Blog Action Day!

Do you know the Blog Action day ? It is coming soon, and i just got this news from my Google reader. I have registered another own blog and i am going to write a post on that day. Don't forget to register your blog if you choose to do that too.

On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic.

Blog Action Day is about MASS participation. Here are 3 ways to participate:

• Post on your blog relating to the environment on Blog Action Day
• Donate your day’s earnings to an environmental charity
• Promote Blog Action Day around the web

(via Blog Action Day)

[Blog Tips] Cool web counter widget showing total, today, here

bPopulr provides a good web counter as below,


Above widget is just for this page. You can see the installed widget on right of this blog.

It shows total hits, today hits and here now.
You can get the Free button code here.

Additionally, you can see the referred links of your website and graphical statistics if you click the widget.
And bPopulr home shows the today popular web sites.

All of this good service are free and easy to use. (via coping & pasting the free code)

Let's use Search Box of Google Blogger

If you want to provide "search" to your visitors in case of Google Blogger, let's use the "Search Box" element.

It is easy to install and its design is cool.
Moreover, the whole page is not refreshed to show the result. Only the area for the result is reloaded.
I think that such a different way as AJax make it possible.

You can see the look as below or search using this blog's Search Box on the right.

Installation on your Google Blogger

It is very easy.

After go Dashboard / Template / Page Elements, click "Add a Page Element".
Then select the following Search Eelement.


Cautions!
You should access the Draft Dashboad of Blogger via http://draft.blogger.com/home.
At time of writing this post, only the Draft version provide Search Box element.
(The default dashboard URL is http://www.blogger.com/home)

If you want to check if you are on which dash board, check the log as below,

In case of Draft

In case of Default

.

Profile photo

The following photo is for my profile of Blogger.

SEO for Blogspot blog

It's very easy, for beginners i upload some pictures:

1. add sitemap

step 1:

step 2:

2. verify your site:

Your Google accounts->Webmaster tools->Dashboard->Verify->Copy the meta tag given
->Edit template->Paste your meta tag on correct position->Save your blog template.


Wow, It's really easy :)

Update (Jan. 08/2008)

If you have already redirected your post feed traffic to your feedburner feed, you may find an error message at Google webmaster page. In this case, you have to delete previous sitemap and add new sitemap like below, so the problem will be solved.

http://alonesworld.blogspot.com/atom.xml?redirect=false

How to retrive a closed tab in FireFox, Opera, IE7

When you close a tab in FireFox, Opera, IE7 by mistake you can easily restore it.

In case of FireFox

By pressing Ctrl+Shift+T

Also it restore more than one closed tab. And besides it restore the position of the closed tab.

In case of Opera

By pressing Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z

In case of IE7

It does not support restoring for closed tabs. But after installing IE7 Open Last Closed Tab 3.5 which is a free add-in you can do it by pressing Alt+X as FireFox and Opera.

You can download this useful add-in here.

Ref: Closed An IE Browser Tab By Mistake? Get It Back Easily

Technorati Tag: FireFox , Opera , IE7 , tabbrowsing , add-in , tools , tips&tricks

Using On/Offline Blog Editing Programs

All of Blog services or programs provide their own editing program.

But the functionality of blogging programmes is not good as a word processor. To use powerful features of a word processor You may first write a post using a word process (e.g. MS Word) and copy and paste to your blog editing program when your are on-line.

Copying a word document and pasting it into a blogging program is not always what you want and intend.

It can be create unnecessary coding behind behind scenes and can not be rightly shown as you intend (e.g. font, intend, align, etc).

To avoid above problems, let's use the following blog editing programs.

Windows Live Writer (free)

MS provides a good free blog editing program.

Windows Live Write supports the following powerful features,

WYSIWYG Authoring

You can author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you publish it.

Photo, Map publishing

Compatibility

Windows Live Write works with Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress (and many others)

On/Offline Editing

You can write a post offline and upload it to your blog. And you can get the existing posts from your blog and can edit/upload it.

Powerful Editing Features

Table, intend, font, underline, bold, block quote, strike out, etc

You also see and edit HTML code.

You can freely download this nice program here.

Qumana (free download)

Like Windows Live Write, Qumana is a good free blog editing program.

Also, you can insert an advertisement called Q-Ads into your post.

And Qumana support the list of existing posts with their content. you can open/edit them as below,

Qumana supports Spellcheck which is not found in Windows Live Writer.

But I could not find how to insert table into a post. (windows Live Writer can do it)

You can download this free tool here.

ScribeFire (Firefox Add-on)

It is a Firefox add-on. This add-on supports basic functionality for editing. But you should be always on line.

And you can use commercial tools like Ecto, BlogJet and such.

I could not have any chance to use them :).

Ref: Improve Your Workflow with a Blog Editing Program

Technorati Tag: blog , blogging , tools , blog tips tricks , web2.0 , editor

[Blog Tips] Let web robots know your blog has been updated

People want to make their blog (or website) take more traffic using such technique as SEO.

I think that ping services are good method to improve the volume of traffic to your website.

