Google Blogger API

Google Blogger just released a new copy of Blogger API Developer Guide.

The Blogger data API allows you to develop your own applications to view and update Blogger content in the form of Google data feeds. Your client application can use the feeds to create new blog posts, edit or delete existing posts.

A couple of things that can be done with the Blogger data API:

• Add a running list of blog posts and comments to a site.
• Create a desktop application or plugin that allows users to create and post entries from the desktop.
• Create a blog aggregator application.

The Google Blogger API certainly doesn't look too popular in the blogosphere. It looks like there are lots of catch up to do to compete with WordPress.

How to get rid of borders in images

Many Google Blogger blogs have pictures in their posts but many of them may not realized that the default setting of adding images requires adding a border and linking to the source of the image.

In most cases, taking out the border and the link of the image makes the post looks more appealing.



With some minor tweak with the Html code, you would be able to take out the link and border of the added image:

After you successfully added an image to your post, go to the "Edit Html" tab. You should be able to see the hyper link of that image, which is very similar to this code <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBlog.... href=" ... >. Delete that line along with the ending </a> and you would be able to take out that link of the image.

To get rid of the border of the image, all you have to do is take out the code cursor: pointer and replace it with border: 0pt none

It is that easy. You would be able to get the orange flower layout instead of the yellow flower layout by doing that.

Submit Your Blogspot Sitemap to Search Engines

The best way to ensure the search engines pick up all the pages on your website is to submit your sitemap to the search engines.

The same concept applies to blogs.

One of the easiest way to create a xml sitemap is using Sitemap Generator. You can create a free sitemap that is complied with the sitemap standard and submit to Google, Yahoo and MSN.

SEO Expert has mentioned how and where you can submit your sitemap to the big three search engines after you created your sitemap.

However, many Google blogspot bloggers get stuck because they couldn't host their sitemap in their domain. What you can do is go through the same process of blog verification but submit your blogspot rss feed instead. The feed is in xml format and it would also ensure the search engines pick up all the pages in your blog.

Backup Your Google's Blogger Blog

Since Google's Blogger doesn't have a cool backup plugin like the Wordpress, here is how Google Blogger blog backup their content in case of crashes.

Thanks to Chris from Blog-Op, suggests using Google Reader to backup your blog. You can backup your blog by adding your main feed and your blog's comment feed to your Google Reader.

Google reads and records all of these independently of your blog, so even if your webhost goes up in flames, the text of the post and comments remains in Google Reader.

After you have done that, you are safe from letting down by your server or computer because your blog posts and comments are saved. Other than doing this for backup purposes, it would also give your feeder count a little boost as well!

If you don't know what is your main feed and comment feed, you can found out from here.

TrackBacks with Google's Blogger

It seems like many blogs have turned off TrackBacks because of spams. Many actually thinks that TrackBacks are dying. However, I still see many popular blogs keeping their TrackBacks on for legit linkbacks.

Using TrackBacks with Wordpress and TypePad is easy. The blog would automatically send out or receive requests if it is enabled.

If you are using Google's Blogger and you would like to send out a TrackBack request after you have linked to a post, you can use Wizbang or HaloScan to do it. There are two pieces of information that you need to know for any pingback; the TrackBack URL that you would like to ping and the permalink of your blog post. WordPress or TypePad usually have the TrackBack URL labeled as "trackback" and it can be found at the bottom of the post. The permalink of your post is the actual URL of your particular blog post (not the blog home page).

Display Recent Posts, Recent Comments in new Google Blogger

Last month, I have talked out the "recent comments" widget for Google Blogger. As easy as it is to implement, it still requires some modifications to the blogger template.

There is actually a much simpler way to display the "recent comments" and "recent posts" in your Google Blogger sidebar by using your own RSS feed. If you do not know much about RSS, you would be able to find out more information here and here. Basically, RSS is a mechanism to distribute content in your blog that you would like others to use or read.

First, you have to find out what your Google Blog RSS feed is. If you are using a .blogspot domain, your site feed is *.blogspot.com/atom.xml, where * is your blog name. The comments feed of a blogspot blog is *blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default


Then, go to the Blogger template and add the Page Element "Feed". Insert your site feed as the feed address and change the Page Element title to "Recent Posts". After that, insert another Page Element for the blog comments. Save the template and you are done!

