Today I have created a custom menu for my blog, the red buttons at the top of the page.
Colors could maybe be a little better. However I, will change them soon as I do the tutorial.
It seems to work ok; therefore I will start a tutorial in parts, because there are quite a few steps in it.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Horizontal Lines
Horizontal rule, is the tag given to them by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) the body which governs web standards. They are simple to use however once again be careful using them due to cross browser compatibility or should I say incompatibility. Another alternative again is to do it with a graphic.
The graphic used here can be copied and pasted down the page in as many places as you require it. Question is could you copy my one and paste it? The answer is sadly no, not due to any copyright law etc, it is that mine has had its matte color set to blend in with my background.
Therefore on a black background it would have a white border as below.
In that case you would need this one, which now does not look good.
With this being the proper result you had wished for.
The graphic used here can be copied and pasted down the page in as many places as you require it. Question is could you copy my one and paste it? The answer is sadly no, not due to any copyright law etc, it is that mine has had its matte color set to blend in with my background.
In that case you would need this one, which now does not look good.
With this being the proper result you had wished for.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Blog SEO Myth or reality?
Search Engine Optimization:
There are many blogs and websites that will offer you what they call sound information on search engine optimization. As far as I can see, there is no quick formula. It is a very long and frustrating process that never seems to end.
One comment I will offer though is it seems to be easier with a blog than a website. As a web designer I have created many websites, only to find all advice of SEO, although thorough does not work. Many sites will offer to do it all for you. However, they walk a very thin line between getting your site to number one in the search engines and having it banned.
Weaved into many pages is key words that are mentioned hundreds if not thousands of times on a single page. This is done in many cases by making the text the same colour as the background. This, furthermore, if detected by Google is classed as keyword stuffing or spamming and will have you removed from the search engine, if lucky you may be able to resubmit the site or page again after a period of suspension.
Links are written about in many articles, mentioned are both in-links and out-links. All of this sounds nice, if achievable though in many cases apart from spamming people begging them for a link exchange it is better to write worthwhile content and hope people pick up on your article and link to it.
Submitting your blog to search engines may work, once they are eventually listed, some search engines are better than others.
Google is quite quick to list blogs, especially if they are done with their free service Blogger. Google though is slower in listing most websites, with a month or two if not longer. Generally having a site made with the open source content management system Joomla will list quickly and will only start to slip down the search engine listing as you implement different SEO advice, modules and components.
Yahoo is ridiculously slow in listing anything, web sites taking anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months.
Of the two Google would be the better to be listed on, some advice will say once you are listed on Google, Yahoo will also list you. I have not seen this in any of my dealings.
BlogCatalog, takes approximately 4 days to approve your blog, and if it is not approved they will give you a reason. In many cases, this may be a new blog, and they will say the blog does not yet have enough content. Once approved by BlogCatalog, Google seems quick to list posts in its search queries.
Technorati promotes themselves as the number one place to have your blog listed the crem de la crem of blog listings, so they would have you believe. Recently, they seem to be more like the painstaking experience you get with Yahoo.
In concluding this article the only sound advice I can give is be true to yourself and your readers. Take the time initially write worthwhile content, like said the baseball movie field of dreams ‘if you build it, they will come’ in the movie it is in reference to a baseball field, in blogging though I would say it applies to the content not the blog. Build on your quality of content, almost anyone can create a blog.
Earn your in-links by content not cheating people or buying them.
With Blogging remember readers first, and then come the results!
One comment I will offer though is it seems to be easier with a blog than a website. As a web designer I have created many websites, only to find all advice of SEO, although thorough does not work. Many sites will offer to do it all for you. However, they walk a very thin line between getting your site to number one in the search engines and having it banned.
Weaved into many pages is key words that are mentioned hundreds if not thousands of times on a single page. This is done in many cases by making the text the same colour as the background. This, furthermore, if detected by Google is classed as keyword stuffing or spamming and will have you removed from the search engine, if lucky you may be able to resubmit the site or page again after a period of suspension.
Links are written about in many articles, mentioned are both in-links and out-links. All of this sounds nice, if achievable though in many cases apart from spamming people begging them for a link exchange it is better to write worthwhile content and hope people pick up on your article and link to it.
Submitting your blog to search engines may work, once they are eventually listed, some search engines are better than others.
Google is quite quick to list blogs, especially if they are done with their free service Blogger. Google though is slower in listing most websites, with a month or two if not longer. Generally having a site made with the open source content management system Joomla will list quickly and will only start to slip down the search engine listing as you implement different SEO advice, modules and components.
Yahoo is ridiculously slow in listing anything, web sites taking anywhere from 6 weeks to 3 months.
Of the two Google would be the better to be listed on, some advice will say once you are listed on Google, Yahoo will also list you. I have not seen this in any of my dealings.
BlogCatalog, takes approximately 4 days to approve your blog, and if it is not approved they will give you a reason. In many cases, this may be a new blog, and they will say the blog does not yet have enough content. Once approved by BlogCatalog, Google seems quick to list posts in its search queries.
Technorati promotes themselves as the number one place to have your blog listed the crem de la crem of blog listings, so they would have you believe. Recently, they seem to be more like the painstaking experience you get with Yahoo.
In concluding this article the only sound advice I can give is be true to yourself and your readers. Take the time initially write worthwhile content, like said the baseball movie field of dreams ‘if you build it, they will come’ in the movie it is in reference to a baseball field, in blogging though I would say it applies to the content not the blog. Build on your quality of content, almost anyone can create a blog.
Earn your in-links by content not cheating people or buying them.
With Blogging remember readers first, and then come the results!
Ink Drop
The ink drop was just a test to see if it could be done in Blogger.
This was done in Flash however it could almost certainly be done as an animated gif.
Might be a good subject for a video tutorial.
This was done in Flash however it could almost certainly be done as an animated gif.
Might be a good subject for a video tutorial.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Border: Video Tutorial
This tutorial shows how to place the border in HTML and CSS,
shown with Notepad++ a free program and shows effects in browser.
The tutorial then shows which part of the code to copy and paste into Blogger.
I hope you find it useful.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum porta placerat nisl, non iaculis arcu semper quis. Morbi quis nunc turpis. Vivamus egestas blandit felis eu interdum. Ut porttitor commodo ligula sit amet feugiat. Nam at nisi dolor, vitae egestas nulla. Phasellus vel erat tellus, et vestibulum est. Cras dapibus facilisis lacus faucibus pretium. Integer facilisis fermentum lorem id
Friday, February 5, 2010
Creating Tooltip Popups in Blogger: Part 2
Download text file here
Important note:
Use this script in Edit HTML only.
If you use it in the blog Compose mode Blogger adds some code.
The last part of the video will show you what happens if you do.
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