All About Blog

Scheduling Your Post

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:40:00 +0700

Sometimes you have many ideas on your head. Flowing to your fingers as you writing your posts. But sometimes too, you are stuck between walls, don't know what to write. You need a way to balance this condition in order to keep posting-continuity of your blog.

The way to balance this 2 conditions is by scheduling your posts. I have made a post about how to manipulate your post date on blogger. By manipulating your post date, you can't only make post date older but also make your post date newer. Blogger calls it scheduling.

Create new post as usual. After everything done, click 'Post Options' on low left corner of write area. On 2 rigtf fields; post date and time stamp, change them with future date and time. And then publish your post. Blogger will automatically publish your post on date and at time you entered.

Within this way, you can write 5 posts at one night and then publish them for next 5 days one by one. This is good for your blog since search engines like fresh and updated blogs.

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How to Change Your Page Icon

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:50:00 +0700

Page icon or Favorite Icon, oftenly only written FaveIcon, is a small picture on address bar or tab bar. See picture below.

All 1, 2 and 3 icon on picture above is FaveIcon. Number 1 is default blogger FaveIcon while number 2 and 3 are custom FaveIcon. If you are bored with default blogger FaveIcon, although I think it's a very good icon, you can make your own FaveIcon. It's needed to make your blog more associated with you (personal).

Follow these steps to make your FaveIcon:

1. Create an image using Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw or any image creation software. The image should be 16x16 pixels. Save it as .gif or .png.

2. Upload your image to an online storage. For online storage, my favorite is google pages. Read here how to create a google pages account.

3. Go to your blogger account - Layout - Edit HTML. Find this code (use ctrl+f):

4. Add this code right below it:

5. Save template. Preview first if you want to make sure.

Now you have your own FaveIcon. Change it anytime it bores you.

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Save Your Images Online on Google Pages

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:04:00 +0700

Actually google pages is similar with blogger. Its main function is a blog. You can make your personal blog on google pages. But since it's very limited in visual, design and function, people currently use google pages only for saving files online, mostly image files.

This is a very reliable storage; big capacity (100 MB), good connection and free. Even if you are using someone's template, default template or custom template, for your blog, you still need to upload all its images to your own google pages. Because if you don't, it may happen "limit bandwidth exceeded" when too many blogs using same template access same image.

To make a google pages, go to this address. Sign in using your google account. You can find there menu to upload images. Upload all of your template's images to your account.

Too access your google pages again, simply type "pages.google.com" at your address bar.

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Adding Search Function to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:18:00 +0700

One important thing but not yet provided by blogger to page elements/widgets list is search function. This widget is available on wordpress but not on blogger.

If you use a custom template, this is not a problem since many custom templates has already provided search function button. Like the one this blog is using (see top-right corner). But if you are using default template from blogger, then this is a problem since search function is not available.

Off course you can find this type of widget over the net but if you don't have time, why not make one yourself? If you familiar with coding, you can insert code to HTML layout. I'm not familiar with coding so I'll provide simple code to add to your widget without even touching your HTML layout.

Simply put this code to your 'text' or 'HTML/JavaScript' page element:

This search function will search all posts within 'word' you enter. Try it here:

Type and Hit Enter

Keep happy blogging and have a nice day.

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Adding Meta Data to Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Sat, 7 Jun 2008 18:40:00 +0700

As far as I know, Meta Data did help my blog to get more liked by search engine. Meta Data is like a short narration of a blog. It also contain keywords which a blog uses to declare itself.

To put Meta Data into your blog, go to your Blogger account, go to Layout and then click Edit HTML.

Then look for the code below.

YOUR META DATA HERE (directly under head).

Now you know where to put Meta Data, copy the following 3 codes into your blog.

This code to invite search engines' robots to visit your blog:

This code is a description of your blog:

This code is adding keywords to your blog:

To see the actual implementation of Meta Data, view page source of this blog or any blog you want to know its Meta Data. Just use Ctrl+U if you are using Firefox.

