Country Specific BlogSpot URLs

Blogger has started using Country Specific URLs and some of you might have already noticed it. The change has been rolled out in India.If you are from India try visiting any BlogSpot URL and you will be redirected to the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). For example if you visit any page on http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com from India , you will be redirected to the country specific page on http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.in . Similarly if you visit any other ccTLDs  from India, you will be redirected to the Indian TLD.

eg: http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com.au (Australian TLD)  will redirect to the Indian TLD .

Blogger has made a help page entry describing why they have made this change. You can read that at Blogger Help As per the article the change might soon be rolled out to other countries as well.

Why This Change?

This change was specifically made to enable country wise censorship.

“By utilizing ccTLDs, content removals can be managed on a per country basis, which will limit their impact to the smallest number of readers. Content removed due to a specific country’s law will only be removed from the relevant ccTLD.”

Who is affected by this Change?

Everyone Blogger user who doesn’t have a custom domain name(but has readers across the globe)  irrespective of the country you are from is affected by this change. Right now it seems like the change has been rolled out only in India. So when an Indian user visits your blog, he will be redirected to the .in TLD. using a 302 redirect.

What should I do Now ?

The first thing that you have to do is to make sure that you are using Canonical tag on your blog Pages. This should be there by default in all templates unless you hacked the template and removed some code from there.

Make sure that the following line is there in your Blog Template

<b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/>

This tag will render the canonical tag for you.

If you don’t want to add this tag for some reason, then you can use the following tag in the template’s head section.

<link expr:href="data:blog.canonicalUrl" rel="canonical"/>

data:blog.canonicalUrl will give you the actual canonical URL(blogspot.com ).

What does the Canonical Tag do ?

The Canonical tag specifies the actual location of the page. Even if you are viewing a blogspot.in page, the canonical tag will let the search engines know where the actual page is located(the blogspot.com version)

If you don’t have the canonical tag on your pages, you might get into trouble on search engines which might index different country specific pages of your Blog. Your Social Counters(Facebook Like Button, Google Plus One button etc)  will show the wrong count and will allow users to share different country specific versions of your Page. Adding the Canonical tag will ensure that the same blogspot.com page gets shared on social networks and so the counters will display the same count irrespective of the country the visitor is from.

Custom Domain Blogs like mine will not be affected by this change.

Dynamic View Templates

Dynamic View Templates doesn’t render  the canonical tag(when I’m writing this post). Hence non-custom domain blogs which use Dynamic View Templates will face the issues that I have mentioned above. I have reported this to the Blogger guys and hope this will soon be resolved.

Update :- Blogger has now addressed this issue and now the canonical tags  have been added to Dynamic View Templates as well.

 

No Country Redirect (NCR)

If you want to temporarily  prevent Blogger from doing a country specific redirect while viewing a blogspot blog, then you can use the NCR option.

Examples : http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com/ncr will give you the .com version without redirecting to your ccTLD

http://bloggerindraft.blogspot.com.au/ncr will give the australian ccTLD without redirecting to your ccTLD

Google Plus One and Facebook Like Buttons

The first reaction that I heard on Social Media Sites is about the Social Counters. This change won’t affect your counters. When a page gets shared on Facebook, FB always shares the Canonical URL. So you don’t have to worry about the FB counters. Google Plus will allow you to share non-canonical URLs, but since G+ doesn’t have any counter based on number of shares, this won’t be an issue.  The Facebook Like Buttons or the Google +1  Buttons will always use the Canonical URL, so counters won’t have a problem with this update(provided you have the canonical tag)

Update (1/2/2012): Since most of the Social Counters were not configured to use Canonical URLs, they might show wrong counts. All template tweak posts here on this blog has now been updated to use Canonical URLs. If you are using the data:post.url variable in any of the social plugins, then you will have to replace it with data:post.canonicalUrl. If you are using data:blog.url anywhere for social plugins, then you will have to replace it with data:blog.canonicalUrl . You might get some idea if you check out the updated posts here on this blog.

