Tech Tuesday: New Blogger Features

If you use Blogger as your blogging platform, have you checked out some of the new features in your settings and layout tabs?

There is a new post editing option that has more features for editing your posts, such as uploading a batch of photos at one time, rather than one by one. Though I will say it takes some time to get used to, since images are stored in a "bank" and you can drag them anywhere in the post rather than having them appear just at the top. Under the Settings tab, click on "Basic settings" and then scroll down the page to "Global Settings". Select the "Updated Editor" option and save your settings. Now when you go to a new post, you'll have an updated screen.

Also, if you're interested in making money off of ads on your blog, check out the Monetize tab. I had looked at this probably a year ago, but recently checked it out again and saw that there are a lot more options, including signing up for the Amazon Associates program where you can install an Amazon widget (there are tons available) in your sidebar and make a commission off of it when people buy something via that link. I'm looking into adding this soon, especially since you can customize it to reflect topics that your blog already covers.

Just wanted to pass along these finds, and who knows, you might already be using them! I'm a bit late in discovering some of these new features. Happy Tuesday friends!

Tech Tuesday: Comment Spam

Annoying as it is, I get a kick out of some of the blog spam that appears in my comments. For example, this one by "Anonymous" (aka James F. Collins), which I haven't published but have kept in my comment moderation cue, cracks me up.

Glad to materialize here. Good day or night everybody! Sure, you’ve heard about me, because my fame is running in front of me, my name is James F. Collins. Not long time ago I started my own blog, where I describe my virtual adventures. Probably, it will be interesting for you to read my notes.

I love the part about "Sure you've heard about me, my fame is running in front of me." Who writes this stuff? I think someone should give them a Roseanne-like sitcom on one of the networks.

Most of the spam comments are jibberish, often with links to pharmaceuticals or online gambling sites, and I implore you to keep on top of these comments and delete them as they roll in. Not just because if someone inadvertently or purposely clicks on one of those links in the comment, you can be sure that you'll be flooded with even more spam.

Also, spammers slip in keywords like certain pharmaceutical drugs, which can make more spam because when their bots are crawling the internet, they search for keywords like these and hone in on your blog.

Ways that you can prevent or reduce spam are comment moderation, where the blogger has to manually to accept or reject comments left 2 weeks after a post is published. This seems to significantly help on my blog. For some reason, I get the most comment spam on older posts.

One could also choose to reject any comment left anonymously (go into your "settings" tab under the "comments" link and change the settings under "who can comment?"). I personally don't do this, since I run giveaways and often entrants do so anonymously, leaving their email in the comment.

You could also enable word verification on your blog, making commenters type in one of those crazy words before posting. I dislike doing this, and I'm sure in general your readers do too. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I'd much rather moderate comments and either publish or reject them rather than make my readers type in one of those dreaded words (though I suppose this may help keep your brain sharp and ward off senility!).

Now that I've included keywords like online gambling and pharmaceuticals in this post, I'm sure it will be spammed. Have you been spammed lately?

Tech Tuesday: Setting up a Facebook Fan Page

You may have noticed that I recently made a Katydid and Kid fan page (become a fan!) and it's been fun linking my blog posts to Facebook. I wanted to make a fan page rather than post my blog posts on my personal Facebook page, because I still have real friends (verses what Mr. Geek calls "vrends" or virtual friends) and relatives who don't really want my latest review posts clogging up their news feeds.
It was pretty simple to set up, and I'm still adding more applications and features as I learn more about it. To get started, either log in to your current Facebook account (or create one if you don't have one already) then click this link. The page will look like this:
You'll need to choose what type of page it will be. I selected the Artist, Band or Public Figure tab and chose "writer". Then I typed in the name of my page and made sure the box was unchecked, about allow the page to be publicly viewed.

There you have it, your own fan page. You'll want to add an image, like your blog button or something too, and of course add your website in the profile. Once you get more than 25 fans, you can get a "vanity" url, like mine which is "http://www.facebook.com/katydidandkid" rather than "www.facebook/q8129379879i23" or something like that. To get that, simply click this link and follow the instructions once you get more than 25 fans.

