ChatRoulette (warning: this is often NSFW) is a site that has caused a lot of buzz over the last week or so.
It’s a webcam site where you login to chat with complete strangers – you are randomly matched with a stranger and you both have the opportunity to find a new person to chat with at anytime.
People tend to quickly click, click, click through the people that they find matched with them until they find someone that they find ‘interesting’. Unless you do something a little interesting, wacky or happen to be an amazingly beautiful person – you tend to get passed over very quickly.
While much has been written about ChatRoulette and whether it is offensive, dangerous and moral – as I was spending a few minutes on it earlier in the week (where I must have been having a bad hair day because I was ignored by 99.9% of people I was matched with) it struck me that what I was watching was a visual of how people increasingly use the web.
Click, click, click.
They don’t stay till long – they’re always clicking
They are always looking for the next best thing
They only pause if they see something that is interesting, intriguing or completely relevant to them
They are ruthless
They are impulsive
They will judge what they see within a split second of arriving on a site
They rely upon instinct and first impressions
As bloggers – the reality is that people are making these kinds of calls about our blogs every day as they click through to them from different sources. The blank faces that you see scrolling past on ChatRoulette could be the faces of your readers – clicking onto your site, making a quick judgement about your site and what its worth and then in many cases moving on.
PS: after 3 minutes on ChatRoulette and being ignored by 100+ people I decided to experiment. I put on a clown wig, I stuck two CDs to my glasses and put on some 70’s disco music (hopefully no one took a screen shot of me doing this).
The rotation of people I was being matched with slowed down – one in 5 waved – one in 10 even chatted with me.
The take home lesson
do something different
be unique and original
make people look twice
snap people out of their ‘click click click’ stupor
Do this and you might just make people pause long enough to connect (or you could just make a fool of yourself).
Incase you haven’t noticed yet.. your favorite site has a make-over today! Hope you like the new, improved look of BloggerTricks
Also, I’m proud to announce the launch of our new bloggertricks addition “Blogger Templates Gallery/Showcase” website. (templates.bloggertricks.com).
It is a blogger templates directory where we showcase some of the best blogger templates on the net by various famous designers.
So, if you are looking for a new template for your blog, instead of searching tons of websites in vain,you can simply visit our site to download hundreds of new, unique and amazing templates on the net for Free. We arrange them in categories, so you can quickly browse through them and select the best template that fits your blog.
To make it easy for you to decide on a template that suits your blog the best, we have also included a “Live demo” feature. All you need to do is simply browse through the template demos and download the ones you like. No more do you need to waste your time about downloading an inappropriate template; with the ‘live demo’,you make the right choice.
We are open to feedback and constructive criticism
I have been blogging for almost ten months. I quit my job – a really, really good job – last week. Today, I made $10,600.
In one day.
(Okay, not really in one day, but today I collected two cheques for writing projects that I secured because the clients saw my pieces at ProBlogger and hired me. True story.)
How did I use my blog to launch a business?
I didn’t know anything about blogging except that I wanted to do it, so I googled “how to blog” and landed on ProBlogger. Thank goodness. So I learned how to blog on ProBlogger. I literally started with a piece from the archives about what to include in your first post.
I started reading the blogs of people who were commenting at ProBlogger. I wrote a couple of adoring e-mails. Josh Hanagarne might know what I’m talking about. He’s easily flattered.
Then, as I gained confidence – in part because I read the trial-and-error stories of other bloggers, here – I started guest posting on ProBlogger. I sent Darren Rowse a whole whack of wacky pieces.
Darren said, and I quote very loosely because I’m pretty sure he used proper grammar, hey I like your stuff, wanna write weekly?
I said, umm, let me think about it. (Don’t believe that ostentatious lie. I didn’t say that. Instead, I said ”YES!!!!” and I launched (unbeknownst to him) into The Happy Shimmy wherein one drops it like it is lukewarm. And my awkward-girl-dance still looked better than this one. Maybe. Probably not. Shout out to bloggers: that’s a challenge. Let’s see your dance moves.)
My blog traffic exploded. I didn’t mind this, at all.
People started asking me to write for them. They’re even paying me. Lots.
I have true, passionate friends – other bloggers – who are part of my heart, now, in real life (such a thing actually exists) whom I met because of ProBlogger (see #2). Either I saw their piece and stalked them until they relented and befriended me, or vice versa.
A white hot meta-entrepreneur, and one of the people I admire most in this world, asked me to co-author a book with her.
Yes, I am TOTALLY FREAKING OUT. ProBlogger, lots of love, some dancing and a little effort (ok, a LOT of effort) changed my life.
