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Complete List of Blogger Widgets
2008-06-01 17:00:00
Here is a list of useful widgets which you can install to your Blogger layout directly from this site: A Customized Twitter WidgetInstalling this widget will add a customized Twitter updates widget to your Blogger layout. Popular Posts (most commented) widgetThis widget will list the ten most popular posts from your blog, based on the number of comments. Top Commenters WidgetDisplays a list of the most frequent commenters on your blog (see also how to filter your name from the top commenters list). A New Year Banner for your blogThis widget will install a "New Year" banner ribbon to the top right hand corner of your blog. A Christmas Banner for your blogThis widget will install a Christmas banner to the top right corner of your blog. Recent CommentsDisplays a list of the most recent comments made to your blog posts. May be customized to display a snippet of the comment. A "Time of Day" Image GreetingDisplays a different image greeting depending on the time of day. Digital Clock Widg...
More About: Widgets , List , Complete

eBook(s) in Progress...
2008-05-30 19:00:00
My first eBook, The Cheat's Guide to Customizing Blogger Templates, has been far more successful than I could have imagined. According to my hosting stats, this has been downloaded over 15,000 times since it's release (which astounds me!), and I've had loads of wonderful feedback about this.Now that my "offline" schedule is a little less busy, I've begun writing two new eBooks which will be available for download in the near future. As before, these eBooks will be focused on the needs of those using Google Blogger to publish their blogs, and will be available for free download through this blog:Choosing and Using a New Blogger TemplateOne of the most requested article suggestions for Blogger Buster is - A step by step tutorial to change your Blogger template without screwing everything up! (via the Skribit widget) While I have written a few tutorials in regard to this so far, I think a complete guide would span quite a few pages if written as a post.So instead, I'm going to re...
More About: Ebook , Progress

How to Print your Blogger Posts Effectively
2008-05-29 00:00:00
As many of the posts here are tutorials, I thought it would be useful for readers to print off individual blog posts for future reference. Sure, it would be possible for a reader to choose the "print" option from their web browser window, but this would have printed the header, sidebars and other irrelevant sections of the blog, wasting paper and ink and time.Using a combination of CSS and JavaScript, I've developed a simple yet effective method of printing only the blog post (and comments) from each blog page.In this post, I'll explain how you can also add effective print functionality to your Blogger posts in just two simple steps. To get an idea of what this post would appear like when printed, use the "Print Preview" function in your web browser. Whereas the current page appears colorful and includes the header, sidebars and other elements of this template, printed pages from this blog will appear like this instead:As you can see in this example: The header and sidebar sec...
More About: Posts

An Interview with Avi Abrams of Dark Roasted Blend
2008-05-27 21:00:00
Dark Roasted Blend is probably the most addictive blog I have ever had the pleasure to read. Featuring "weird and wonderful things to complement your daily coffee ritual", this amazing blog is ranked among the top 400 blogs according to Technorati and at number 8 in the most popular Blogger powered blogs.I've had the pleasure of an email interview with Avi Abrams , the founder and writer of Dark Roasted Blend, to discover more about the site and his experience using Blogger.I hope you will enjoy reading Avi's answers as much as I did! Amanda: I love the concept of your blog: "weird and wonderful things to complement your daily coffee ritual". What inspired you to develop this idea?Avi: The fact that I was spending most of my coffee time hugging computer and the internet, finding great stuff - so I just wanted to share it.Amanda: As you're probably aware, Dark Roasted Blend is one of the most popular Blogger blogs in the world (and ranks very highly in Technorati!). What factors ...
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Featured in .Net Magazine
2008-05-26 23:00:00
If you're a reader of .Net Magazine (or Practical Web Design as it's known in the US). flick through to page 18 where you'll see Blogger Buster featured as one of this month's "readers sites":Thank you .Net Magazine!
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The Top 50 Blogger Powered Blogs
2008-05-22 21:00:00
While there are many lists of "Top Blogs ", most notably Technorati's Top 100 list and Wikio's Top 300, I thought it would be interesting to find out which Blogger powered blogs rank most highly.So for the past few weeks I've been gathering data of the most popular Blogger powered blogs. Using Google Pagerank, Technorati Rank, Bloglines subscribers, backlinks and Alexa rank, I have analyzed and ranked hundreds of the most frequented Blogger blogs I could find. The following includes the top 50 blogs which are powered by Blogger, including their scores and tagline to explain what each site is about.You can find a full explanation of the scoring system and download the Excel file containing all of the sites ranked beneath this list.#1 Post-SecretPostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. 730182020Total: 95 #2 Official Google BlogInsights from Googlers into products, technology and the Google cul...

