Do you have international visitors to your blog?

Over the last few weeks I have noticed quite a few international visitors to my site….mostly for Outdoor Wednesday (I think)……

I thought it would be nice to “accommodate”  my non-English speaking/reading visitors by adding a translator (gadget) to my blog page…..  to show them a little “Southern hospitality”.

I thought I would share how I did it in case others wanted to do the same but weren’t sure how to do it.

If you go to Google Translate, you will see this……

You want to copy and paste the HTML (gray box)…..

Now go to your blog and select “Customize” from top right corner…… and you should see the layout page for your blog. Select “add a gadget” and then select “HTML/Javascript”

And a box will pop up. Paste the HTML you copied from the Google Translate page into the box…….

AND THEN HIT SAVE (don’t forget to save!). Once saved, you can move it where you want it to appear on your page. Easy, huh?

Technorati Tags: blog tips,Google Translate

Updated: Commenting and Followers problems

COMMENTING

I have been having trouble leaving comments the last few days……. so I googled (searched) for a solution …..

From Known Issues for Blogger (Monday, February 23, 2009):

The word verification form is currently failing to load for some users. As a temporary workaround, you can disable word verification from the Settings | Comments tab. We're working on a fix now, and apologize for the inconvenience.

I have removed word verification from comments for now.

Instructions on how….

1. Select Customize (top right of screen)
2. Select Settings (tab on left under name of blog)
3. Select Comments (under settings tab)
4. Select “never” under comment verification
5. Save settings

For those of you who see a noticeable decrease in comments….this may be your problem too…….

FOLLOWERS

For those of you who see a noticeable decrease in followers or blogs you follows….this may be your problem…….

Known Issues Blogger (Monday, February 23, 2009):

We are in the process of integrating with Google Friend Connect, which may temporarily affect the Following feature for some users. Specifically, users who already use Following and Friend Connect may notice missing blogs in their profile, as well as a decrease in the number of public Followers on their blogs. This is because we have set these users to "anonymous" to avoid linking the profiles of Blogger and Friend Connect users without their permission. They are still following privately and will able to make themselves public again. After the official launch of the Friend Connect integration, we will communicate with the affected users and instruct them how to reset their relationship to public. To reiterate: the number of Followers has not changed, and we believe that the launch will improve the visibility of your blog and community. We will post more details on Blogger Buzz as the launch approaches.

Blogger and Google Friend Connect combining…. issues should be worked out when they are finished……

Hope this helps!

Technorati Tags: blog tips,word verification problems,blog followers missing

Organizing your blog……

I had a couple people ask about how I organized my blog….  specifically “My Blog List” and “Awards” ….

First I created a blog called “A Southern Daydreamer Extras”- you can easily create another blog by going to your dashboard (top right corner select customize and then dashboard)

After I created the blog… I set the background and fonts all the same, so that if you moved form the front page of my regular blog to a page in the “extras” blog it wouldn’t be obvious.

You can add whichever gadgets you want. I added “My Blog List” gadget to the sidebar. (just as you would your regular blog). Your followers will come up the same on each blog you have at blogger/blogspot or you can import from Google reader (don’t forget to hit save)

To link items from my “regular” blog to the “extras” blog I simply used “picture” gadget (from layouts and add gadget)

I’ll use my most recent one as an example. I wanted to place all the weekly blog posts in one place (are they called memes or carnivals? I don’t know… like I said I am new to blogging) .

First, I posted them first on my “extras” blog in a regular post. Then, I pulled up the “add a gadget” (in layouts) in my regular blog and selected “picture” gadget and put the link to the post in ….

and added in the title box “Click below to see weekly posts” and then browsed on my computer to select an image to use as the “button” (I made all the little images). Don’t forget to hit save. After the gadget is saved you can drag it where you want it on the layout of the page. That’s it! When you click on the image it will go to the post!

The award list is simply a post on the “extras” blog that I can pull up and edit any time I want to add or change anything…. just like you would any other blog post and then hit publish. It will post again on same day and post.

Does this make any sense? (Not sure I am explaining it well enough) I’ll try to answer any questions you might have (just leave a comment). I am still new at this and learning as I go…. and happy to share what I do learn….. just ask!

What do you think of my “Weekly Blog Posts” page? Name might not be right and I may change it… and I am sure I will add more “weeklies” to the list!

Have any other questions? If I don’t know, I can Google it and try to figure it out!

Technorati Tags: blog tips

Is your computer sick?

