Add Admin Logo To Blogger Comments

I'm not sure if you noticed the comment section on blogs like "Techiemania" or "SML", they show a differentiation in comments between the admin and the visitor. Well, I do know that there are many tutorials around the web to achieve this effect on blogger but, I'm pretty sure none would be clear because, myself being a webmaster, end up on a confusing state once I complete reading the full article

So, I wanted this tutorial to be clear and pretty easy to install. I hope it is!!! Well, the final effect will be a simpler one - just an admin logo to differentiate between your comment and  your visitor's comment. You may have a look at following screen shot to realize the final effect.

The basic coding evolves from the coding for "Multiple Author Info Box Widget".  Well, in my example, I have used a very simple box-type image. You may replace it with any image of your choice. I recommend the logo used by "Spice Up Your Blog". Take a look at preview of the image  here - Admin Logo Image Preview. So, let's get this installed on our blog.

1. Navigate to "Design>>Edit HTML" and make a backup of your template by clicking on the "Download full template" link at the top of the page. Once the back up is over, expand your template and search for the following block of code.

<b:if cond='data:comment.isDeleted'>
<span class='deleted-comment'>
<data:comment.body/>
</span>
<b:else/>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</b:if>

2. Just replace the above codes with the following block of codes.

<b:if cond='data:comment.isDeleted'>
<span class='deleted-comment'>
<data:comment.body/>
</span>
<b:else/>
<b:if cond='data:comment.author == "YOURNAME"'>
<div class='comment-admin'>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</div>
<b:else/>
<p><data:comment.body/></p>
</b:if>
</b:if>

Note: We did not use "<b:if cond='data:comment.author == data:post.author'>". If we do so, then every guest author on a multiple author blog would become the admin. So, to avoid that, we've used the idea behind the multiple author widget. If you run a blog with two or more admins, we have the coding for you as well. The same thing has to be extended but I'm sure you will go mad if I explain that. So, it's better you contact me via email for the coding (More than one admin for a blogger blog).

3. Replace YOURNAME with the name of the admin as it appears on the blog post. Well, the major part is over! Now, we need to add the CSS for "comment-admin" div section. To do so, search for the following piece of code on your template.

]]></b:skin>

4. Add the following piece of code just above the line mentioned in step 3.

.comment-admin {background: url("https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfm4CuEC6DAH400PSEF21KRtdzXBX_bMaymQ15UnZ3MjmmArxUfnb7qQ-1I9-jtKvBH-BsUGMW3XUEWkNFxLX2qdCMctV8gnlUAFBrOfqlffc6XGq_0P6U60BvGXtqL1R2K19wHixAS9z3/s800/admin-logo.png") no-repeat scroll right top #FFF; padding-right:40px; margin-right:10px;}
.comment-admin p{margin-left:0px; margin-right:28px;}

Note: As I said earlier in this article, I have used a simple box-type image to display the admin logo. You may use any image of your choice. If you wish to change the image, then change the image URL - the one highlighted in orange. The padding and margin positions may vary depending upon your blog.
5. That's it! Save your template.

"If you would like to have an unique comment section for your blogger blog, then contact us via our services page and we'll let you know if we can design one for you! We'll install it on your blog too!"

I hope you liked this post. If you face any difficulties, then leave a comment below and we'll try to fix up the issue for you. Share your opinions about this post too via comments!

Click4more... 6 Comments

Google Analytics Newsletter - Just an overview!

I know there are lot of softwares around the web to analyze the traffic, the source of traffic, landing pages and lots more about our website. One such useful software/site is the "Google Analytics". I'm sure many are familiar with it! So, what's new about Google Analytics? Is it the new interface? No! It's about their first volume of Benchmarking Newsletter...

Last night, while I was working on the "Featured Content Slider" for SML blogger theme (Check out the demo - SML Featured Content Slider; tutorial will soon be posted in the upcoming weeks), I received an email which said "Google Analytics Benchmarking Newsletter". I guess this is the first time that the Analytics team sent me an email. The screen shot of the email is shown in the link below.

