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Adjust margins in Blogger templates
2007-08-01 12:50:00
In Blogg er templates, margins define the space between elements of the blog, such as the space between the main posts section and the sidebar. If you have added a second sidebar, or simply wish to alter the layout of your blog, you may wish to change some of the margin specifications for elements of your template. In this post, I'll explain how this can be achieved, with examples to help you understand what can be done. The margins of each blog element (ie: header, sidebar, main-section) are specified in the "Style" section of your Blogger template: In the "new" Blogger layouts templates, the style is specified between the <b:skin> and </b:skin> tags In "Classic" Blogger templates, the styles are specified between the <style> and </style> tagsFor both types of Blogger templates, margins can be defined in the same ways.The best way for me to explain how margins work is by using an example; here is the style element for my right sidebar as it appears in my...
More About: Templates , Adjust , Temp

Free animated email icons
2007-07-31 15:56:00
I've collected a selection of animated email icons you may like to use in your blog. These images are all free to use, all I ask is that you don't link directly to the images on my server! Instead, you should download the images to your computer and upload them to your own image host instead. To download an image, right click and choose "Save image as..." Please note that you will need to host these images on your own server. If you try to upload them to Blogger, the images will not be animated! Here is an example of the HTML code you could use to link to the image on your own server: <img src="http://yourimagehost.com/images/emai l1.gif" border="0">Hope you enjoy these images!Technorati Tags: free | animated | gif | email | icon | icons
More About: Email , Icons , Free , Animated , Cons

Protect your email address from spam bots!
2007-07-31 13:02:00
Bloggers often wish to offer their email address to provide a way for readers to communicate with them directly. however, in posting your email address on your blog, you will run the risk of your address being harvested by spam-bots, which scan the web in a similar fashion to search-engines, though specifically targeting email addresses to add to their databases.Here are some of the best methods you can use to protect your email address from spam: My favorite method, and the one I use currently, is to scramble your email address using javascript, which ensures your address is "broken" when read in the source code, thus protecting it from spam-bot discovery. I used the "email scrambler" tool from BlogFlux.com which automatically generates the required javascript using your email address, and also provides a <noscript> section for browsers which cannot read javascript. To use this tool, simply visit the BlogFlux email scramble page, and enter your email address in the box...
More About: Spam , Email , Bots , Address , Prot

A search widget for your blog
2007-07-30 11:23:00
Over at Beautiful Beta, I found a wonderfully simple search widget which operates in a similar way to the "Search this blog" feature found in the navbar. You can easily implement this widget into your blog by using the widget installer below: Install Blog search widget This form will take you to Blogger where you can choose to install the search widget into your sidebar (or other element of your template). However, if you prefer to install the search widget manually, you should take the following steps: Go to Template>Layout in your Blogger Dashboard. Create a new HTML/Javascript element in your sidebar. Insert the following code into the widget: <p align="center"><form action="http://www.bloggerbuster.com/sear ch" method="get"> <input name="q" size="25" type="text"/> <input value="Search" type="submit"/> </form></p> Give your widget a title if you like (eg: "Search this Blog"), and click save. You should now have a fully functional sear...
More About: Widget

Use CSS styling to alter images in your blog
2007-07-29 17:59:00
You can easily create filters for your text and images to alter them automatically using CSS styling, rather than alter each element individually. I've done this on a couple of the Blog ger templates I've created: the "Sweet Dreams" template uses a greyscale image filter, while the "Sunset" theme uses transparency to create a halo effect around images. In this tutorial, I'll show you some of the most commonly used CSS styling filters which you may want to use to change the appearance of the images in your blog. Here are some examples of filters and how they may be implemented: Alpha Channel Allows you to set the opacity of the element For text:<span>Alpha Channel</span> For images:Filter: Alpha(Opacity=100, FinishOpacity=0, Motion Blur Blurs the element in a specified direction to the desired strength For text: <span>Motion Blur</span> For images: filter:blur(add=1, direction=225, strength=10) Chroma Removes the specified hexadecima...
More About: Images , Alter , Ages