How to Highlight Author Comments
2008-05-22 01:00:00
Highlighting author comments using a different background color, border or different style of text helps readers understand when you have personally posted a response.So far, "How to Highlight Author Comments " has been the most requested article in my Skribit widget, so in this post I'll explain how you can change comments which you have posted yourself to distinguish these from other comments on your posts. First things first!The main obstacle I've faced in writing up this article so far is that different Blogger templates code the comments section differently.While the easiest method for me to write would have been to say "Find this code and replace it with this", such a method would only be usable by bloggers whose template matches the code.Instead, my explanation may be a little more complicated than usual, though I hope this explanation will ensure anyone using a Blogger template will understand how to implement the highlighted author comments hack! Backup your Blogger Te...
More About: Highlight

Add Blogger Comment Count as Feedburner Feedflare
2008-05-21 01:00:00
Until recently, it was not possible to display the number of comments for a post within our Blogger feeds.However, via Google System I've learned that Feedburner have now added a new FeedFlare which you can use to display your post comment count in your Feedburner feed. When readers click on the comment count link from your Feedburner feed, this will lead to the comments page for this post, enabling readers to read comments and add one of their own.To activate this in your Feedburner feed, simply log in to your Feedburner account and click the link for the blog you wish to display the comment count.Next, click on the Optimize tab, and then on the "FeedFlare" link in the sidebar.On this page, you should easily spot the checkbox which says "Comment s Count (Blogger)". Check the box which will display this FeedFlare in your actual blog feed (as this count should already be displayed in your blog posts).Finally, save your FeedFlare settings for this new feature to take effect (or "a...

How to Display More then 5 Recent Posts
2008-05-20 22:42:00
My latest post at Blogging Tips explains three different methods you could use to display more than 5 recent posts in your Blogger sidebar.A few people have asked how to do this (even more so through Blogging Tips) so if this is something you are interested in learning about, please pop over to read this article in full.I really do appreciate suggestions for future posts here at Blogger Buster, and am currently writing up articles which have received the most votes in the Skribit widget in the sidebar.Please do vote up any suggestions which you would like to see written about soon, or add anything you think should be included by using the "Suggest a Future Post" link at the top of the widget.
More About: Display , Recent , Posts

The Entrecard Ebook, Multiple Blogs and Get 2000ec for Free!
2008-05-19 22:00:00
I've always been partial to a freebie, so when I heard about Entrecard and the possibility of earning free advertising by using the Entrecard widget, I couldn't wait to see how this would work out.A few months down the line, Entrecard has certainly proved itself as one of the most useful free services available to Bloggers. I wondered how Entrecard could make this free service even better, until today an email from the Entrecard team landed in my inbox which brought a great big smile to my face. Link more than one blog to your Entrecard accountTo vastly improve the current service, the Entrecard team have today enabled multiple blogs to be administered from one account, or merge two existing accounts together.This means you can now add more blogs to your account, or merge two different accounts together in order to manage your blogs in one place.You can easily transfer entrecard credits between accounts when merging them, or switch "identity" when dropping cards to allow both ...
More About: Free , Ebook , Blogs