My quit-my-job-in-ten-months lessons:
when you’re figuring it out, the guidelines and tips and case studies at ProBlogger and other how-to-blog sites make the blogging world less intimidating
investigate – and try – lots of different models for making money: ads, products, affiliate deals, offline work.
play nice
prepare to be tired. Very tired. You may as well cut off your cable, now, because TV is no longer part of your daily regime. Unless you’re a TV blogger. In which case you’re just screwed.
So yep, I’ve got big love for ProBlogger (though my cable company may have other opinions) because what I learned here empowered me. I don’t mean that in just a fluffy, feel-good, girl-power kind of way; I mean, I have money in my hand. I mean, I now write for a living. In just ten months, ProBlogger helped me change my life.
And I’m pretty sure that Darren Rowse would have offered me the weekly gig even if I hadn’t written this piece as bait.
I’m just kidding. Really. He made me the offer two months ago and unlike some people (me), he’s immune to flattery. Don’t even try it. Call me instead.
Better yet, let’s dance.
___________________________
Kelly Diels writes for ProBlogger every week. She’s also a wildly hireable freelance writer and the creator of Cleavage, a blog about three things we all want more of: sex, money and meaning.
One of the things that first attracted me to blogging was the creative genius that I saw at work in many of the blogs going around at that time.
There was an ‘anything goes’ type attitude among bloggers who were pushing the boundaries of what could be done on a blog. Of course I look back now and much of this past creativity has become quite normal now (for example I clearly remember seeing a blogger include a short video in a post a number of years back and thinking it was cutting edge).
Another thing I loved about blogging was the humor, irreverence and fun I saw happening on blogs. Bloggers were not constrained by the editorial process, policy and standards that journalists worked with and as a result some of the content that they produced was like writing I’d not seen before (note: I’m not saying that editorial processes, policy and standards of journalism are a bad thing – but that what I saw bloggers doing was markedly different to what I saw happening in mainstream media at that time).
Blogging was an exciting genre – we were cutting new ground as a community of bloggers.
Of course this tradition of pushing boundaries and expressing ourselves creatively lives on – in fact it’s a real feature of many successful blogs.
Be a Playful Blogger
In a presentation last year on principles of successful blogging – one of the points I made that tried to get at this pushing of the boundaries and new way of writing was titled – Be Playful.
Not every successful blog is ‘playful’ but many are. Whether it be in the experimentation with new mediums, tools and ideas, or whether it be in the type of content that they produce – almost anything goes when it comes to blogging.
In fact as I look back on the most memorable posts that I’ve published on my blogs it is often the ‘playful’ ones that stick out. A few examples:
How to Reduce Camera Shake – 6 Techniques (the pictures in this post where the author scribbled over her butt and asked readers to ignore it (by drawing attention to it) went over so well with readers. The post went viral on Digg and many other sites.
There are many ways to ‘be playful’ on a blog but a few starting points include:
Experiment with your voice – it is often not ‘what’ you say but ‘how’ you say it that grabs people’s attention.
Humor – careful use of humor can really make an impact upon readers.
Surprise – much of what I’m trying to get at with this post is to allow yourself to do things a little different with your blog – things that surprise your readers will make them stop in their tracks a little and take a second look at what you’re doing.
Fun Projects – pretty much any project that allows your readers to do something fun and interactive would fit into this category. On DPS this would include our Weekend Photography Challenges where we ask readers to submit an image on a theme each weekend or here on ProBlogger it’d include our group writing projects over the years. These projects are largely about fun, interacting with others and a little self promotion for readers.
How have you been playful on your blog?
Being playful is not something you can make a definitive list of how to do. Playful blogging comes in all shapes and sizes so I’d love to hear how you’ve done it on your blog (or how you’ve seen others do it). Please feel free to share a link below to your examples!
PS: playful blogging is also fun and can help you to get through tough patches where you feel like giving it.
Yesterday was my first day back at blogging after a 10 day vacation with my family and on Twitter I commented that I was finding it a little hard to get my brain back into blogging mode. @Mikeachim responded by suggesting I write a post on the daily rituals that I use to get my mind into gear.
I thought I’d take his suggestion and jot down a few notes – both as a way of getting my head back into blogging but also because looking at the tweets I received this morning it’s a problem many bloggers face.
As my head is a little scattered today (as I readjust) I’m going to tackle this as a list post – here’s a few thoughts:
1. Coffee
2 lattes with a sugar in each is a fairly essential part of my blogging routine.
2. Cafes
More important than the fact that I get caffeine into my bloodstream each morning is the fact that I do it in one of 2-3 local cafes each day. I find getting out of the house (I usually walk to them so get a 10 minute walk in too) helps me to snap myself out of ‘home mode’ and into ‘working/blogging mode’. I also find that blogging in public is stimulating too – sitting in the middle of a cafe is noisy and some might find it distracting but for me I find it actually helps me generate ideas and takes me into a slightly more social space than sitting alone at home in my front room.