Win a web design scholarship!
2007-07-28 19:01:00
I've been contacted by CollegeScholar ship s.org to help promote their excellent web-design scholarship contest, which is open to all US citizens attending full-time, post-secondary education. The winner of this contest will win a scholarship to the value of $5,000! Although BloggerBuster typically features help for Blogger, I thought it would be good to post about this competition for those familiar with WordPress templates to have their chance at winning this great prize!Here's some more info from CollegeScolarships:We are launching a cool new website, New Scholarships.org, and are in need of a fantastic design to replace the current default WordPress look. Since we are already experienced in handing out scholarship awards, this is a fun way for us to receive a great new website design...and a talented student to receive $5000! (collegescholarships.org) The design needs to be a WordPress template, which should be uploaded to your webspace before submitting the URL and your de...
More About: Web Design , Design , Ship

I'm back!
2007-07-28 18:51:00
Hello everyone! I'm back from my holiday now, and unfortunately it seems that some of my pre-written posts haven't been posted (an error from my email service, I'm sure), so I do apologise for the lack of new material this week. I do have quite a mountain of work and emails to wade through, but I will get back to everyone who's been in touch as soon as I can. Thanks to all those who have left comments, I do appreciate your input and suggestions. Please check back soon for new posts (more Blogger templates are in the pipeline too..)Thanks, Amanda
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How to hide the Blogger Nav-Bar
2007-07-28 18:45:00
At the top of most Blogg er blogs you'll see a navigation bar, which enables you to flick from one blog to the next (plus additional options when you are signed in). Many bloggers have used CSS techniques to hide the nav-bar. At first, I thought it may be against Blogger's terms and conditions to do this, but after reading this post by Kawaljit, I now think it may be okay: The Blogger's TOS page makes no reference to navbar while Google representatives in the Blogger support group (nickname: Blogger Employee) have always ignored discussion threads seeking an official stand on hiding navbar.  There's some hope now. Google recently organized a road show in select Indian cities to promote their Blogger platform. Ankit attended the event and requested clarity on the navbar policy from the Googlers present at the roadshow. They immediately called up their team based in Google's Bangalore office and confirmed to Ankit that it's legal to hide the navbar. If ...
More About: Hide

Special effects for "Peekaboo" posts
2007-07-26 17:45:00
You've probably noticed the "expandable posts" feature in my blog. Well, the creator of this great hack has now come up with an even better alternative: Peek aboo posts" with a fade-in fade-out effect!   This really does look great on a blog: the post expands and retracts within the same window by fading in and out slowly. For full details and to get the script to install in your blog template, pop on over to Hackosphere's blog.
More About: Special , Posts , Effects , Special Effects

"Sweet Dreams" now available as a three column template
2007-07-24 17:25:00
I've now modified the "Sweet Dreams " template to include a second sidebar to the left of the main column. You can preview this template in action here.   The features are pretty much the same as the original "Sweet Dreams" template, with the added functionality of a third column. I'm happy to see that even videos are filtered in black and white in the sidebar (though not when playing in the main column!), and that overall the design looks rather good.   You can download the "Sweet Dreams" three column template below:   Download "Sweet Dreams" three column template (zip file)   Included in this download are the XML template file, a help file, all images used and widget templates for you to add your own music and search widgets. You are free to modify this template if you wish, but please leave the author credits present in the template. Please do not redistribute this template without a link to the author!   For more three column Blogger templates, take a l...
More About: Column , Template , Available

Help! My new blog template/add-on/hack stopped working!
2007-07-22 17:35:00
If you find that your third party template/images/script suddenly stops working on your blog, it may well be that the owner/author's hosting service has exceeded the allotted bandwidth, or perhaps that they have simply removed the file altogether!   Recently, Hack osphere suffered from bandwidth suspension after his host received far more traffic than was expected. Unfortunately for users of his scripts, this made their hacks and templates stop working!   In order to avoid this, it's always a good idea to download all images/CSS files/Scripts you use from third parties and upload them to your own hosting provider, then alter the link in your template to reflect the change.   While I try to ensure all template and image files used in my Blog ger templates are hosted on a server which can accept a great amount of traffic, I do still appreciate it when users upload template images to their own image hosts.   Free image hosting is provided by YourHostedImages.com P...
More About: Template , Working , Temp