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How to Make Links on Same Page

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Fri, 6 Jun 2008 13:16:00 +0700

I'm sure you happened to meet links on same page. Most common text for this is "Back to Top". When you click it, your screen will display top part of page you are viewing. These kind of links also often used on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. There's menu on top and whole descriptions below it. Another function is when you have footnotes, you can easily make links to your footnotes.

To do this, follow the steps:

1. Make an ANCHORNAME like this:

Put that code on top/same line of text you want to point.

For this example, I will point to words "To do this, follow the steps:"

So I will put ANCHORNAME on top of those words.

2. Publish your post. This step to get the permalink/URL page of your post. View your post and copy its address. You're going to use it later.

3. Edit again your post.

4. Make a link name point at your anchor name. Here the example:

Link to your ANCHORNAME is URL + #anchor name.

Click link below to see how it works.

Back to Top

Little different code works on wordpress but not on blogger is like this:

See the difference, also URL + #anchor name but written with "/" and no ".something".

Don't try this at your home.

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How to Make Text Area

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:25:00 +0700

Some times, you need to embed html codes to your posts. Html codes always begin with "<>" signs. On this post, I used "()" to make examples of html codes so blogger wouldn't read them as html. There's another way to do it; to show the exact codes without read as html by blogger, by using text area.

This is the example of text area:

You see above, all html codes written as they should be without ruining others.

This is what you write to make text area:

Text area often used to show your URL to readers like I used on side bar of this blog. Yes, it often used to exchange links between blog masters.

You can also use text area on any comment of a blog as long as the blog master activate html for comments. Try it on comment here.

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Styling Your Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Mon, 19 May 2008 18:41:00 +0700

Most of things to do to post your content I've already described here. Now may be you want to make it more beautiful or just for functional reasons, I will tell some style in writing posts.

You already knew bold and italic, if not, use this step:

To make bold, use ctrl+b or html code (strong). After that use ctrl+b again or (/strong) to close/back to normal.
To make italic, use ctrl+i or html code (em). Close with ctrl+i again or (/em).

Note: For actual writing, change all signs ( ) with < >. I don't use < > so you can see codes used.

One more style used often is line through. Line through used if you want to update something on your posts so your readers will know the original words of it. See this example:

...sadly, the image is not available...

And then after updated, it's going to be like this:

...sadly, the image is not available...

Update: The image is available and you can preview it.

To make line through, use html code (span style="text-decoration: line-through;") your words here (/span).

On above example I also used font color to make it more catchy, described here.

One more thing to use is block quote. It's used to quote sentences from somebody else's book/blog. This is the example:

Jim wrote:

On Friday April 18, crude oil price hit record $ 117 a barrel. This up of price is caused of an attack on oil pipeline by rebels in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer. Supply fears were stoked after Nigerian militants claimed Friday to have sabotaged a major oil pipeline belonging to Anglo-Dutch group Royal Dutch Shell, promising many more similar attacks.

To make block quote, use this html code (blockquote) your words here (/blockquote).

Usually, block quote will give big quote (") sign before your words but not always, depends on the blog template you are using. Quote sign is not from font but from image which is provided by your template, or not.

Remember, the main reason of these styles are for functional reasons so don't use them too often unless it's necessary and related to what you are writing.

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How to Manipulate Post Date on Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:03:00 +0700

Sometimes you need to change post date or time stamp of your posts. May be you just want to insert a post in-between posts or you steal somebody else's content so you don't want to be pointed as copy cat; make it as if your post published earlier.

If case you want to manipulate post date or time stamp of your posts, here is an easy guide.

Go to 'Edit Post' menu as described here. Pick a post you want to edit. On the bottom of write area, there is a menu 'Post Options'. Click it and look for your right. There is a writing 'Post date and time' with two field oxes below it. This is it. Those 2 field boxes can be changed with date and time you like.

Change it according to the format shown. With this way, you can arrange all your posts according to your times.

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Editing Your Posts

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:49:00 +0700

This is the continuity of Posting Your Contents. The next menu on posting is 'Edit Posts'. Click it and you will see your posts on it.