In the blogosphere, pinging allow both search engines and blog directories to know that your blog has been updated. And the result of the notification their web robots will visit to your website for crawling. (i.e. they read the new content and apply it to their database)

A ping is just a piece of text containing your website name and the URL. Generally ping is sent in the XML format.

Ping services automatically process the above notification.

There are many ping services as below,

- huge list of RPC and RPC2 services (over 56 RPC and RPC2) by EliottBack
- 20-25 RPC and RPC2 service by Emily
- List of Ping Services by Daily Blog Tips (over 50)

But I think that you need not to use all of above ping services because ping services ping each other. Therefore I suggest the following ways.

In case of Google Blogger

If you use Google Blogger, the ping to Google Blog Search Engine would be automatically sent after your blog has been updated.

You can check it with "Send Pings" options on Settings/Publishing page of Dashboard.

You can manually ping Google Blog Search Engine by this link.

For more details, see this document of Google.

Technorati Ping Service

If your blog is claimed at Technorati, use Technorati ping service.

It allows Technorati to know that the claimed website has been updated.

iPings Ping Service

I think that iPings is good service. I usually use this service.

This service automatically ping 32 ping services.

After access this link, type only your website title and URL and RSS Feed URL. Then select targets to ping as below,

Ref
- Ping Service Bookmarks
- XML-RPC Ping Services For Your Blog
- List of Ping Services

Widgetbox provides many useful widgets for your blog.

There are many useful and fun widgets for your blog or your web site in Widgetbox.
Almost Widgets are based on Flash. So they are smart, cool and pretty.

The widgets are well categorized on the left frame.
(Blogosphere, Communication, Fun & Games, Interests, Information, Money Makers, etc)
You can sort them by "Subscriptions" or "Top Rated" or "Data Added".

In case that your blog is powered by famous blog service such as Google Blogger, MySpace, FaceBook, you can directly install the widget on your blog.

Among widgets, I show some widgets as below,

Crystal Clock







Flash Web Counter






YouTube Videos 2.0
Display a user's YouTube videos, favorite videos, or a specific videos with a certain tag on your website or blog.

















cyber-pet
interactive cyber pets!







Google Site Translator
Open your blog or site up to readers from around the globe with Google Site Translator.




















See the Widgetbox, and get the cool widget for your blog~

[Google Blogger] Alones 3 Column XML Template Updated

The Alones 3 Column XML Template 've been updated.

By the comment by mjjin, I know that the rendering time of a blog which uses this template is too slow. mjjin said that it takes 3 minutes.
mjjin also tell me the cause. He think that the script for anniyalogam site cause the slow rendering.

I've found a related post here. Because hackosphere changed its hosting services, it may takes long time.

So, I've removed the script for anniyalogam.




For updating Alones 3 Column XML Template,
- Download it again here.
or
- Delete the following script in your template code in Edit HTML section under Blogger Dashboard.

[History]
v0.1 (09.21, 2007) - initial version
v0.2 (09.22, 2007) - anniyalogam script removed.

Google Blogger XML 3 column Template

I've introduced good Google Blogger XML template sites.

Among them, I like both Underwater Template and Blue Wave Blogger XML Them.
But I think that
- the top frame of Underwater is not good. The height is too long.
- menus in the top frame of Blue Wave are very attractive.

So, I've integrated Underwater with Blue Wave. The name of the new template is "Alones 3 column XML Template".

The characteristics are as belows,
- XML template for the new version Blogger
- 3 column layer
- The width of the post section is not fixed.
(I think that to write source code the width should not fixed)
- Top frame has menus.

The figure of the integrated template is as belows,


When I write this post, this blog uses above template.

You can download this template here.

To use this template, after download the following file,
Copy & paste to Edit HTML section under Blogger Dashboard
or
Directly upload the downloaded file.

Funny. How much your blog worth?

Business Opportunities Weblog provides a funny widget.

They've made a little application by using Technorati API.
It show the worth of your blog by US dollar.

They used both Tristan Louis's research and Technorati score which is related to how many other sites link to it.
Tristan Louis's research show the value of each site of Weblogs Inc with its Technorati score.

Simply, access to the post and type your blog url.
Then you can get the result as below,

Above result is my korea blog's. Because this blog is newbie the value is 0$ :)

Good recent comments widget for the new version (XML) Goolge Blogger

In Blogger-Templates blog you can get the recent comments widget for the new version XML Blogger.

After access the page of Blogger-Template, and just fill the following edit box.
The "Apply" button takes you to the Page Element page of your blog.

Good XML Templates for Google Blogger

Here are good Blogger XML templates.


Beautiful Beta

The site has 4 style XML template for the new Goolge Blogger.
They are 2 ~ 3 column.
Click Get this template now! in the post, you can see them.

I like the following Underwater Template among them because it is 3colum and blue.
And the width of post section is NOT FIXED!! that's good~

Underwater Template

Download template

Blue Wave Blogger XML Theme
This template is Google Adsense optimized template.



Blogcrowds
The site has many XML template for Blogger from 2 to 3 column.
Among them I like the Green Marinee :)
You can find more template in the bottom of the post. See the Template

Green Marinee

Demo | Download

Blue Wide Blogger Template

I think that the design is not good than above templates, there is a 4 colmn template!!
See the following image.