I’m not an expert, but for those new to blogging from MQB, here are some of the things I’ve learned along the way about the layout of your blog. Changing the look of your blog is easy. It takes longer to find the right look than it does to change your blog.
Blog design sources
When you are reading the blogs that you follow and find a blog layout that you like, look up in the upper left corner of the blog. If that blogger has not done any custom design, you will often see the name of a website designer in the corner. Below are several websites with free blog designs.
http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/
http://www.myonecuteblog.com/
http://fondossholy.blogspot.com/ (this one is in Spanish, but use the pictures to find what you want and copy/paste the code)
http://www.delightfuldots.blogspot.com/
http://scrappinblogs.blogspot.com/
You can find more by Googling “blogger templates” You are looking for something that says “free blogger backgrounds or free blogger templates”
Templates
To change the look of your blog, go to your blog Layout, and click on Pick New Template. There are several to choose from. Most of the free blog templates tell you to use the “Minima” template. I’ve found that many of the blog designs will also work with the “Rounders” template, which is the template that I use. I prefer this template for one main reason, and that is for the background of the text. You’ll notice that many of the free templates have various designs or colors in the middle of the design. Personally, I sometimes find it difficult to read a blog with pictures or other items running through the part that I need to read. With the Rounders template, I get the look I want on both sides of the blog, but the middle of the blog is opaque, and so you don’t see the full blog template background. I then change the colors on my template to match the sides of the blog. If you do use a blog template with a background, make sure that you change the colors of the blog text so it is easy to read.
After you have picked your blog template, go to the page elements on the Layout tab. You’ll see several sections to the blog layout.
Header and Blog Post
Click on “edit” in the header section. This is where you enter the name of your blog and a description about you and your blog. You can also upload any picture and it will show at the top of your blog. The picture of Redford that is currently on my blog is 800 x 600, which is a good size for a picture. You don't want too big of a picture, and a much smaller picture will not fill the entire header area. I checked the box, “shrink to fit” and I selected to have the picture behind the blog title. Save it and click on view blog to see the results. If you don’t like the picture, remove the picture and try again with another picture. Also click on edit in the Blog Post section and check out your options there.
Gadgets
Gadgets are the way to add pictures, buttons, pretty blog templates, and just plain cool stuff! Click on add gadget, and it will take you to a window with all kinds of choices. Look around and see some of the cool gadgets that you can add to your blog. You can add a picture, or a list of some sort like a UFO list or book list by clicking the + button next to the item. Click the features or popular button in the upper left corner to see more gadgets.
Usually, when you add a template or button from another blog, you are going to use the choice of HTML/Java Script. Don’t worry about technical computer language. Most of the time you are just cutting and pasting script that someone else has already done. Click the plus button next to this choice, and it will open up a box where you put your script. You can give it a title (that will show up on your blog). I don’t put a title on the blogger templates, and I usually drag them to the bottom of my gadgets so I know that the last gadget is my template. Go to the free template site, find the template you want (I use the 2 column templates). Underneath the template will be the code. Highlight and copy (CTRL C) all of the code, and then go to your gadget layout box and paste (CTRL V) the code in the box, and then save and view your blog. There are also usually instructions on the free blog template site on how to do this. Read each site’s instructions for using their template—they are usually the same process, but some are slightly different. Also, look around the sites for blog headers too. If you don’t like what you did, just delete the gadget and try again!
Fonts and Colors
Go to this section after you have your template and change the various colors of your background, header, side text, etc. I usually change this up when I load a new template, especially if you go from a lighter color to a darker color template. You want to make the blog easy on the eyes. Some of us have “older eyes” than others, and a light background with dark text is usually easier to read than a dark background with light text.
Moving things around
Click and drag your gadgets up or down to get them where you want them. You can check out to see how Molly dragged her “followers” to the top of her blog or check out Shirley's. cute blog. Go ahead, play around. You can’t hurt it. Anything you do to the look of your blog can be changed back, and it won’t hurt your blog post.
Most of the sites do caution you to save a copy of your template before you make changes. You can do this in the Edit HTML tab by clicking the download full template button. That is mainly if you are going to fool with the code, which I don't recommend unless you know what you are doing.. If you are new to templates and don’t have any special programming, you can always just go back to the Pick New Template tab and select a new one. Your font and colors may go away, but those are easy to restore.
There are some websites out there that will help you design a blog header. I played around with one several months ago, and you can read about it here.