How to Install Intense Debate Comments in Blogger Blogs
2008-05-17 19:00:00
Intense Debate is a commenting system which is designed to inspire conversation. Including such features as threaded comments (allowing readers to reply to each other in comment threads), avatars and a voting system, many Blogger users are now choosing this as an alternative to the default Blogger commenting system.Many readers have requested a tutorial about installing and using Intense Debate. So in this post I'll explain exactly what this new service has to offer, and how easily this can be installed in your Blogger powered blogs (including some troubleshooting tips to make sure everything runs smoothly!) What Are the Main Features of Intense Debate?Intense Debate is a fully featured commenting system which provides many more features than Blogger's standard comments, including: Comment form beneath posts (on the same page) Threaded comments, which allow commenters to reply directly to each other and be visible as a comment "heirachy" Comment avatars (of registered Intense ...
More About: Blogs , Comments

4 Important Reasons to Redirect your Blogger Feeds through FeedburnerA
2008-05-16 01:00:00
Feedburner is the most popular and fully featured free service for syndication of your blog feeds. Once you have set up your free Feedburner account, you can choose to redirect your blog feeds through Feedburner, instead of simply offering the default Atom feeds which are automatically generated for your blog.There are many reasons why redirecting your Blogger feeds through Feedburner will be beneficial for both you and your readers, but while researching for a forthcoming post, I've come to realize how few Blogger users actually do this.So in this post, I'll offer four important reasons why you should redirect your feeds through your Feedburner account, and also explain how easy it is to do. Five Great Reasons to Redirect your Feeds All of your subscribers will receive the same feedYour Blogger blog is capable of publishing up to three different feed URLs for your blog: yourblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default (atom feed) yourblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml (another atom feed) yo...

Coming soon to Blogger Buster...
2008-05-14 00:00:00
Over the next few weeks I have some great posts planned for Blogger Buster . Shortly I'll be adding a new widget to the sidebar to offer a little hint at what these will be about, and in this post I'd like to update you on some forthcoming changes to the site. I'm really glad to see that many of you have suggested or voted for posts in the Skribit widget (take a look at the bottom right of the sidebars if you haven't already participated).So far, the most popular suggestions have been: How to highlight author comments How to use Intense Debate Comments for Blogger How to add a section after each post that shows who has linked to your blog/that post. I'm already working on the Intense Debate post (just finalizing any troubleshooting issues) and will work on the other two as soon as this is published.Other "feature posts" which are still in draft are: The 50 most popular Blogger powered blogs Another 50 (or so) excellent Blogger XML templates Yet more unique and inspiring Blo...

Blogger to Introduce Star Ratings for Posts?
2008-05-13 01:00:00
This weekend I noticed some interesting news in the Blogger Status blog: Some users may be seeing star ratings on their posts without having opted in to this new feature. This is an experimental feature that was accidentally enabled on some users' blogs. We're currently working to remove star ratings on all affected blogs. In the future, you'll be able to choose to opt-in to this feature; it won't appear automatically. I didn't notice this appearing on any of my blogs (I would have loved to see a sneak preview of this!), though I would imagine this feature will be rolled out for Blogger in Draft soon, as can be seen in this screenshot:I can't help wondering if the Blogger team may even add more functionality to this feature once it's ready to be released properly. Perhaps this could be used as the basis for a popular posts widget (powered by Blogger rather than a third party script)..?If you're impatient to use such functionality for your blog posts before Blogger releas...
More About: Star , Ratings , Posts

Change the Title Tags for your Blog
2008-05-11 01:24:00
Until recently, the title tags generated for each page of your Blog ger blog would display the blog title first, then the name of your post.This wasn't so good for SEO (search engine optimization) as this made keywords from your post titles appear after your blog title.Luckily, Blogger have come up with a simple fix for this problem for those who use Layouts templates: the <data:blog.pageName/> tag! This new tag is already installed for new blogs (or if you change your existing template to one of Blogger's default ones).However, if you have customized your template or uploaded a third party template, you will need to change the original <data:blog.pageTitle /> to the new <data:blog.pageName/> tag for this change to take effect.But don't worry: this is REALLY easy! Here's what you have to do: Go to Layout>edit HTML in your Blogger dashboard. Search for this tag: <data:blog.pageTitle/> Replace this tag with the following: <b:if cond='data:blog.pa...
More About: Change , Tags

