Finding the URL of a picture stored in flickr

This article is about how to find the link (URL, web-address) of a photograph or picture that is stored in Flickr.

Google Apps accounts

This article was written in October 2010, to support information about resolving conflicting Google and Google Apps accounts.

It is now replaced by Google Apps, Google Accounts and Blogger, which describes the situation now that the conflicting accounts have resolved and all Google Accounts have transitioned to Google's new infrastructure.

Creating a button that links to your blog

This article is about how to make a button for your blog that other people can put on their blog or website.

How to change the credit or debit card that is used for custom domain purchases or renewals from Google

This article about changing the default credit-card that is used for purchases that you make through Google Wallet (previously Checkout).  

It is written for Blogger users who have purchased custom domains through Google, but the information applies to anyone who has made a purchase from Google Wallet, and wants to keep their details updated so they can be used again in future.

Copyright, Blogs and Bloggers

This article presents a very short introduction to issues of copyright, and how they apply to bloggers and their blogs.

Showing a Google Custom-Map on your Blog

This article is about embedding custom maps made with Google maps into blogs made with Blogger.  However similar principles also apply to putting Google custom maps into other types of website.

Removing the attribtion gadget by commenting out the code

This article documents removing the attribution gadget from Blogger by commenting out the code for the widget.  This method no longer works (last tested 20 Sept 2010 - the gadget is automatically re-added to the bottom of the sidebar), but the technique may be useful in future.   

See the main article about removing the attribution gadget from blogs with Designer templates for background information about the topic, and for the most recent information about techniques that work.

Centering the Post title (or Page title) in your Blog

This article is about how to centre-align the title that is shown for all Posts and Pages in blogs made with Blogger.

Blogger's "static" Pages are more trouble than they're worth

Blogger's "static" or stand-alone pages have some benefits - but also a number of disadvantages.   Use them sparingly!

Displaying a gadget only on static pages - or on everything except static pages

This article is about how to set up a gadget / widget in Blogger so that it is only visible on the "static" pages in your blog.

Adding a Tweet button to your Blog

This article is about Twitter's tweet-this button, and how you can use it to let your readers tweet your posts.  

It's aimed at Google Blogger users, but most of it applies to other blogging (eg Wordpress, TypePad, etc) and website tools.

Planning changes to your blog - in private

This article is about how to make major changes to your blog with a minimum of disruption for your readers.

Showing image-only AdSense ads in your blog

This article is about how to show image-only AdSense ads in your blog.

Changing the case of your Label values

This article is about how to change the case of the Labels in your blog.  For example, from lower to initial case ("cats" to "Cats") or even all capital-letters ("CATS").

Understanding the email address that is shown in your blog

This article explains what email address(es) are shown when someone is reading your blog - and why you don't have to worry if you see your own address even if you didn't ass it..

Finding the address for a blog's RSS feed - even if the owner has hidden it

This article is about how to find the subscription-address for any blog's RSS feed, whether or not the blogger has provided a subscribe button.
 

Zemanta and your Blog: how to add and remove it

This article is about Zemanta and your blog:  what it is, how to add it, and how to delete it.

Seven simple steps to a snazzy new-look blog: preparing to change template in Blogger

This article is about making a plan to change your Blogger template if your existing blog-template has been customised:  it covers how to make a list of the changes that have been made to your template, and using this as the basis of a list of changes to re-apply when you change templates.

Comparing Two Text Files - using Excel

This article is about comparing two text files, making a list of the differences between them and categorising each difference according to whether you care about it or not.   An Excel file tool (available for download) is used, because this helps with making the final list.

The tool was made to support comparing two Blogger templates,as part of Seven Simple Steps to a Snazzy New-look Blog.  But it can be used for many different types of file-comparisons where you need to think about the between the files, keep track of individual differences, and plan actions based on them.

Getting an old-style (Layout or Classic) template for your blog

This article is about how to apply a Layout or Classic template to your blog, instead of a Designer template.

How the data in Blogger blogs is organised

This article explains the building-blocks that Blogger uses to make your blog's web pages.  It explains which ones you can and cannot control, and links to other articles with more details about this.

What template does your Blog use: the quick way to find out

This article is about the fast way to find out what style of template (eg Minima, Tekka, Simple, etc) your blog uses.  It's a support-article for a series about Preparing to Change Your Template.

Making a test-blog for template changes

This article is one of a series about preparing to change the template in Blogger.  It looks at how to make a template-test blog.  