Well, I hope this gives you some help on making your blog pretty. Do be careful, though, not to load too much on your blog as it will bog it down and take longer to load. I expect to see some new blog layouts, and if you leave me a comment, make sure your email is set up so I can reply to you. Send me an email if you have questions. If some of you more experienced bloggers have more tips, feel free to leave more hints in the comments section.
One more tip. The CTRL button is a very useful tool. If you hold down the CTRL button while clicking on a link, it will open up the link in another window. I use this all of the time so I can go back and forth between 2 or more windows.
Take care,
Quiltluver - I love to look at beautiful quilts!
Showing posts with label Computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Computers. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Blogging Tips for MQB bloggers
With the closing of MyQuiltBlog, I know that several MQB bloggers are new to Blogger, and could use some help. I’ve put together a few tips of some of the things I’ve learned about Blogger. Hope this helps!
Pictures
We all love to see your pictures. If you are having trouble with inserting pictures into Blogger, go to Settings, Basic and find the setting “Select post editor”. Make sure you select “updated editor”. The “old editor” was the source of many frustrations with blogger. Add pictures the same way you did in MQB. Upload from your computer or use a URL from a photo you’ve uploaded to Flickr, Photoucket, Webshots, etc. Just click on insert image icon and upload your photo or URL. If you upload your photo to Blogger, it stores the photo in Picassa. Drag the photo to where you want it to appear in your blog. Click on the photo to see some choices for sizes, centering, etc.
Moving your Blog Posts
If you want to move your blog posts from MQB to Blogger, it is fairly easy. However, your pictures won’t move with the post. So, you’ll have to re-add them to Blogger. To move your blog, open MQB and open the Blogger new post screen in a 2nd window. Highlight your post in MQB, hold down the CTRL key with the letter C (or use copy) and go to the Blogger post screen and place your cursor in the edit screen and hit CTRL V (or paste)
Blogging
Personally, I think Blogger is a bit limiting with its’ fonts, font sizes, and picture handling. I love, love, love using my Windows Live Writer for writing my blogs offline (it’s a free download). I insert photos exactly where I need to see them, a preview shows what it will look like on my blog, and there are lots of fonts and other editing options that Blogger doesn’t offer. I wrote about this last year, and you can read more about it here. I also like the way it handles links—it opens the link in a new window so it is easier to come back to my blog to finish reading it.
Comments
We all love to get comments and want to encourage comments. Some blogs have comment moderation set so that you don’t see the comments until they are approved. Others have word verification set for their comments to prevent spammers from commenting. For me, I prefer to have no word verification and let the user see their comments immediately. I’ve never had a problem, and figure if I do start having problems, I can always go back to verification. If you don’t want to have your readers enter the word verification when they make a comment, go to Settings, Comments, and check no for word verification. Also make sure that “anyone” can comment. Look at some of the other settings while you are there to see what else you might want to change.
If you don't want any comments on a particular post, you can click post options at the bottom of your post to change the setting for that post. You can also schedule your post to publish at at specific time. This is also in post options.
While you’re in the comments settings, I encourage you to use Comment notification email. This sends you an email whenever someone leaves a comment on your blog. If the commenter has their email set up on their blog, you can send them an email response to their comment. I love this feature! It adds a whole new way to connect to your readers. You should, however, check the email address before you respond. Just watch for email addresses that say “noreply-comment@blogger”. I can’t tell you how many times I sent off a response to someone who left a comment and my response went off into space. It took me a while to figure that one out!!
Profile
On your dashboard, you will see a place to Edit your profile. In there is a box to check for showing your email address. I highly recommend you check this box. When other bloggers have giveaways on their blogs, they use this to contact you if you have won. This also lets them help with a question you may have left in a comment, and to respond to a comment you have made on their blog. If you’re not comfortable giving our your email address, set up a new Gmail or Yahoo email just for this purpose. Just be sure to check your email. Also in your profile if you check the box to show the blogs you follow, others will be able to see the blogs you read. This is a very good way for former MQB bloggers to find some of the “old gang”. Just look and see who others are following or who their followers are. You’ll find them. Also, make sure you put a picture in your profile. It makes it easier to identify you in your comments and as a follower.
Google Reader
When I discovered Google Reader, I thought it was the greatest tool for reading blogs. That usually where I read most blogs because they load faster, and I can read the blogs quicker. One irritation I have, however, is that some bloggers have their site settings so that you only see part of their blog, and then you have to visit their blog to see the rest of the post. I must confess that there are many times when I skip those blog posts rather then click through to the blog. If you want your reader to be able to see your full blog in the Reader, go to Settings, Site Feed, and make sure your Allow Blog Feeds setting says “Full”. Amy from Amy's Creative Side has a great tip for easier blog reading that lets you use the Next button to go from one blog to another. You can read about it here.