SCREEN SHOT OF THE ANALYTICS NEWSLETTER

The screen shot says it all! If you find it difficult to understand, well, I'll just run through a short explanation about the five sections of the email which you may or may not have received.

1st Section - Introduction : This section is basically an introduction about the "Benchmarking Newsletter". It tells you why you received this email and what actually is present in the email (Comparison of metrics  between "November 2009 - Febrauary 2010" and "November 2010 - February 2011"). If you did not receive one, then you need to enable "Anonymous data sharing" for your Analytics Account.

2nd Section - Site Metrics : This section shows a comparison about the "Pages/visit, Average time on site and the bounce rate" for the period under observation (Nov 2010 - Feb 2011). A geographical based comparison about the statistics for your website is explained in the rest of the section. To know more about bounce rate, I recommend you to read the following article - How To Reduce Your Blog's Bounce Rate?

3rd Section - Traffic Sources : This section displays a table of comparison about the sources of traffic to our blog. It just displays the very basic details in the comparison - "Direct Traffic, Referral Traffic, Search Engine Traffic (the one to look out for) and other miscellaneous sources".

4th Section - Operating Systems : This deals with the operating systems that the user used over the period of comparison to visit your website. In my case, more than 3/4th of the users used Windows. I would be happy to see a comparison about the web browsers used to access my website rather than the OS details. What do you think?

5th Section - Comments : This section just deals with the feedback that you may send to the Analytics Team about the newsletter. You may send your opinions to the Team at the following email address -  analytics-benchmarking@google.com. 

Basically, the comparison is displayed in such a manner that even a newbie can easily understand about his/her stats. Well, to conclude, I feel this newsletter actually provides an overview about our stats rather than detailed insights to let us know whether we are on the right path to success. So, share your opinions about the the newsletter with us via comments!

Click4more... 9 Comments

Add Fancy Share Icons To Every Blogger Post

I'm sure everyone runs a social bookmarking widget on their blog. What if we add a little more interactivity & unique style to those icons. This is exactly what we're gonna do in this article! We plan to turn an unordered list of sharing icons into a fancy share box using little CSS & Jquery. The idea is to show the icons partially hidden. When hovered, they slide to the right & become completely visible.

FANCY SHARE ICONS USING CSS & JQUERY - LIVE DEMO

Well, I guess that the demo has impressed you. Before I proceed with the tutorial, I would like to inform you that this particular widget is browser compatible - works on all major browsers. The code was tested on the following major browsers - Firefox 3+, IE 6+, Safari, Chrome & Opera). Enough of the stories! Let's get this installed on our blog.

1. Navigate to "Design>>Edit HTML" and make a backup of your template by clicking on the "Download full template" link at the top of the page. Once the back up is over, expand your template and search for the following piece of code.

<div class='post-footer-line post-footer-line-1'/>

2. Download the following text document - FANCY SHARE ICONS FOR BLOGGER. Paste the code mentioned in the text document just below the line mentioned at step 1.
3. Next, search for the following piece of code.

]]></b:skin>

4. Replace the above code with  following piece of code.

ul.sharebox { margin:0px; padding:0px; list-style:none; position:relative;}
ul.sharebox li { float:left; margin:0 0 0 0px; padding:0px; position:absolute; }
ul.sharebox li a { margin:0 0 0 -24px; display:block; }
ul.sharebox li a:hover { margin:0 0 0 -8px; }
ul.sharebox li img { border:none;}
]]></b:skin>
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
var i = 10;
var j = 0;
$("ul#sharebox li").each(function() {
$(this).css("z-index", i)
if (j > 0)
$(this).css("left", j * 24 + 100 + "px");
i = i - 1;
j = j + 1;
});
});
</script>

7. That's it. Save your template.

Note: The effect is visible only on the post page, in other words, you need to visit the individual pages on your blog to realize the effect. If you want them to appear on all the pages, then just remove the first and the last line of the coding mentioned at step 2.

