TIP - FotoSketcher

Another delightful little programme, FREE, that will enhance your blogging experience.

But it needn't stop there, because this little beauty will allow you to exercise your artistic skills to the full and produce prints that you could use for cards 'n' stuff to send to your family and friends!

FotoSketcher is completely free and does not contain any adware, spyware or virus. It runs on any version of Microsoft Windows (sorry, no Mac version available).

If you want to turn a portrait, the photograph of your house or a beautiful landscape into a painting, a sketch or a drawing then look no further. FotoSketcher will do the job in just a few seconds.

Don't believe me? Here is an example of something that I completed in less than 30 seconds. Honest!

It was a simple case of fire up the programme, pick a photograph, import it with a click, select the type of output you want, click another button that says "Draw it!", and you're done!

I chose this pic of one of our favourite bloggers, Shrinky (in preference to one of the delectable Anna Kournikova, in full tennis gear, scratching her bum), not least of all because of the strong contrast between the light and dark areas, which usually causes graphic software major headaches ...

 

 

... and turned it into this ...

 

 

... using the default settings!

 

The author, David Thoiron, has even produced a YouTube video to walk you through the various steps. It is interesting, but not  necessarily a 'must watch', because the programme is so easy to use that you will probably find yourself converting tons of your digital photographs into cheeky little works of art in no time at all.

Don't hesitate. Go get FotoSketcher now!

Another fine addition to your blogging arsenal ...

 

 

I've been tagged ...

From: Lee
To: Terry Fletcher
Subject: I've tagged you

Hey Terry
I noticed we now seem to have our backlink link back. LOL!
I tagged you for an archive meme. Don't know that you are into that much but I had fun with it.

Lee

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I don't usually succumb to invitations to involve myself in MeMe posts. Not because I am dismissive of them, but because I've never considered my blogging on Blogger to be sufficiently interesting enough to take up a bloggers valuable time. Unless the blogger in question was looking for some form of HELP, this site is mostly off the average blogger's radar!

Damned if you do (boring, boring, boring), and damned if you don't (boring, non-participant), I have nevertheless gleaned significant insights about fellow bloggers by reading their MeMe's to be intrigued! And since this was from Lee with whom I have been corresponding about blogger-related stuff for some time now, it felt right to go take a look at how she intended to 'stitch-me-up'!

Lee's original tag post laid out the 'rules' and I realised immediately that I would not be able to participate in this MeMe with anything off this site. Here are the basic rules:

"Go back through your archives and post links of your five favourite blog posts that you've written. But here's the catch ..."

• Link 1 must be about FAMILY
• Link 2 must be about a FRIEND or FRIENDS
• Link 3 must be about YOURSELF
• Link 4 must be about SOMETHING YOU LOVE
• Link 5 can be about ANYONE or ANYTHING you choose

I e-mailed Lee to explain my predicament and tentatively mentioned that I run a 'hidden blog' called the FLOG on my main website, and if that was acceptable then I was up for the challenge. Her response was an unqualified YES. So here goes ...

Link 1: (Family)
STARTING OUT
Some reminisces of the way things used to be - way back when!

Link 2: (Friend)
TOM AND THE CANDIDATE
About my friend Tom.

Link 3: (Self)
PARADISE DISCOVERED - A STEP BACK IN TIME
An insight into the complexity of a simple person!

Link 4: (A place I love)
PARADISE LOST?
About the Maldive Islands.

Link 5: (Person)
THE OLD LADY
On the outside, looking in.

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Now for the hesitant part. I have to nominate 5 bloggers to continue with this MeMe. But 2 of them must be new blogging friends.

• John of Whodatdare's Pokah Life
• Denise of Mrs Nesbitt's Place
• Jenera of Just Me~Mommy, Wife & Everything Between
• Papoosue of Random Blethers
• Catmoves at The QuerkeyTurkey II

Okay, the deed is done. If you visit my links, please leave a comment, naughty or nice, it doesn't matter. So long as I know you've visited ...!

 

TIP - Screw that Spanner

I may be in a majority of ONE, but I've always disliked the "Screwdriver & Spanner" icons that appear below every widget in the sidebar. I KNOW my visitors cannot see these distractions, and that they only appear on the page of the blog owner, but I don't like the S&S, so there!

It irritates me because I know that I can access the widgets through my control panel, BUT your take might be different. Especially if you've added a lot of widgets and when you look at them in "Add and Arrange Page Elements", you don't have a clue which one is which. If you are in this category, then skip this 'tute'!

And then there is that "Pencil" icon below every post! Do you need it? For my part the answer is an emphatic 'YES', because I've lost count of the number of times I've re-read a post and found a typo that needs a quick correction. At least the "Pencil" takes me directly to the edit window of the post without having to click through several different steps to reach the same area.

