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Archive for the ‘pictures’ Category

>Complete Links To Don White’s Blogs

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Affinity: Don White’s Sunshine Cabal Always show

46 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

New Product Clearinghouse Always show

53 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

House ABC’s Always show

126 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

His Heart Pounds To The Tempo of Hers Always show

22 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Yankee Wizard Always show

153 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Church Wire Always show

4 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Discrimination Always show

38 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Anger Stimulates Action Always show

225 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Political Disconnect Always show

287 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Don White Portfolio Always show

298 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Job World: World Organization of Work Always show

70 Posts, last published on Jan 4, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Women Love and Men Admire Always show

52 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

COSMIC Light LOGIC Always show

104 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

BODY & MIND ATTRACTION Always show

58 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

FAMILY HISTORY Always show

47 Posts, last published on Jan 1, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Women Love & Men Admire Always show

51 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Auto Always show

62 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Auto Ecstasy . . . Always show

41 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Hot Air Machine Always show

6 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

WOW1 Always show

68 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Displaying 20 of 20 blogs – Show all Minimize list

var BLOG_feedlessStreamId = “feed/none” Reading List

Hide

The latest from Blogger Buzz

Your blog, your data

December 10, 2008permalink

Today’s release features a brand new graduate from the Blogger in Draft testing ground: Import and Export for Blogger blogs.

The import/export feature opens up a whole new range of portability for your blogs, as well as allows for a few new options in the blog creation process. To get you started, we’ve rounded up a handful of ideas that can be done with importing and exporting:

You can access Import and Export from the Blog Tools section on the Settings | Basic tab.

We have also added new importing options to the blog creation process:

For some more detailed info on all of the things you can do with Import and Export, please check out our accompanying help article.

A couple caveats

— JJ from the Data Liberation Front

iLike: Add a soundtrack to your blog

December 5, 2008permalink

Sometimes we stumble across gadgets that are just too cool to keep to ourselves. And such is the case with the slick iLike gadget, which should be a real treat for all of you Blogger audiophiles out there.

iLike brings music to your blog by letting you embed and share playlists that you make yourself. Using their simple interface, you can organize and arrange your tunes, then seamlessly integrate them into your blog’s sidebar.


To get started, head on over to the playlist editor and build up your list of tunes from the iLike database. When you are finished, simply click the orange ‘Done!’ button at the bottom of the page, and you will be taken to a preview of what your playlist will look like on Blogger.

If everything looks good, click the orange ‘Add to Blogger’ button to go to Blogger’s Import Page Element Page (if not already signed in you will be prompted to do so.) Then choose the blog which you want to have the playlist, and click ‘Add Widget.’

The iLike gadget will now show up in your blog’s page elements editor for you to arrange as you wish. Pretty cool, eh?

Keep in mind though that playlist editor feature of iLike is still technically in beta, so the usual caveats apply. However, if you are feeling extra entrepreneurial you could help out the iLike dev team by answering their quick survey.

— Brett

Reactions: easily engage your readers

November 6, 2008permalink

One of our goals at Blogger is to make it easy for authors to get feedback on their content; we believe that authors are driven in part by the reactions and criticisms offered by their readers, and that these interactions enhance the quality of blog content. In support of this effort, we’re launching Reactions, simple annotations chosen by authors and given by readers.

With Reactions, readers can easily respond with one click, increasing feedback on posts.

Photo by Kevin Steele


To enable Reactions, log in to your dashboard, go to Layout > Page Elements and click the Edit link in the Blog Posts element to open the blog post configuration tool. Then, check the box next to Reactions, edit your reactions as a comma-separated list, and click Save.

Reactions works with Layouts templates, though if your template is heavily customized, you may have to reset your widget templates for Reactions to appear. If you have a Classic template you will need to switch to Layouts to use Reactions.

Of course, Reactions isn’t the only way to gather great feedback from readers; we also recently launched the Embedded Comment Form. With both Reactions and better commenting, we aim to make it easier for you to get the response and adoration you deserve.