3. Planning
I’m a fairly impulsive guy and like to go with inspiration when it hits – but I also find it helpful to spend time thinking ahead and planning posts in advance so that I have some places to start when I have a tough day where inspiration is not coming. On my laptop’s desktop I have a number of text files which are full of topic ideas, titles of posts and even half written ideas that I pull out when I’m stuck for ideas.
4. Series of Posts
Similarly I like to have a series of posts on the go at any time so that I can always write a post that adds to something I’ve written previously. For example I’m currently working on a series of posts on Principles of Successful Blogging which I add to 1-2 times a week and will keep running over a number of months.
5. Twitter
This post is an illustration of the power of having a network of people to help you generate ideas. I didn’t ask for ideas for posts but out of a conversation I was having on Twitter someone made a suggestion that helped generate an idea for a post. While Twitter can be a distraction – it can also be an idea goldmine if you use it well.
6. Face to Face
I won’t do this today as I’m manically trying to catch up on email as well as write new posts – but I do try to schedule in face time with other bloggers, twitterers and entrepreneurs ever week or two. This is partly just because I’m an introvert and could quite easily work alone for weeks on end (and need to force myself into some social interaction) but it’s also about putting yourself into places where your ideas connect with other people’s ideas – that’s often where the magic happens.
7. Capture Ideas
Another strategy that I use is to capture as many ideas as I come AS they come into my brain. I returned home from my vacation with a notes documents on my iphone that has 6-7 post ideas that came to me over the last 10 days. Some I may never use but there are a couple that will be great posts that I’d have forgotten if I didn’t immediately capture them in some way. I used to carry a notebook for this but my iPhone now does the job.
8. Exercise
I mention that I walk to the main cafe that I work out of – in addition to that I try to walk each day for at least 15 minutes. I find that this gets the blood pumping and often gives me a burst of energy to help me through the afternoons.
9. ProBlogger.com
This might seem like pure self promotion but I’ve found the ProBlogger community to be a goldmine of ideas and inspiration. I’m increasingly finding that I come away from the forums having seen what someone else is trying with inspiration to see how their approach will work on my blogs. Whether it’s the ProBlogger forums or another one – I think putting time aside to interact with and collaborate with other bloggers is something well worth doing.
10. Mind Mapping
I’ve outlined how I do this previously in the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook but using mind mapping is something I do on a weekly basis to come up with post ideas.
11. Manage Distractions
I read many articles on this type of topic that tell you to eliminate distractions. They say to get offline completely, don’t check your email, turn off Twitter etc. I’ve written about doing this previously but am starting to wonder if completely eliminating these ‘distractions’ is always a good thing. For me it’s more about ‘managing’ the distractions and setting aside time to do them rather than just ending up with a confused jumble of tasks. Instead of flipping between writing a post, email, twitter and Facebook – give yourself set times for each task. For example – in the writing of this post I’ve stopped 2 times when I’ve begun to feel my energy for the post decreasing a little. The first time I jumped on Twitter for 5 minutes, the 2nd time I cleared a few emails. Each time I gave myself 5 minutes for the other thing and was disciplined about jumping back into writing for another 10-15 minutes. Perhaps this is just my impulsive nature Attention Deficit Disorder but sometimes I find eliminating distractions can actually make it harder to work as you’re wondering about the things you’re trying to ignore.
12. Play
Related to the idea of managing distractions I recently have been rediscovering the power of letting myself ‘play’ a little each day. While many productivity experts talk about eliminating ‘playful’ activity I think it’s actually important to spend time each day doing activity that is a little mindless and fun. I can’t explain why – but often after a 10 minute burst of playing a tower defense game on my iPhone or reading a post but funny article on a humor blog I often come back to my ‘work’ feeling a little fresh and with good ideas for my blog. There’s something powerful about letting your brain relax every now and again – the key is to manage it and not let your whole day become one big playful experience.
13. Golden Hours are…. Gold!
My ‘golden hours’ are 9-11am. This is when I do my best creative work and as a result it’s when I do most of my writing. Admin tasks, Emails and other tasks can usually wait a couple of hours until I’ve cranked out a post or two!
A lot more could be said on this topic. In fact I asked my Twitter followers how they get their brains into gear after a holiday and they came up with some great suggestions too. You can read them here.
What would you add?