That’s all for today. Don't be afraid to play around with the settings on your blog. You can't hurt anything and can always change the settings. Hope you found some useful tips here. In the next few days, I’ll put together another blog post on blog layout and changing up your blog to make it pretty. It will give me a good excuse to change my blog layout.
Welcome again, new MQB bloggers.
Pictures
We all love to see your pictures. If you are having trouble with inserting pictures into Blogger, go to Settings, Basic and find the setting “Select post editor”. Make sure you select “updated editor”. The “old editor” was the source of many frustrations with blogger. Add pictures the same way you did in MQB. Upload from your computer or use a URL from a photo you’ve uploaded to Flickr, Photoucket, Webshots, etc. Just click on insert image icon and upload your photo or URL. If you upload your photo to Blogger, it stores the photo in Picassa. Drag the photo to where you want it to appear in your blog. Click on the photo to see some choices for sizes, centering, etc.
Moving your Blog Posts
If you want to move your blog posts from MQB to Blogger, it is fairly easy. However, your pictures won’t move with the post. So, you’ll have to re-add them to Blogger. To move your blog, open MQB and open the Blogger new post screen in a 2nd window. Highlight your post in MQB, hold down the CTRL key with the letter C (or use copy) and go to the Blogger post screen and place your cursor in the edit screen and hit CTRL V (or paste)
Blogging
Personally, I think Blogger is a bit limiting with its’ fonts, font sizes, and picture handling. I love, love, love using my Windows Live Writer for writing my blogs offline (it’s a free download). I insert photos exactly where I need to see them, a preview shows what it will look like on my blog, and there are lots of fonts and other editing options that Blogger doesn’t offer. I wrote about this last year, and you can read more about it here. I also like the way it handles links—it opens the link in a new window so it is easier to come back to my blog to finish reading it.
Comments
We all love to get comments and want to encourage comments. Some blogs have comment moderation set so that you don’t see the comments until they are approved. Others have word verification set for their comments to prevent spammers from commenting. For me, I prefer to have no word verification and let the user see their comments immediately. I’ve never had a problem, and figure if I do start having problems, I can always go back to verification. If you don’t want to have your readers enter the word verification when they make a comment, go to Settings, Comments, and check no for word verification. Also make sure that “anyone” can comment. Look at some of the other settings while you are there to see what else you might want to change.
If you don't want any comments on a particular post, you can click post options at the bottom of your post to change the setting for that post. You can also schedule your post to publish at at specific time. This is also in post options.
While you’re in the comments settings, I encourage you to use Comment notification email. This sends you an email whenever someone leaves a comment on your blog. If the commenter has their email set up on their blog, you can send them an email response to their comment. I love this feature! It adds a whole new way to connect to your readers. You should, however, check the email address before you respond. Just watch for email addresses that say “noreply-comment@blogger”. I can’t tell you how many times I sent off a response to someone who left a comment and my response went off into space. It took me a while to figure that one out!!
Profile
On your dashboard, you will see a place to Edit your profile. In there is a box to check for showing your email address. I highly recommend you check this box. When other bloggers have giveaways on their blogs, they use this to contact you if you have won. This also lets them help with a question you may have left in a comment, and to respond to a comment you have made on their blog. If you’re not comfortable giving our your email address, set up a new Gmail or Yahoo email just for this purpose. Just be sure to check your email. Also in your profile if you check the box to show the blogs you follow, others will be able to see the blogs you read. This is a very good way for former MQB bloggers to find some of the “old gang”. Just look and see who others are following or who their followers are. You’ll find them. Also, make sure you put a picture in your profile. It makes it easier to identify you in your comments and as a follower.
Google Reader
When I discovered Google Reader, I thought it was the greatest tool for reading blogs. That usually where I read most blogs because they load faster, and I can read the blogs quicker. One irritation I have, however, is that some bloggers have their site settings so that you only see part of their blog, and then you have to visit their blog to see the rest of the post. I must confess that there are many times when I skip those blog posts rather then click through to the blog. If you want your reader to be able to see your full blog in the Reader, go to Settings, Site Feed, and make sure your Allow Blog Feeds setting says “Full”. Amy from Amy's Creative Side has a great tip for easier blog reading that lets you use the Next button to go from one blog to another. You can read about it here.