As you can see, you can search your post, how many posts you want to show on it and view all available posts. Mouse over post you want to edit and then click 'Edit'. You will be taken to area just like 'Create' one.

Here you can change part or whole post and do it all over again just like creating new one. Here you can change labels and post date too. If you want to insert a post between two post, you can change the post date. You can delete comment from specific post here

You can also delete posts you might regret.

I think that's it. It's an easy topic.

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Posting You Contents

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:25:00 +0700

Go to your account and then choose 'Posting'. There are 3 options on it; Create, Edit Post and Moderate Comments. Related to the topic, I will describe the first two since 'Moderate Comments' will take you to 'Settings' which I have described here.

Click 'Create'. This is area where you can post article to your blog.
- Write your title.
- Write you labels. You can read what labels are here.
- Write your post.

There are two types of writing mode; Compose and Edit HTML. Compose is normal mode like you write on Microsoft Words. Edit HTML is adding HTML code to your post. If you don't know HTML, this is a good place to learn HTML for beginner.

Firs choose 'Compose' and write your post.

From the picture above, let's go left-to-right. Most of them like Microsoft Words but here we go:
- Font choose your desirable font. Better leave it default so it will match your other posts except if you have words you want to highlight then you can use different fonts.
- Font Size, clear enough, same as description on Font.
- Bold Font, this is to bold your words. Use ctrl+b as shortcut key.
- Italic, to make you font italic. Use ctrl+i as shorcut key.
- Font Color, click it and choose desirable color for your text.
- Link, this is to input URL link/link from web site.
- The next four icon is your text alignment.
- The next two icon is to make per-point line.
- Spelling Check, this is to check your language spelling. It also gives you recommended words for wrong spelled words. Same like Microsoft Words.
- Insert Image, this button is to insert image to your posts. Click it, choose image alignment and how big your image you want to show then click 'Browse'. After that click 'Upload'. If you're there for the first time, you have to fill check box for TOS with Blogger that you don't infringe copyright for image uploaded.
- Add Video, this is similar with 'Insert Image'. Just browse and upload. Since it will slower loading time for my blog, I rarely use this button.
- Remove Format, use it to remove any format you've made to your post. Select words or images first then click it.

Now you're familiar with 'Compose'. It's time to click 'Edit HTML'. If you don't know anything about HTML, you can see HTML codes for any change you made before. Voila, you've learned some basic HTML codes.

On the bottom of write area, there 'Post Option'. Click it and choose personalized comment option for the post. For sensitive post, you can choose 'Don't Allow' but it's no use. Readers can comment on your other posts about any post you made so leave it.

The other option is 'Post Date and Time'. Read about it here.

After all set, click 'Public Post'. Don't save your post as draft. It's a bad habit. If you're not finish yet, just add "to be continued" on your post. You can always edit publish post on 'Edit' menu.

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Layout for Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Sat, 10 May 2008 07:38:00 +0700

Go to your blog account and then click 'Layout'. Now you are on 'Page Elements' menu. As you noticed there are 5 main things on your blog layout: navbar, header, blog posts, side page elements and footer page elements.

Navbar:
This is a navigation bar on the very top of your blog generated automatically. You can make it disappeared but it will break your Terms of Services (TOS) with Google so let it be there. Click 'Edit' and then choose desired color of your choice then click 'Save'.

Header:
Click 'Edit'. You see 'Title' and 'Description'. Fill them like you fill on 'Setting' - 'Basic' menu or if you concern about design and don't want any text ruining you header just left it empty. You can also add image for your header. Create a .GIF file first then browse it. Then save it.

Blog Posts:
Most of them have been set up by you on 'Settings'. You can ignore it for now.

Side Page Elements:
Side page also called side bar or widget bar. This is also a main thing on a blog. This area is for navigation of the blog. Click 'Edit' and see some elements you can add. Add 2 main elements first; 'Blog Archive' and 'Labels'. Blog Archive let your readers view your posts based on months while Labels let your readers view your posts based on categories. When you write a new post, you can add label, write in on right-bottom field. This label will automatically associated with 'Labels' on side bar elements. One post can be on 2 or more labels depend on what you set on that post.