Try Reactions now! We hope your reaction is <3.

Updated, 2:30 PM: Corrected to say that Reactions is a Layouts-only feature.

— taj

Get more news from the Blogger team at the Blogger Buzz blog

The latest from Blogger in Draft

New feature: Geotagging

December 10, 2008permalink

We’ve just added geotagging to the new post editor on Blogger in draft. With geotagging, you can add a location to your each of your blog posts. Just as time stamps help readers find posts from a certain date or time, geotags give your readers a way to browse posts near a specific location.

Adding a geotag to your post is easy. Log into draft.blogger.com, open the post editor, and click the add location link below the main text field.

Use the location editor to search, drag, click and zoom on a map to choose and save a location. We’ll try to label the location you choose using our reverse geocoder, which looks up a name for a point on the map. You can also edit the location name by clicking the blue location name text below the search field.

When you publish your post, the geotag is displayed below your blog post as a link, which will open up Google Maps.

We also include each post’s location in your blog’s RSS and Atom feeds using GeoRSS, a standard for geotagging. This means that feed readers, map applications and search engines can associate your posts with their locations.

We’re still working on other ways to show geotag information on your blog. Brian, the Google engineer who created this feature in his 20% time, has written a gadget that will display your posts on a map. To add it to your blog, click “Add Your Own” on the “Add a Gadget” page and paste in this URL: http://blogmap-gadget.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/blogmap.xml

Geotagging has a few known issues. We’ll be addressing them shortly, but here are some suggested workarounds for the near-term:

What types of posts are you adding a location to? What other functionality would you like to see in this feature? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

— Brian

Learn more about upcoming features at Blogger in Draft

The latest Blogs of Note

January 7, 2009

Life’s Free Treats

http://lifesfreetreats.blogspot.com/

January 6, 2009

Coffee Messiah

http://coffeemessiah.blogspot.com/

January 5, 2009

An Explorer’s View of Life

http://anexplorers.blogspot.com/

January 2, 2009

Art Car Central

http://artcar.blogspot.com/

January 1, 2009

Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/

December 31, 2008

The Gold Puppy

http://thegoldpuppy.blogspot.com/

December 30, 2008

The Smitten Image

http://thesmittenimage.blogspot.com/

December 29, 2008

Ivar Irvig

http://ivarivrig.blogspot.com/

December 26, 2008

The Lettered Cottage

http://theletteredcottage.blogspot.com/

December 25, 2008

Inukshuk Adventure

http://inukshukadventure.blogspot.com

See more Blogs of Note

Blogs

Items

New update on Blogger Buzz – View posts

Loading…

Sharp E67U, E77U: Workhose, Well-Priced LCDs Up to 65 Inches [Ces 2009]

posted by John Mahoney at Gizmodo – 31 seconds ago

On top of their Blu-ray-packing BD series, Sharp’s E-series is new for CES. Sharp’s big-panel LCD prowess lets them hit 65-inches for under 5 grand—a size (and price) we’re not seeing a lot of. Price an…

Find Out How to Get Employer Discounts From Your Cellphone Provider [Dealzmodo]

>Laying Out a Hub Article

>

Create an Attractive Hub Page

91

rate or flag this page

By Lissie

First a Warning! I am not a designer

Not even close, I can write a bit, I can play with techie stuff until it works, but under no circumstance would I insult the talents and the profession of designers by saying I am one. I am not artistic – never got past stick figures at school and can not draw, even on a computer!

In short if I can make an attractive hub – anyone can!

Who this article is for? I assume that you know how to do some basic stuff like create a basic page with text, photo maybe a video and/or a list of links. This article is not about the mechanics of creating the hub, or even how to write or use correct grammar. This is how to make your hub page look better than a lot of the others.

First off you Need a Second Text Capsule

You can’t tell from reading it but this is a 2nd text capsule – I always start with at least 2 text capsules and a photo.