Some other things you might want to add right away are a fan badge for your blog (follow the simple instructions there),
and automatically having your blog posts published to your Facebook fan page. To do that, I set up an application with Networked Blogs and then under the page settings tab for the Katydid and Kid fan page, I linked my blog posts with the page.I'm sorry I didn't make notes as I was doing this, but from what I remember it was really easy to connect your blog to your page. If you get stuck, email me and I'll see if I can help. The one thing I do remember doing was making sure I didn't connect the blog posts to my personal profile, just so I wasn't double posting and so that my real friends didn't have to see my posts unless they became a fan of my blog.

So there you have it. Quite a chunk of info on Facebook fan pages. Good luck, and consider becoming a Facebook fan of Katydid and Kid!

Tech Tuesday: To Full-Feed or Not to Full-Feed

If you subscribe to my blog, you may have noticed that I decided to publish full feeds again, rather than just a teaser. I tend to read a lot of blogs through email subscriptions and I thought that I'd change my feed so people can read my blog via subscription.
The reason I had gone to the shortened version (usually the first 200 words of a post) is that I was concerned about all of my photos taking a while to load in a reader or email. I've never personally experienced it while reading other feeds, but I have a feeling that if the photos take a while to load in the feed, that they are probably the same way on my blog, for people with slower internet connections.

One might balk at this, thinking that I'm missing out on readers clicking over to my blog to read the rest of the post, therefore getting more blog traffic and more statistical page views, but frankly, I just don't care. I'm happy just to have people reading the drivel that I write, and if this somehow affects reviews and giveaways, so be it. While I like doing PR stuff, it's not my main purpose of this blog (though sometimes it seems to take over).

So how did I change my feed settings? I use Feedburner, so I logged into my account.

Then I clicked on the "Optimize" tab and clicked the last link on the left-hand sidebar that says "Summary Burner" (circled in red below).
If your feed is in summary mode, there will be a little check mark next to this on the left.

Next, you'll see the summary area. Just click the button that says "deactivate" and you'll be good to go. However, if you'd like to do a summary feed, you can activate it and also change how many words are shown in the summary and have a personal message--which are circled in green below.
That's it. If you use Feedblitz or another feed source, I'm sure it's just as easy to make these changes.

So what's your opinion about feed summaries? Like it or hate it?

Tech Tuesday: What I Hate About Your Blog

So it looks like Tech Tuesdays are working out to be more of a monthly thing. Forgive me, I just haven't been messing around much with technology and my blog. But please, email me any questions you'd like me to look into, or leave a comment here.

For this post, I wanted to tackle some things that drive me nuts about blogs. While that may seem crass and haughty, I'm probably not the only one who has these issues. Beyond playing music on one's blog (which is a very common complaint), here's a list of things that often bother other bloggers.

1. Simplify: Blogs that have too many widgets and gadgets. It's not the cluttered look that bothers me necessarily, but it's that those blogs take FOREVER to load when you have your Good Reads bookshelf, advertisements, Forum widgets, etc. etc.

2. Break it Up: You have very long posts with no images in them, or at least spaces between paragraphs. These huge chunks of text intimidate me. I need some breathing room between thoughts! Consider adding some clip art or a photo to make the post more dynamic.

3. Bye Bye Log-Ins: Logging in to leave comments--Ugh. Now I understand Captcha-type things (those weird security words you have to enter), since I've been dealing with comment spam and have had to enable word verification. But services like Disqus irk me because I have to log in to leave a comment, and for some reason that particular service doesn't save my login info.

4. Seizure-inducing buttons: These flashing buttons irritate my irises and make me feel like I'm going to come down with Mary Hart Syndrome. In moderation, they're ok, but when you have animated gifs all over the place, I tend to click away to save my vision.

5. Lost in no-reply land: I like to respond to comments, but I hate when I type up a perfectly-written email response, only to hit send and see it go to "no-reply-comment@blogger.com". Please leave your email or have it linked to your profile (or even on your blog, preferably on the front page).

6. Extra clicking: While this might not bother some people, I hate having to click a link to read an entire post. Like reading a paragraph, then clicking "Read More" to continue. I prefer the whole post in one page, more like a journal. While I get that you want to increase the click-count of your blog, this has often made me click AWAY from your blog instead.