I hope you enjoyed this widget. If you wish to add a specific icon apart from the list mentioned in the article, please contact me via email with the icon and your template. We'll try to add them for you provided your template has already got this widget installed! Share your views via comments!

Click4more... 2 Comments

Word-Wrap : An Extremely Useful CSS Property

I'm pretty addicted to web design and photo-shop these days. So, you might encounter a lot of articles related to web design & CSS in the upcoming weeks. Well, just because I post a lot about these stuffs, it does not mean that they are not useful being a blogger. All those tutorials and tricks that I post here will have some relation to your blog. And one such extremely useful but rarely used CSS property is "Word-Wrap"

What does Word-Wrap actually do? To keep it simple, it actually wraps the word or in other words, breaks the word to a new line without exceeding the specified boundaries. For example, when you  look at coding part in some of my tutorials, they would extend beyond the specified boundary(grey box). Have a look at the following picture and you'll understand what I mean!

I hope you understood the importance of this extremely useful CSS property - "Word-Wrap".  To illustrate this, I recommend you to read this article - How to add HTML codes in Blogger Posts? So, you got to know "How to include HTML codes in your post?". Generally, this problem of text extending beyond the specified boundary occurs with IE. To make your posts with HTML codes compatible with all browsers(IE 5.5+, Firefox, Safari, Chrome), just follow these steps assuming that you installed the coding as mentioned in the reference article above.

1. Navigate to "Design >> Edit HTML" from your blogger dashboard and search for the following  piece of CSS code in your template.

.codeview {

2. Just add following piece of code below the line mentioned in step 1.

word-wrap: break-word;

3. That's it!!! Save your template.

For users who blog on WP or any other platform, just specify the following tag in the CSS part of your template. It's not necessary that you use it only for displaying the coding stuff - use it anywhere you want the word to wrap by itself within the specified boundaries.

word-wrap: break-word;

To extend them beyond the boundaries (definitely not the idea behind this post), either remove the tag specified above or change the parameter from break-word; to normal;

I hope this simple tip enhances the design of your blog - to keep it neat and clean. This CSS property comes in handy especially for webmasters and web designers. So, share your views about this post. Your comments are always welcome!

Click4more... 4 Comments

Solve "Another blog or Google site is already using this address" On Blogger

This week has been complete a roller coaster ride for me. I saw both the ups & downs with my blog - almost lost this domain, PR Update, etc... Many would have noticed that my domain "www.newbloggingtipz.com" was not available for few days. The reason behind the absence was a redirection problem - the infamous "Another blog or Google site is running on this address" problem.

I did struggle to get my domain back. I'm not sure how I solved my issue but this might help you provided you have proper DNS settings on your domain registrar. I should definitely thank Jacklynn Tong and Patrick from the Google Apps team for their support and nitecruz from the blogger help forum who tried their best to solve my issue. I would list two possible solutions that would solve this issue.

Before we beign, just check whether the DNS settings are correct on your domain registrar. You need to have the CNAME and A NAME records as mentioned in the screen-shot below.

Note: Please replace the domain name in the respective rows above with your domain name. I just showed you the DNS settings for my blog. 
Are they correct? If not, change them as mentioned above and wait for 1800 seconds. Now, trying redirecting your blog to the custom domain. If they are correct and still you see the problem on the blogger dashboard, then you need to try this...

SOLUTION 1
1. Login to your Google Apps Account - Domain Management. Navigate to "Settings" page from the dashboard. Now, choose sites tab that appears on the left.
2. You will see a tab that shows "Web Mapping". Just click on it. Check whether a mapping exists. If yes, then delete the mapping.

3. Now, login to your Blogger Dashboard and try to redirect your blogspot domain to the custom domain.

SOLUTION 2
1. Login to your Google Apps Account - Domain Management. Navigate to "Settings" page from the dashboard. Now, choose "Sites" tab that appears on the left.
2. You will see a tab that shows "Web Mapping". Just click on it. Check whether a mapping exists. If not, return to the previous page. Click on "Change URL" link that appears to be blue in color. Have a look at the screen-shot below.