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2012/02/country-specific-blogspot-urls.html

Gadgets for Blogger Dynamic Views

Blogger has introduced 6 awesome Gadgets for the Dynamic Views/Dynamic View Templates. The Widgets appear as a Floating Dock and expands when the user hovers over it.  These Gadgets matches up with the look and feel of the CSS3 powered Dynamic Views.

 

These are the list of Gadgets that Blogger has added to Dynamic Views

1. Blog Archive
2. Followers
3. Labels
4. Profile
5. Link List
6. Subscribe

You would already be familiar with the first 5 gadgets, but these are pretty different from the normal Gadgets. These are interactive and open up when the user hovers over the dock thereby saving some valuable space. The last gadget in the list(Subscribe) is a new Dynamic View Gadget which would be shown if you have added the Follow by Email or Subscription Gadget.

How to add these Gadgets to Dynamic Views ?

You just have to go to the Layout Page and add these Gadgets as you normally do. The docked gadgets will appear on your Dynamic view template or on your Blog’s Dynamic View .

I’m not using a Dynamic View Template, but you can see the new Gadgets in action on my Blog’s Dynamic View Pages. You can check out the demo at

http://www.bloggerplugins.org/view

If you want to see how these would look like on your blog. just append view to your blog’s main URL.

e.g : http://www.bloggerplugins.org/view

If you are still new to Dynamic Views, do check out this video

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2012/03/gadgets-for-blogger-dynamic-views.html

Incredible perspectives for your blogger blog

Blogger has just launched a set of incredible perspective views which can turn your blogs into stunning examples of CSS3 and HTML5 Technologies.

Checkout the following perspective views of BloggerPlugins :..

• FlipCard
  
  
• Mosaic
  
  
• Sidebar
  
  
• SnapShot
  
  
• TimeSlide

Also check out this awesome video by the blogger team!!

Check out these Screenshots as well :)

1. Flip Card

2.Mosaic

3. Sidebar

4.Snapshot

5.Time Slide

Loved it, and can’t wait to see your blog in these perspectives? Go ahead, fill this form,click the generate links button and get the links to view your blog in these dynamic views.

Checkout the below links after typing in your Blog url in the above text box.

Your Blog's FlipCard View

Your Blog's Mosaic View

Your Blog's Sidebar View

Your Blog's SnapShot View

Your Blog's TimeSlide View

Or you can enter your blog url into the text area on any blogger dynamic view page (see the image below),load the blog,  and use the switcher to switch across various views  v

Alternatively, you can simply add “/view” to the end of the blog URL to see the new set of views. Eg: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/view

If you are using Google Chrome, then you can install this extension to see the Dynamic views of any blogger blog with ease.: (https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mmoheajlpfaigefceljflpohdehkjbli

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/04/incredible-perspectives-for-your.html

Change Blogger Favicon Easily Without any Code Changes

The new Blogger Dashboard allows you to change your blog’s favicon with a few clicks. . The feature has been around for a while now and most of you might already be using it.This tutorial is for the ones who don’t

If you are not sure, what a Favicon is then refer this image:

The default Blogger Favicon looks like this : You can replace it with some other icon of your choice.

How to change the Blogger Favicon without any Code Edits

1. Login to your Blogger Dashboard and navigate to Design > Page Elements.

2. Click on the Edit link next  to the Favicon element

3. Click the Browse button and select the appropriate favicon which you already have on your computer.

 

4. Once it is uploaded, you will see the Favicon and a Remove link next  to it. Click on the Save button

5. Save the Changes and you are done.

Common Questions

1. I changed the favicon, but it is still showing the old favicon.Why?

Just clear your browser cache, and reload your blog once or twice. It should now work.

2. Does it support only icon files?

You can use other images as well. Blogger will automatically resize them and convert them into the icon format. But the image should be less than 100kb.