Other articles in the series explain how to use this template to plan your template change so that you don't lose any key features that you've installed before.

Writing posts for Blogger using Microsoft Word or Works

This article is about how you can write the content of your blog posts when you are not connected to the internet, and actually post them later when you are connected again.

Getting Started with Blogger

This post is about things you need to think about when you're getting started with Blogger.  It's not about blogging in general, just about tool-specific issues for Blogger, Google's free blogging tool.

Tools for measuring and managing your blog-site's progress

This article lists tools and suggestions that I want to remember for promoting and measuring the "success" of blogs and blogsites ("real" web-sites made with blogging tools).

Tools for Linking Blogger and Social Network sites

Previously I've described the approaches for linking your blog and the social networks.   This article is about specific tools that can be used for each approach.

Deciding if a new-blog idea is any good

This article is about how to review an idea for a new blog, in order to decide whether to go ahead with it. 

Putting a Blog into Facebook, changing the title and descrption

This article is about putting a note about your blog (or any other website) onto Facebook using their share tool, and controlling the heading and text that are shown.

Blogs, Blogger, bloggers, Posts, Pages and Screens - some basic definitions

This article defines some of the basic words if you are using Google Blogger.  It is helpful if you are just getting started, and need to accurately describe a problem you are having.   It is part of a series of articles about getting started with Blogger.

Get Dilbert for your Blog

This article is about how to get the official Dilbert widget for your blog.

Jump Breaks are useful even if you only show one Post per Screen

This article explains why it is useful to put jump-breaks into your post, even if normally you only show one Post on each "page" (ie screen).

Types of Blogger template / theme

This article is about the types of templates / themes that Blogger has, and how you can work out what type of template you have on your own blog. 

Creating a Shadow Blog

This article is about how to make a "shadow blog" - one that has the same structure as our real one, but less content, and which used only for testing.   

Making a Custom Map in Google Maps

This article is about creating custom maps using Google maps.  It supports another article about putting maps into Blogger.  But the techniques apply whenever you want to generate a Google map of your own, and embed it into a web-site etc.

Making a Gadget that looks like a Post

This article is about how to make a gadget display (almost) all the things you can put into a post in Blogger.

Making one post always come up first

One way to make a "Home Page" for your Blogger blog is to simply make sure that one particular Post always comes up first when someone visits your blog.    (This approach only works for Posts, not for Pages.

Blocking categories of AdSense ads from your Blog

This article is about how to restrict the types of advertisements that AdSense places on your blog.  
 
If you don't have an adult-content warning flag on your blog, then doing this is almost essential for AdSense users, so that you comply with Blogger's Terms and Conditions and ban ads about sex / sexuality.

Changing colors in your Blog

This article is about changing the colors used in your Blogger blog.
 

The Law and Your Blog

This is a very brief look at some the legal issues that bloggers (using Blogger and other tools too) should be aware of.  

I am NOT a lawyer.  This is not legal advice.   If you need legal advice, consult a lawyer who's familiar with the internet, blogging, and the legal system in your country. 

AdSense and AdWords - what's the difference?

This article explains the difference between AdSense and AdWords, from a Blogger's perspective.

Blogger and Other Google Products - an oveview

This is a listing of other Google products that may be helpful to Blogger users.  Each product is briefly described, with links to the help centre, help forum, and other useful hints-and-tips article.

Inserting an animated picture into your blog

This article has detailed steps for inserting an animated picture into your blogspot blog.  

Chitika | Select - expanding beyond search-traffic

On Mon 8 March, Chitika are introducing Chitika Select, a new advertising product that displays ads to some additional readers.  This article is an initial overview of the implications for Blogger users.


Background:

Previously I've given an overview of Chitika.

At the time I wrote it, ads were only shown to visitors from the US and Canada (based on their IP address) who got to the website by searching.   That has now changed.


What's Changing?
From Mon 8 March 2010, Chitika are introducing a new product called Chitika | Select, which they're describing as an upgrade to Chitkia | Premium.  Under this new approach, ads will be displayed to readers who get to your site by search AND to others who some statistical techniques have predicted are more likely to click on ads.


Impact for Blogger users and readers.

On Mon 8 March 2010, all existing Chitka | Premium ads will be upgraded to Chitika | Select - unless you opt-out of this by logging in to your account, going in to the My Account tab, and ticking the option(s) at the very bottom of the page.

Your US and Canada readers may start to see more ads:

• Whether or not the do depends on their behaviour (and I'm guessing it will take a while to work out what sort of factors mean that people are predicted by be ad-clickers).
• Worst-case, seeing more ads could convince more readers to install ad-blocker software.