7. Hard to read text: My training in college as an editor/copywriter taught me a very important lesson: make your text easily-readable. Black text on a light background is much easier to read than white text on a black background. As for fonts, serif ones (that have little "tags" on the ends) like Times New Roman are much easier to read than san-serif ones (like Ariel). Though as you can see on my blog, the design-obsession got the best of me and I chose a san-serif font for my posts.

When it comes to text, simplify. Also, I personally don't like blog posts that are entirely centered. To me, it reads like it's trying to be poetry and can be distracting.

While I admit that I'm a super-sensitive person (example, I hate when my socks get all out of line inside my shoes), I'm sure there are things that bother you about blogs (including mine...I can take it). Please share!!

Tech Tuesday: Resizing YouTube Videos on Blogs

Have you ever been to a blog (maybe your own) where there's a video embedded in the post but it's hanging outside the area where the posts are? Kind of like the blog version of muffin-top, I suppose.

Now that I've left you with that oh-so-charming image, let's move on to how to fix that problem. Here's a sample video, of Ricky Gervais talking about meeting Elmo (did you see him host the Golden Globes? He was great! Especially his dig at Mel Gibson. I tried getting footage of that, but NBC's copyright won't allow it to be posted on YouTube). If I were to insert it directly into my post without modifying it, it would show up like this:

Do you see how it's hanging over the right-side of the page? To change that, you'll need to modify the code (which you get on the You Tube page, to the right of the video where it says "embed"). Here's what the code typically looks like:
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/52c6tMhxBVw&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/52c6tMhxBVw&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1&amp;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
You will need to change the sections that say "width" and "height" to smaller numbers (shown in red above), making sure the width is no larger than the size of your main wrapper (search for that in your HTML code to find your width). I changed the height of the above code to "400" for the width, and "250" for the height. You should try to keep the ratio as close to the original as you can, so the video images aren't too distorted. Make sure you change both sets of number (in red) above.

Here's the new video.

Much better. Bye bye bloggy muffin-top!

Tech Tuesday: Tweet with Tweetmeme

Tech Tuesday is back, a bit late for the New Year but you understand. Today I'm posting about a helpful Twitter-related item for your blog, TweetMeme. You've probably seen them on other blogs, this little icon next to posts,
which allows you to easily retweet that blog post. From the bit of research I've done, other bloggers have said that this button has increased the number of tweets people have posted about their blogs. It's really easy for retweeting giveaways too. It's also nice to see how many times your post has been tweeted.

If you'd like to add this to your blog, you'll first have to have a Twitter account, and then create a TweetMeme account and allow it to access your Twitter account. Sounds complicated, but really it's not. You just go to Log In at TweetMeme and follow the prompts.

TweetMeme has a page just for buttons and chicklets to add to your blog, or even your email. Once you're signed into TweetMeme, go to that page and

1. Log into Blogger
2. Click the "Edit HTML" link, and check the box for "Expand Widget Templates"
3. Find this line of code (CTRL+F)
<div class='post-header-line-1'/>
4. Add this code below that line
<div style='float:right; padding: 5px 5px 5px 5px'>
<script type='text/javascript'>
tweetmeme_url='<data:post.url/>'
tweetmeme_source = 'KatydidandKid';
tweetmeme_service='tinyURL.com'
</script>
<script src='http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js' type='text/javascript'>
</script></div>
5. Change the area in RED above to your Twitter handle, instead of mine.
6. If you'd like to move the icon to the left side of your post, change the "float:right" part of the code in line 1 to "float:left".
7. Preview your template. If all looks good, save it.

Good luck!

Tech Tuesday: Scrolling Button Marquee

I love buttons, as you can tell in my sidebar. The variety of images and the easy linkage to blogs I like make them essential in my sidebar. But if your buttons have taken over your blog and you'd like to clean things up a bit, consider adding a scrolling button marquee.





It's easy to add, though it takes some time to move all of your button codes into one widget.