3. Where can I download Favicons from?

http://www.iconspedia.com/ Just download the .ico version of the icon. You can download the 16x16 version of the icon if available. You will find lots of similar sites if you do a Google Search.

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/07/change-blogger-favicon-easily-code.html

Google Scribe in Blogger

Google Scribe is an Auto text completion tool which was launched in Google Labs an year ago. Google has recently added this feature to the Post Editor in its Draft version. Google Scribe helps you write more efficiently by auto completing words and phrases as you type. Google Scribe supports Arabic, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish and the language is automatically detected using the text in the post.

How to Enable Google Scribe in Blogger

1. Login to http://draft.blogger.com

2. In your post editor, you should see a pencil icon on the right(available only in the Compose mode). clicking this icon will enable/disable Scribe.







 and this is how the auto text completion works.. (notice the suggestion in grey)



Once Google Scribe is turned on, suggestions will appear in grey as you type.You can accept the suggestion by hitting the space bar or by keying in a punctuation mark.

3. If you would like to get more than one test suggestion at a time, then click on drop menu next to the Pencil icon, and Select "Show multiple Suggestions"





.

...and here is a screen shot of the multiple suggestion in action.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Ctrl + j - to enable/disable Scribe

Ctrl + Shift + j - to enable/disable multiple suggestions

ESC - to temporarily remove  a suggestion

TAB - to restore a suggestion.



Try scribing, and do let me know how it goes :)..

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/08/google-scribe-blogger-suggestions.html

Official Blogger Light Box

Most of you might have noticed the Light box overlay display for images on your Blogger Blogs. The feature looks similar to the one in Google Plus. The feature is enabled on all Blogger Blogs by Default.

Some time back I had posted about implementing a Light Box on Blogger. Now such hacks are not necessary Here is a Screen Shot the new LightBox Feature

and here is the Live Demo

When you click on the Small Version of the image, it will open the Bigger Version in the LightBox Over Lay.". These are the keyboard shortcuts supported by the LightBox Overlay:

1.Left / right arrows

2. j/k

3. n/p

All these keys will help you in navigating through the images,

4. Esc to close the LightBox.

 

Update:

14/10/2011: Blogger has now added an Option to turn off the Light Box Feature

To do that Go to Settings > Posts and Comments and set “Open Images in Lightbox” to “No”

This is the Update From Blogger:

“Updated 09/21/11: After listening to your feedback we've decided to roll back and make improvements to the Lightbox feature. We will update this blog as soon as the feature relaunches.”

For all those who can’t wait till Blogger re-launches the light box, here is a hack :)

Enable the Blogger Light Box

Got to Template > Edit HTML, and add this CSS snippet above </head>

<!--lightboxhack-->
<link href='http://www.blogger.com/static/v1/widgets/3353720152-widget_css_lightbox_bundle.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>
<!--/lightboxhack-->

This is the style sheet required to render the LightBox Properly

Now to enable the light box, add this code above </body>

<!--lightboxhack-->
<script type='text/javascript'>
var light_box_enable = document.createElement("script"); 
light_box_enable.src = 'http://blogergadgets.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/enablelightbox.js'; 
document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].appendChild( light_box_enable ); 
</script>
<!--/lightboxhack-->

Save the Template, and you will see the rolled back Lightbox back again on your Blog :)

You can remove these 2 codes when Blogger comes back with the lightbox :)

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/09/official-blogger-light-box.html

Light Box Update

Blogger has added an option to enable/disable the Light Box Feature. Those who want to disable these overlay displays can easily do that from the Blogger Settings Menu. To know more read Disable Blogger Light Box

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/10/light-box-update.html

Google Analytics in Blogger

Blogger has added a new option to easily integrate Google Analytics with your Blog.

To Add your Google Analytics Tracking code, you just need to specify your Google Analytics Account number in your Blogger Dashboard. To do that Go to Settings > Other and fill up  the “Google Analytics Account number” field, Once done Save the Settings. Now Blogger will automatically add the analytics tracking code to your blog(even on the mobile version).

