TextLinkAds(TLA) Review

It's been long since I had made a post here. I hope I post more frequently than before from now. Anyway, this post does not contain any referral link to TextLinkAds and I am not here to promote them either. Meaning to say, don't think it is a sponsored post. I just express my views about them in this post. In case you want to show TextLinkAds that Everything About Blogging sent you, then please use the 125 x 125 banner ad in the sidebar.

It has been few months since TextLinkAds accepted bloggers(sites hosted through blogger.com) in them. I never gave them a try simply because I earned quite good with LinkWorth and did not mix up various ad units in my site. In the month of February, I lost the advertiser through LinkWorth. I waited for some other opportunity through them but never found one. So, I thought "Why not try out TextLinkAds??? " And I signed up with them.To be very frank, I got an advertiser requesting me to put his ad on the second day of joining. That shows how big the advertiser database is.Let me straight away highlight the advantages and disadvantages. Let us go about the advantages first. Initially, TextLinkAds did not accept sites that are hosted at blogger but now, they have started accepting them. So, that is an advantage. Next, they got a very huge database and once you are accepted, it is guaranteed that you will make money with them. Thirdly, you will not have any confusions about the Publisher Control Panel. They are very simple and user friendly. The next advantage would be that, they support various modes of payment and as always, it is pretty comfortable for us to choose PayPal. Lastly, a very fast and efficient support center that will answer your queries within 24 hours.

Now, the disadvtages go this way. They accept sites that have pretty huge amounts of traffic and not the beginners. This reduces the morale of the blossoming bloggers. Secondly, they do not support other multiple advertisment agencies. For example, if you are publisher and you serve ads for LinkWorth and you want to do the same with TextLinkAds, it is not possible. Thirdly, the commision they take is quite high(50%) when compared to LinkWorth(only 30%). Overall, it is a good site to try out to add a litle more penny to your PayPal accounts (Conditons Apply: Your blog should posses a pretty decent traffic :) ).

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Free Premium Blogger Templates - ProPress

It has been months since I posted here. So, I did not want that to continue for years. So, here I go with a post on a template which I found would be very appealing and may be to my other fellow bloggers too. The template name is "ProPress Template" and is available for download on "theblogtemplates.com", you may take look at the following link for customizing the blogger template - Customize ProPress Blogger Template. The template was designed by John Smith, but later decided to release it for free through "theblogtemplates.com".

Download ProPress Blogger Template For Free

To start off, ProPress is basically a two column blogger template. It has great features which includes a three column footer, a navigation bar and beautiful combinations of colors for the template. It looks very professional. I love this template simply for its professional look. Just take a look at the following three column footer (taken from widgetsforfree), so that you are able to understand what I mean by professional look.

The template provides an unique combination of colors for the background as well as for the widgets. However, I feel the comments section of this template looks a bit unprofessional when compared to the whole blog look. I don't mean to say it is completely odd but lacks a bit of professional touch. So, if you are good in coding HTML or CSS, you can change the way it looks. Any way, I have tried this template with my test blog and it looks pretty perfect. So, why not you give it a try and who knows, you may like it too!!! Hope I make more posts from now on!!!

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Display Avatars Besides Comments In Blogger

It's been quite long since I made a post in this blog. I had a lot of problems with my net connection(still not fixed) and modem. Still, I found some time today, to post about a new feature introduced by blogger, that is, avatars on blogger comments. Blogger is introducing new features daily on account of its 10th birthday celebration. Every blogger wanted to display avatars like the ones, that showed in word press and this dream has come true now. I have personally tried this feature and you may take a look at the snapshot of the feature installed in my blog below.
This feature displays only users who post comments with Blogger/Google account. But, if you post a comment with "Name /URL" you will not have any image displayed. However, if you post a comment using Wordpress or OpenID or LiveJournal or Typepad or AIM, the favicon of the respective sites will be displayed. I hope the blogger team improves this feature and may be, they can join hands with Gravatar too. Let us get to our work of installing this feature in our blog.