"Sunset" three column template available for download
2007-07-20 15:55:00
Here's another Blogger Buster designed 3 column themed template for you to download: The "Sunset " template includes the following features: Three column layout with two sidebars on the right. Cross column section across the sidebars for AdSense, blog description, label cloud, etc. Label cloud configured with themed colours Image "blur" filter Unique layout style User variables for font, colours, etc. You can see the Sunset template in action here.The download for this template features the XML template itself, plus a help file and all images which you can then upload to your own image host.Download Sunset Template Here (zip format)You are free to modify the template to suit your needs, but please leave the author credits intact. Please do not distribute this template without a link to the author.You can find more three column Blogger templates here.Technorati Tags: three | column | blogger | template | templates | theme | blogger+buster
More About: Column , Available

How to schedule Blogger posts to a future date
2007-07-19 21:40:00
One of the few things I'd hope to see in the new Blogg er format was the ability to schedule posts to appear at a later date. Unfortunately, this hasn't (yet) been implemented in Blogger, so unlike Wordpress users, we can't schedule our posts. Or can we..?Well, actually, we can! There is a workaround which enables Bloggers to write posts in advance and schedule them to be sent by email at a specific date and time. Here's how it can be done: Firstly, you should set up your "Mail-To-Blogger" address in your Blogger dashboard if you haven't already done so. To do this, go to Settings>Email in your dashboard, and create a unique email address to send your email posts to. Ensure you keep this address as secret as you would a password, since anyone could use this to post to your blog if discovered! Ensure you have checked the "Publish" box and then save your settings.Next, you will need to create an email account which enables you to schedule emails to send at a future time. Ma...
More About: Future , Schedule , Posts

Add background music to your blog
2007-07-18 13:37:00
After uploading the "Sweet Dreams" template, I was asked how to embed background music in a blog. It's actually quite simple to do this, and there are various methods you can use. In this post, I'll concentrate on actually embedding the music (rather than adding widgets such as Last.fm playlists). You can see an example of embedded background music here and also further down this page...The easiest method of adding background sound is to include a line like this in your blog template, just after the opening <body> tag: <bgsound src="http://yoursite.com/yoursound.mp3" loop=infinite> where the URL is that of the background music you wish to use. This method works perfectly well, but visitors to your site will not be able to switch the music off if it becomes distracting.So instead, you may prefer to use this method instead, which is compatible with all browsers (press the play icon to start music): This is achieved by including the following code somewhere in your...
More About: Music , Blog , Background

Create classic Blogger templates with ease!
2007-07-17 16:54:00
For those of you still using classic Blogg er templates, either because you publish by FTP or simply prefer the classic format, I've come across a wonderful tool: Psycho's template generator. This template generator is a really simple and useful method of creating classic Blogger templates. You can completely customise colour schemes, choose from one, two or three columns, edit the header section and above all, ensure your new template is WC3 valid. Meta tags generated will also help your blog rank higher in search engines.You will be able to see changes to your scheme as you change them, and are presented with the full HTML code to copy and paste into your template. I only wish I could find something so useful to generate templates for us "Blogger Layouts" lovers!To generate your own Classic Blogger templates with PsycHo's free online tool, follow the link below:PsycHo: Free Template GeneratorTechnorati Tags: classic+templates | blogger | ftp+blog | template+generator | 3+col...
More About: Templates , Ease