Adding The Analytics Account number in Blogger

Go to Settings  > Other and provide your Google Analytics Account number.

Click the Save Settings Button when done.

If you are using a Custom template, then you might have to apply the fix mentioned at the end of the tutorial.

If you don’t know your Analytics Account number, then read on:

1. Login to analytics

2. Now Click on the Edit Link to the right of your Blog’s profile(If don’t yet have a Website  profile, then you can create one)

3. Now you will be taken to a page like :

4. Click on the “Check Status” link

You will see a screen like

5. Copy the Web Property ID from there. That’s your Analytics Account number which you can provide in the Blogger Settings.

Fix:

If you are using a custom template, then the Google Analytics code might not be added to your Blog. To check that Edit your template(Template > Edit HTML) and look for(Ctrl + F or Cmd +F)

<b:include name='google-analytics' data='blog'/>

If it is not there in your template, then add it above

</body>

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/10/google-analytics-in-blogger.html

Edit Blogger Mobile Templates

There is some Good news from the Blogger Team on the Blogger Code Blog. If you have enabled the Mobile Templates, you will be able to customize the Blogger Mobile Template by using CSS definitions. You will also be able to control which widgets are to be shown and which shouldn't. You can also configure the widgets to show an alternate content in the mobile view.

Though this looks so promising, I was not able to test all of these features.

Where to Start?

Go to Template and Click on the Gear Icon below the Mobile Template. From the Dropdown opt for “Custom”, Preview the mobile template  and Save it. 

Customizing the structure of your Mobile Template.

Blogger Templates are made up  using Widgets.Blogger has added a new property(mobile) to the <b:widget/> tag. This property can take values ‘default', ‘yes', ‘no' or ‘only'. And this property will determine how the widget will be rendered in the mobile view.

The widgets that display on mobile by default are the following:

• Header
• Blog
• Profile
• PageList
• AdSense
• Attribution

If you want to hide any of those, then use the property mobile='no' in the Widget tag, and that widget would no longer appear in the mobile view.

For example I can hide the Attribution Gadget in Mobile view if I use

<b:widget id='Attribution1' locked='true' mobile='no' title='' type='Attribution'/>

If you want  to display the non-default widgets in your Mobile view, then just set the mobile property to yes.

E.g.: this is the normal tag for the Blog Archive Widget

<b:widget id='BlogArchive1' title='Blog Archive' type='BlogArchive'>

Now if you set the mobile property as

<b:widget id='BlogArchive1' title='Blog Archive' mobile='yes' type='BlogArchive'>

, then you should see the archive widget on your Mobile View(I didn't get it working).

If you want a widget to appear only in the mobile view, then you can set the mobile property to 'only'

<b:widget id='Attribution1' locked='true' mobile='only' title='' type='Attribution'/>

If I use this tag, the attribution gadget will disappear from my desktop view, and will appear only on the mobile view.

This code change will make the attribution widget disappear from your Mobile View.

Customizing the Look and Feel of your Mobile Template

Now you can fully customize the looks of your mobile template. The body element of the mobile template will be styled my the mobile class

<body class='loading mobile'>

Make sure that your template has:

<body expr:class='&quot;loading&quot; + data:blog.mobileClass'>

So if you are good at CSS, you can use this class name to style your mobile template.

.mobile .date-header {
  text-decoration:underline;
}

 

Alternate Widget Content on Mobile View

Once you switch to the Custom Mobile Template, you might find that the template is too huge to fit into a Mobile Browser. If you want, then you can provide alternate content inside a widget.

e.g:

<div class="widget-content">
  <b:if cond="data:blog.isMobile">
    <!-- Show a text link in mobile view.-->
    <a href="http://www.blogger.com">
      Powered By Blogger
    </a>
  <b:else/>
    <!-- Show an image link in desktop view.-->
    <a href="http://www.blogger.com">
      <img expr:src="data:fullButton" alt="Powered By Blogger"/>
    </a>
  </b:if>
</div>

This will show a Powered by Blogger Text link on the Mobile View, and a Powered by Blogger image on the normal desktop view.