If you are using a default blogger template, then you should navigate to "Settings>>Comments" from the Dashboard and enable the option "Show profile images on comment". It is that simple!! You will find the avatars displayed in your blog. But, what if you have a customized template like mine?? Simply follow the steps below to get the featured installed in your blog.
1. Navigate to "Layout>>Edit HTML" from your dashboard. Make a back up of your template before you do any changes in the template.
2. Expand your template, that is, make sure that you have a tick mark in that "Expand Widget Template". Now, do a search using "CTRL+F" for the following line:

<dl expr:class='data:post.avatarIndentClass' id='comments-block'>

Note: If you could not find the above code, the search for the following line:

<dl id='comments-block'>

3. Now, replace that piece of line with the following code:

<dl expr:class='data:post.avatarIndentClass' id='comments-block'>

4. Next, search for this piece of code:

<a expr:name='data:comment.anchorName'/>

5. Replace all the occurrences of the above code(code in step 4) with the following code:

<b:if cond='data:comment.favicon'>

<img expr:src='data:comment.favicon' height='16px' style='margin-bottom:-2px;' width='16px'/>

</b:if>
<a expr:name='data:comment.anchorName'/>
<b:if cond='data:blog.enabledCommentProfileImages'>
<div expr:class='data:comment.avatarContainerClass'>
<data:comment.authorAvatarImage/>
</div>
</b:if>

You may place a default avatar for those who do not have profile picture. In order to do this, place the following piece of code above the line ]]></b:skin>

.avatar-image-container{background:url(http://alturl.com/xbwk); width:35px;height:35px; }
.avatar-image-container img { border:none;}

Finally, you need to save your template. Now, check out your blog with blogger avatar feature installed in it!! Comments are always welcome!! See you soon in my next post!!

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Add A Sliding Featured Content To Your Blogger Blog

I hope every one had a look at the "Magazine" type Word press templates that have a special feature namely, sliding featured content. This feature has been incorporated by default in blogger templates, like the Mahusay blogger template. Many readers personally requested me on "How to install this widget in their blogger templates?". So, this post basically explains how to install the sliding featured content on your blogs. Have a look at the snapshot of the widget installed in my blog.
Follow these simple steps to display this beautiful Sliding Featured Content.
1. Login to your dashboard. Navigate to "Layout>>Edit HTML" from your dashboard. Make a back up of your template before you do any changes in the current template.

2. Search for the following line in your blog. You may use "CTRL+F" to do the search.

</head>

3. Download this: Text Document One. Now, Open the text document and paste the code present in it on top of the line mentioned in step 2.

4. Now, search for the following piece of code in your blog using "CTRL+F".

<div id='main-wrapper'>

5. Download this: Text Document Two. Open the text document. This is the major part of this widget, pretty difficult task too. You need to customize the HTML lines mentioned in that document. Check out the first block of code. You will find "YOUR TITLE". Replace it with the title of your post. Next, replace "SHORT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR POST" with a short description of your post, say 30-40 words. Replace "LINK OF YOUR POST" with the URL of your post.
6. Now, you will find a phrase like this "LINK OF YOUR POST PHOTO". You need to replace that phrase with the URL of your photo. I mean, a photo that is related to that particular post. The most important thing to note is that you should make sure, the photo size is 600x200, that is the width should be 600 and the height should be 200. You can use Adobe Photoshop or any other tool to resize the photos. Once, you are done with the photo. Upload the photo to a hosting website like Imageshack or Photobucket and get the link to your photo. As mentioned earlier, replace "LINK OF YOUR POST PHOTO" with the link you obtained. Huh!! Job done at last.
7. Repeat the same steps (5 and 6) for the other blocks too. I set the number of blocks(imageElement blocks) to four in that document. But, it is your wish. You may include as many blocks as you want. Once, you finish of all the editing business, paste the entire code below the line mentioned in step 4.