Create a three column Blogger template
2007-07-16 23:01:00
In this tutorial, I'll explain how to create a three column template in Blogg er layouts, using the Minima template as a starting point. The Minima template is the easiest Blogger template to customise, as this is the simplest two column template, and has few parameters regarding margins, padding and the like. Once you have developed the third column, it will then be easier to alter font-size, colours and such so leave this until later on. We're going to concentrate on the actual layout first.First of all, set your template to Minima (not the stretch template, but any colour will do!), then follow these instructions: Go to Template >Edit HTML, leaving the "Expand widget templates" box unchecked. Now, find this section in the HTML code: #sidebar-wrapper { width: 220px; float: right; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ } Copy this entire section, and...
More About: Column , Create

Do you "Ping"? If you don't, you probably should...
2007-06-23 23:58:00
In blog terms, a "ping" notifies servers that keep track of weblogs that you have recently updated your blog. There are many such services available, most notably Weblogs and Technorati. Your blogging platform may already ping one or two of these services automatically each time you post, but to ping a number of services each time would be time consuming and could slow down your publishing.Here are a few services which accept pings from weblogs:TechnoratiWeblogs.comFeedsterTopi cExchangeMyYahooBlogrolling.comAnd there are many more besides! Ping ing weblog servers is a good idea as it ensures fresh content from your blog is always available to them; this in turn can help generate more traffic to your blog. An easy way to ping several servers at once is to use a pinging service, such as Pingoat or Ping-o-Matic. You simply input the name, URL and RSS feed (optional) of your blog and these free services do all the hard work for you! You can even bookmark the page for an automatic ping ea...
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What is a blog carnival? How do I join in?
2007-06-23 13:33:00
A "blog carnival" is a collaboration of posts by different bloggers on a particular subject or theme. It's like a magazine in structure: usually presented as a post on the carnival host's blog with links to each submission and often editorial comments.Blog carnivals are usually posted regularly: weekly, monthly or even daily! They are a great way to find useful information on a particular subject of interest, and can also be a good way to encourage others to read your blog, by either submitting an article for inclusion, or hosting a carnival of your own.So how do I join in?You can either find a blog carnival you'd like to contribute to, or start your own. BlogCarnival .com is probably the best place to start: hundreds of carnivals are listed here, along with links to the hosts to whom you should submit your articles. Carnivals are arranged by subject, and you can even search for your particular area of interest. If you've discovered a blog carnival on someones blog, chances are y...
More About: Join , Blog Carnival

How StumbleUpon can benefit your blog
2007-06-23 00:38:00
When I first heard about StumbleUpon, I was somewhat reluctant to try it. Installing a toolbar to my Internet browser seemed too much of an inconvenience to me; there's already too many buttons clogging up my browser, thank you very much! But eventually I gave in. I thought I'd give it a try, at least for a few days, just to see what all the fuss is about.I'm so glad that I did!For the benefit of those who don't already know about this great tool, here's a little explanation:StumbleUpon uses ratings to form collaborative opinions on website quality. Whenyou stumble, you will only see pages which friends and like-minded stumblershave recommended. This helps you discover great content you probably wouldn'tfind using a search engine (StumbleUpon)Once you've signed up, you can submit keywords of your interests which guide your "stumbles" to sites that other members have tagged. By stumbling sites related to Blog ging, for example, I discovered sites like this and this (great blogs...
More About: Benefit , Stumbleupon , Bleu

How to get your blog indexed by Google
2007-06-22 22:40:00
Google crawls the web regularly, and indexes new sites as it finds them. Unfortunately, it can take weeks for Google to index a new blog, and may not index all of your pages at once which can make it difficult for you blog to be visible in search results.You can easily check if Google has already indexed your blog by submitting your blog URL to the site status wizard. If your blog is not yet indexed, you can hurry the process along by following these steps:Create a Google account (if you don't already have one!). There are many benefits to this as I will explain shortly.Log in to the Webmaster tools section with your Google account.In the "Add new site" section, enter the full URL of your blog (eg: http://www.yourblog.com). Google will usually index your blog on its next crawl. You may also want to verify that you are the owner of your blog; this allows you to access statistics and crawl errors. There are two ways you can verify your ownership: add a meta tag to your blog template,...
More About: Google , Blog , Index , Googl