The condition

<b:if cond="data:blog.isMobile"/>

can be used to check if the viewer is viewing your blog in a mobile browser or not. You can use this conditional check creatively and give a totally different look to the mobile version of the blog. Happy hacking, and do share if you have created some really awesome mobile template :)

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/11/edit-blogger-mobile-templates.html

Better YouTube Support in Blogger

Blogger allows you to upload your own videos via the Blogger Post Editor. It also allows you to embed YouTube videos into your posts(by copy pasting the YouTube embed code into your post editor). Now Blogger has made this process even more simpler by providing a better interface for adding YouTube videos.

This YouTube integration is available only in the updated Post Editor. So if you are still using the old editor, it’s a good time for an upgrade.

This feature is currently available in the draft version of blogger. So, to test this new feature,you should login to your Draft Dashboard(http://draft.blogger.com) instead of the regular one(http://www.blogger.com)

Search for some video using some keywords, select the video and click the select button

Now you should see the video in your post Editor. You can continue editing the post using the WYSIWYG Editor and publish it. If you are trying to embed your own YouTube videos(The ones uploaded to YouTube by you), then you can use the “My YouTube videos” Tab.

Sharing a  video from YouTube.

YouTube has  got a Blogger Share Button which will enable you to quickly post the video onto your blog.This might be very useful when you suddenly stumble upon some interesting video and want to post it onto your blog.

If you have multiple blogs, select the appropriate one from the Popup Post Editor and you can quickly publish the video to your blog.

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2010/12/better-youtube-support-in-blogger.html

Better Feed Control on Blogger

Till now Blogger used to have two Feed Control Options, a Short Feed or a Full Feed. The short feed, as the name suggests contains a short version of your post with HTML and images stripped off. The Full Feed contains everything including the images and the HTML. Now Blogger has added a third option which will give you better control over what gets displayed in your Feed.

The New “Until Jump Break” option is like the Full Feed but it will strip  off everything after the jump break and it will also include a Read More Hyperlink with the “Post page link text:” which you have given in the Blog Post gadget’s Settings. If you are unaware of Jump breaks and Read more, checkout this link

Blogger Jump Breaks and Read More

To change the Feed Settings, follow these steps.

1. Login to you Blogger Dashboard and go to Settings > Site Feed

2. Change the Allow Blog Feeds Option and Click Save Settings

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2010/12/better-feed-control-on-blogger.html

Mobile Templates for Blogger

Blogger has now released mobile templates, which would make your blog look cool on your smartphones.  The mobile templates will reformat your blog for mobile phones. It will even strip down the post content on your home page, so that its more readable and not too lengthy. 

This feature is still in draft and so you will have to login to http://draft.blogger.com to enable this new Feature.

To Enable this Feature,

1. Login to http://draft.blogger.com

2. Go to Settings > Email & Mobile and Select the  Yes Option.

3. Now if you want to see  a preview of how your blog will look on a mobile,(without actually applying the settings), then click the Mobile Preview Button.

4. Now Click on the Save Settings Button for the changes to take effect.

Now when someone visits your blog via a phone, he will be automatically redirected to the mobile version of your blog.

Here are some previews of the mobile versions of some blogger blogs.

1. My Blog

2. Blogger Buzz

If you have enabled Adsense ads on your blog, then Adsense mobile ads will be shown on the mobile version of your blog. If you are using a template from some designer, then the mobile template won’t be rendered in the same style as your original template. The ones using the Blogger Template Designer will be able to get a matching mobile template. 

This is still under draft. So lets hope that we will be able to add CSS rules  to override the default Mobile Style, when this thing actually rolls out.

Update: This Feature has now moved out of draft. So you will be able to set this from your regular dashboard.