Some ads (but not all of them) may look different - we don't have any details about this yet, and I'd guess won't until 8 March at least.

The announcements say that Chitika | Select ads will include both pay-per-click and pay-per-impression (CPM) banner and image ads, but they don't actually say whether the latter are a new feature being introduced with Select or not.  The way that the opt-out feature is presented makes me think that they're probably new, though.


What's not changing:

Readers who

• didn't get to the blog by searching, and 
• who also aren't included in the group that Select ads are shown to

will continue to not see any Chitika ads:   the ad-space simply collapses, without showing anything else or displaying alternative ads

The alternative-ads feature will continue to work for Chitika Premium ads, but it wont' be there for Select.

There are some other Chitika products apart from Premium, but they're more focussed to shopping sites, so probably not used by Blog-spot users, and they don't appear to be affected.

For now, Chitika Select is only available for US/Canada readers.   They say that the technology introduced behind Select will let them change this in the future, but it's not changing for now.

---

Related Articles:



Chitika Overview

Putting Chitika ads into your Blog

Extra customization of Chitkia ads

And from Chitika:

• The blog-posting announcing the change
• Their white paper giving more background
• Opting out of Chitika Select
• Your questions Answered

Blogger and key non-Google products: an overview

This article is about other Google products that may be helpful to Blogger users.  Each product is briefly described, with links to the help centre, help forum, and other useful hints-and-tips article.

The Difference Between Pages and Posts

This article is about the difference between Posts and Pages in Blogger, and suggests an alternative way to back up your page contents that are not included in regular backups.

Finding the URL of a Page

You can easily find the URL of the Pages in your Blog, even if you haven't used the Pages gadget supplied by Blogger.

Adding the Amazon Associates search tool switches on Blogger's new editor

This article explains the effects of using Blogger's Amazon Associates integration on your Blogger editor, and how this can be undone. 

---

Sept 2011 Update:  

It now appears that the integration between Blogger and Amazon is history.  

I've left this article here to avoid broken links, but it's no longer relevant.  See building your own Amazon advertisements for update information about putting Amazon ads into your blog.

---

What is the issue?

In Dec 2009, Blogger added an Amazon Associates option to the Monetize tab.  I've written about this previously in Amazon Integration is with Amazon.Com.


An issue for some Bloggers is that turning on Amazon Associates Product finder automatically switches them over to the updated editor.

 

New Blogger Editor (compose mode) with the Amazon Product Finder


Some people (like me!) don't have a problem with this and barely noticed the change.

But for people who were using the old editor, it may appear that the Amazon integration has changed or removed a number of functions, including the Post Preview option.   And because the editor-selection is for your Google account, not for individual blogs, the functions are removed from all your blogs, not just one.


What to do about it:

Firstly note that one of the effects of activiating the Amazon Product Finder is turning on the new editor for your entire Google account.

Even if you don't turn on the Amazon Product Finder, you can still use the Monetize / Amazon Associates function to link your blog with Amazon.     You will have to build your links manually (as explained in Changing the Look of Amazon advertisements) - and this may be a good idea anyway, as it gives you more control over how they look, and is essential if you're readers aren't mainly from countries serviced by Amazon.com.

Secondly, if you have already turned on the Amazon Product Finder and want to remove it all its side effects:

1. Under Monetize / Amazon Associates, remove the tick beside " Enable the Amazon Product Finder for the Blogger Editor "
2. Under Settings / Basic, choose the Old Editor
   
   
   
   Settings / Basic option for choosing which Blogger editor to use
   

---

Related Articles:



Amazon Integration is with Amazon.Com

Changing the Look of Amazon advertisements

Integration between Blogger and Amazon is history

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

This article is about the issues involved with using AdSense ads on Blogger blogs.  It discusses some things you should do (using the AdSense application), even though Blogger doesn't currently enforce them.

Putting Chitika ads onto your Blog

This article is about putting Chitika ads into your site.   It covers the features currently on Chitkia's AdSetup control panel, and how to take the code that is provided and put it into your own blog on blogspot.

Extra customization of Chitika ads

This article looks at extra customisation you can do to  Chitika advertisements, including making changes to the title colour, border colour, and whether or not a new window opens when a reader clicks on a Chitika ad.

Setting up a custom domain on Blogger - for domains bought through Google before 2015

This article is about domain administration for personal website addressed purchased through Blogger before 2015. 