My first text capsule is full width with no photo. That lets the Adsense ads to display in the ugly rectangle to the right. Yes its ugly but people are most likely to click there than anywhere so I get paid. If you want pretty put a photo. If you want cash – put the photo further down.

The 2 text capsules allow google ads to appear in the middle of your text – they don’t always, but usually do. If you have just as single too long text capsule they won’t appear in the body of the text. In the body of the text is where the ads are most effective according to the marketing geeks.

Either way the photo is important – it’s the photo that will be used on a thumbnail view of your hub when your hub is listed in best, most recent etc lists- click on your latest hubs listings from your profile to see what photos are showing. Now the photo in this view is not very big so I try to get something that is bright and eye catching – ideally – it should be relevant to the hub as well – but its hard with the computer/techie hubs and I liked the photo!

Design Icon, Bucket Fountain, Wellington, NZ
Design Icon, Bucket Fountain, Wellington, NZ

Now this is my 3rd text capsule I think most people only start a new capsule because they want a subtitle (like “Now You Need a Second Text Capsule”). However you can either:

  • not have a capsule title – in which case the next text capsule will look like a new paragraph like the paragraph above
  • at any time you can add a title within your capsule like this:

Have another title like this one

by typing a line and then using the drop down to change the style from the default of “paragraph” to “heading 2” – it won’t look the same in edit mode -the title will look a bit smaller and bolder – but check the preview mode and you will find them identical.

So why start yet another new text capsule?

The main reason I use text capsules is so that I can line up images, links, videos, Amazon, eBay capsules etc with the appropriate text. Notice that so far on the right I have the lined up photos, some eBay auctions, and now a link box.

In each case the text capsule is a normal full width capsule but each of the photos/ebay/module/link capsules have been reduced to 1/2 width, and for the link module I changed the background to a grey so it stands out.

Why do I have images etc to the right of the text?

When you read fast you scan the lines rather than read the words – longer lines are slower to read, because they are harder to scan – this is I think one of the reasons that newspapers have columns the width they do. On the internet people read very, very fast, skim in most cases, so I want to make it easy for my reader.

Think about if you are confronted with a block of text – how likely are you to read it – compared to something laid out like this hub? Honestly I think you may not read every word I’ve written (your loss 🙂 ) but you will probably scan to the end of the hub – and along the way you may find a fantastic book on Amazon you may wish to buy!

Sea shell, Esperance, Western Australia
Sea shell, Esperance, Western Australia

Using full width photos

If I am doing a how to hub or a review hub where the image is important for people to see I will generally use a full width, landscape image to break up the individual modules – it just seems easier that, way – the hubs at the right uses both full and part width photos and I think the mix/match works fine.

I don’t put a photo right at the bottom of the hub because sometimes people may not see the comment feature – which I want them to use!

RSS and News Feeds

Towards the bottom I usually add a RSS or news feed which will automatically update my article which means I don’t have to – and some further reading to keep my happy reader on my pages !

Note with all of RSS, News, Amazon and EBay capsules you can control how many items to display – this means that you can get any 2 to be pretty much the same length with a bit of playing

What is an RSS Feed?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” – that didn’t help much did it! I think of it as online ticker-tape a rolling update of the last few stories from a source e.g. blog or hubpages. An example is much easier than trying to explain – have a go you won’t break anything!

For example if you click on “subscribe to lissie’s RSS feed” below my photo at the top right of my feed you will get a piece of code that looks like : http://hubpages.com/author/Lissie/latest/?rss

If you copy and paste this into a RSS capsule – you will see the last few hubpages I’ve published. You can also add it to a blog or website to get the list as well – I use this technology to update my blog with my current hubpages articles automatically: see the column on the right side titled “More of my Articles”. Once you understand the concept its incredibly powerful and actually simple to use – despite the name! There’s a detailed step-by-step how to use guide to the right from hubpages themselves.

