New template and tagging

Well I was feeling a little cramped with the last template so I decided it was time for a change. What do you think?

I'll have a think if I want to add another coloumn. I haven't decided yet.

Anyhoo onto the exercises for this week - Tagging, Folksonomies and Technorati. Well most of us would have started tagging our blog posts already. The great thing about adding tags is that I can click on the tag and quickly get all of the articles that person has blogged about that tag.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 4 #8 Adding a blogroll using Bloglines

After organising my feeds into folders, which I recommend to everyone, I decided to add a blogroll to my sidebar. A blogroll is a list of the blogs that you read.

To add a blogroll in Blogger:

1. Go to Bloglines and click on the share link at the bottom left.
2. Type in the name of the folder you want to display.
3. Click on the Generate HTML button.
4. Highlight and copy (Ctrl-C) the Javascript given at the top.
5. Go to the Blogger dashboard and click the Layouts link.
6. Click on Add page element.
7. Click on the Add to blog for HTML/Javascript.
8. Add a title for your blogroll e.g. mine is Tech blogroll
9. Click in the big box and paste (Ctrl-V) the javascript.
10. Click Save changes button.
11. Save your template.

Go check your blog and view your blogroll.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 3 #5 - Photos and images - Flickr badge

While I'm waiting to scan some images at home and add to my Flickr account I thought I'd add a Flickr badge to my sidebar at the left.

I followed the instructions from Flickr's Create your badge page.

1. Choose HTML or Flash. The HTML oprion will produce the static images whereas the Flash option creates a badge with changing images. Of course I chose Flash.Next click Next: Choose Photos button


2. Choose the photos yo use. You can use your own or everyone's. When you choose everyone's photos you can select to show everyone's photos whatever they may be or choose to select only those photos that contain a particular tag (or subject heading). In my case I chose to select those photos with the tag library. The click Next: Colors button.


3. Then it's time to choose the colours for the badge. Start with the background colour. By default this is already highlighted. Click on one of the colours in the colour picker and the right and see how it looks in the preview badge. Click on the Next: Preview and get code button.


4. Highlight the code in the box and press Control-C on your keyboard (or Edit> Copy on your browser). This is the code that you need to copy into your blog to get it to work.

5. Open your Blogger blog and click on the Template tab.

6. Click on the link that says Add a page element.


7. Click on the link Add to Blog under the HTML/Javascript option.


8. In the pop-up window, give the widget a title e.g. Flickr - Libraries, click in the content area and press Control-V on your keyboard (or Edit > Paste in your browser menu) to paste the code.

You should see Start Flickr badge at the start of the code and End Flickr badge at the end. Click Save changes.


9. You can move this widget around in your sidebar and when you are happy where it is located click the save button.

Now go and view your wonderful creation.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 2 #3 - Blogging - Why and how would you subscribe?

So you've found quite a few interesting blogs in the past few weeks and you want to keep up with the articles but you don't want to visit each blog every day to read them. What can you do?

Give yourself a pat on the back if you said subscribe!

Each blog has a feed which contains a title and description. Software or applications such as feed aggregators/feed readers can collect and organise these feeds and display updated articles from the bogs (or even some web pages).

Wikipedia explain aggregators/feed readers quite well:

"Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper." Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_aggregator


Examples of the aggregators or feed readers include Google Reader (to which you already have access if you have a Blogger blog), Bloglines, Rojo. Even Firefox and later versions of Internet Explorer have built-in feed readers.

How do people advertise that their pages have a feed? They use a little orange broadcast symbol such as the one in my sidebar or they might use the terms subscribe and RSS or Atom. If I click on the orange subscribe symbol in my sidebar I'm taken to the Feed. I can select my reader from the list.




For more information on subscribing to blogs, please check out my blog help page on the Eastern Regional Libraries website.

Next up I'll show you how to advertise your feed.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 2 #3 Blogging

It's been a busy week. So far I've added a few things to the sidebar. The feed from Google Reader looks cool. I'll try to keep changing the articles. Any suggestions for topics? At the moment I have fiction (this feed also appears on the What's New @ Eastern Regional Libraries blog).

I've been spending some time visiting lots of blogs from other participants in our library and other library services. Keep up the great work! I've added a link to some of the cool blogs I've found so far. Have I visited yours yet? If not, comment away and let me know.

Found this really cool pic on StockXchng, my favourite stock photo site. I've popped it over on the sidebar there. Once I get started with the Flickr activities I'll add more photos.

Finally I've been helping a few people out with blogging and Blogger in particular. If you've got a question, please Ask webgurl. I'll try my best to answer.

Cheers, webgurl

Week 2 #3 - Logging into Blogger

Well I've had a few enquiries from people that have had trouble logging into Blogger. So I'll try to go through the login procedure here so it may assist some of you eager to login in and get blogging.

There are 4 main bits of information you will have set up with your Blogger blog/Google Account.

1. Username - this is the email address you provided when you signed up for a Google Account. It may be a Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo or library email address. Once you signed up you will have received a verification email at this address. You need to open the verification email from Google and follow the instructions (they will tell you to click on a link inside the email).



2. Password - this is the secret password you set up for your Google account.



3. Blog Title - this is what your blog is called. An example would be this blog, it's called 23squared. The main Eastern Regional Libraries blog is called What's New @ Eastern Regional Libraries. A bit of a mouthful I know.



4. Blogspot address - this is the website address of your blog. It could be similar to your title. The Blogspot address of 23squared is http://23squared.blogspot.com/.

So now let's look at the login procedure.

1. Go to http://www.blogger.com and enter your email address in username and your password in password and click on the sign-in button.





2. This will take you to the dashboard. Not sure why it's called that, anyhoo....the dashboard is the space where you can move from one blog to another. As you can see below I have more than one blog. I click one the New Post link attached to 23squared for example to add a post to this blog. I can also click on the links to manage posts (e.g. edit a post), settings (change the time etc) and layout (change the colours etc). I can also edit my profile at the right. I might want to include a little information about myself. If you click on the View my complete profile link on this blog you'll see my favourite books and movies
   

Cheers from webgurl

Week 2 #3 Blogging - Adding feeds

The great thing about Google taking over Blogger is some of the cool new features. I can add links to my shared articles in Google Reader to my Blogger blog.

I can sign into Google Reader using my Blogger/Google login and search for any feeds from blogs or podcasts that people might be interested in. Feeds are files that contain titles and descriptions of content updated from websites or blogs. Bear with me with these images as this template is not very wide.

I can use a browse or keyword search for blogs/podcasts to which I can subscribe.



Let's say I type in fiction, I get a list of results including

Fiction and Poetry, Crime Fiction Dossier, Science Fiction News, etc.

I click on the + subscribe button to subscribe to these feeds. The list of blogs to which I subscribe appears on the left of Google Reader.


When I click on one of the blogs I can see a list of articles appear on the right of Google Reader. I click on one of the articles and click on the Share button.


OK, so I can do this over and over to build up a list of shared articles. Now it's time to add this to Blogger.

I click on the link to shared items in the menu at the left of Google Reader. Then I click on the link that says to add a clip to your blog. This will open up a popup window.


I choose a title for the shared items, a color scheme and click on the Add to Blogger button.


Blogger adds a widget to my sidebar with links to the shared articles. The Blogger layout template will open in a new window or tab and you'll see the widget display in the sidebar. You can place your mouse over this and move it further down the sidebar. When you are finished click on the Save button. This will save the template.



Now go and visit your blog and see if it worked.

You can change the articles you want to share. Unshare some and add others.

Let me know if it works or if you get totally lost! Have fun

Cheers, webgurl