The "My Blogging Story" Carnival
2007-06-22 22:19:00
How did you start blogging? What did you hope to achieve with your blog? Do you make money with your blog?These are all questions Chili asks in her invitation to join her blog carnival: Your Blogg ing Story : enquiring minds want to know.This is a really great carnival to be involved in, even for new bloggers. When you answer the questions, you begin to get a better understanding of why you blog, and how you might improve. All you need to do is write a post which answers the questions, and submit your link to Chili's Mr. Linky, which in turn will provide a link back to your own blog, and help you get more exposure. There are some really inspirational posts there already! I've just linked mine, which you can read here. Or simply hop on over to Chili's blog to take a look at what others have written.Technorati Tags: blog carnival blogging+story mr+linky blogging inspiration
More About: Carnival , Tory

Customised 3 column Blogger template download
2007-06-21 18:24:00
I've been asked a few times how I created my 3 column Blogger templates, both here and for my other blog. So, I decided to create a simple 3 column template with some of my customisations already in place, and make this available for download. For free, of course!You can download the XML template from here:Download customised 3 column Blogger templateThis template includes the following customisations:3 Column layoutLabel cloud in right sidebarHaloscan Trackbacks (please replace "yourhaloscanUN" with your Haloscan username!)Social bookmark buttons at the end of each postThe template is based on the Denim Blogger template, and all colours/fonts are fully customisable. I hope this helps some of you along the way to having a 3 column blog! In the near future, I'll post a walkthrough of how to create your own.For more 3 column Blogger templates, try these sites:The Blogger WorkshopHackosphereBlogger Tips and TricksTechnorati Tags: 3+column blogger template customisation label clo...
More About: Template , Late

Create a sitemap to have your blog indexed by search engines
2007-06-21 11:44:00
Sitemaps are a useful tool in helping get your blog pages indexed by search engines, which gives your blog extra "visibility" online and can drive more traffic to your site.Unfortunately, it can be quite difficult to hand code a sitemap file for a blog, especially if you have a lot of posts! Also, you would need to have your blog's sitemap hosted in the root directory of your hosting account, which makes it impossible for Blog spot bloggers to achieve.There are ways for for bloggers to solve this problem, and create sitemaps which can be indexed by Google and other search engines. Here are some suggestions:Blogger:The easiest way to upload your sitemap to google is to use the atom.xml file which is automatically generated for you. This will be located at: http://yourblogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml if you have a Blog*spot hosted blog, or at http://www.yourdomain.com/atom.xml if you have a custom domain.I've also found this tool by Stephen Newton, which is a template you can use tempo...
More About: Search Engines , Search , Sitemap , Engines

How to set up your Blogger custom domain with GoDaddy
2007-06-21 11:30:00
This post is originally from my other blog, Glamumous. I decided to reproduce it here so you readers can easily find other information linked to this subject.I used GoDaddy to register my domain name, as this company seemed the cheapest dot.com domain provider, and also because they supply a free email address and basic hosting account with each domain, which has come in rather handy.However, I'd read quite a few complaints about using GoDaddy for custom domains with Blogg er hosting, so I was rather careful to make sure I did everything correctly!Please do note that you can only link your site as http://yoursite.com or http://www.yoursite.com. Not both. It just doesn't work that way. My advice is to use the www prefix, and if you can make a simple redirect page in your host root, as I'll explain laterI followed Blogger's advice to the letter, and everything works fine. Here are the basics of their tutorial, or you can read the whole thing yourself on this page.Buy your chosen do...
More About: Domain , Logger , Custom