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2010/12/mobile-templates-for-blogger.html

More Fonts on Blogger Template Designer

Some months back, I had posted about how you can add Custom Fonts to Blogger using the Google Fonts API. Now Blogger has integrated all of these Custom Fonts into the Blogger Template Designer. This means that you will be able to use these Custom Fonts without the need for any Template Edits.

This should work for all the Templates Designed using the Template Designer. This should also work for those third party templates where the Font variables are properly defined and used. This feature is not yet available in your regular Dashboard. So if you would like to try out these fonts, then you will have to login to Blogger’s Draft Dashboard.

Here are the instructions on how you can change the Fonts using the Template Designer

1. Login to http://draft.blogger.com and navigate to the Design > Template Designer

In the Advanced Tab, you will be able to change the font’s of different texts on your blog. Select the type of text you want to change and you a list of  of fonts on the right side(including some new stylish fonts added form the Google Font repository) there. You can easily pick the Font of your choice and preview it in the designer. Once you are satisfied, you can Apply the changes to your blog using the Apply to Blog Button

This was released onto the draft dashboard some months back. Sorry for the delayed update.

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/01/more-fonts-on-blogger-template-designer.html

Official Android App for Blogger

Good news for all android Folks!!. Blogger has released an official Android App. Its simple and neat and does the job perfectly.  You can create a post or make drafts from your android device.If you are an android user, try it out by downloading the App from the Android market

Features

1. Switch between Google Accounts as in any other Google Android App
2. Publish posts or save drafts
3. Upload photos from your android gallery, or take one on the fly with the mobile camera and post it
4. Share your location and geotag your post. 
5. Share your Gallery images easily to Blogger. ( A blogger option will be added to your Share Menu)
6. View and Edit saved Drafts/ Published Posts made from the mobile app(not the ones that already exist)

You can find more details about all these features at the Blogger Buzz Post.

The app does a neat job though it doesn’t give you much power in formatting your posts properly. This is the first ever version of the official Android App, so maybe we could expect many more features in the future.

A Sample Mobile post from my phone : androiddemobloggerplugins.blogspot.com

You can provide feedbacks about this application to the blogger team and help them in developing better versions

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/02/official-android-app-for-blogger.html

What’s next with Blogger

Blogger was created by Pyra Labs in 1999 and was acquired by Google in 2003. Ever since the acquisition, Google has been improvising and adding new features it. Blogger is changing and its changing real fast. Last year we saw lots of new features being added on to blogger like:

1. The Template Designer – This one is really really cool, and I must say that this is best got from blogger in 2010

2. Web Fonts – Blogger has integrated Google’s Web Fonts into the Blogger Template Designer, which gives the user the option to use these stunning fonts on our blogs without the need to add any CSS or JavaScript Snippets

3. Mobile Templates – This was another breakthrough, where blogger introduced a mobile version with post snippets and smaller thumbnails.

5. Auto Pagination – Many might have felt that this one is really causing a lot of trouble as they won’t really be able to control how many post would be displayed on a page. But this has really improved the page load times of most blogs.

There were many more like the Real Time Statistics, Comment Spam Filtering , Popular Posts gadget, YouTube integration, Better Post Previews and others.

What’s coming to Blogger?

Blogger has released a few screenshots about some of the new features that would be added to Blogger this year.

1. An improved Dashboard using GWT with a better and cleaner display.

2. Updated Post Editor

3. Some additions to the Blogger Nav Bar(Related Posts and Media)

Checkout  this video released by the Blogger Team.Its really worth a watch :)

 

You can read more at the Official Blogger buzz Post: http://buzz.blogger.com/2011/03/whats-new-with-blogger.html

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/03/whats-next-with-blogger.html

Follow By Email Gadget for Blogger

Some of you might have already noticed the new “Follow by Email” Gadget on your “Add a Gadget Page”. The gadget is pretty simple and easy to install.