How do you get your brain into ‘blogging mode’ after some time away from blogging (or first thing in the morning)?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that affiliate marketing is the easiest way to make money online. You don’t have to create a product or develop a service, you don’t need huge amounts of focused traffic the way you do with AdSense, (I started using AdSense a year ago and just recently passed the $100 minimum payout), and you don’t need to do a ton of advertising or SEO to make it work.
All you really need is an audience to whom you can refer products and services.
Of course, the above statement is true in the same way it’s true that you only need food, water, and shelter to live. It’s technically accurate — but personally, I’d like to have Netflix and a few Twix bars, too.
I made around $20,000 in my first six months from affiliate marketing, and the following are a six tips I’ve found that will take you from bare bones to a legit affiliate income.
1. Establish trust
Technically, you can make a few bucks here and there even by tossing out links to people who don’t know and/or like you. I think of these as “cookie toss” sales, because most affiliate setups dictate that each time a person clicks on an affiliate link, that affiliate’s cookie (which identifies the customer as “belonging” to that affiliate) overwrites any previous cookies on the customer’s computer. If you’re on Twitter during a launch and toss out a bunch of affiliate links for the product that everyone is promoting, there’s a chance that your link will be the last link someone uses before buying. You didn’t really refer the sale; you lucked into it.
A far better way to go is to actually have some credibility with your readers, audience, and peers. If you have a blog, work on building bulletproof trust with your readers. If you’re on Twitter, tweet with some integrity, and be a real person rather than a selling drone. If your people like and respect you, they will believe you when you say a product or service is worth buying.
2. Promote only products you honestly believe in
Don’t be a shill. Once you start promoting as an affiliate, you’ll quickly discover how many things are out there to promote. If you hop on every one, your people will turn away because they’re always being sold to. Worse, they won’t believe that your recommendations have any merit because you’ll recommend anything. There are plenty of good things out there, so be a true “raving fan” of a product you like rather than a hawker.
3. Don’t promise the moon (i.e. tell the truth)
No product or service is perfect, so don’t pretend it is. There is a strong tendency (especially in online marketing) to oversell. Everybody’s course will triple your income in two days; every program is guaranteed to whiten your teeth and wax your new Ferrari while filling your hot tub with supermodels. People are smarter than to believe the BS, so don’t feed it to them. (And as a bonus, if you tell the truth, you’ll sleep better at night.)
If you want to go really nuts with this principle, you can take the contrarian’s approach like I did when I promoted a course by pointing out its foibles and the fact that you may well totally fail online. (By the way, I ended up being the top-selling affiliate for that course.)
5. Disclose your affiliate relationships
This really isn’t a bonus item anymore, actually. The Federal Trade Commission is now saying that bloggers must disclose that they will make money if people buy through their affiliate links.
The good news is that disclosure can be a good thing if you’ve established trust already. Loyal readers won’t care that you’ll benefit if they believe that your praise of the product is honest, or if they were planning to buy anyway.
6. Offer bonuses
This is a great one. Recently, I offered to give my $297 Zero to Business program to anyone who used my affiliate links to buy Copyblogger’s Teaching Sells course, which I honestly think is spectacular. Because my course added almost $300 in value to their purchase, customers loved it. And because the commission for Teaching Sells exceeded the price of Z2B, I loved it.
I think the biggest, simplest key to affiliate marketing is honesty and integrity. If you lie, yes, you may make sales — but those people who were lied to will never buy through you again. If on the other hand you build relationships and tell the truth, affiliate marketing results in a natural synergy. You refer people to good products that they will enjoy and benefit from. When they buy, you benefit, too. And when they benefit, they come back to thank you from the referral. In all likelihood, they’ll trust your future recommendations in the future — and then everyone benefits again.
Hey, it beats a plain old “food, shelter, and water” existence, right?
——–
Johnny B. Truant writes about online business, turkeys, and occasionally SpongeBob SquarePants’ pet snail at JohnnyBTruant.com. He invites cool folks to join his laid-back Jam Sessions call series and to connect with him on Twitter @johnnybtruant.
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Date: January 14, 2010July 24, 2009
From: The WordPress Zone
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Happy New Year (at least it is here in Australia)! I hope that as you read this you’re full of all kinds of inspiration and motivation for the year ahead.
As the last post in our Best of ProBlogger 2009 series I wanted to share a list of 11 more general topic popular posts from ProBlogger. Enjoy!
1.Login to your dashboard–> layout- ->Page Elements
2.Click on ‘Add a Gadget’.
3.Select ‘HTML/Javascript’ and add the code given below and click save.