1. Go into your Blogger Layout tab.
2. Click on the "add a gadget" widget, either in your right/left sidebar or at the bottom of your blog, depending on where you want to add the scrolling marquee. You can always move it later too.
3. Add this code into the gadget box:
<marquee onmouseout="this.start()"
direction="up" on mouseover="this.stop()" loop="true" scrollamount="4" height="500" width="125"> PUT YOUR BUTTON CODES HERE </marquee>
4. In the code above, you'll see a section in capital letters that says "Put your button codes here". You will replace that with all of the HTML codes for your buttons. Just copy and paste, but don't forget to copy the entire HTML text of each button.
5. You can customize the size if you'd like, by changing the width and height to larger/smaller numbers, and also the number of buttons in the scroll by changing the "4" to a larger/smaller number. The "4" that is currently there means the marquee will show 4 buttons at a time.
You can also make your marquee scroll from top to bottom by changing "up" to "down" in the code, but it will reverse your button order, starting with the last button.
6. Save your widget, and see if your marquee works. Again, you can move it wherever you want on your blog just by dragging it, like you would any other gadget.

Good luck!

Tech Tuesday: Taking the Dot Com Plunge

You see that? Up there in my address bar? It says "www.katydidandkid.com" and not "katydidandkid.blogspot.com". That, dear readers is the key to shaving seconds off of your blogging time. I mean, you know how long it takes you to type that "blogspot" word in whenever you're referencing your blog!

All kidding aside, I finally went to a dot com address. I feel so legit, and it really wasn't hard at all. It cost me $10, or actually, it cost Mr. Geek $10 back in April when he bought the domain name for my birthday.

Google (via Blogger) makes it extremely easy to switch over, especially if you buy your domain name through GoDaddy, which they own. You don't even have to go outside of your Blogger dashboard to buy it.

So here's the scoop:
1. Log into Blogger and click on the "Settings" tab.
2. Click on the "Publishing" link
3. You'll see a button that says something like "switch to a custom domain". I should have taken a screen shot prior to writing this, since now that page only shows the option of switching back to the blogspot address.
4. You'll be able to check to see if the name you want is available. If the .com address isn't, it will give you some alternatives that are close to your name, like "katydid_and_kid.com", etc.
5. Then you just follow the instructions once you pick your name, and make sure your credit card is handy.

Also be sure to check the box that redirects the blogspot address to your new one. You don't even have to spend time alerting your readers to the change, since when they visit the old address, they'll automatically get transferred to the new one. It is nice though to let them know, of course.

I didn't even need to update my Feed settings. I just changed my email signature and a few other things and was good to go.

So go on, take the plunge! Join me in dot com land....

Tech Tuesday: Adding Hyperlinks Within Comments

My apologies for neglecting Tech Tuesday for the last 2 weeks. Things have just been busy, with the So You Think You're Crafty art projects and the Favorite Things guide. And I wasn't feeling particularly techy, having not touched much of this blog. But I'm back with a new tech post for you, albeit a simple one.

Have you ever wanted to leave a hyperlink in a comment? You know, where someone can just click the link in the comment you leave on a blog and be sent directly to that web page, without having to copy and paste the address into their browser?

It's pretty easy, but requires a bit of HTML. You'll add this tag into your comment:
<a href="http://thelink'sURL">Kathleen's Link</a>
except you'll put the URL where it says "http://thelink'sURL" above. In the section that says "Kathleen's Link", you'll write whatever you want to title the link, which will show in the comment.
There it is above, underlined in red.

So that's it. Go crazy, have fun, but please no spamming!

Tech Tuesday: If the Header Fits...

This week's topic is another suggestion/question from a reader. Thank you all for giving me some fodder to write on. Though I'm not an expert (or even an intermediate) on HTML , as some of you may know when I'm unable to help you with my numbering comments in blogger post, I've messed around enough with this blog without crashing it, at least permanently.

Back to the question: Christina is wondering about headers. I always have trouble getting my header the right size. When I am making it in Photoshop (elements) how do I save it so when I upload to blogger it is the right size to go all the way across the top of the screen???????

While I don't use Photoshop Elements (just regular PS), this advice will work in either program, or even Paint or other image editing software.

First you need to take a look at your blog code. Log into your blog, click the Layout Tab, then click the "Edit HTML" link.

Search (CTRL+F) for "#header-wrapper"

You'll see within this section the width of your header area, in my case it says "width:930px" which is how wide the entire header area is. This tells you that you need to make your header no wider than the number of pixels there. But more accurately, you'll need to make it slightly smaller. My actual header image is 915 pixels, which leaves room for the margins around the header image. You can see how wide your margins in your header are by hitting CTRL+F and searching for "#header", then looking at what the margins are under that. When you find the number of pixels (5, in my case), you'll need to do a little math to figure out the exact size you should make your header image. Subtract the margin pixel number (twice, once for each side of the blog) as well as the border number, if you indeed have one. In my case, my border is 1px.