A New Definition of "Blog"
2008-05-10 01:00:00
The word "Blog " is an abridgment of the term, "web log": A website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order (Wikipedia)But on Digital Inspiration today, I discovered a much better meaning for this word: the initialism of Better Listing On Google! Blogs do tend to do better than static websites in search results as they are updated regularly with new content, and are more likely to be linked to by other blogs.These days, many online businesses choose to add blog functionality to their site in order to gain more exposure and achieve better rankings in search results. Also, as blogs are updated more frequently than other types of websites, they benefit from being indexed more quickly.Personally I prefer this new definition of "blog" to the elusive (and sometimes vague) definitions provided by other sources!Feel free to t...
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Another Popular Posts Widget from AideRSS
2008-05-09 01:00:00
AideRSS analyzes RSS/blog feeds to determine the popularity of each item according to the number of comments, Diggs, Del.icio.us bookmarks, backlinks and clickthroughs.One of the most useful features of AideRSS for bloggers is the ability to analyze the popularity of items in your own blog feed. Consequently, you can use this data to create a widget of your highest ranking feed items - your popular posts - which can be displayed in a widget in your sidebar, which is very easy to install! Getting Started With AideRSS?To begin analyzing the rank of items in your own blog feed, simply visit the AideRSS homepage and type your blog's RSS feed URL into the box.If you use Feedburner to burn your Blogger feed, enter the URL of your Feedburner feed (eg: http://feeds.feedburner.com/YOUR-FEED-NAM E).If you do not redirect your feeds through Feedburner, you will need to enter your feed URL like this instead: http://yourblog.blogspot.com/rss.xmlOn the following page, AideRSS will analyze you...
More About: Widget , Popular , Posts

The Best and Worst Times to Publish your Posts
2008-05-08 01:00:00
At one point or another I'm sure we've all wondered the same thing: "What is the best time to publish our posts?".Jake Luciani has done some pretty hefty research to find the answer to this question. By analyzing over 10,000 entries from Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit and Mixx, he has discovered the optimum times of day, and days of the week to post for best results in social media and maximum comments. According to Luciani's results: The best time to post is Tuesday to Friday between 10am and 2pm Pacific Standard Time (PST) The worst time to post is on Saturday or Sunday between 3 and 5pm PSTThese findings seem to correlate with the times US blog readers are most active online (around lunchtime and just after work on weekdays), so posting around these times should work well for bloggers whose readership is mostly based in this area of the world.If your main readership is located in another part of the world, you may want to consider altering these times to suit your own audience...
More About: Publish , Times , Posts

Suggest Future Posts for Blogger Buster
2008-05-06 18:00:00
Do you have any burning questions about Blogger ?Is there a particular article you would like me to write about?At Blogger Buster , I am committed to writing posts about Blogger which you will all find useful or interesting. I appreciate your suggestions and input, and to make it even easier for you ti suggest future articles, I have added a Skribit widget to the sidebar.This widget will allow you to suggest ideas for posts which you would like me to write about in the future! It's really easy to make a suggestion: simply click on the "Suggest a future post" link at the top of the widget, then write your idea in less than 100 words. Alternatively, you can vote for a suggestion which has already been made, and help this idea float to the top of the list. You don't need to register or login to Skribit to make or vote for a suggestion, and you can vote for an article more than once.Registering with Skribit enables you to track the progress of your votes on any site which uses a ...
More About: Future , Posts