Example News Feed

  • Rescued backpacker gives $1,500 to SES

    British backpacker Jamie Neale has sent the State Emergency Service (SES) a fraction of the money he earned from selling his tale of survival in the New South Wales Blue Mountains. – 4 hours ago

  • Mini T. rex ancestor found in China

    Researchers say the discovery of a relatively tiny ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex provides an entirely new picture of how the fearsome flesh-eating king of the dinosaurs evolved. – 4 hours ago

  • Timor oil spill killing birds

    The Environment Department says birds have died after coming into contact with a crude oil leak in the Timor Sea. – 4 hours ago

At the very bottom I try to round the whole page off even if it’s just putting my author’s byline in – I feel it makes the news/RSS feed look less gratuitous and gives me a chance to ask people to leave a comment or question and thank anyone involved!

So what are your top tips for laying out a hub?

Print

>Complete Links To Don White’s Blogs

>

Affinity: Don White’s Sunshine Cabal Always show

46 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

New Product Clearinghouse Always show

53 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

House ABC’s Always show

126 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

His Heart Pounds To The Tempo of Hers Always show

22 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Yankee Wizard Always show

153 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Church Wire Always show

4 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Discrimination Always show

38 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Anger Stimulates Action Always show

225 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Political Disconnect Always show

287 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Don White Portfolio Always show

298 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Job World: World Organization of Work Always show

70 Posts, last published on Jan 4, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Women Love and Men Admire Always show

52 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

COSMIC Light LOGIC Always show

104 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

BODY & MIND ATTRACTION Always show

58 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

FAMILY HISTORY Always show

47 Posts, last published on Jan 1, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Women Love & Men Admire Always show

51 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Auto Always show

62 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Auto Ecstasy . . . Always show

41 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Hot Air Machine Always show

6 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

WOW1 Always show

68 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Displaying 20 of 20 blogs – Show all Minimize list

var BLOG_feedlessStreamId = “feed/none” Reading List

Hide

The latest from Blogger Buzz

Your blog, your data

December 10, 2008permalink

Today’s release features a brand new graduate from the Blogger in Draft testing ground: Import and Export for Blogger blogs.

The import/export feature opens up a whole new range of portability for your blogs, as well as allows for a few new options in the blog creation process. To get you started, we’ve rounded up a handful of ideas that can be done with importing and exporting:

You can access Import and Export from the Blog Tools section on the Settings | Basic tab.

We have also added new importing options to the blog creation process:

For some more detailed info on all of the things you can do with Import and Export, please check out our accompanying help article.

A couple caveats

— JJ from the Data Liberation Front

iLike: Add a soundtrack to your blog

December 5, 2008permalink

Sometimes we stumble across gadgets that are just too cool to keep to ourselves. And such is the case with the slick iLike gadget, which should be a real treat for all of you Blogger audiophiles out there.

iLike brings music to your blog by letting you embed and share playlists that you make yourself. Using their simple interface, you can organize and arrange your tunes, then seamlessly integrate them into your blog’s sidebar.


To get started, head on over to the playlist editor and build up your list of tunes from the iLike database. When you are finished, simply click the orange ‘Done!’ button at the bottom of the page, and you will be taken to a preview of what your playlist will look like on Blogger.

If everything looks good, click the orange ‘Add to Blogger’ button to go to Blogger’s Import Page Element Page (if not already signed in you will be prompted to do so.) Then choose the blog which you want to have the playlist, and click ‘Add Widget.’

The iLike gadget will now show up in your blog’s page elements editor for you to arrange as you wish. Pretty cool, eh?

Keep in mind though that playlist editor feature of iLike is still technically in beta, so the usual caveats apply. However, if you are feeling extra entrepreneurial you could help out the iLike dev team by answering their quick survey.

— Brett

Reactions: easily engage your readers

November 6, 2008permalink

One of our goals at Blogger is to make it easy for authors to get feedback on their content; we believe that authors are driven in part by the reactions and criticisms offered by their readers, and that these interactions enhance the quality of blog content. In support of this effort, we’re launching Reactions, simple annotations chosen by authors and given by readers.