That’s all for today. Don't be afraid to play around with the settings on your blog. You can't hurt anything and can always change the settings. Hope you found some useful tips here. In the next few days, I’ll put together another blog post on blog layout and changing up your blog to make it pretty. It will give me a good excuse to change my blog layout.
Welcome again, new MQB bloggers.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Blogging Made Easier
I’ve been using blogger now for about 3 months. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve struggled many times with inserting and formatting pictures in blogger. I have no problem if I use the “none” layout for the picture. But sometimes, I want to put two pictures side by side or move them to the right or left, and it just doesn’t come out the way I want it to. When I think I have everything the way I want it to look, the post still doesn’t look like it does in the preview mode. You’ve all seen it where the words are squeezed and wrapped down the side of the picture. I’ve seen this on other blogs too.
I also struggle with placement of the pictures on blogger. Blogger seems to always put my pictures uploads at the top of the post instead of where I want them to go. Moving the pictures is a drag…
So, I set out to find a way to make it easier, and I found this program, Windows Live Writer. Wow, what a difference. I downloaded this free program, and it is so much easier to blog. When you install it, you give it your blog account information and it goes out and grabs your template, colors and stuff.
1. You create your blog offline in this program, and then choose to upload to blogger as a draft or to publish the blog.
2. You can upload to multiple blogs. But I haven’t been able to get it to work with myquiltblog yet. I think it is because it is a more unusual interface for a blog. I can still copy and paste to my quilt blog, though.
3. Pictures are so much easier. When you store pictures on Blogger instead of somewhere else, it uses Picasa to store the pictures. You can also download Picasa 3.5 to your computer to store and edit your pictures offline. Since Picasa already plays nice with Blogger, pictures seem to be easy. You can download Picasa here.
4. Writing blogs in Windows Live Writer is pretty much a WYSIWYG, (what you see is what you get) experience. It has several icons for easy formatting of text and images. It is very intuitive and easy to use.
5. As you are working on your blog, there is a preview button that lets you see how it will look on your blog. Because it loads the templates from your blog, it looks exactly like your blog will look when published. No more “fake preview” that doesn’t look like it does when published with all of your pictures and widgets displayed.
And now, here is a sample of what you can do.
%5B9%5D.jpg "MQN show Sept 09 105 (2)")
Not only can I do things to a picture like add a border, drop shadow, or as I’ve done on this picture used the “reflection” choice, you choose the text alignment as well. Look, ma, no awkward word wrapping in this picture! This picture is from the MQN quilt show a few weeks ago.
%5B30%5D.jpg "MQN show Sept 09 016 (2)")
Add a photo border, tilt the picture to the right or left, and add words to the picture… I don’t know if you can tell or not, but the quilter in the picture used feathers as an integral part of the quilt design.
You can add a picture album with lots of pictures or multiple pictures on one page. The album has lots of different settings to choose from.
A break for a minute since this is a quilt blog. Look at the quilting on this quilt. Isn’t it fabulous?
Adding a map is one of the choices. I’m just playing now…
You can also add videos, hyperlinks, tables, etc.
Since this has been such a long blog, I’ll leave you with one more photo album from the MQN quilt show.
I hope this helps those who are struggling like I was. Did I mention there are a lot more fonts available in this program?
Karen
Friday, September 18, 2009
I am a computer problem magnet!
Is there a sign on my back that says "kick me"? Why do people think it's funny to make up a stupid program to give other people trouble with their computers? I just got my computer back, for what, one week? And bam! A computer virus. I was on a quilting blog site looking at quilts when I got it. For 3 days I tried everything to get my menu bar back again. Kind of hard to do anything when you can't get to the start bar or desktop. Finally, I gave in and DH reformatted my hard drive, again. . . Oh well, I'll just have to start over. At least I still have all my backups from the last computer problem.
I missed a lot of blogs while I was down. I'll have to catch up with everyone this weekend. The good news is I was able to save the quilt pics from last week's quilt shows, so I'll get those posted.
Question for everyone--what program do you use for online picture hosting? I was using Flickr, and found out when I was trying to save the quilt show pics that I've reached my "free" limit, and now they want me to start paying because I was at my 200 picture limit. Are there any good "free" sites out there that will let you load more than a few pictures before they start charging?
Looking forward to the weekend. The weather here in Michigan is classic fall weather. Beautiful days, cool nights, low humidity. Had to turn the furnace on last night for the first time, and even then, I was still a little cold. Should be a good weekend for enjoying the outdoors.
Have a good one.
Karen
I missed a lot of blogs while I was down. I'll have to catch up with everyone this weekend. The good news is I was able to save the quilt pics from last week's quilt shows, so I'll get those posted.