<script style=”text/javascript” src=”http://dreamydonkey.googlepages.com/scrolling_blogger_posts.js”> </script><script style=”text/javascript”> var nMaxPosts = 15; var sBgColor; var nWidth; var nScrollDelay = 175; var sDirection=”left”; var sOpenLinkLocation=”N”; var sBulletChar=”•”; </script> <script style=”text/javascript” src=”http://YOURBLOG.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=RecentPostsScrollerv2″> </script>
Note : Remember to replaceYOURBLOG with your real blog name.Also you can change below values.
No. of posts to be displayed nMaxPosts = your value
Scroll delay nScrollDelay = your value
Direction of scroll sDirection=”left” or “right”
Character after each post passing sBulletChar=”Any character”
Open link in new window sOpenLinkLocation=”N” or “Y”
It’s normal to have a bad day, right? Well sure. But what if you have a bad week or a bad month?
I’ve been blogging for just over a year. And if there is one thing that I’ve learned is that you’ve got to be consistent. You’ve got to be consistently putting in an effort to build your blog. It won’t build itself.
So what about those bad days?
I’ve had them and they’re no good. You want to bounce back quickly. Get out of that rut. The quicker the better. So you can get back to blogging, life and other things.
And it all begins with the proper mindset. Here are 3 Mind Power Techniques to Become a Better Blogger:
Mind Power Technique #1: Overcome Writers Block With A Physical Change
When you’re writing and you get stuck, do this. Get up, walk around and sit in a different spot. See your screen from a different point of view. Sit in a different location and gain a new perspective.
Sound to hokey?
You see one thing that’s true for anyone is that a change in your mindset will change your physiology - your body posture, facial expressions, etc. When you think new thoughts, the chemicals in your brain change. But what many people don’t know is that the opposite is also true. A change in your physiology will also change the chemistry in your mind.
This the same reason why some writers will use exercise as a way to gain new insights and spark their creativity. A change in there physical state creates a change in their internal state. Body movement is an effective brain stimulator.
So get your body moving. Get up and go for a walk, get some exercise or just change locations to trigger that inner change - the place where you get all of those great ideas.
Mind Power Technique #2: Track Your Progress
I think over the past 3 months, 70% of the blog carnivals I submit to have either quit or stopped publishing. Which tells me one thing, that more than 7 out of 10 people will quit blogging within 3 months of starting. Don’t let that be you.
Keep your momentum going by using this mind power technique #2: track your progress.
Let me explain.
Recently, I spoke to a sales representative from iperceptions - a survey company that provides statistics and data for websites. What they do is survey people who navigate your website or blog. As part of their surveying process they tested different methods and found something really interesting.
What they did was add a status bar at the bottom of each survey page. That way users could see their progress as they went through the survey. When they did this, the survey completion rates increased by an astounding 67%!
Basically, this is what happened. When users new how well they were doing, they kept going. But if they didn’t have any signs of progress, they quit the survey altogether.
How can you use this technique with your blog?
Start tracking the traffic of your blog by creating a blog traffic diary. I learned this technique from Yaro Starak @ Entrepreneurs-Journey.com.
A blog diary is basically a way to track the unique visitors and pageviews for your blog. I thought it would be a good idea to track my Newsletter subscribers as well. Here’s a snap shot of my traffic and newsletter subscribers each month from November 08 to May 09.
What I found from following this process is that I instinctively became more proactive. I started to think ahead about how I could improve my traffic. If I saw that my unique visitors were down one month, then I would brainstorm ways to improve my performance: either by creating better content or putting more effort into my marketing.
I’ve been pretty active with my blog diary. I still keep it up to date because it’s such a great tool. I’ve pretty much shared what has worked for me and what has not worked over the past year. You can see my blog traffic diary here.
Mind Power Technique #3: Use Comparison To Give Yourself A Boost
Here’s a mistake I made from the very beginning. When I was surfing and commenting on other blogs I would compare myself to those A-List Bloggers:
ProBlogger, StevePavlina, Zenhabits and a few others.
This seemed harmless in the beginning. It started with subtle comments to myself like:
“Oh, he has more RSS subscribers than me,”
“She has third party ads on her site and I don’t,”
“He writes way better than I do!”
Then after a while this self-talk started to grow like weeds in my mind. As time went by I found more and more weeds taking up the space in my head. Which put me in a real bad mood, to the point where I didn’t feel like doing anything anymore - not even blogging.
The important thing here is to catch this internal dialogue quickly. You never want to compare yourself to someone who is better than you (unless you’re looking for ways to improve).
If you’re going to compare, then compare yourself to someone who is worse than you. You can always find someone who is down a notch from your current position.
As you start to compare yourself to someone who is worse off, you’ll start to realize how good things are. You’ll start to feel better about yourself and your position. You’ll start to feel more confident. And when you feel more confident, you’ll start to take action.
If you’re going to compare, compare yourself against someone who is worse than you. At least that way you can bounce back quickly and get back to what you do best.