Advertising Programmes

This article introduces some of the different advertising programmes that are available to "publishers" - which includes people who write blogs.

Converting Posts into Pages

This article looks at how to make an existing Post into a Page, using the Pages feature introduced in Feb 2010.  It is is part of a series about the Pages feature in Blogger.

Making sub-pages

This article is about making so-called sub-pages in Blogger.

AdSense Troubleshooting: Javascript

This article explains the relationship between Adsense advertisement display and Javascript

AdSense Layouts: don't use too many Divs

This quick-tip has details about laying out AdSense ads side-by-side with the text in your Blogger posts.

AdSense Troubleshooting: How many ads per page

This article has details about AdSense ads not being displayed because there are too many ads per page, including particular issues with sidebars in Blogger.

How long does it taken until AdSense ads are displayed on your blog

This article has details about the time-delays between Adsense ads being added to your Blogger site (in header, footer, sidebar, or inside your posts), and the ads being visible to your readers.

AdSense Troubleshooting: Extra line breaks

This article is about fixing problems with AdSense advertisements that are caused by having extra line-breaks in the ad-code.

Using Blogger to make a website for a community group

This article explains the issues that community groups and non-profit organisations can face with managing their websites, and explains how Blogger can be used to address them.

Post Options - handling line-breaks

This article explains the difference between the Edit HTML Line Breaks values of Convert new lines and Press Enter for line breaks.

Update:   the version of Blogger release in 2020 no longer has this option.  The information below is kept for historical perspective, but it no longer current in Blogger.

Amazon Associates and Blogger, an overview

A list of articles about the relationship between Blogger and Amazon Associates, including hints-and-tips for working more effectively with Amazon, and using Amazon sites other than Amazon.com.

Amazon Integration was with Amazon.Com, not the other Amazons

This article looks at the integration between Blogger and Amazon Associates (Amazon.com), the fact that there is not any integration between Blogger and Amazon.co.uk (or any other Amazons), and the consequences of this.

About Blogger-hints-and-Tips

Blogger Hints and Tips has grown from a personal yellow-stickie collection, into a collection of articles focussing on integrating Blogger and a range of other tools.
 

Installing Amazon's Product Preview tool

This article is about fixing a problem with installing Amazon's Product Preview feature into your blog or website.

Pictues, Albums and Slideshows - Advantanges and Disadvantages

This article summarises the advantages and disadvantages of using individual pictures, album links and slideshows in your blog.

Putting an album into your sidebar

This article shows how to put an album link into your sidebar (or anywhere that you can put a gadget on your template) in Blogger.

Rules for using Amazon Associates on Blogger

This article has links to the official Amazon Associates terms and conditions, and has some brief guidelines about complying with them. are available on Amazon's site, currently here.

Linking to a Picasa web-album in a blogger post

This article shows how to put a Picasa-web-album link into your sidebar (or anywhere that you can put a gadget on your template) in Blogger.

Targeting AdSense ads to a subset of page content

There are some websites where contextual targetting is not a good idea, because they attract the wrong sort of advertisements.  For AdSense, one  work-around is to target your ad-content to a certain sub-section of the overall post..

How to put a picture into a post, in Blogger

This article describes how to insert a picture into a blog post or page, using Blogger's Post Editor.  

It applies no matter whether the picture comes from, but has particular information about pictures that are already in Google Album Archive (because they were uploaded via Blogger or Hangouts or some other tool, eg Google Photos).

Putting a Picasa slideshow into your sidebar

This article shows how to put a slideshow from Picasa-web-albums into a gadget on your blog.

Options for linking Picasa into your Blog

There are various places on your blog where you can put items from Picasa - and different options from Picasa too (individual pictures, albums, slideshows).  This article describes them, and links to articles with specific instructions about each combination.

Picasa & Blogger - series overview

Blogger-Hints-and-Tips has a series of posts about integrating Blogger and Picasa.   This is the "home page" for the series, and has links to all the articles.

Stopping some pages appearing on the home page

This article is about how to make sure that a given post never appears on your blog's so-called "home page".

Adding a footer section to a Blogger theme

This article is about how to add a a footer section to your blog.  It was written in late 2009, before Designer Themes were available.  Today, the best approach is to use a Designer theme.  However this article has been updated for people who are still using Layout themes.   It also shows you how to add additional footers, if there aren't enough for your needs in the Designer theme you are using.

Remember:  in Blogger, theme is just another word for template.

Privacy Policy

This article describes the personal information that Blogger-Hints-and-Tips collects, and how it is used.