 

 

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Want to remove one, or the other, or both? You've come to the right place!

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1. THE PENCIL

Go to Settings | Basic and where it asks you the question, "Show Quick Editing on your Blog?", simply answer "No"

Done.

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2. THE SPANNER & SCREWDRIVER

Only a bit more complicated. That is, if you consider editing HTML as complicated! You only have to insert a bit of CSS code into the CSS already in your template.

Go to Template | Edit HTML, scroll down until you find the CSS properties and insert the following code anywhere on a new line immediately after a closing brace [ } ]:

.quickedit {
display:none;
}

It is a good idea to put a 'commented-out' description of what you've just inserted, so that you can find it again quickly if you wish to reverse your editing.

 

 

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Here is another 'screencap' of the same area I captured in the first pic, showing that the 'spanner has been screwed', but if you start to get withdrawal symptons without them there, retrace your steps and undo what you've just done!

 

 

Happy Blogging!

 

Ahem ... !

I blithely motored on describing how to implement the new banner headers that you are all impatient to try out, and managed to gloss over a hint or two about the images you are preparing to replace your current banner header.

This isn't a show-stopper, more in the way of a 'tip'. If you have a template that uses rounded corners then you should attempt to imitate the same display so that the new banner header integrates seamlessly. I have to assume that you are perfectly adept with your imaging software and that it can handle 'layers' - or this tip won't work.

You can slave over your imaging software and build your rounded corners laboriously. Or you can cheat!

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1. Navigate your way to the HTML code of your template (I shouldn't have to explain how!) and find Blog Header, and you should see a couple of URLs that are clearly pointing to graphics lodged on the Blogger servers:

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2. Typing in those URLs will get you a page with the graphic, but I will make it easy for you if you are using the Rounders-3 template: just click on the following URLs to take you there - in a new window! Each template uses different backgrounds and it is important that you 'lift' the graphics for the specific template you are using.

http://www.blogblog.com/rounders3/corners_cap_top.gif
http://www.blogblog.com/rounders3/corners_cap_bot.gif

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Both sets of corner images are GIFs on a transparent background. You need to copy them (right-click, 'save image as') and then all you need to do is to 'import' them to the banner image you are constructing, align them top and bottom overlaying the original image, and you now have an image with neatly rounded corners!

Easy, huh?

 

Change Your Header - NEW Blogger

NEW Blogger instructions, probably for the majority of users, and probably the one that will interest most of the visitors to this site looking for simple instructions on how to change a 'Header' or 'Banner'.

Have you got your image ready? Is the image width set to the width of your current template? Please remember I am dealing specifically with 'Rounders-3' and 'Rounders-4', and in those the width of the image is the same as the width of the template - 740 pixels. The height of the image is what you choose to make it, but I suggest 150 pixels for a balanced display.

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1. Backup your old template. Either by using the built-in backup feature in Blogger, or by copy/pasting it to a text editor of your choice, and saving it in a location you can find easily and with a name that makes sense to you!

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2. Clicking on 'Customise' on your main page, or 'Layout' on your Dashboard will bring you to the "Add and Arrange Page Elements" of the 'Template' tab. This is the new feature of NEW-Blogger in which you can literally 'drag-and-drop' modules wherever you wish. The one we are interested in is the 'Header' panel at the top:

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3. When you click on 'Edit' (see pic on top) it takes you to a new window in which you are asked to make a few choices. I have annotated the choices you should make so I won't reiterate them here:

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4. Nearly done - but not quite! Those pesky codes in the /* Blog Header still need to be changed so that the image will sit exactly where you want it, centred at the top of the page. It is exactly the same criteria that was edited in OLD-Blogger, so take a look at the graphic below and do the editing . . .

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That's it. You wanted more?

The examples for this sort of editing are all around you. The banner header on this site was inserted using exactly the same editing techniques. The banner header on David McMahon's blog (using the Rounders-3 template), and the banner header on Cecilia Mercado's blog, Dance with the Sun (using the Rounders-4 template), were also edited using the same instructions I've posted above.

If things don't work out first time, just restore the site to the way it was by using the saved template you copied before you started. Then e-mail me directly and I will visit your site and see what I can do for you. Don't forget to add as much information about what went wrong.

Over to you . . .

 

Change Your Header - OLD Blogger

OLD Blogger instructions. Here we go. Please bear in mind that this will come in two parts - OLD and NEW-Blogger. Why? Because I hacked away at both, and it would be a waste if I didn't at least mention OLD-Blogger for some 'peeps' who are still using it.

So, before we get down and dirty with the template changes, have you got your image ready? You probably have or you wouldn't be interested in attempting to change it. Make sure that the image is the width of your current template. In 'Rounders-3' and 'Rounders-4' the width of the image is the same as the width of the template - 740 pixels. The height is whatever you want it to be, but I suggest 150 pixels for a balanced display.