Two main elements you will deal a lot are 'Text' and 'HTML/JavaScript'. I prefer Text because you can also put HTML/Java Script from third parties on Text.

You can also add 'Link List'; set of links you like to visit or just your friends' links. I also prefer Text to create list because Link List can't set a link to be opened on a new window/tab. But Link List can order your lists alpabethically while on Text you have to do it manually.

Those above are important page elements. The rest are just additional. You can try each of them to see if it fits you blog. Don't worry, you can remove it easily.

Footer Page Elements:
This is exactly same as 'Side Page Elements' only on the bottom of your blog.

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Setting up Your Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:43:00 +0700

I will tell you step by step to set up your blog. Go to your account and then choose menu 'Settings'.

Click 'Basic'.
Title: Fill with your name or your theme/niche, or anything that will make people know that your blog owned by you.
Description: Fill with description about your blog. This description must have connections with things you will write on your blog.
Add your blog to our listings? Choose 'Yes'.
Let search engines find your blog? Choose 'Yes'.
Show Quick Editing on your Blog? Choose 'Yes'.
Show Email Post links? Choose 'Yes' so your readers can easily email you posts to their friends.
Adult Content? Chose 'No'.

Ignore Global Settings and then click 'Save Settings'.

Ignore 'Publishing'.

Click 'Formatting'.
Show: Chose 5 until 7 posts per page. Too many posts will make your blog has longer time to load.
Date Header Format: Choose short like May 10, 2008.
Archive Index Date Format: Choose short like May 2008.
Timestamp Format: Choose short like 6:55 AM.
Time Zone: Choose +x or -x depend on your location.
Language: Choose you desirable language.
Convert line breaks: Choose 'Yes'.
Show Title field: Choose 'Yes'.
Show Link fields: Choose 'Yes'.
Enable float alignment: Choose 'Yes'.
Post Template: Ignore.

Make sure everything done and click 'Save Settings'.

Click 'Comments'.
Comments: Choose 'Show'.
Who Can Comment? Choose 'Anyone'.
Comments Default for Posts: Choose 'New Posts Have Comments'.
Backlinks: Choose 'Show'.
Backlinks Default for Posts: Choose 'New Posts Have Backlinks'.
Comments Timestamp Format: Choose short like May 10, 2008.
Show comments in a popup window? Choose 'Yes'.
Enable comment moderation? Choose 'No'. Let your readers write their minds.
Show word verification for comments? Choose 'No'. Don't bothersome your readers.
Show profile images on comments? Choose 'Yes'.
Comment Notification Email: Left it blank.

Make sure everything done and click 'Save Settings'.

Click 'Archiving'.
Archive Frequency: Choose 'Monthly'
Enable Post Pages? Choose 'Yes'.

After that click 'Save Settings'.

Ignore 'Site Feed', 'Email', 'OpenID' and 'Permissions'.

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Updating Your Profile on Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Sat, 10 May 2008 06:32:00 +0700

You profile will be always shown every time you interact with another blogger users. Go to your dashboard on blogger. If you don't know where you are, click 'Dashboard' on top-right of your screen. After that click 'Edit Profile' on right side.

Here you can add some information about yourself; your background, your favorites and so on. You can choose you want to share your profile or not. On 'Photograph' you can add your avatar image. Best size is about 2x2 cm or 3x3 cm square.

Better to share your profile because one of things about blog is socialization. Let other bloggers can view your profile so they can contact your email, give you feed back about your blog's content or just want to socialize with you.

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Creating a Blog on Blogger

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Sat, 10 May 2008 04:23:00 +0700

I love blogger/blogspot. Blogger owned by Google group. I think this is the best free blog around; powerful, coding-friendly, template-friendly and more.

In order to create a blog on blogger, you have to have a gmail account. Type mail.google.com and then click button 'Sign Up'. Follow the instruction until you can see you inbox. After that head on to www.blogger.com and login using you gmail account. Follow the step, choose desired name and template.