Steve is a Mind Power Coach and the creator of Freedom Education - Mind Power for Your Personal Growth. He is also the author of the ebook, The Genius Within YOU. You can download his ebook here.
This post explains how to post extra large images in blogger posts:-
This is one of the most wanted blogger hacks, which makes it possible to post big size pictures in blogger posts.
Normally, If you upload a large image to blogger(with large thumb size selected), it will automatically resize it and then post it as thumbnail . But, the image quality of the resized image is very poor. So, to make the image look more clean and sharper, this trick will come handy.
Normally Uploaded Image: (with large thumbnail selected)
Image after applying the hack:
So, lets learn how to do this.. 1.First, calculate how much image size(large) you want to display ( normally, its just a bit less than your main body width). Suppose, take this blog as an example, the main body width is about 570px. So, the maximum width to post a large image is 570px. But, to make the image looks nice, we have to give some padding to it.so,choose the width which is a bit less than the post body width.. like 560px.
2. Now, while doing your posts, upload the images normally like you did previously. Once the image is uploaded, go to Edit html tab, and the image code will look something like this
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Toi-rh0Nm00/Sj_K-nCkxWI/AAAAAAAADbg/8QRq-hHP4xM/s1600-h/megan+fox.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 280px; height: 400px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Toi-rh0Nm00/Sj_K-nCkxWI/AAAAAAAADbg/8QRq-hHP4xM/s400/megan+fox.jpg” alt=”Normal Picture without the hack” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350218059319919970″ border=”0″ /></a>
All you have to do is Just remove that bolded text (width and height attributes) and replace s400 to s800.
So, the final code looks like this
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Toi-rh0Nm00/Sj_K-nCkxWI/AAAAAAAADbg/8QRq-hHP4xM/s1600-h/megan+fox.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Toi-rh0Nm00/Sj_K-nCkxWI/AAAAAAAADbg/8QRq-hHP4xM/s800/megan+fox.jpg” alt=”Normal Picture without the hack” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350218059319919970″ border=”0″ /></a>
Done! Now, your uploaded image will look big in the post.
Some people prefer not to display the label count in their blogs as it looks a bit unprofessional. Lets say if you have a label ‘Funny sms’ with 50 label count and another one ‘ Good morning sms’ with 2 as label count… less people will show interest on clicking the second one.
So, lets see how to hide or remove the Label count in your blogger blog(s)…
1. Sign into Blogger dashboard » Layout » Edit html
Tick the expand widget templates and remove this line from the template..
This post explains how to host your template or any other images in blogger without any bandwidth limitations:-
If you are a regular reader of Blogger Tricks, you probably know that previously I had many problems hosting my template images. A year back, I used photobucket to host my template images.. but, the problem with photobucket and many other free image hosts is their bandwidth limitations. Once, you exceed a specific amount of bandwidth, your images won’t show, instead.. an irritating ‘ bandwidth exceeded’ image shows. Next, after that I tried to create.. like a new photobucket account per each template.. but, that also exceeded in a matter a couple of weeks.
Not only me, my other blogger template designers are also struggling to find a reliable, free image host with unmetered bandwidth.
I tried to upload the images to blogger and copy the image url from the status bar and use it in templates.. but it didn’t worked. But, recently I came to know that we can actually host the images( large) in blogger and hotlink,use them in templates, forums,etc.
Here is the trick..
As usual, create a new post in blogger and upload your template images to that post… but don’t publish it… keep it as a draft.
Once you completed uploading all the images, Open each image in a new window.
Once, the image is loaded in the new window, what I previously did was to copy the image location from the status bar and paste/hotlink it in templates. But, it didn’t worked!
Now, the trick is, many people don’t know that the url which we copy from the status bar is not exactly the direct link to that image file… that’s why we can’t hotlink to that image.
So, what we have to do to hotlink to that image is Right Click on the image and ‘ Copy Image location’. (for firefox users). For Internet explorer users, Right click on the image and go to Properties and then copy the image url from there.
Example:
For the above picture, status bar shows…
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Toi-rh0Nm00/Sl7sAqR7I9I/AAAAAAAADcU/0oqHcfSV46M/s1600-h/2008-05-28_124414.jpg
which don’t work.
And the Real image url we get after right clicking and copying image location is..
Which works and we can do whatever we want.. with unlimited bandwidth
Hope this trick will be useful to many people who are searching for unlimited bandwidth image hosts.
After the huge hit of my previous two Magazine style Blogger Templates Turnout Mag and SchemerMag, here is my latest yet another Mind Blowing Blogger Template “Falkner Press”.