I spent quite a few hours Friday restoring my daughter’s computer. It shut itself down every 5-10 minutes. It had Trojan horses, viruses, malware, and all kinds of problems….MANY of which could be avoided if she had updated and run some FREE programs on her computer.

She said “I didn’t know”… so I thought I would share these programs with you…. just in case…. “you didn’t know”

I use all of these programs myself. The companies provide a free version and sell a commercial version (with a few more features). I have used the free versions for YEARS…. and have avoided any major issues with computer virus’ or spyware/malware…

You need anti-virus and anti-spyware. Many anti-virus can find spyware/malware but they often can’t fix/heal them (but the anti-spyware/malware software can).

[Clicking on names will take you to site]

Anti-Spyware Software

• Spybot S & D – for Windows 98 & later; latest version is 1.6.0.30
• MalwareByte's Anti-Malware - for Windows 2000, NT, XP & Vista; latest version 1.25

Anti-Virus Software

• AVG 8 - AVG Technologies Free Edition - for Windows 2000, XP & Vista; latest version 8.0.176

It’s really easy…..

1. Download each of the above programs
2. Install programs
3. Update each of the programs (a MUST)
4. Run each program, one at a time…

I run these at least once a week……

There are many other programs that will do the same thing. I mentioned these because I am familiar with them. It doesn’t really matter which programs you use….just make sure you run them regularly!! You might just save yourself a trip to the repair shop!

My daughter’s computer is up and running better than before….. after about 6 hours of diagnosing and problem-solving by me (Thanks Dad for the stubborn gene that wouldn’t allow me to give in…or toss it out the window). A happy ending (this time) for me vs. machine!

Technorati Tags: anti-virus,anti-spyware

To Follow or Not to Follow……

To follow, or not to follow…… THAT became the question last week. Did you know there is a limit to the number of blogs you can follow by selecting “Follow This Blog”? Well, there is… 200 is the limit!

I was enjoying the Blogger gadget “My Blog List”. I posted "Help with Blog List" a couple weeks ago to share with you how to add and update the list. I was surprised when I reached the limit so quickly. I visit EVERY blogger who comments on my blog, and I was adding them all to my blog list. Now what was I going to do? How do I decide who to follow and who not to follow? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings…and I don’t want to miss a good post!

Solution?  Google Reader  !

I moved all the blogs I was following from my dashboard at Blogger to Google Reader…… and then created folders (labels) to sort the blogs…..

Some of the labels I used  …blog follower, Georgia blogger, Blue Monday, Tablescape Tuesday, Outdoor Wednesday, Pink Saturday, Food, Garden, etc. Some blogs have more than one label….. but they are all organized now!

So if you recently saw me “disappear” from your “Followers” list…. don’t worry… I am still “there”!

How do you keep up with the blogs you follow? I am always open to new ideas…and would love to hear what others do!

Technorati Tags: Blog tips,Google Reader

Help with “My Blog List”

I am new to blogging but I am learning new things every day! Today I figured something out about “My Blog List” and I thought I would share it with you.

If you customize the layout of your blog you can add all types of gadgets. One of these is “Blog List”

I added this gadget to my blog without much thought shortly after I started my blog. Since then, I have added blogs by selecting “Follow this blog” on various blogs that I like to visit. Recently, I looked at my blog list on my home page and wondered “Where are the blogs I added?”

Yes, I know I can go to “Dashboard” and look at the blogs I am following from there…but I want to see them from my blog! So, off I went to investigate…. I went to my layout page…and aha! there is an edit button! (insert DUH here)

Okay so I am going to edit…. I see some of my blogs I am following but I want to add the others… so I select “Add to the list”

and  I see as an option “Blogs I am following”… that is what I want! (There is also add by URL and import from Google Reader)…..

When I selected”Blogs I am Following”, up popped a list of all the “missing” blogs! All I had to do was select boxes for each blog and select “Save”…. and now all the blogs I am following are on my blog page!

Okay, so many of you may have already known this…but I bet a few of you didn’t! A new year is around the corner…go clean up your blog list! All kinds of configurations are available…….. you can sort them a few ways, and you can select which way they are shown (icon, most recent title, snippet of most recent, date of last update). I went with a simple list since I have so many, but there are many options! [Note: DON’T FORGET TO HIT SAVE!]

Just a little tidbit I thought I would share…… I will probably share things like this from time to time as I discover them…. perhaps they will be of help to some!

Technorati Tags: Blog tips,blog gadgets