3. Select the second option on the page that appears below. Just enter "www" in the space available in the second option. Proceed with the continue options. Now, make the DNS changes if required to! Else, leave it as it was! Have a look at the screen-shot below for better understanding.

4. Now, save the changes that you made. Wait for few minutes. Then, login to your Blogger Dashboard and try to redirect your blogspot domain to the custom domain. It should now redirect to the sites page which you enabled (mentioned at step 3). In other words, you should not see the "Another blog or.." error.
5. If yes, then your problem is solved. Just revert back to the blogspot domain from your blogger dashboard. Save it. Later, login to your Apps Accout and navigate to "Dashboard >> Settings >> Sites". Again hit the "Change URL" link and choose the first option. Save the changes you made. Log out from your Google Apps Account. Wait for few minutes.
6. Now, login to your Blogger Account and try to redirect your custom domain. You will not see "Another blog or Google site is already using this address" error.

Well, if the above two solutions don't work. Then, login to your Google Apps Account and Use the "Support" tab to contact the Google Apps Team. Your query will be addressed in not more than 48 hours. In my case, they even gave me a call to fix the issue. So, don't panic! You will get back your domain! You may contact me via email if you need any help regarding this issue!

Click4more... 38 Comments

Google PR (PageRank) Update 2011

We talked enough about PR and factors that contribute to PR. We even discussed about the nofollow and dofollow tags in our previous articles. So this time, I wanted to show you some proven results to attain PR rather than just discussions. We are glad to inform that we got a PR3 today for homepage while several inner pages have got a PR2 or PR1! Did Google Update its PR this month?

From Googling, I found that the last major update was made on "19th January 2011". I guess Google is making another update this month "June 2011", as well. Few claim that they had a change in their PR this month just like I do. Well, who knows - it may just be a minor update! So, keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best!!! It's been confirmed that the PR Update happened on June 27th 2011. So, what's your PR?

I recently published an article about the comparison between Google PR and Alexa Rank - Alexa Rank Vs. Google PageRank(PR). I did mention that the Google PR algorithm seems to be pretty complex. I guess I should correct myself now!!! They do appear to be complex when you consider all factors like Page Speed, Do Follow Links, No Follow Links, etc.. But, if you narrow them down to one factor, well, it's pretty simple. That's the result I'm talking about - backlinks (the one big factor).

I would prove this is the main factor that contributes to PR from the analysis I carried out with my very own domain. Initially, I ran my blog on blogspot domain "www.newbloggingtipz.blogspot.com" which had a PR4. I assumed that blogs run on blogger, by default, were dofollow but later found that, they are not! So, it was a nofollow blog with more than 50 quality back-links from domains that had PR ranging from 1 to 5.

Later, I made the shift to the custom domain "www.newbloggingtipz.com"- way back in the month of June 2010. My PR dropper to Zero due to the shift. I made my blog "dofollow" which brought nothing but a lot of spam comments. I waited for the PR update - that was made on Jan 2011, but to my disappointment I found that even after the update my domain still had a PR0.

Well, I decided to revert my blog back to nofollow. I made this shift probably in the month of April 2011, I guess. Suprisingly, it has worked now. So, as far as I know, to have a better PR, make sure your blog has enough dofollow backlinks while your blog is on a nofollow status. Though it seems to be pretty selfish (getting all the link juice you want from high PR domains but not spreading them to your followers), I recommend you do it for a better PR.

Though I personally don't recommend building a PR, I do recommend you to build a quality website/blog with great content and good design. You don't have to follow sites that list dofollow blogs and  comment on them, PR will follow your blog! So, just concentrate on your content and work a little more on improving your design! Do let us know via comments if you had a change in your PR this month!

Click4more... 35 Comments