What is Google Page Rank, and how can I improve my ranking?
2007-06-20 17:45:00
Google uses its Page Rank (PR) system to determine how sites rank, and in which order, in their search results; so, the higher a web site's page rank, the higher it will feature in search results. The page rank system is based on an equation which looks something like this:PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn)) Quite confusing, isn't it? However, we can think of it in a simpler way: Page Rank = 0.15 + 0.85 * (a "share" of the page rank of every page which links to it). Of course, the real equation is Google's secret formula, developed so that it cannot be "cheated" by spammers! Here's how Google describe their Page Rank system:In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at considerably more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; for example, it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other ...
More About: Google , Improve

Top ways to market your blog offline
2007-06-20 13:35:00
You've probably read about SEO (search engine optimisation) and methods of promoting your blog online. In fact, I'm going to post about this soon, but first I want to point out some methods you may not have considered, which are just as important, whether your blog is business related, or simply a personal blog for which you would like to attract a readership: promoting your blog offline. Before you say: "what's the point in that? Readers need to be online to read my blog!", try to realise that offline promotion can be just as effective at introducing new and regular readers to your blog as online methods. Have you visited a website because you saw it referenced in a magazine, or it was recommended by a friend? Most likely you have, or will in the future. And these are not the only ways you can promote your blog offline. Here are some more examples:Word of mouth:Now you've made your blog, taken the time to create well written posts and make it look great, why not tell everyone a...
More About: Market , Offline , Blog , Mark , Line

Frequently Asked Questions
2007-06-19 23:28:00
This page will be updated shortly. In the meantime, feel free to leave your comments or contact me directly by email: amanda at bloggerbuster dot com.
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What are "widgets" and how do I use them?
2007-06-19 01:09:00
Widgets are a great, easy way to add functionality to your blog (or indeed any web-page that you own)!Most blogging platforms already have a variety of widgets installed and available for you to use if you choose so. These may range from a widget to display your profile section in the sidebar, to links of your most popular posts. If your blogging platform (eg: Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad) already has widgets installed, you can usually drag and drop them wherever you want in the layout of your blog, and customise them to suit your every requirement. There are also numerous sites available where you can get extra widgets, such as clocks, RSS Headlines, recent comments and much more besides. Many of these websites will also be able to insert the widget in your blog layout automatically, so you don't even have to worry about inserting your own HTML/Javascript code!Here are a few popular sites for blog widgets:Widgetbox.comBlogger TemplatesSnipperoo Widget DirectoryTechnorati Tags: blog...
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How to create a custom header in Blogger
2007-06-17 23:13:00
My blog template is based on the Denim theme, but since I didn't particularly like the header, I replaced it with my own graphic, along with a link back to my site. Want to know how? Read on! First, you'll need to create your new blog header using your favorite image creation software (eg: Paint, CorelDraw, Gimp, Photoshop...). Take a look in your blog template HTML and make a note of the width of your blog header; you'll probably want your new blog header to be this width too! Don't worry about the height: it can be as tall or as short as you want.Once you've made your new blog header, you'll need to tinker with the HTML of your template a little bit. Make sure you backup your existing template before doing anything more, just in case something goes wrong and you need to pout your current template back in place instead. Then look for the following section of code:<div><b:section maxwidgets='1' showaddelement='no'><b:widget locked='true' title='Header (He...
More About: Blogger , Logger , Blogg , Custom

How to set up your Blogger custom domain
2007-06-17 20:05:00
After blogging for a while at a Blogspot.com address, you may decide it's time to upgrade to a custom domain (eg: yourblog.com). This is the least expensive method I've found of hosting your blog at a custom domain since Blogspot will still host your blog for free! All you need to do is pay a few pounds for your domain name, be it a dot.com, dot.co.uk, dot.info or whatever you choose!The process is probably much simpler than you think! You don't need to worry too much about finding a host provider that is compatible with Blogg er : any domain provider which allows you to alter the DNS records for your domain is compatible! Just make sure that you don't have to pay extra for this service (these days, most domain providers don't, but there is still the odd one around...).Here's how to set up your Blogger custom domain:Decide on your domain name, and register it with a domain name provider. There are literally hundreds of sites you can use (just do a Google search for "domain name ...
More About: Domain , Logger , Custom