 

To add this Gadget, Follow these simple steps

1. Login to your Blogger Dashboard, Navigate to Design > Page Elements tab and click on the “Add a Gadget” Link

2.On the next window click on the plus sign, and you will be taken to the gadget options page.

3. Click the save Button and you are done.

You are done now!! :) Wasn’t that simple?

Some  Insight!!

You can track your subscription information from your FeedBurner Panel.

Though this gadget has got a simple easy to use interface, the gadget is really intelligent, and does  lot of background work and synchronization. It checks if you have already burnt your blogger feed, and if you have, then it retrieves  your Feed burner URL automatically. If you have burnt  the feed but  hadn’t enabled the Email Subscription option for your Feed, then it automatically enables the same.

If you haven’t even used FeedBurner before, then it automatically burns your blogger feed, and retrieves the new FeedBurner url of the new feed that was generated.

Oh!! I hate the url that FeedBurner gave me.

If your blog has a very common name, then there is every possibility that you will end up with a  non-pretty FeedBurner url like http://feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/qOAyP . Most of  you might not give a damn about this url. But if you really want to change it, then you can easily do that as well.Follow these Steps

1. Login to http://feedburner.com and Click on the Feed For your Blog

2. Click on Edit Feed Details

3. Change the Feed Address to something pretty!

4. Click on Save Feed Details button

What do you think of this new Gadget from the Blogger Team and what tweaks would you like to see on this gadget?

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2011/03/follow-by-email-gadget-for-blogger.html

Blogger Pages are finally out

Blogger has now released the pages feature just like in Wordpress blogs. You can use these pages for about me, contact me etc. The blogger pages are more or less like the blogger posts. But these pages wont appear in the blog archives and the blog feeds.

How to create a Blogger Page?

1. Login to your Blogger Account

2. In the posting Tab you will find an Edit Pages option

3.Click on the New Page button and you will get a new page editor(same as the post editor that you normally use)

4.You can make the page, in the same way as you create a post.If you want to enable commenting on the page, then you can do so from the post options

5. When you hit the Save And Publish Page button, you will be asked if you would like to add the Page Gadgets onto your blog

You can add the page gadget on the sidebar or as Top navigation Tabs.These widgets may not properly sync with your blog template.So i would advise you to choose the No Gadget option and add the links manually to your blogger template. You can obtain the links to the newly created pages from the Edit Pages Tab.

If you opt to add any of Pages gadget, then you will get an easy interface to add the page links to your blog. (now available on draft.blogger.com only) Here is what the Gadget options will look like

 

Limitations

1. You can only create a maximum of 10 pages.

2. Separate templating for pages would be a little too difficult(but not impossible :) )

3. The Static Pages are not included in the Post Exports till now.(at the time when this post is made)

Advanced options.

If you are familiar with the usage of blogger’s conditional tags and want to do something special with the pages, then you can use the following conditional tag for that

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;static_page&quot;'>
When condition is true this will be done
</b:if >

eg: If you want to hide the sidebar on the Static Pages, then you can use these conditional tags properly to implement that

Here is the incomplete sample code for the same

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;static_page&quot;'>
<style type="text/css">
.sidebar-wrapper{display:none;}
</style>
</b:if >

This code should be placed above </head> in your template.

you will have to add some more CSS definitions to make it complete(you should increase the width of the post area.. ) these will be different from template to template. So  you will have to figure it out :)

So are some of my Blogger Pages. – Subscribe , Contact Me

Misbehaviour

1. If you are using the automatic post summaries hack, then your pages might not be properly displayed. I have updated the Automatic Post Summaries Trick so that it does not conflict with the static pages. So if you are using an older version of this trick, then do update

2. If you are using some trick to hide the post contents on non-post pages,then also you might end up with  problems on your new Static Blogger Page. You can either undo the trick or update the codes properly to avoid conflicts :)

Source: http://www.bloggerplugins.org/2010/01/blogger-pages-are-finally-out.html