Question for everyone--what program do you use for online picture hosting? I was using Flickr, and found out when I was trying to save the quilt show pics that I've reached my "free" limit, and now they want me to start paying because I was at my 200 picture limit. Are there any good "free" sites out there that will let you load more than a few pictures before they start charging?
Looking forward to the weekend. The weather here in Michigan is classic fall weather. Beautiful days, cool nights, low humidity. Had to turn the furnace on last night for the first time, and even then, I was still a little cold. Should be a good weekend for enjoying the outdoors.
Have a good one.
Karen
Friday, September 4, 2009
I'm Back in Business!!
I got my computer back, and it is running much faster. Now I just need to spend lots of time reinstalling software and copying my files from the backup. But the weather is going to be georgous this weekend, so I will be spending my time enjoying it while it lasts.
I got the following email this week, and thought it was perfect timing to post for those of us who have been going through computer issues lately. I have no idea who wrote the email or if it is true. Item #4 is what I just had done this computer...
For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, 'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.
PS - I'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call 'customer service' in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!!!
Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. I was able to start mine early and have a nice long 4-day weekend.
Karen
I got the following email this week, and thought it was perfect timing to post for those of us who have been going through computer issues lately. I have no idea who wrote the email or if it is true. Item #4 is what I just had done this computer...
For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on.
At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, 'If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon.'
In response to Bill's comments, General Motors issued a press release stating: If GM had developed technology like Microsoft, we would all be driving cars with the following characteristics:
1. For no reason whatsoever, your car would crash........Twice a day.
2. Every time they repainted the lines in the road, you would have to buy a new car.
3. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason. You would have to pull to the side of the road, close all of the windows, shut off the car, restart it, and reopen the windows before you could continue. For some reason you would simply accept this.
4. Occasionally, executing a maneuver such as a left turn would cause your car to shut down and refuse to restart, in which case you would have to reinstall the engine.
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was reliable, five times as fast and twice as easy to drive - but would run on only five percent of the roads.
6. The oil, water temperature, and alternator warning lights would all be replaced by a single 'This Car Has Performed An Illegal Operation' warning light.
7. The airbag system would ask 'Are you sure?' before deploying.
8. Occasionally, for no reason whatsoever, your car would lock you out and refuse to let you in until you simultaneously lifted the door handle, turned the key and grabbed hold of the radio antenna.
9. Every time a new car was introduced car buyers would have to learn how to drive all over again because none of the controls would operate in the same manner as the old car.
10. You'd have to press the 'Start' button to turn the engine off.
PS - I'd like to add that when all else fails, you could call 'customer service' in some foreign country and be instructed in some foreign language how to fix your car yourself!!!!
Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday weekend. I was able to start mine early and have a nice long 4-day weekend.
Karen
Monday, August 31, 2009
Computer gone
My DH finally took my computer away today to get it fixed. I managed to steal a few minutes on his computer, but he is looking at me with the evil eye like he wants his computer back. Didn't get much quilting done this weekend as I was sick with a cold, and it knocked me out pretty much all weekend.
I'll have to catch with eveyone when I can. Take care,
Karen
I'll have to catch with eveyone when I can. Take care,
Karen
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Computer trouble!
Ugh, my computer's been getting slower and slower (again), and I think I may have to get someone to fix it. I would love to get a new computer, but they all come with Windows Vista instead of Windows XP, and that doesn't play nice with my embroidery software. Bernina has a way to "help" you spend more money by not supporting older software. Even though my Bernina program is less than 3 years old, I would have to upgrade it to the next level if I move to Windows Vista. And their "upgrades" tend to cost almost as much as the original software--not exactly cheap. So, the decision to buy a new computer is more than just the cost of the computer.
So, I'm spending the day doing what I should have been doing all along, and that is backing up my important files. I'd rather be sewing or better yet, attending a quilt show if there was one going on.
I'm blocked at work from seeing any of the blogs or getting into blogger. So, if you don't hear from me for a while, that's what's happening. Maybe this will give me the push I need to get some sewing done. Sometimes, the internet and blogs have a way of sucking huge amounts of time out of my day.
Karen
So, I'm spending the day doing what I should have been doing all along, and that is backing up my important files. I'd rather be sewing or better yet, attending a quilt show if there was one going on.
I'm blocked at work from seeing any of the blogs or getting into blogger. So, if you don't hear from me for a while, that's what's happening. Maybe this will give me the push I need to get some sewing done. Sometimes, the internet and blogs have a way of sucking huge amounts of time out of my day.
Karen
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