The following is the picture I settled on after much editing in Photoshop. You will see a screen-caliper I use as an aid when 'measuring' stuff for the web and it clearly shows that the width of the picture is 740 pixels. Measuring things using the 'artists thumb' method isn't much good for web design. It has to be precise or your display will look shoddy!

OK, we have the replacement ready so let's go see what we need to attack. Once again, please let me remind you that this is OLD-Blogger that we are working on. If you want the information for NEW-Blogger, read the post that follows this one.

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1. Backup your old template. Either by using the built-in backup feature in Blogger, or by copy/pasting it to a text editor of your choice, and saving it in a location you can find easily and with a name that makes sense to you!

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2. Upload your image so that it gets to lodge itself on Blogger's servers, because you're going to have to call it up during the editing process. You can do this in a new draft post that you won't be publishing:

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3. The highlighted bit is what you need when replacing the template's own image. The rest is superfluous:

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4. Now choose the 'Template' tab and choose to 'Edit HTML' (if you're still reading this and you are a NEW-Blogger user, please note the differences in the options offered to you). Follow the instructions in the graphic below:

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5. And here are the changes:

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6. Still in the 'Edit HTML' window, find <!-- Blog Header --> and delete the bits that I've highlighted. This is so that the 'Blog Title' and 'Blog Description' don't show up over (or through) your carefully constructed graphic!

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7. That should have been all you needed to do, but when I made the changes to David's blog, one of his visitors commented that the 'link' that the original header provided back to the home page of the blog was now broken, and that she found it disconcerting that clicking on the new banner didn't take her anywhere! That's the strength of 'feedback', that a simple oversight made a visitor's browsing experience less than satisfactory. So I went back in and did another small change that the next couple of graphics describe. I would recommend that you do it as well. This graphic shows what needs to be edited . . .

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8. And this graphic shows it after it has been edited . . .

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That's all folks. If you haven't already done so, take a wander across to David McMahon's blog. What you see is precisely what was achieved editing his banner while he was still using OLD-Blogger.

He is, of course, now using NEW-Blogger. Which means I can use his site as an example for the 'tute' on changing things in NEW-Blogger as well. Watch out for the next post . . .

 

Own It . . . !!

There are millions of bloggers, using various blogger engines, which means there are millions of templates in use. And your template of choice is going to end up being similar to many thousands of others.

So what's so terrible about that? Absolutely nothing!

The templates have been crafted with love and care and enthusiasm, and have been made available to all blog users - FREE of charge. But you can make it your own - "Own It!" - by changing only a few parameters. The colour combination for one thing; the banner header for another.

Any change you undertake will make your template UNIQUE. The base template will remain the same as the thousands of other, similar templates, but it will have your personal touch stamped all over it. Which will tell your visitors that you care. Not just about the content, but how you wish to serve up the dish!

What you have to say on your Blog, the most important part, is still your own unique footprint on the web. Don't ignore the fact that the container in which you display it is also within your remit for change.

David McMahon posted a series of three pictures of the sunset on his shortest day of the year on his authorblog a few days ago. Apart from the phenomenom that Oz was experiencing their shortest day whilst the rest of us in the northern hemisphere were 'clebrating' the longest day, the pictures were of the usual high quality one expects from the man. I marvelled at the images he had captured and then a blindingly obvious thought struck me. Those pictures, untouched, matched the overall colour scheme of his 'Rounders 3' template. I wondered how one of those might look if it could be used as a banner for his site.

Long story, short. I fiddled around in Photoshop and came up with something I thought might appeal to him. I was still hesitant, but after a bit of encouragement from my 'better-half', Maria, I forwarded the idea to David. In true McMahon fashion (and I won't repeat the Aussie expletives from his email) he was delighted and enthusiastic and said he'd incorporate the idea as soon as he could find the time (Wendy in hospital, Blogger awards, deadlines to meet at work . . . and the rest!).

So I offered to do it, and he accepted. Don't misunderstand. This doesn't happen all the time, and to repeat a quaint Aussie expression that David uses frequently, ". . . neither of us paints the other guy's fence!" It is just something one bloke does for the other without any expectation of a reciprocal act. Mind you, I am ahead of the game, considering the amount of original stuff he pushes my way for publication on my main website Anglo-Indian Portal.

The change to David's banner header seems to have been generally accepted as a good move. And now I have a comment from YesBut encouraging me to "bring it on!"

How can I refuse?

Standby for the next post . . .

 

Leap of Faith, too . . . Implementing Thickbox

I am about to use one of David McMahon's original high-res photographs that he sent me some time ago, but which he hasn't actually posted on his blog one that he published on authorblog titled Jose, Can You See . . .. This should demonstrate how a 'medium-sized' picture on a Blogger page (as displayed on David's blog and reproduced in a similar size here) can be viewed at its best by using the 'Thickbox' technique. I like the effect very much; you have to decide whether it is something you'd like to use, too!

