and also further down this page...The easiest method of adding background sound is to include a line like this in your blog template, just after the opening <body> tag:
<bgsound src="http://yoursite.com/yoursound.mp3" loop=infinite>
where the URL is that of the background music you wish to use. This method works perfectly well, but visitors to your site will not be able to switch the music off if it becomes distracting.So instead, you may prefer to use this method instead, which is compatible with all browsers (press the play icon to start music):
This is achieved by including the following code somewhere in your te
Create classic Blogger templates with ease! 2007-07-17 09:54:00 For those of you still using classic Blogger
templates, either because you publish by FTP or simply prefer the classic format, I've come across a wonderful tool: Psycho's template generator.
This template generator is a really simple and useful method of creating classic Blogger templates. You can completely customise colour schemes, choose from one, two or three columns, edit the header section and above all, ensure your new template is WC3 valid. Meta tags generated will also help your blog rank higher in search engines.You will be able to see changes to your scheme as you change them, and are presented with the full HTML code to copy and paste into your template. I only wish I could find something so useful to generate templates for us "Blogger Layouts" lovers!To generate your own Classic Blogger templates with PsycHo's free online tool, follow the link below:PsycHo: Free Template GeneratorTechnorati Tags: classic+templates | blogger | ftp+blog | template+generator | 3+column
"Sunset" three column template available for download 2007-07-20 08:55:00 Here's another Blogger Buster designed 3 column themed template
for you to download:
The "Sunset
" template includes the following features:
Three column layout with two sidebars on the right.
Cross column section across the sidebars for AdSense, blog description, label cloud, etc.
Label cloud configured with themed colours
Image "blur" filter
Unique layout style
User variables for font, colours, etc.
You can see the Sunset template in action here.The download for this template features the XML template itself, plus a help file and all images which you can then upload to your own image host.Download Sunset Template Here (zip format)You are free to modify the template to suit your needs, but please leave the author credits intact. Please do not distribute this template without a link to the author.You can find more three column Blogger templates here.Technorati Tags: three | column | blogger | template | templates | theme | blogger+buster
Read more:available
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