Here's my "equation".
930px-5px(left margin)-5px(right margin)-1px(left border)-1px (right border)=918px. I just rounded mine to 915 for some reason, but this would be the way to figure out the size of your header.

Create your image to at least this width. When you upload it into Blogger, you will see the "shrink to fit" box, which you can un-check so that your image is the size that you made it.
As far as height, you should be able to make it as tall as you'd like.

Tech Tuesday: Drop Down and Give Me 20 (Labels)

A reader, Jeanine P, asked last week about how to make your labels into a drop-down menu. Great question! Sometimes labels seem to run amok with the sidebar, especially if you write on a variety of different topics (like me) and can't seem to corral them together into one category.

By putting them in a drop-down menu, you certainly free up more space in your sidebar. My labels are shown circled in orange below. They used to run about 4 blog buttons-worth down the page.
It's very simple to put your Archives into a drop-down menu, since Blogger makes it easy to do. When you go into the widget for your Archives, there's a box that you can check to make them appear as a drop-down, rather than a list. There are lots of customizable features in that widget too, such as the way you want the date to look, etc. But I'm getting off-topic, yet again.

To make your labels all snug and tucked in to a drop-down menu, log into your Blogger account.

1. Select the "Layout" tab.
2. Click on "Edit HTML".
3. As usual, back up your template.
4. Check the "Expand Widget Templates" box
5. Find (CTRL+F) this section of code <b:widget id='Label1'. There is more code to the line, but it seems like nearly all Blogger templates have at least that part of the code. If you don't have that term, try searching for <b:widget id= and finding the one that corresponds to your labels. It will have some sort of "label" term next to it. The full line of code might look like this <b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'/>
6. Once you've found that, you'll replace that line with the following (copy and paste it over the above code)
<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Labels' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:title'>
<h2><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<br />
<select onchange='location=this.options[this.selectedIndex].value;'>
<option>Select a label</option>
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<option expr:value='data:label.url'><data:label.name/>
(<data:label.count/>)
</option>
</b:loop>
</select>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</div>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
7. If you'd like to change the title of the labels to something more sophisticated (mine are called "Topics of Interest"--la dee da), you'll just need to replace the word "Labels" in the first line of the code above in RED to the title that you'd like to call it.
8. Preview your work, and if you like-y, then save-y.

Good luck!

Tech Tuesday: Centering Your Sidebars

I've been working on a friend's blog and though it's been a long, drawn-out process and she has the patience of a mother of 3, I'm happy that the process has yielded a few topics for Tech Tuesday. It's been a while since I've spruced up my blog, so working on someone else's jogs my memory about DIY blog tweaking.

Today is a simple one: aligning the gadgets, widgets, buttons and other doo-dads in your Blogger template. The default is that it all gets left-aligned, but by adding a simple HTML tag in your sidebar area(s), you can center all your sidebar stuff.

1. Log into Blogger and click the Layout tab.
2. Click the "Edit HTML" link.
3. Backup your blog template, as usual, before making any changes.
4. Search (CTRL+F) for the term "#sidebar-wrapper". If you have more than one sidebar, you'll have more than one sidebar wrapper. Most likely it will be "Right sidebar wrapper" and "left sidebar wrapper".
5. In the line below that term, paste this "text-align:center;"
6. If you have a second sidebar, find it and do this step again.
7. Preview your template. If all's good, then save it.

Be aware that most things in the sidebar, including labels, text links, and titles will be centered. For some reason, your blog archives won't be. Of course you may wish to center one sidebar, and not the other.

Also, if you'd just like to center your buttons from other blogs in the sidebar rather than all the content, just go into each button and add <center> before the code and </center> at the end of the code. It can be tedious, entering it for all the buttons, but I like how it gives a little more breathing room around your posting area. It took me about 30 minutes to do that to all my buttons, and I remember to do it when adding new buttons too.

Happy blogging!

Tech Tuesday: Can You Digg It?

Cue the shovels, we're talking about Digg today.