OK, let us make a start!

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1. Choose to make a new post (I don't think I need to add screencaps for the obvious steps - but correct me if I am wrong).

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2. Choose your method, 'Compose' or 'Edit HTML'. I prefer the latter because I have more control, but your mileage will vary. Be warned, you will HAVE to use 'Edit HTML' at a later stage.

I also compose my posts in a text editor outside the post window, and when I am satisfied that everything is as I want it, I copy/paste into the editing window and save it (but, of course, Blogger has introduced an 'Auto-save' feature which is an excellent idea!). You can see from the 'screencap' that I have already started to format my paragaraphs and, where required, to italicise or bold the text.

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3. Before I upload the image I need to take a look at its size in 'high-res' format. This one happens to be 3008-pixels-wide and 2000-pixels-high (size: 827,906 Bytes).

• Far too large to display as a standalone image in a new window; the viewer would be forced to use scroll bars to view the whole image.
• Far too large to save many images of this size to your (limited) Blogger disk space allocation.
• Far too large for a user with a dial-up connection (DUN) who would have to wait an interminable age for the picture to download and appear on his or her screen.

'Thickbox' will automatically adjust it to a viewable size that will display centred in the available space in the viewing window, whatever the screen resolution the viewer is using, but the other two factors mentioned above are still important, because Thickbox will NOT resize your raw picture for you.

I will now upload the image after having reduced it to 800px by 532px (size: 22,382 Bytes). I simply used Irfanview (discussed elsewhere) to reduce the width to 800 pixels and it did the rest for me:

The first thing to notice is how Blogger 'codes' the HTML for the image. In the 'screencap' I have deliberately NOT posted any text so that you get an idea of what sort of thing you need to look for when you start to fiddle with the HTML. In any event Blogger ALWAYS places the uploaded image at the beginning of your post, regardless of where you last placed your cursor. This is an annoying quirk but, we can use it to our advantage if we know that the last image uploaded will always be the first bit of text you come across when you're editing in HTML.

I have highlighted and arrowed the characters "-h" that appear immediately after "s1600". REMOVE THEM. Do it the first time you see your code so that you don't forget later when you're adding other bits as explained in step 4 below!

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4. Here is the same code again, but note the highlighted additions (errmmm... the deletion is obvious by no longer appearing there!).

1. Added the code for centering the paragraph and 'closed' the tag.
2. Added the 'class' telling the script to call up Thickbox.
3. Added the 'title' text.
4. Added the 'alt' text.

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Whew! That was a toughie - FOR ME. I began to get confused as to whether I was adding screen captures or the actual picture. Had to delete and re-upload a couple of times. But, if you've come this far, then here is the original David McMahon photograph (slaps head! - must remember to add the copyright):

 

Photograph: © David McMahon

 

That's ALL, folks

 

KISS

KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid has always been a favourite adage of mine, student or instructor, man and boy!

I spend hours trawling the web for information and it is only when I am researching something specific that I have the patience to read ALL that an article or post contains. Even then I tend to skip huge chunks when it becomes apparent to me that the author is being self-indulgent about his or her subject by mentioning every trivial detail.

Of course, there is a delicate balance in deciding how one imparts information. Assuming that the reader has absolutely no knowledge of the subject is presumptuous and a bit supercilious, and can often give offence. Yet, assuming, often erroneously, that the reader has a basic understanding of the subject and skipping some parts that might seem too trivial to mention, turns the exercise into a total waste of time for many!

To be honest, I don't have the answer to how to handle the balance. So, anything I write in this Blog is just going to have to be aimed at the 'lowest common denominator', which should meet the requirements of the majority although it might be boring for a few. To the latter I just have this to say; I am sure you can find similar information elsewhere that will appeal to your level of intelligence and understanding. This blog is here to help those who are just about to dip their toes in the water!

If you've read this far I have to assume that you have an interest in wanting to do something with your blog, but have been too hesitant to ask. Well, now is your chance. No question or request will go unacknowledged. You'd be surprised at how many people, myself included, glean information by just reading questions and answers. Sometimes it is pertinent, sometimes it can be ignored. But if nobody asks, nobody gains. And my crystal ball is fairly cloudy at the moment!

A Forum would be a better vehicle to handle questions and answers, but actually handling the queries on a Blog page gives the viewer a visual idea of how things should ultimately turn out. The fact that this is a New Blogger blog somewhat limits the information to users of that resource but, since the initial request(s) have been from bloggers who use this software, this is what it will continue to concentrate on.

I shall post a few general 'hints' and 'tips' to keep the ball rolling, but it is only you that can keep the whole thing 'alive'.

Over to you.