Google Analytics Integration for Blogger is on the way!
2008-05-06 01:00:00
Google Analytics for Blogger is currently in private beta! Over the next year, the Google team will be refining this interface until it's ready for public release in both Blogger and Google Analytics accounts.Analytics for Blogger is the product of collaboration by several teams and marks the transition of Measure Map customers to a new Google Analytics interface which has been designed for Blogger users. This development was announced by Jeff Veen at the South by Southwest conference held a few weeks ago: Many of you may remember when Google acquired Measure Map, our analytics product for blogs. When we came to Google, our first job was to take the experience of providing clear, accessible reports, coupled with powerful tools for analysis, and apply it to Google's already robust Analytics product. The result of that collaboration launched last May, in the redesigned Google Analytics interface. Since then the team has been hard at work fulfilling our original promise: to help...
More About: Google , Integration , Google Analytics

"A New Day" Blogger XML Template Download
2008-05-02 13:00:00
Here's a new Blogger XML template download for you: "A New Day".Take a look at the demonstration blog for this new template to see it in action.This is a pale, two column template with a wide posts area and sidebar (which should be wide enough to accommodate most wider styles of widgets, Adsense and possibly video too!).You can download both the XML file and the HTML code for this template. Full instructions and download links are provided below. Features of this templateA New Day is a wide two column template, providing ample room for posts and also provision for wider sidebar widgets.The header section features an integrated "navigation" links list widget, so you can easily add and edit links to the main pages of your blog.Other useful features include: Rounded corners for the sidebar widget headings Fonts and colors can be changed within the "Fonts and Colors" section in your Blogger dashboard. Author comment highlighting (with a different color heading for author's comment...
More About: Download , Template

Blogger Buster is featured as a "Blog of Note"!
2008-05-01 17:00:00
I was thrilled to notice today that Blog ger Buster has been featured in Blogger's Blogs of Note !Thank you to everyone who has nominated Blogger Buster for this award, and also to the Blogger team. You've given me even more incentive to keep blogging about Blogger!
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RSS Awareness Day
2008-05-01 13:00:00
Today is RSS Awareness Day: a celebration of RSS (Real Simple Syndication) when we can spread awareness of the benefits of RSS and encourage others to use this too.RSS is a format used to deliver content in an easily distributable form from websites which are updated regularly. Most blogging systems, for example provide an RSS or Atom feed to accompany the pages of the blog.In this post, I'll explain the basics of blog feeds with particular reference to Blogger powered feeds; how they are useful for your blog readers and how blog authors can make their feeds more useful and accessible too. What are RSS and Atom Feeds?RSS and Atom essentially perform the same function: they offer updates to a blog or website in a portable format. It's like the difference between Internet Explorer and Firefox: both allow you to access the internet, though the format and style of these browsers are different.You can read the updates of a "feed" in an RSS reader, receive updates by email, or even ...

Google PageRank Update Soon?
2008-04-30 13:21:00
As I looked in my feed reader this morning, I realized everyone's talking about the upcoming Google PageRank update.At the time of writing this, it seems that Google is updating the toolbar PR ratings, and a full PR update is expected sometime in the next week or so. I've wondered for a while if a PageRank update may be due soon. I've certainly noticed many changes in the way Blogger Buster is ranked in Google search results. Now you can see "sitelinks" appear in a search for Blogger Buster:Hopefully the recent PR drops for sites using advertising methods Google disapproves of has come to an end, and we will finally see a true PR update in the next few days.If you've noticed any changes in PageRank (or know of a reliable PR checking site which is currently operational) please let us know by leaving your comments below.
More About: Pagerank , Google Pagerank , Update

How to Create an Animated Page Loading Icon (Ajax Style)
2008-04-29 13:00:00
You've probably seen "ajax-style" loading icons before. These small animations appear on web-pages while page elements are loading, and disappear (or are replaced by content) when the page has fully loaded.Inspired by the page loading feature I noticed in Meta-Microcosmos, I decided to find out how to add an animated ajax-style loading icon to Blogger templates.After a little trial and error, I discovered a solution which is cross-browser compatible and can be added to your template in one easy step. So in this tutorial, I'll explain how you can add an ajax-style page loading icon to appear in the top corner of your Blogger template which disappears once the page has loaded. The loading icon used for this tutorial is the same as that which appears in the top-right hand corner of this blog when you load the page:This small, unobtrusive image has a minimal file size, and is easy on the eyes so it doesn't detract from other style elements of the page.Of course, if you would pref...
More About: Icon , Page , Style , Ajax , Animated