With Reactions, readers can easily respond with one click, increasing feedback on posts.

Photo by Kevin Steele


To enable Reactions, log in to your dashboard, go to Layout > Page Elements and click the Edit link in the Blog Posts element to open the blog post configuration tool. Then, check the box next to Reactions, edit your reactions as a comma-separated list, and click Save.

Reactions works with Layouts templates, though if your template is heavily customized, you may have to reset your widget templates for Reactions to appear. If you have a Classic template you will need to switch to Layouts to use Reactions.

Of course, Reactions isn’t the only way to gather great feedback from readers; we also recently launched the Embedded Comment Form. With both Reactions and better commenting, we aim to make it easier for you to get the response and adoration you deserve.

Try Reactions now! We hope your reaction is <3.

Updated, 2:30 PM: Corrected to say that Reactions is a Layouts-only feature.

— taj

Get more news from the Blogger team at the Blogger Buzz blog

The latest from Blogger in Draft

New feature: Geotagging

December 10, 2008permalink

We’ve just added geotagging to the new post editor on Blogger in draft. With geotagging, you can add a location to your each of your blog posts. Just as time stamps help readers find posts from a certain date or time, geotags give your readers a way to browse posts near a specific location.

Adding a geotag to your post is easy. Log into draft.blogger.com, open the post editor, and click the add location link below the main text field.

Use the location editor to search, drag, click and zoom on a map to choose and save a location. We’ll try to label the location you choose using our reverse geocoder, which looks up a name for a point on the map. You can also edit the location name by clicking the blue location name text below the search field.

When you publish your post, the geotag is displayed below your blog post as a link, which will open up Google Maps.

We also include each post’s location in your blog’s RSS and Atom feeds using GeoRSS, a standard for geotagging. This means that feed readers, map applications and search engines can associate your posts with their locations.

We’re still working on other ways to show geotag information on your blog. Brian, the Google engineer who created this feature in his 20% time, has written a gadget that will display your posts on a map. To add it to your blog, click “Add Your Own” on the “Add a Gadget” page and paste in this URL: http://blogmap-gadget.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/blogmap.xml

Geotagging has a few known issues. We’ll be addressing them shortly, but here are some suggested workarounds for the near-term:

What types of posts are you adding a location to? What other functionality would you like to see in this feature? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

— Brian

Learn more about upcoming features at Blogger in Draft

The latest Blogs of Note

January 7, 2009

Life’s Free Treats

http://lifesfreetreats.blogspot.com/

January 6, 2009

Coffee Messiah

http://coffeemessiah.blogspot.com/

January 5, 2009

An Explorer’s View of Life

http://anexplorers.blogspot.com/

January 2, 2009

Art Car Central

http://artcar.blogspot.com/

January 1, 2009

Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York

http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/

December 31, 2008

The Gold Puppy

http://thegoldpuppy.blogspot.com/

December 30, 2008

The Smitten Image

http://thesmittenimage.blogspot.com/

December 29, 2008

Ivar Irvig

http://ivarivrig.blogspot.com/

December 26, 2008

The Lettered Cottage

http://theletteredcottage.blogspot.com/

December 25, 2008

Inukshuk Adventure

http://inukshukadventure.blogspot.com

See more Blogs of Note

Blogs

Items

New update on Blogger Buzz – View posts

Loading…

Sharp E67U, E77U: Workhose, Well-Priced LCDs Up to 65 Inches [Ces 2009]

posted by John Mahoney at Gizmodo – 31 seconds ago

On top of their Blu-ray-packing BD series, Sharp’s E-series is new for CES. Sharp’s big-panel LCD prowess lets them hit 65-inches for under 5 grand—a size (and price) we’re not seeing a lot of. Price an…

Find Out How to Get Employer Discounts From Your Cellphone Provider [Dealzmodo]

>Complete Links To Don’s Blogs

>

Affinity: Don White’s Sunshine Cabal Always show

46 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

New Product Clearinghouse Always show

53 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

House ABC’s Always show

126 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

His Heart Pounds To The Tempo of Hers Always show

22 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Yankee Wizard Always show