NOTE: "If it is very confusing, then download this Sample Text Document to have a look at the code that I installed in my blog to make this widget working. May be, you will have an idea of what I was blabbering. Laughing Out Loud!!!"

8. Now, preview your template. If any error, try to rectify it or else, contact me and I will help you out. No errors??? Then, save your template. Go check out your blog with one of the coolest widgets installed in it.

I made this post as simple as possible so that people feel it easy to install this widget and they will give it a try. It is not that only professional and high quality blogs can facilitate this of a widget. Even small scale blogs can use HTML effectively and make it more appealing. Please leave your comments if you face any difficulty in installing this widget.

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Free Premium Blogger Templates - Mahusay

Mahusay template is one of my favorite templates in the recent past. This template has all the features that a professional template needs. Bascially, Mahusay Blogger Template is a two column template that was originally created by PaddSolutions. This was converted to blogger by Free Blogger Template. The color scheme of the template is very impressive. It has got dark and light shades of cream with white as the background for blog posts, text written in black and offers a beautiful Featured content.

Download Mahusay Blogger Template For Free

The Featured content is a slider that keeps rotating on a regular basis. You may include a short description about the post in it! This widget definitely impressed me and makes the template more stylish. For people, who want to add this sliding "Featured content" widget in your blog, you may contact me personally via Email and I will let you know how to install the widget in your blog. The Read More option, like in Wood Mag Blogger Template, is incorporated by default in this template too.

Main Features:

An Elegant Menu Navigation, Sliding Featured Content with Automatic Post Update, Beautiful space for Author Profile(next to the Featured Content Widget), Default FeedBurner Subscription Form incorporated below the Author profile, 468x60 Banner Ads display at the top, Recent Posts and Recent Comments Widget at the Footer and many more... This template definitely offers a lot more features than the usual ones. It is pretty easy to troubleshoot the errors with respect to HTML coding. The coding is structured properly and there fore, you will not have any difficulties with resolving your problems provided, you know some basic HTML.

Overall, this two column template has got all the features required for a professional blog. I would rate 4 out of 5 for this template because it is pretty difficult to incorporate all the widgets and other craps in two columns. You may use it for personal blogs too!! Definitely will suit both! I hope you enjoyed this template. See you soon in my next post!

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Add Tweet This and Retweet To Blogger Posts

Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networks in the recent days. Many feel it drives a lot of traffic to their blog, especially when they have a large number of followers. We should some how use this twitter to improve traffic to our blog. So, how are we going to do that? Simple, just by adding a "Tweet This" link to our blogger posts. There are certain blogs that include Tweet this in the footer of their posts, that is, at the end of the post as a social bookmarking icon. But I recommend you to place it at the top, next to the title of your post.

This post basically explains, how to add tweet this and also a retweet button to blogger posts. Many blogs have links only for "Tweet this" but not for "ReTweet". This post includes both Tweet and ReTweet option, there by, driving more traffic to your blog and making your posts more effective. This service is provided by Tweetmeme. Check the official page by clicking on the link here: Tweetmeme. The final output after installation will generate a button as shown in the picture. Fine. Enough of bla bla bla.. Let us get in to our work. Follow these steps.

1. Login to your dashboard. Navigate to "Layout>>Edit HTML" from your dashboard. Make a back up of your template before you do any changes in the template.
2. Now, expand your template, that is, make sure that you have a tick mark in that "Expand Widget Template". Now, do a search using "CTRL+F" for the following line, if you want to show the button below the title of your post:

<div class='post-header-line-1'>

Else, search for the following piece of code to add the button at the right end of your blog posts.

<div class='post-body entry-content'>

3. Paste the following piece of code just after the above line(either below the title or embedded with your blog posts).

<div style='float:right; margin-left:14px;'>
<script type="text/javascript">
tweetmeme_url = '<data:post.url/>';
</script>

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://tweetmeme.com/i/scripts/button.js"></script>

</div>

4. Save your template. That is it!! Your done with the installation. Very simple I think!!

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