Yes! It’s simply Mind Blowing with so many cool features including Automatic Thumbnails and Automatic Post summarize on homepage, Youtube video integration,etc.
This was converted from a wordpress theme designed by CamelGraph.com.
Main Features:
* Automatic Thumbnails on posts
* Automatic Post Summarize
* Featured Content Slider
* Adsense ready
* PSD Custom Logo Included
* Youtube Video embedding Integrated
* Fully SEO Optimized
* Advertisement Block Ready
* 3 Columns
* Social Bookmarking Icons
* Twitter Updates widget
* Feedburner Email Subscription ready
* Thumbnails on Recent Posts in Sidebar
* Integrated Search box
* Beautiful top Navigation bar
* Cross-browser compatible
* and many more….
Step by Step Installation Guide:
(Make sure you backup your current template before installing any new template)
The logo *psd (photoshop) file is included in the download file. Open it with Photoshop and Edit the logo and Save it in .jpg format.
Next, upload that image to some image host like tinypic, photobucket,etc.. and get the image link to that file. Help : Don’t have photoshop ? or don’t know how to edit the logo ? Leave a comment here with your site name.. I’ll make it for you..
Go to Layout » Edit html
Find this url
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_vSvTpKey5XI/ShV2BFNh9wI/AAAAAAAAASk/l1TGzogznQw/logo.jpg
See the pattern..you can easily understand. Simply replace the WEBSITE URL HERE with your target url. Also, Edit the anchor texts to your liking (About,Archives,Contact,etc)
Step 3 : Edit the Latest Twits
If you use twitter, You can use the integrated twitter twits widget. Simply find this
<a href='http://twitter.com/bloggertricks‘ id=’twitter-link’ style=’display:block;text-align:right;’>follow me on Twitter</a>
and Edit those urls to your feedburner links.
Don’t have Feedburner yet ? You can signup here.
Step 5 : Add Youtube Video
Go to Layout tab.. and you can see like this
Click on the edit button and paste your youtube video code.
Don’t forget to change the width and height of the video to 250 x 190 px to fit perfectly in the layout. You can edit the width and height values in the youtube embed code.
Help: How to add Youtube videos to Blogger
Don’t want Youtube Video Widget ? then, simply remove this code from the template.
<b:widget id='HTML2' locked='true' title='VIDEO (250 x 190)' type='HTML'>
<b:includable id=’main’>
<!– only display title if it’s non-empty –>
<data:content/>
<b:include name=’quickedit’/>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
Step 6 : Setup Mini Updates (Recent Posts with thumbnails)
This template has inbuilt Recent Posts with Thumbnails widget. All you have to do is enter your blog url and it will do the rest.
Look for this code in the template
home_page = "http://falknerpress.blogspot.com/”;
and replace the url with your Blog url.
Step 7 : Edit Social Bookmarking links
In the footer, you will see three widgets, 1.About me 2. Be my Frined? and 3. Advertisement widget.
The 1 & 3 widgets can be directly added by going to Layout tab.
All you need to edit is the second widget ‘Be my Friend’. Using Social Bookmarking sites is a smart way to drive traffic to your sites.. So, if you don’t have any of those accounts, Just take time to register..they are free and worth it
Edit the Slideshow…
Go to Layout » Edit html and find these lines..
Observe the pattern, it’s easy!
wait! First prepare your images… the images should be 490(width) x 280 (height) pixels. Use Photoshop or any other image editing software to crop the images to 490 x 280 px and then upload the images to some image host like photobucket,tinypic,etc.
Next, find this code
<div id='myGallery'>
<!– First Picture Start –>
<div class=’imageElement’>
<h3>Title One </h3>
<p/>
<a class=’open’ href=’http://bloggertricks.com‘/>
<img alt=’Marley And Me’ class=’full’ src=’IMAGE URL‘/>
<img alt=’Marley And Me’ class=’thumbnail’ src=’http://54800.com/wp-content/uploads/a1.jpg’/>
</div>
<!– First Picture End –>
…………………………………..
……………………………………
</div>
The pattern is like this
<div id='myGallery'>
<!– First Picture Start –>
<div class=’imageElement’>
<h3>Title 1 </h3>
<p/>
<a class=’open’ href=’LINK 1 ‘/>
<img alt=’Marley And Me’ class=’full’ src=’URL OF IMAGE 1 ‘/>
</div>
<!– First Picture End –>
<!– Second Picture Start –>
<div class=’imageElement’>
<h3>Title 2 </h3>
<p/>
<a class=’open’ href=’LINK 2 ‘/>
<img alt=’Marley And Me’ class=’full’ src=’URL OF IMAGE 2 ‘/>
</div>
<!– Second Picture End –>
<!– Third Picture Start –>
<div class=’imageElement’>
<h3>Title 3 </h3>
<p/>
<a class=’open’ href=’LINK 3 ‘/>
<img alt=’Marley And Me’ class=’full’ src=’URL OF IMAGE 3 ‘/>
</div>
<!– Third Picture End –>
</div>
Got it? Now edit those links and Save the Changes!!