Choose a template which doesn't tire you eyes, eye-friendly. If you want to change template, you can go to menu 'Layout'-'Pick a new template'. Use preview to see what your blog will look like. Remember, calm tone always work. Your readers need to be comfortable to read your blog. If they're not, they leave.

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Ping After You Post

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Tue, 6 May 2008 03:34:00 +0700

Have you seen celebrities on TV speaking to journalists about what they've done, they're doing and they're gonna do? Or a politician make a press conference stating bombastic words? I bet you have. On internet you can do it too. You are a celebrity on your own.

"How am I gonna do that?" Simple, ping. Ping can be described as narration above. You make a press conference/news about you, in this case, about what you just wrote. By using free ping websites you can send your writing to many news directories. "Will people read it?" That's none your business. Let people decide it. If you wrote superb post, who will miss it anyway?

Head to pingomatic or pingoat, they're top 2 ping sites. Put your blog address, select news directory and send it. Remember, be careful if you want to send it to specialized directory. If it's not suitable, readers will flag your blog and off course, it means negative. Safest way is just send it to general directories. Hopefully, when someone see your post, she/he will be interested and heads to your blog. It means positive, traffics for your blog. Again, if your blog has superb contents, she/he will be back later to check for something new.

Since you need to ping after each time you post, it'll be better if you put ping sites link on your blog widget. Pingoat has beautiful buttons while pingomatic don't so create your own or just use text.

Make a good post and ping except if you just want to spam, like celebs and politicians do, ping every time you make new post. Check your hit counter and sitemeter to know the result.

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Tracking your Visitors

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 19:31:00 +0700

After counting your blog visitors, now it's the time for you to track them. Many free web sites will help you to do that. One of top sites that provide good and reliable information on visitors tracking is sitemeter.

Sitemeter will give you a code you need to paste it on your text/html widget. Once it's done, a small icon will appear on your blog. You can check it anytime by clicking it and directly go to your account on simeter site. I also use that on this blog.

You can also customize you sitemeter; make it private for your eyes only, ignore you own visit and set the statistic shown from higher number. Set any number you like.

Unfortunately for wordpress users, this tracker will not work in full capability because wordpress can't execute java script. For blogger/blogspot and other java script enabled blogs, this tool will give big help. You can track from which country you visitors are, which language, and you can even view IPs and referer sites.

You can also check who's on, viewing your blog. Sitemeter provide click prediction for your blog in the next, hour, day, week and month based on previous visits. It's only prediction though, don't get a big head yet since it's too kind in predicting the traffic.

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Counting your Visitors

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 10:00:00 +0700

If you want to know how many time your blog was visited/clicked, you can add a simple widget on your blog page. There are 2 types of click counter; unique visitors counter and page views counter.

Unique visitor is a unique IP address that visit your blog from. Unique visitor only counted once per day so. While page view is anytime your blog and any page of your blog visited, it's counted. Page view counter doesn't care about the visitor. 1 visitor can make thousands page views.

I recommend you 2 sites that give free counter, no email and no registration. You can choose whether you want to count unique counter or you want to count page view or both.
1. e-zeeinternet
2. free easy counters

After you get the code from the site, just copy it to your text/html widget.

If you have a high pride, you can also set from which number that counter start. You can start the counter from 100 or any number so when someone visits your blog, at least it's not so obvious that your blog has a few visitors.

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Registering your Blog(s) to Tens of Search Engine

noreply@blogger.com (Tonci) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:07:00 +0700

Although in setting of your blog, there is an option for search engine visibility, your blog will not be visible automatically. In order to get your blog indexed by search engine, you have to register it manually. First, register it to top three search engines; Google, Yahoo and MSN.

To register to Google click here.
To register to Yahoo click here (must have a Yahoo mail).
To register to MSN click here.

And then, you can also submit you blog URL to more than 50 search engines, bigs and smalls, for free.

I know 2 free URL submissions which provide fast respond and result. Both are quite reliable.
1. freewebsubmission
2. submitexpress

Register your blog to both of them and see the results.

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