153 Posts, last published on Jan 7, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Church Wire Always show

4 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Discrimination Always show

38 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Anger Stimulates Action Always show

225 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Political Disconnect Always show

287 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Don White Portfolio Always show

298 Posts, last published on Jan 5, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Job World: World Organization of Work Always show

70 Posts, last published on Jan 4, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Women Love and Men Admire Always show

52 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

COSMIC Light LOGIC Always show

104 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

BODY & MIND ATTRACTION Always show

58 Posts, last published on Jan 2, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

FAMILY HISTORY Always show

47 Posts, last published on Jan 1, 2009

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Women Love & Men Admire Always show

51 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Auto Always show

62 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Auto Ecstasy . . . Always show

41 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Hot Air Machine Always show

6 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

WOW1 Always show

68 Posts, last published on Dec 31, 2008

View Blog View Blog in New Window

Displaying 20 of 20 blogs – Show all Minimize list

var BLOG_feedlessStreamId = “feed/none” Reading List

Hide

The latest from Blogger Buzz

Your blog, your data

December 10, 2008permalink

Today’s release features a brand new graduate from the Blogger in Draft testing ground: Import and Export for Blogger blogs.

The import/export feature opens up a whole new range of portability for your blogs, as well as allows for a few new options in the blog creation process. To get you started, we’ve rounded up a handful of ideas that can be done with importing and exporting:

You can access Import and Export from the Blog Tools section on the Settings | Basic tab.

We have also added new importing options to the blog creation process:

For some more detailed info on all of the things you can do with Import and Export, please check out our accompanying help article.

A couple caveats

— JJ from the Data Liberation Front

iLike: Add a soundtrack to your blog

December 5, 2008permalink

Sometimes we stumble across gadgets that are just too cool to keep to ourselves. And such is the case with the slick iLike gadget, which should be a real treat for all of you Blogger audiophiles out there.

iLike brings music to your blog by letting you embed and share playlists that you make yourself. Using their simple interface, you can organize and arrange your tunes, then seamlessly integrate them into your blog’s sidebar.


To get started, head on over to the playlist editor and build up your list of tunes from the iLike database. When you are finished, simply click the orange ‘Done!’ button at the bottom of the page, and you will be taken to a preview of what your playlist will look like on Blogger.

If everything looks good, click the orange ‘Add to Blogger’ button to go to Blogger’s Import Page Element Page (if not already signed in you will be prompted to do so.) Then choose the blog which you want to have the playlist, and click ‘Add Widget.’

The iLike gadget will now show up in your blog’s page elements editor for you to arrange as you wish. Pretty cool, eh?

Keep in mind though that playlist editor feature of iLike is still technically in beta, so the usual caveats apply. However, if you are feeling extra entrepreneurial you could help out the iLike dev team by answering their quick survey.

— Brett

Reactions: easily engage your readers

November 6, 2008permalink

One of our goals at Blogger is to make it easy for authors to get feedback on their content; we believe that authors are driven in part by the reactions and criticisms offered by their readers, and that these interactions enhance the quality of blog content. In support of this effort, we’re launching Reactions, simple annotations chosen by authors and given by readers.

With Reactions, readers can easily respond with one click, increasing feedback on posts.

Photo by Kevin Steele


To enable Reactions, log in to your dashboard, go to Layout > Page Elements and click the Edit link in the Blog Posts element to open the blog post configuration tool. Then, check the box next to Reactions, edit your reactions as a comma-separated list, and click Save.

Reactions works with Layouts templates, though if your template is heavily customized, you may have to reset your widget templates for Reactions to appear. If you have a Classic template you will need to switch to Layouts to use Reactions.

Of course, Reactions isn’t the only way to gather great feedback from readers; we also recently launched the Embedded Comment Form. With both Reactions and better commenting, we aim to make it easier for you to get the response and adoration you deserve.