You've probably seen the little man with the shovel at the bottom of these posts, and on many other blogs.
That allows one to link that post to Digg, a site where you "dig" stories up or down. You can see the "diggs" in the yellow boxes to the left of each article link, and the number of votes in the box.
Mr. Geek is a huge Digg and Reddit (similar to Digg) fan, where people submit blog posts, articles, new stories, photos, etc. and they get voted up or down depending on how much people like or dislike them. In speaking on the difference between Digg and Reddit, Mr. Geek quoth "Digg attracts a broad range of vistors (hence more pop culture, humor) while Reddit attracts atheists and politicos." I'd say it's similar to Kirtsy as well, where people submit links to interesting online content.

You find some really great stuff there, since it's basically where the cool {geek} kids go for their online kicks. Such as the link to 25 Awesome Dirty Car Window Drawings or What Really Happens When you Die. It's where we first found out about the Crazy Church Dancing video, months ago. You need to create an account and log in to vote or submit posts.

So get out there and get Digging!

Tech Tuesday: Button Magic

I love it when I open my blog one day, and a new button magically appears, replacing an old one. Usually the result of a blog redesign, often a sidebar button from many of the blogs I read will change overnight. It's a great way to change your design without having to worry about changing the code and wondering which blogs still have the old button.

So how does that happen? It's quite easy. You'll simply replace the image of your old button on your image hosting site (for me, it's Photobucket).

1. You must have your new button image, and rename it EXACTLY the same thing as the old one. Even the file type (PNG, JPEG, GIF, etc.) must be the same. You may need to store this file in another folder, so it doesn't override the old one, unless you don't mind it doing that.

2. Delete the old button on your image hosting site. Yes, this is the scary part, since it usually warns you that files will be lost on sites that link to your image. It's very temporary, and yes, if you were to visit a site with your blog button, it would be missing.

3. Once the old button is deleted, upload the new one. Again, it must be the exact same name as the old one, since the button code you already use has the old name in it. Be sure to add the same tags or titles to your image as before.

4. Save it, and you're done! Now make some blog rounds and check out your new button, without having to bother people about changing the old one.

Tech Tuesday: Photoshop's Free Cousin, With a Gimpy Leg

It's Tech Tuesday again, and Mr. Geek would like me to tell you a little about Open Source Software. In geek speak, he is a Unix Admin, which means that he doesn't generally deal with Microsoft in his work. He uses Unix, Linux, and other open source programs--meaning they're extremely customizable and FREE! He's a big proponent of freeware, which are computer programs that you can use without paying for, and it's completely legal.

One such program is Gimp, which is really similar to Photoshop (which costs upwards of hundreds of dollars) but is completely free. I'm a Photoshop junkie, but for those of you who would like to manipulate images for your blog, or just touch up your photos, it's quite an expensive investment.

I know some people use Photoshop Elements, and to be honest, I've never used it (I'm a "regular" Photoshop junkie) so I can't comment on how well it works. But Gimp has nearly all of the features that Photoshop, with much more customizable options. Mr. Geek says that it's much easier to work on batches of images in Gimp, such as adding a watermark to a group of photos.

So he wanted me to pass along Gimp to you all, even though I'm playing in the Photoshop sandbox!

Tech Tuesday: Changing Your Font Color

It seems like every post lately starts with an apology, mostly about the lack of posting and all. Well, nothing has changed, and I don't see much free time in my schedule until later this month, when the lesson plans I'm working on will be finished. How can a blog be such a source of guilt? Maybe because I miss posting, and am also suffering from blogger's block and can't think of anything witty or interesting to write about.

I couldn't very well neglect my Tech Tuesday post, the way I've let the Friday Featured Blog sit in a pile of gravel by the roadside. I nearly forgot today, since yesterday felt like Sunday, and today feels like Monday, but since I'm trying my hardest to avoid working on a weaving lesson, here it is. Just a simple tutorial on changing the color of your font in your posts.

First, you'll want to choose a color for your font, using a hexadecimal number (more info about that here). Now I wouldn't go putting brown on a black background (too dark to read), or orange on a blue one, which would be too hard to read, as blue and orange are complementary colors and they will make your eyes all wonky. Light colors on dark backgrounds, dark colors on light ones, that's the idea for easy reading. After all, you want people to read your posts, not be distracted by your color choices.