Google's Blog Software Hijacked by Scammers

According to Fortinet, a security vendor, Google's blogger.com is being hijacked to spread malware through fake blogs. Genuine-looking blogs on topics as wide-ranging as "Star Wars, school, furniture, Christmas, cars and girlfriends" are now being created to host a variety of script-initiated malware. It would be impossible for visitors to spot the danger of these sites, which now number in the hundreds, the company said. Although they look genuine, it appears that all the sites have been specially crafted to fool visitors.

Source: PC World

How to Display Recent Comments in new Google Blogger

Google Blogger is not as flexible and doesn't have as many plugins as WordPress. Today, I have just found a very neat widget created by Ramani over in Hackosphere for Blogger enhancement.

This widget, using JSON feeds allow a Google Blogger to display the recent comments in a blog with no coding necessary. It is also customizable with the number of comments and the characters limit.

Full instructions can be found here: Hackosphere - Recent Comments Widget

How to Use Google Blogger's Custom Domain

I have noticed many people have problems (myself included) with Blogger's Custom Domain when they tried to move from blogspot.com to their own domain. Usually, it happened to the domain where www.mathpoints.com points to the correct site but mathpoints.com (without the www) cannot be found. I would like to share my experience on how I get it to work.

Special thanks to MG from parislemon.com, GoDaddy Support and Google Blogger Help Group.

I followed the instructions on Blogger's Help:

1. Log in to your account at www.godaddy.com.

2. Open the Domains tab and select My Domain Names. You'll be directed to the Manage Domains page.

3. Click the domain that you'd like to use with your blog.

4. Click the Total DNS Control And MX Records in the box entitled Total DNS Control.

5. Click Add New CNAME Record. If you've already created a CNAME record for your blog's address, click Edit next to the existing CNAME record.

6. For the Name, enter only the subdomain of the address you want to use for your blog. For example, if you picked www.mydomain.com as your address, enter www here.

7. Enter ghs.google.com as the Host Name.

8. Click Continue, and then click Add. If you're editing an existing CNAME record, click Continue and Update.

Then I followed the email instructions from GoDaddy's Support:

9. Park your domain and don't use any other free hosting:

• From within your GoDaddy account, select 'Manage Domains' from the 'Domain Names' menu.
• Check the box next to the domain(s) you wish to modify.
• Click the 'Set Name Servers' button above the list of domains.
• Select the 'Default Parked Name Servers' option.

10. Set Up Forwarding:

• Check the box next to the domain(s) you wish to modify.
• Click the 'Forward Domains' button above your list of domains.
• Enter the full URL that you would like your domain to forward to. (http://www.mydomain.com)

How to Add a Search Box in New Blogger Template

Thanks to Antonio, I have added a search box in Mathpoints. You can just copy and paste the following code to a new "page element" to get a search box on the page.

<form action="/search" id="searchthis" method="get">
<input id="search-box" name="q" onclick="this.select()" value="Search..." type="text">
<input id="search-btn" value="Find" type="submit">
</form>

You can also change the Bold text to the words you like to display in the search box and the submit button.

Blogger's Blog Search New Feature

Blogger's Blog Search has just made some changes to its look and the design. It was just updated today to give the same feel with Google, and it was tested in the usability lab and showed good results. It also added a new function called the "date-restrict options" along the sidebar, which allows user to pick the date range of the blog posts. I think this feature is pretty unique and I have never seen any other blog search has this feature. This is definitely useful to search for something that requires a time frame.

Blogger Custom Domain

On Sunday, Spinchange has dugg one of my post here and it was made to Digg home page. After that, the site got a big spike of traffic and got 3,000 visits.

It was perfectly timed because I have switched over to Blogger's Custom Domain Hosting the week before that,

"If you don't care to have blogspot.com in your blog's address, though, you can
get a domain of your own. We'll continue to host all your content as before, but it will be displayed at your new address. You can register domain names from any of a number of different registrars, and you can use .com, .org, .net or any other valid addresses. Remember: you only need to get the domain name; you don't have to pay extra for hosting service."

As I still had the extreme basic hosting plan before, I think the bandwidth would have been over the limit already. The advantages of using custom domain in Blogger included:

1. You own your blog's domain name, so you can sell it or do whatever you want with the domain later.
2. Give your blog it own custom domain identity.
3. You don't have to pay for hosting. You got unlimited web space and bandwidth with Google Hosting without paying anything.
4. It makes life easier if you are switching to Wordpress from *.blogspot, because you won't be losing that many links.

For everyone out there who would like to make a switch to custom domain or using Wordpress, it is recommended to do it early. It is definitely a must for any *.blogspot users who would like to take a step forward.