In Blogging on Oct 15 by jason Tagged: blogger, favicon, hosting
Favicons are those little icons in the Address bar and next to your Favorites. When I migrated to Blogger, I lost my custom favicon and inherited the default, orange “B.” To restore it to my original “j.u” favicon, I performed some first-grade slight-of-hand trickery (It’s really easy).
- Choose a favicon host.Although possible, Blogger doesn’t make it easy to upload non-post files. To get your favicon online, you need to sign up with an image host. I chose ImageShack since I had a few things on there already. Others you could use include Photobucket or even GooglePages.
- Create my favicon.If you’re creating your own, simply create a 16 x 16 pixel image. You can save it as a GIF or PNG. They should both work.I already had a favicon, although it was in .ico format. When I was on my own server, that was fine, and correct. ImageShack, however, doesn’t allow the uploading of .ico files. I had to convert my file to a standard image format. I chose PNG.
- Upload my faviconI uploaded my favicon. Imageshack gave me a few choices of code to use to display my favicon. I copied the “direct” URL and pasted it in the next step.
- Add favicon to templateOnce my favicon was online (it took less than 4 minutes), I inserted the appropriate HTML into my Blogger template.
<link href="URL_TO_YOUR_FAVICON" rel="shortcut icon">
The whole process took less that 10 minutes, and almost less than 5. If you’re ready to dump that orange B for a spiffy new icon that better represents your blog, the four steps are all you need. If you need help with any of the steps, feel free to leave a comment.Update: If you’re getting some kind of parse error in Blogger, it’s probably looking for a closing tag. Try this code instead (note the added slash toward the end). <link href=”URL_TO_YOUR_FAVICON” rel=”shortcut icon” />
In Blogging on Oct 12 by jason Tagged: blogger, code, wordpress
With the migration to Blogger from WordPress, the most effort is going into dealing with post path differences. These differences will cause 404 (missing file) errors if not dealt with correctly. I wanted to be sure that people looking for my older WordPress posts would be appropriately redirected to the correct Blogger address.
My WordPress paths had this structure:
http://jason.ungos.com/2007/09/27/blog-downgrade/
On Blogger, the same post looks like this:
http://jason.ungos.com/2007/09/blog-downgrade.html
Here’s how I’m doing it.
- Setup a missing files host.
- Redirect visitor to new Blogger path.
Blogger Missing Files Host
The missing files host option was probably created to deal mostly with broken images or downloadable documents. I’ve expanded its use a bit by creating a custom 404 page that has some redirecting functionality.
The custom 404 page is a PHP script that:
- Checks the URI
- Determines what kind of document is being requested (post, tag search, etc.)
- Semi-intelligently determines the new URI, and
- Redirects the visitor.
Here’s what I have so far:
It’s neither elegant nor robust, but it achieves my main goal of dealing with old post links. I plan to develop this a little more to accommodate changed page names, broken images, and feeds.
Anything else I should add?
In Blogging on Sep 27 by jason Tagged: blogger, wordpress
With each blog incarnation (i.e., reboot, redesign, or relaunch) things are usually updated, upgraded, or improved. But how about a downgrade?
After months of dealing with spammers and denial of service attacks, I’ve decided to pass the bandwidth buck. I’ll be migrating my personally-hosted, personally-managed WordPress blog over to the free, yet acceptable, Blogger.
Here’s what I’ll have to do…
- Move posts from WordPress to Blogger (Complete: 08/27/2007)
- Update DNS (Est. Completion: 10/3/2007)
- Make things look pretty and go template tweak happy. (Est. Completion: ???)
So why do I call it a downgrade?
Blogger is a great product. It’s simple, easy to use, and free. I call it a downgrade because I will lose a lot of the tweakability that a self-hosted WordPress installation can give. With WordPress, I can install any of the hundreds of plugins available and dive into code to my heart’s content.
Then why downgrade the blog?
If there are so many good things about WordPress, why go to Blogger? Simplicity. This is my “fun” blog. I don’t want to spend hours deleting spammy comments, or paying lots of money because of exorbitant bandwidth usage. Neither do I have the hours of free time that I had in the past. I’m looking for easy and free.
Blogger has improved remarkably over the years and has the basic features that I’m looking for. I also contribute to a few other Blogger-based blogs. Blogger’s dashboard gives me quick access to each of those blogs.
WordPress or Blogger?
I love WordPress. It’s a top notch blogging system that can also do well as a basic CMS (Content Management System). WordPress is the system that I recommend to most of my clients.
Blogger has some powerful options, but still not as powerful as WordPress. For personal blogs (like this one), Blogger does does the job. Though, in the end, it’s all about preference.
What do you prefer?
In Blogging,Marketing on May 25 by jason Tagged: blogger
In blogging, your sidebar is a great place to provide a list of links. Here’s a quick tip: keep it relevant.
Think about it. Are links to every real estate agent or mortgage broker really helpful to your potential clients? Probably not.
You have to give your visitors what they need. Don’t devalue your site with meaningless link exchanges no matter how beneficial the email cover letter was.
Seal of Approval
Give your visitors what they’re looking for. Here are a few kinds of links that are beneficial to your visitors:
- Links to mortgage brokers that you trust and would recommend.
- Links to insurance companies that you trust and would recommend.
- Links to real estate agents in local markets that you don’t service (that you trust and would recommend).
You don’t have to limit your links to this list. You can also do other businesses, official city websites, etc. The point is only add links to websites that “you trust and recommend”. After all, each link is considered your seal of approval.
…And for you Blogger.com’ers! Uh… What’s “Link 1″?