Adding style to search forms
2008-02-15 22:51:00
If you've added a search widget to your blog, you may be wondering how it could look a bit more stylish! After all, the default gray button isn't the most desirable button in the world.Styling a search widget isn't difficult at all. You can customize the button using CSS or replace this with an image instead. Another customization option is to add some informative text inside the search box and remove the search button altogether.In this post, we're going to look at some options and methods of customizing the search widget, so you can choose the method which works best for you and style your search box to match the overall design of your own customized blog. In the previous installment of the Blogger Template Design Series, I explained an easy method of changing the layout of the header, enabling widget elements to be added. Search widgets are an excellent example of what could be included in a blog header, and in this post we will learn how search forms can be styled to su...
More About: Style , Forms

Downtime Uptime!
2008-02-14 13:41:00
Update: Hopefully everything is back to normal now. As far as I can tell, all the images, scripts and templates are back in place. But if anyone notices something amiss, please do let me know! It seems that my hosting provider is suffering some downtime. I've contacted tech support to find out why many features of this site are inaccessible and hopefully will have this resolved very quickly. My sincere apologies to all readers and users of this site. As soon as I know any more, I will be sure to post this here!

The easy way to make a great blog header!
2008-02-13 20:44:00
In yesterday's post, I wrote about what makes a great blog header. As I'm sure many of you will agree, a great blog header doesn't only include your blog's title and logo. Visitors need to know what your blog is about (branding) and how easily they will be able to find the information they need (navigation, and possibly search elements).So in this installment of the blogger template design series, I'm going to show you a quick and easy way for you to add more than just your header image to your Blog ger blog: adding extra sections for widgets, in which you can place anything you want! If you take a look at the Blogger Template Design blog now, you'll see the bare bones of a header beginning to take shape. The title and description for this blog are now featured in the left-hand section, while on the right you can find a search box, and a simple navigation bar:The search box and navigation links are actually widgets which can be edited through the layouts section, rather th...
More About: Great , Make , Header , Easy

What makes a great blog header?
2008-02-12 17:50:00
Photo by Martin KingsleyA blog's header is the first thing visitors see when they visit your site. In my opinion, a good header section is one of the most important aspects of a well designed blog. It needs to make an impact on the visitor, both in terms of design and functionality, in order to make them want to see more of your site.When I began to construct the design for Blog ger Buster, I built the header section first, then designed all other elements around this. Setting the tone of a great blog design by focusing on the header first can help all other elements fall into place. So in this installment of the Blogger Template Design series, we will take a look at the elements of a great blog header, and methods we could use to create one. Some examples of great blog headersWhen you come to think of great blog designs, there are probably a few sites which first come to mind. So take a look at these sites now, and focus on the header sections of these designs.What elements of ...
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Blogger template releases for 2/11/08
2008-02-11 21:14:00
Each Monday, you will now find a new feature here at Blogger Buster: listings of the previous week's Blogger template releases, with information information, screenshots and links to the download pages.If you are a designer of Blogger templates, please do let me know about your latest releases so I can include them in this weekly digest. Zen by SuckMyLollyA three column template in hues of green. Both the background and main content background colors can be changed in the Fonts and Colors section of your Blogger dashboard. Download includes: a zip file including the XML template file, terms of use (with link to upload instructions) and the header image used in the template. Demo | Download Hot Hands by SuckMyLolly A two column template featuring a header image and customizable backgrounds. Download includes: XML template, Terms of use (including link to instructions for uploading the template) and header image. Demo | Download Dear Diary by Blogger XML Skins While this i...
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