Now, FalknerPress template is successfully installed!
Extras
Here are few more things you can learn about this template.. Adsense Color Codes: Here is the Color Palattes you can use to perfectly blend your adsense ads in the layout
1. Adsense in Left sidebar:
Preview:
Colors to use:
2. Adsense in Right sidebar:
Preview:
Colors to use:
3. Adsense just below Featured Content Slideshow:
(468 x 60px)
SAME COLORS as 2nd one
4. Adsense in Footer:
Colors to use:
That’s it guys! Hope you like the template
Like the template? or If you have any questions ? Comment here…
Good news guys!
I added to more functionalities to the two Free Premium blogger templates TurnOut Mag and SchemerMag that I released a couple of days ago.
1. AUTOMATIC THUMBNAILS on Homepage:
Previously, we have to add small images to the top of the post to display thumbnails on the homepage. Even, if go to post pages, the thumbnails stay as thumbnails.
But, now, I added the AutoThumbnails feature to the template. What it does?
You can add big images to your posts, doesn’t matter you add them at the top of the post or at the bottom of the post. This trick automatically grabs the picture from the post and resizes it on the homepage.. and the same pic appear in full size in the post pages.
2. AUTOMATIC Post Summarize and Read More… :
Previously, we have to edit each and every post to display the summary on the homepage.. If we don’t edit them.. the homepage looks crappy.
But, with the additional feature I added, doesn’t matter if you have 1 post or 1,000000 posts, the trick will automatically summarize the text for you on the homepage..
What next..?
With these two additional features, Personally I feel, these are the top 2 Blogger templates of all time with so many features included…what do you say..?
So, why not test the layout on your blog..?
Download the Turnout Mag here and SchemerMag here.
————————————————- NOTE : You DON’T need to change these if you are downloading a FRESH COPY now!
Downloaded the previous version (2 days ago) and want to change to this one?
Simply make these couple of changes..
1. FIND THIS: </head>
AND ADD THIS CODE AFTER THAT <SCRIPT type='text/javascript'> var thumbnail_mode = "no-float" ; summary_noimg = 230; summary_img = 200; img_thumb_height = 80; img_thumb_width = 80; </SCRIPT> <SCRIPT src='http://myblogtalk.com/bloggertemplates/turnoutmag/autoreadmorethumb.js' type='text/javascript'/>
and REPLACE it with this..
<DIV expr:id='"summary" + data:post.id'><p><data:post.body/></p></DIV> <SCRIPT type='text/javascript'>createSummaryAndThumb("summary<data:post.id/>");</SCRIPT>
After very good response on my previous Magazine style Blogger template Turn out Mag, I decided to go for one more Magazine style layout.. so, here it is..
Releasing SchemerMag Magazine style 3 Column Blogger Template:
As usual, this is a wordpress to blogger conversion.. wp theme by Chiq Montes of wpthemedesigner.com and converted to Blogger by me.
Special Features:
» Thumbnails on articles (automatic resize)
» Google Adsense/banner ready
» 3 Columns
» SEO Optimized
» Featured video
» Read more..(automatic summarize)
Step 2: Adding Adsense banners to header and on top of every post
2.a: Adsense on header
Just go to Layout and edit the gadget as shown below and paste your adsense code (468 x 60px) and save it..
2.b: Adsense on above first post (even on labels,search pages)
Just go to Layout page and edit the ‘advertisement’ gadget as shown below
Step 2 : Edit the logo text
The .psd file is included in the template download file. Just open it with photoshop and edit the text and save it as image file (.jpg or .gif). Next , upload to any image hosting servies and copy the image url of the uploaded image.
Next, go to Edit html and replace this image url in the template with the one you just copied now.
http://i43.tinypic.com/er0iyo.jpg
" Segala Sesuatu di dunia ini berawal dari 1 Hal yaitu : Keberanian" - Harry Redknapp
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[UPDATE] September 11, 2008
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[UPDATE] September 11, 2008
If you find my articles useful, please consider making a donation. Thank you!
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If you decide to contribute, please donate at least $5.00. (PayPal charges me for the transaction.)
[UPDATE] September 11, 2008
ChatRoulette (warning: this is often NSFW) is a site that has caused a lot of buzz over the last week or so.
One of the things that first attracted me to blogging was the creative genius that I saw at work in many of the blogs going around at that time.