Try Reactions now! We hope your reaction is <3.

Updated, 2:30 PM: Corrected to say that Reactions is a Layouts-only feature.

— taj

Get more news from the Blogger team at the Blogger Buzz blog

The latest from Blogger in Draft

New feature: Geotagging

December 10, 2008permalink

We’ve just added geotagging to the new post editor on Blogger in draft. With geotagging, you can add a location to your each of your blog posts. Just as time stamps help readers find posts from a certain date or time, geotags give your readers a way to browse posts near a specific location.

Adding a geotag to your post is easy. Log into draft.blogger.com, open the post editor, and click the add location link below the main text field.

Use the location editor to search, drag, click and zoom on a map to choose and save a location. We’ll try to label the location you choose using our reverse geocoder, which looks up a name for a point on the map. You can also edit the location name by clicking the blue location name text below the search field.

When you publish your post, the geotag is displayed below your blog post as a link, which will open up Google Maps.

We also include each post’s location in your blog’s RSS and Atom feeds using GeoRSS, a standard for geotagging. This means that feed readers, map applications and search engines can associate your posts with their locations.

We’re still working on other ways to show geotag information on your blog. Brian, the Google engineer who created this feature in his 20% time, has written a gadget that will display your posts on a map. To add it to your blog, click “Add Your Own” on the “Add a Gadget” page and paste in this URL: http://blogmap-gadget.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/blogmap.xml

Geotagging has a few known issues. We’ll be addressing them shortly, but here are some suggested workarounds for the near-term:

What types of posts are you adding a location to? What other functionality would you like to see in this feature? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

— Brian

Learn more about upcoming features at Blogger in Draft

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USER’S MANUAL

Take Your Best Shot

Disappointed with your digital pictures? These seven settings will help you get professional-quality photos from your point-and-shoot.
By Aimee Baldridge, Photographs by Michael Mohr, December 2008/January 2009 issue|
Panorama or Stitch-Assist Mode

Panorama or Stitch-Assist Mode

What It Does Creates a panorama of a landscape out of a series of pictures.
How After you take a photo of a scene, the image remains on your camera’s LCD screen, enabling you to line up the next picture perfectly. Then, when you’ve taken all your shots and downloaded them to your computer, you can use an editing program like Photoshop Elements to “stitch” them all together.
Tips Place your camera on a tripod to ensure that your photos are uniform. And avoid shooting scenes with moving objects. You don’t want to see the same jogger running through different segments.

Landscape Mode

Landscape Mode

What It Does Makes everything in a scenic photograph—from nearby trees to mountains in the distance—look equally sharp.
How The size of the opening in the lens, known as the aperture, is reduced to let light into the camera from different distances. This creates an even focus across the entire image.
Tips The setting is useful for more than just landscapes—you can also use it when photographing a large crowd of people.

Fill Flash

Fill Flash

What It Does Improves how subjects are lit in daytime photos.
How A flash fills in the shadows that are created by bright, directional sunlight to give people and things a more natural, even appearance. The extra burst of light also makes colors look more vibrant.
Tips There’s a chance the flash could cause your pictures to come out overexposed. To counter that, some higher-end cameras have a soft-flash setting. Otherwise, hold a white tissue over the flash to lessen the light.

Macro Mode

Macro Mode

What It Does Focuses on smaller objects at an extremely close range.
How In this mode, you can bring the camera to within inches of a flower, an insect, or a seashell and completely fill the frame with it. The camera then adjusts the focus to allow you to capture the fine details you can’t normally get in automatic mode.
Tips Make sure you set your camera on a pocket tripod or a flat surface—even slight hand movements will lead to blurry images. If you’re shooting a flower or a leaf outside, do it on a day with little or no wind.

Tips From Photo Safari Experts
Even amateur photographers can take snapshots worthy of a travel guidebook. Five leaders of “photo safaris”—tours and camera lessons in one—share a few of their secrets with

Note: This story was accurate when it was published. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip