Testing Blogger

FAQ: Help Articles for New User Interface

2012-01-11T19:25:00.000-08:00

This URL gets you to the help pages that explain some of the new features of the User Interface on Blogger.

http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1623800

A lot of users dislike the new UI, and there are things that still need to be fixed on it. I highly recommend users take advantage of the feedback link and give Blogger their feedback so we can have the best product out there.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star/Blogger TC
Testing Blogger
FAQs For GooglePlus

FAQ: Links For Blogger Forums In Other Languages

2012-01-01T13:04:00.000-08:00

Moved Two Blogs To WordPress

2011-12-16T23:13:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately, the new Blogger User Interface, that will soon become default and not optional, has a dating issue that I can't work with on blogs that are backdated.

As an author a user will not be able to select a year, but instead have to click back by month which is completely crazy and unusable. This will limit my dating abilities for my journal posts when I need to date back more than a couple of months, so I have exported two of my blogs (the two that are journals, dated many years in the past) to WordPress where dating a blog is not nearly as difficult as it is on Blogger (or will be).

I am sad to have to make this move as well as the fact that any future blogs of this nature will also not be on Blogger but I wasn't given a choice in this matter. I really liked having all my blogs under one account on Blogger but such is life.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star/Blogger TC
Testing Blogger
FAQs For GooglePlus

Submit Your Content

2011-11-19T00:57:00.000-08:00

Google just updated their content site and I wanted to note the url for future use.

http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/

Mishka
Blogger Help Group Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

My FAQs for Blogger

2011-11-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

FAQ: Google Accounts Help Page and Recovery Form

2011-11-18T14:06:00.000-08:00

Directions and link that gets you to the Google Accounts Help page with a link to the recovery form. Note that you have to follow the steps here...if you try to go straight to the url at the bottom, it will just make you start at the beginning so you might as well follow the directions.

Start here as directed:
https://www.google.com/accounts/recovery

Enter the email associated with the account in the password recovery form.

That brings you to a CAPTCHA page. Enter the CAPTCHA.

That brings you to the Password help page.

On that page are two "Choose how to get back into your account" options with radio buttons:

• Answer my security question

• Get a password reset link at my recovery email

At the bottom of that page in tiny type, it says:

Can't access any of these recovery options? Verify your identity by answering multiple questions about your account.

"Verify your identity" leads to the account recovery questionnaire:

https://www.google.com/accounts/recovery/knowledgetest

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

Testing Flickr Image Link

2011-10-11T18:00:00.000-07:00

Mishka
Official Blog*Star/Blogger TC
Testing Blogger
FAQs For GooglePlus

FAQ: Picasa WebAlbum Limitations

2011-07-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

With the invent of Google+, it seems that the Google team figured out that image upload space was quickly going to become an issue. This link gives specific information on what size images don't count against your account limit.

http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=1224181

Mishka
Official Blog*Star/Blogger TC
Testing Blogger
FAQs For GooglePlus

FAQ: How To Remove +1 From Share Icons

2011-06-11T15:54:00.000-07:00

NOTE: These instructions are for those that are using the newest template designer templates from Blogger. I can't guarantee that this will work with third party templates and/or other versions of the Blogger template (layouts or classic).

At first I was going to leave the +1 icon in, but decided after learning more about it, that it wasn't something I wanted on my blog, even though I wanted the other "share" icons to remain. So yesterday, I started looking at the code and figured out how to get rid of just that icon and leave the rest functioning.

First off, you need to go to the edit html page of your blog Design area. This will bring up the template code window for your blog. Make sure you make a back up of your template at this time by using the link provided on the page. This is just so you can revert back in case you delete more than you should while following these steps.

Next, you need to click the check box near the top of the html window that says "expand widgets". You need to do this in order to see the code that has to be removed.

Now you need to scroll down until you see the area of the blog code that is inside this screen shot of my blog's template(click on image for larger view), and cut out the area highlighted in blue. Only that area, and nothing else. Make sure you save the template after you have cut the code out.

Now when you view the blog, the rest of the share buttons still show (assuming you have them turned on in the blog post widget), but the +1 icon will be gone.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: BX Error Reporting Form Link

2011-05-24T17:35:00.000-07:00

This is the link for reporting BX errors to Google.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?key=pDGYK68-cO4sA0J2wa9fYBQ

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: This Thread Is Closed

2011-04-18T22:53:00.000-07:00

This discussion is closed. It could be closed for a number of reasons:

1. The original poster has had their question answered.
2. The original problem is no longer an issue.
3. This discussion is out of date and therefore not relevant.
4. This discussion is an FAQ for reference only.

Regardless of the reason, the discussion is closed to new posts, so if you have a similar problem to the original poster, it is recommended that you start your own thread (and only one) so that one of the volunteers here will be able to help you.

Please follow the instructions on how to post a question in this help forum. You can find that FAQ at this location.

References:

How To Report A Problem

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: What Is My Blog's Feed URL?

2011-04-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

In order to subscribe to a blog's feed you need to know the blog's feed URL. A feed is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors syndicate a web feed, thereby allowing users to subscribe to it. It gives users a way to keep up with many sites on the web without having to visit each site individually to see if they have updated. Some users use their feed to check that their own blog is publishing correctly.

The feed urls for blogs on Blogger are:

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/full

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Users should substitute their blog's name in for the bolded area in the URLs above.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: I Can't Find My Blog On The Search Engines!!

2011-04-17T23:09:00.001-07:00

Contrary to popular belief, search engines do not index new content on the web instantaneously. It takes time and effort on the part of the webmaster of any site to get their site indexed and then decent page rank on the search engines.

There are several things you can do to help lessen the time it takes to get indexed and decent search results (in no particular order).

1. Make sure your blog is indexable by turning on the listing options in your blog settings.

2. Submit your blog url to the various search engines. For Google, go to this site to get started- http://www.google.com/intl/en/submit_content.html

3. Read this article from Google Webmaster Central that explains how they deal with content, indexing and search results. http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=39334&topic=8996

4. Add metatags with keywords, and descriptions to your blog template- http://mishkatestrun.blogspot.com/2007/04/meta-tag-example.html

5. Link to other blogs of similar content or interest.

6. Allow comments and backlinks on your blog and make comments on other blogs leaving your link.

7. Create and maintain interesting and accurate content on your blog to keep your readers entertained and returning.

8. DO NOT PARTAKE IN SPAMMY OR MALICIOUS ACTIVITY that would get your blog deleted and your account banned.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: How Do I Report a Problem on BHF

2011-04-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

How to report a problem - Help us help you!
To ensure everyone finds the information they need as quickly as possible, here are a few guidelines to follow when you'd like to post a question or report a problem to the group:

1. ALWAYS GIVE YOUR BLOG URL!!!!!! (e.g. http://XXXX.blogspot.com)

2. It's always helpful to post as much information as you can - a specific error message (e.g. bX-XXXXX), the steps you took before you encountered the problem, which web browser you're using, etc.

3. If you encounter an error code (e.g. bX-XXXXX) and would like to report the problem, please include a description of what you were doing when you encountered the error, any additional information that's given with the error message, and the URL of the blog that is affected. Note that the same error codes are caused by a single issue/bug and resolved by the same fix. So, if a fix works for one user who's experiencing issue bX-ABCDEF, it should work for any other user experiencing bX-ABCDEF.

3. Look around first. Browse previous threads in the Help Group, check out the FAQs, peruse through Blogger Help and do your research.

4. Chances are, someone else is experiencing the problem you are. So, make your post to the thread that is already discussing what you'd like to discuss. That helps us keep track of the various issues and know the scale of each problem.

5. Don't post your problem to every thread you find - it just clutters the group and makes things harder to sift through, which means it might take longer for you to get an answer.

Just a few suggestions but, if you follow them, it'd make a world of difference!

P.S. You're perhaps more likely to receive attention from a Blogger employee, Blog*Stars and other Blogger users if you sincerely note the secret phrase: "I have read the Group FAQs, "How to Report a Problem" page and checked out docs in the Help Center."

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: How Do I Promote My Blog?

2011-04-17T23:04:00.000-07:00

You can actually find an answer to this question in several different
areas of Blogger. It just takes a few minutes to find.

Help center on Blogger.com if you do a search for the word promote in
the search engine provided.
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42377&topic=12454

Many of the Top Contributors have written blog articles to help other bloggers regarding promotion and traffic. Here is just one example...
http://mishkatestrun.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-solution-for-getting-traffic.html

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: How Do I Find Other Blogs on Blogger?

2011-04-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

Google's Blog search engine is a great tool. It not only has blogs from Blogger but blogs from all over the web. You can use it just like you would any other search engine but the results will be limited to blogs. http://blogsearch.google.com/

You can also use the "interests" links inside an individual blogger's profile to find other users on Blogger that have the same word in their profile "interests"

Another way is just connecting to other bloggers through the blogrolls and links of bloggers you already enjoy reading. Usually if you like their content and they like someone else's, you might like that someone else's too.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: How Do I Transfer My Blog From One Account To Another?

2011-04-17T23:00:00.001-07:00

You use this article on the Blogger Help Center.