Log into your Blogger Layout page, click on the "Fonts and Colors" link. You'll see your blog, along with the colors used in the pages
It's really neat that all of your colors show up, so that you can pick other colors that look good with your blog.

When you have the hexadecimal code, click the drop-down box on the left a choose "font color". Then add your hex code into the box. You can also click on any of the colors in the boxes and see your font color change below. When you're happy and you know it, click "save changes".

Of course you can change the font itself too, and mess around with link colors and such, but you probably knew that already.

Tech Tuesday: From the Mailbag

Emi, of The Cloth Diaper Report, writes: Do you have a tutorial for how to have the solid background on just the text and sidebars of the blog (like the blue part in yours)?

Why yes, I do! And it should be an easy fix, Emi. What we're going to change is the color of the main wrapper and sidebars. As usual, I'm doing the tutorial for Blogger, since that's what I work with, not Wordpress.

So here we go again, logging into our blog and visiting the Layout tab.
1. Click the "Edit HTML" link.
2. Save a backup of your Blogger Template.
3. Check the box that says "Expand Widget Templates".
4. Find the term "#outer-wrapper" (hit CTRL+F)
5. Under that term, you'll see something like "background: #d4e4ef;", which is from my code. The #d4e4ef is the color of my background, written in hexadecimal characters. To see how to choose colors by hexadecimal, see my post here.
6. When you have the 6 digit code for the color you want, you'll change the code to "background: #(insert new code here).
7. Preview your template to see how it looks.
8. If you like it, save it, and if not, then clear your edits.

Hope you find success!

Tech Tuesday: Firefox Rox! (and a Password Storage Program)

I {heart} Firefox. The rival (and dare I say, smarter?) sibling to Internet Explorer for web browsing, Firefox has so many great plug-ins for surfing the web. I like that it's free, and has a lot of customized features like themed appearances to your browser (I personally like Qute) and even an add-on of a little flag at the bottom of my screen that tells me where the website I'm visiting is hosted.
The little flag is shown via the red arrow at the bottom right of my screen shot. And there are those Qute Icons at the top of the browser.

To check out some of the add-ons, you obviously need to have downloaded Firefox first. When you go to their homepage, you'll see a drop-down menu for add-ons. There are TONS! I check about once a month and am amazed at some of the new ones they've added, like Twitter Bar which allows you to tweet directly below the address bar of your web browser, rather than going to the Twitter site. I haven't used it, but it seems pretty cool.

One add-on that has made my blogging life easier is Sxipper. Not sure how it's pronounced (I'll just say Skipper, like from Giligan's Island) but Sxipper is a secure, online password keeper and automatic form filler. It's particularly useful if, like me, you sign up for a lot of websites and forums that require passwords. I like that it saves the passwords and automatically enters them for me when I go to a site. A little box pops up, as circled below
That has my email and password all ready to go. I just click on it and it logs me in.

I will say that there have been some glitches with Sxipper, like sometimes a log-in won't work and I have to go into the Tools dropdown menu in Firefox and dig out the password to manually put it in. But I'd say 95% of the time it works well. I probably should just install the latest version of Sxipper.

I also saw a password organizer called Last Pass that Internet Explorer and Safari users can add to their browsers. Since I haven't tried it, you're on your own folks! Let me know how it is, if you do add it.

Tech Tuesday: Feed Me!

Preface: this post is up late again, this time because I was mixing dyes for a workshop tomorrow morning at our library. I'm dyeing playsilks with kids, and hoping that it goes as smoothly as last summer. Hopefully, I'll have photos to post, but I'll definitely share the details tomorrow.--K

I love feeds, since it's my main way of keeping up with blogs that I love. I tend to subscribe to feeds via email, rather than Google Reader; for some reason I just like clicking through the emails (I keep a separate feed account, just to keep my regular email as unclogged as possible).

Did you know that you can mess around with your feed? Not in the cheating on your blog sense, but in the tweak and enhance your updates that get sent to your subscribers.

With Feedburner, which is what I use, when you log into your account, you can do things like see your subscribers by their email addresses, change the time of day that your feed is sent out, and add a personal message to people when they sign up for your feed. You can also choose to have your entire blog posts in a feed, or just a title or a title and the first line or so.
It's worth checking it out, and finding ways that you can enhance your feed, either in Feedburner, Feedblitz, or one of the other feeds.