[Blogger] Save your Template

I just wanted to remind all the people who are using blogger(I have no idea how the other blogs work) to back up there template to a .txt file somewhere. The reason I am saying this is last night, blogger lost half of my template, after I had made a major modification to it. Whilst I did not publish the error, I only just noticed that half of the template was missing, luckily!
I had to redo all the changes :(, I was just about to backup too.So I would hate for my misfortune to befall any of my class mates.

[Blogger] Profile Help

Managed to get a picture uploaded to my Profile/Blog - thanks for those that helped me with that. Two questions: How can I make the picture bigger on my blog? and how do I move the NAME and LOCATION over to the left margin. I've been playing around with it for awhile now and no success yet...

Removing Comments

I sometimes have comments that are accidental duplicates or, frankly, just bother me and I want to delete. Trouble is, even as the administrator of the blog, I cant seem to get that little trash can icon to show up. Does anyone know how to fix that? Refreshing (the Blogger solution) doesn’t seem to work. Thanks!

[Photos] Manipulating Pix without Graininess

My camera takes pretty good pictures - so when I post them to my blog in the main space (big picture) it looks pretty clear. However, when I resize them to aboput 200px wide, they get all grainy. How can I make my little pictures look not so grainy?

[Content] First Impressions/Personality

To appeal fully to me, a blog has to have some personality. The first thing I do when I see a new blog is look to see "who is it writing this blog" If I don't see any clues somewhere as to who is writing it and where they are based, then I feel a little bit disengaged from it and am less likely to return so quickly. I remember when I first started blogging, I was a little bit scared of giving away too much about myself, but once I got over that problem, I think I feel more settled actually trying to be me instead of hiding behind a bland mystery persona. How do others feel about this question?

[Blogger] Template tweaking

This blog is a gorgeous example of tweaking a standard Blogger template and turning it into something unique and great looking. Those of you with skills to do this, will you enlighten the rest of us and share how you do it?

[Blogger] Posting Pictures, Part 2

I'm using Hello to post pictures in my blog. Is there a way to run the text next to the picture, as oppposed to just the top and bottom? Hate the waste space like that if there's a simple way around it.

[Blogger]Posting Pictures

How do I make a picture that's on my blog smaller? I just put up a new post, but the picture is way bigger than I'd like. Help!

[Traffic] How do you drive traffic?

Being listed as a "blog of note" on Bloggers homepage really boosted my traffic! Now that I have been bumped off the list I'm wondering what others do to drive traffic? Beyond submitting your site to search engines and participating in online discussion boards and leaving comments, what are the best sources of traffic to your site?

[General] choosing font sizes

One of the biggest problems I have with many blogs is that many of the templates provided use such small fonts. I can barely see the posts on many blogs. It's a fairly simple fix though.

Look in your stylesheet (the template area of your blogger blog) to find instances of font-size:. If the font size is in pixels (for instance: 11px), chances are that it is too small. The real disadvantage to pixel for font-size is that IE viewers cannot resize the text in their browsers.

Please use relative sizes instead of pixels for font-sizes!

eg:
Instead of font-size:11px;, use font-size:small;

Or if you really want to specify the font-size, choose to use em. That way even IE browsers will be able to adjust the size of font.

For more information on this, take a look at:

• Putting Style Sheets in Perspective: font-size (www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Style/Sheets/Fonts/font-size.html)


• How to size text using ems (www.clagnut.com/blog/348/)

Just remember that not everyone can read tiny fonts easily. Be kind to your shortsighted viewers.

[Tools] Language Translation

[Tools]Appropriately enough (with the forthcoming release of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) I ran across a neat translation tool today on 18thC Cuisine. The code to add your own to your page can be found by clicking on the link in the box to go to Babelfish and then following along as to adding your own.

(Typepad) How to Organize Archive

I have noticed that some people have organized their archive or category pages so that you see a list of titles at the top, each title is a link and takes you to the post. After each post is a "top of page" link. Can anyone tell me how to do this? I have upgraded to Pro so that I can control the html on all pages, supposedly, but I can't seem to get there. (follow the link to a Choc&Zuc page where she uses this method.)

Thanks!

[Misc] Making Money From Your Blog?

Money...

Just out of interest, do you do anything to make money with your blog, and if so, what do you do and how well is it working?

To kick start:

I will first say that I am hoping that I and all the authors of Digital Dish (I think Dr B is the only other activated member of this community who is a co-author of the book)will make at least some money and preferably LOTS from our book which is a compilation of the best food blog writing we could get our hands on from the Summer of 2003 to 2004. If it succeeds we will do 2004 to 2005 and hopefully have LOTS more participants!

However, that aside, I also have google ads and some odd links through to Amazon affiliates. I 'get' about $1.50 per month from Google (which means I haven't actually gotten anything yet since they wait until you have $100 to issue a check). I also 'get' about $10 from Amazon per year.

Anyone else?

[Misc] Emoticons - How to?

Is there a way to put emoticons in a post, instead of the usual :)?

[blog software] Redirecting from one blog software to another

I have noticed some people have switched from blogger to typepad (or from typepad to some other configuration) and am wondering if that's hard to do. Interestingly (ha ha) blogger doesnt have an answer for that in their knowledge base. When I first started with blogger I was super happy with it, but these days it seems like it might be time to move on. Is there a way to 1. redirect people and 2. move my entire blog to another site, without just pasting it there?

[Blogger] recent comments hack

One of the things that appears to be missing from the standard blogger setup is a list of "recent comments" in the sidebar. But I found this hack that will add up to 10 links to most recent comments on your blogger sidebar:

recent comments hack from bloggerhacks.blogspot.com

-ejm

[Misc] How do I get a personalized icon?

How do I get a personalized icon? You know - the kind that you see just before the http in a url. They also show up in the tabs.

Food bloggers I have noticed with these nifty little decorations include Brownie Points, Elise's Simply Recipes and the new, very engaging Travellers Lunch Box from Scotland.

I don't think I have seen it on blogger sites so I suspect it is something that only comes with certain software. Software I probably don't have and hmmph, frankly, I am a little envious.

[Recipes] Speaking of legality...reprinting of recipes

I am wondering if anyone has ever been told to take down a recipe that was reprinted without express permission.

On the rare occasions I post someone elses recipes, I note where they are from, but am curious if this is actually a potentially bad thing.

[Photography] legality of publishing restaurant pics on the web

Related to the previous post. Does anyone know about the legalities of taking pictures in a restaurant (is it a public or private place?). Could they possibly sue you if they are not happy that you took pictures and posted them online without their permission?

[Reviews] Restaurant reviews

I’m sure that everyone has their own way of dealing with restaurant reviews, some more successful than others. I wanted to put these questions out there to see how other food bloggers deal with their reviews. When doing a restaurant review, do you ever let them know that you are writing a review of their restaurant on your blog? If so, do you do it before or after the meal? If not, how do you explain the fervent writing of notes and picture taking during your meal? What is considered respectful and courteous?