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41448

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: My Blog Looks Different From The Preview

2011-04-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

All websites render a bit different. This is because each browser is different, each user has different settings on their systems they are viewing sites with, and their systems themselves are different. All of these factors and combinations of them can cause an infinite number of differences on a website between what one user and another user might see.

This applies to the preview screen as well. There is no way for Blogger to show a preview to each user that would be exactly how the blog post or site will look to everyone. It is just not possible.

This website, however, will give you a chance to check out your blog in several different resolutions and browsers so if you are "tweaking" your site, you can see what works and what doesn't. Those of us that like to design websites or even just troubleshoot them for other users, use this site quite a bit.

Hope you find it useful too. http://browsershots.org/

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: How Do I Change The Email Account Associated With My Blogger Account?

2011-04-17T22:53:00.000-07:00

You have to use the directions in the Blogger Help Center on transferring a blog between accounts.

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41448

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: My Comment Link Is Not Working

2011-04-17T22:49:00.000-07:00

Comments can have several different issues come up. This thread addresses those times when a user has enabled comments in the blog settings but can't get the link to work properly. This thread does not address problems related to the different styles of comments and issue that they might cause.

Check to make sure the comments are turned on in all three places:
1. On the post options below the post editing window in the post editor
2. On the layout page, if you click on the edit link on the post box (the big one in the middle)
3. On the comments page in your blog settings.

If you have turned all on and cleared your cache and cookies and reloaded the page and they still don't show up, then you might have corrupt blog post widget and Bonnie (another Top Contributor) has a fix for that on her blog that is very easy to follow.

http://howcanidothat.blogspot.com/2007/08/resetting-blog-widget.html

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: What Is My Comment Feed URL?

2011-04-17T22:47:00.000-07:00

There are several reasons why a user might want to know the feed url for their comments. Some users want to be able to see their comments without having to visit their blog or go to each post or have their comments all emailed to them. Some users might want to add a gadget to their blog that uses the feed to populate the gadget.

The feed urls for your blog that relate to the comments are:

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/full

http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss

You just need to substitute in your blog's name in the bolded area of the above urls. You can then use that url to subscribe using a feed reader or to use in a gadget on your blog to show recent comments on the sidebar.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: I Have a Third Party Template That Isn't Working Right, What Do I Do?

2011-04-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

Blogger doesn't provide any kind of technical support for third party templates. If you decide to use one, you are at the mercy of the developer and volunteers here that might be willing to lend a hand. You should be very careful when adding third party templates and gadgets to your blog as some have been known to contain malware that has gotten more than a few blogs deleted.

Make sure the developer you are using is someone that you trust or that they have their templates certified. Third party templates and gadgets you find on the web (even those listed on Google Gadgets) are not guaranteed by Blogger to be functional or reliable.

If you do wish to get help from a volunteer here, you will need to be specific in what problem your template or gadget is having and what things you have already tried as well as listing any other pertinent information you would to report any other kind of problem with your blog (url, browser, what steps you have already taken...etc).

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

FAQ: Link List Gadget for Labels as Tabbed Menu

2011-04-14T13:07:00.000-07:00

1. Make sure you use labels on your posts that you want people to be able to search for same subjects such as videos, reviews, mixtapes.

2. Add the label gadet to your sidebar so you have access to the links for each of the labels that you have used.

3. Click on one of the labels in the label gadget that you want to make a page of (note you don't have to make a page for every label you have, only the ones you want to have tabbed at the top). When you click on the label, a new page on your blog will open that is basically the search results of your blog for that label. You want to copy down the url that is in the address bar.

4. Go to the design/layout tab of your blog. Click on add a gadget. From the list available, click on link list gadget. This should bring up an window with fields in it.

5. Put the label url that you just copied into the new site url field, and then whatever word you want to show on the tab in the new site title field. Leave the main title of the gadget blank, don't tell it to sort, and don't put in a number of links to show...

6. Repeat the steps (3-6) for each of the labels you want in the tabbed menu at the top. You can change the order of the pages by clicking the up and down arrows next to the name of the link once you have added it to the list.

7. Save the gadget once you have completed filling in the labels you want tabbed on the top. Now the link list will be sitting at the top of whatever column you added the gadget from. You can grab onto it and drag it to be right above you blog post widget but below your header. It will spread out to be the size of your header. I have mine below my ads too because I want it to be right above my posts.

8. Make sure you save the layout changes.

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

Testing The Image Caption Option

2011-04-13T16:41:00.000-07:00

Full Moon When the Moon Was Closest

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger

Strike Icon

2010-07-31T19:40:00.003-07:00

Seems that the ~~strike~~ icon is on the new post editor on both tabs, but alas the edit html tab is STILL missing the image icon...

Mishka
Official Blog*Star
Testing Blogger