K is for King of the Posts

You know how on some blogs they have a list of popular posts on the sidebar? In Blogger, there's two ways to do that. The easy way and the hard way. I'm going to talk about both.

But why, why, WHY would you ever want to do it the hard way?! Because it's better. Here's why:

Blogger has a popular posts gadget. It makes it simple. The only problem is, it goes off of page views, not number of comments. Which is great and all, unless you use images in your posts. If so, a post that wasn't really one of your most popular might show up as being so, just because it contained an image that comes up as a search result a ton on Google. It might just be a popular image--- not so much a popular post. With me so far?

So, way #1 is easy, and might do you just fine. Way #2 is harder, but it will actually let YOU choose which ones appear in it. (Other thing to consider: Way #1 will update itself. Way #2 has to be updated by you.)

Way #1: The EASY way.

For the new Blogger layout: (just click on the image to make it larger)

For the old Blogger layout: (Click the image to make it larger)

Way #2 The HARD (albeit more flexible) way.

Step 1: Figure out what posts you want to spotlight.

Step 2: Save an image you want to use from each post somewhere on your hard drive.

Step 3: Create the html code. Now don't freak out if you can't write code from scratch! It's all going to be okay. Blogger is fabulous at writing code for you. We're going to let it. Go into Blogger just like you are creating a new post.

Step 4: Click on the button to insert an image, then select one of those images you just saved onto your hard drive from one of your posts.

Step 5: Click on the image. Select both Original Size (trust me for a minute) and Left. (I prefer the old Blogger layout, so my images are going to be from that. It's the same either way, I believe.)

Step 6: Obviously, we aren't going to want this image to be its original size when it's in our sidebar. But choosing Original Size makes this step easier. Click on the Edit HTML tab at the top. The code for your image should look something like this:

See that part I circled that says "s1600"? That's the part that matters (s1600 is in two places-- it's the one toward the end we want). That 1600 is telling the maximum height/width the image can be. We don't want it that big. We want it to be somewhere between 60 and 100. (I changed mine to 60. Take a look at my popular posts in my sidebar to see if that's a size you'd like. If not, change the number.)

Step 7: Click on the compose tab again. Now your image will show smaller. Like this:

With me?

Step 8: Type in the text you want to have show on your sidebar. (This will generally be the title of the post that goes with that image.)

Step 9: In a different tab, open that post, highlight the URL, then press Ctrl+C to copy it.

Step 10: Come back to your post, hightlight the text you've typed in, then click on the link link at the top of the post, and paste (Ctrl+P) the URL you just copied. Now it should look something like this:

Step 11: And you're done with the first one! Give your post a title (something like "My list of Popular Posts" or something else that will help you remember), then click SAVE. This will be a post that you will never publish, but that you will want to keep, in case you want to update it later.

Now, go through these same steps for as many posts as you want to have show.

• Once you get them all, click on the Edit HTML tab.
• Press Ctrl + A to highlight all the code in the post.
• Press Ctrl + C to copy it all. 
• For old blogger: click on the Design tab at the top. For new blogger, select Layout on the left.
• Click Add a Gadget in your sidebar.
• Scroll down and find the HTML/Java Script option, and click on the blue plus sign.
• For the title, type Popular Posts (or whatever you want it to say).
• Click in the content area, the press Ctrl + V to paste in all that code you created. Then click SAVE.
• At this point, you can move it to wherever in your sidebar you want, then click SAVE.

And you're done! Whew! I know it seems like a lot to do, but once you do it for the first post, it gets a ton easier. Really. I'm not kidding.

Or you can use the easy way and see if it works for you. You can always put in the work to do the harder way later! (Oh, and I should mention that there is a medium way. That's adding a link list gadget. That'll work, too, and let you choose which posts you want, but it won't allow you to have an image with it.)

Questions? Let me know.

E is for Enabling Email

Wow, I'm late getting this post up today! It's on account of the food poisoning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I could've been on the ball and had it scheduled long before the food poisoning hit. I didn't on account of the intense revisions. See? I can come up with an excuse for anything!

Two things today, bloggers & commenters, and they're both about email. How to respond to comments via email, and how to let others respond to you via email. 

For the last week or two, I've been mostly responding to comments via email. It's been a hard decision to switch from commenting in the comments to commenting in emails, but I think it's what will work best. Please, PLEASE, I beg of you: Please enable your email so I can respond to you!! It makes me 50 kinds of sad when you leave a comment that so begs a response, and I can't respond! I know it makes other bloggers want to cry into their keyboards, too. I speak for people I've no right to speak for when I say, I SWEAR we will do nothing nefarious with your email address. If you're still nervous about giving it out, maybe think about getting a second email account used just for blogging. It doesn't have to use whatever email address you use to sign in.

And huge apologies, WordPress / other non-Blogger blog users! Blogger is what I know. Okay, so first things first.

Enabling your email so that others can respond to your comments via email:

This one is actually easy. Go to your profile. You can do this by clicking on your name link in any comment that you make.

Or, if you are using the old interface of blogger, from your dashboard, click on Edit Profile.

Or, if you're using the new interface of Blogger, in the top right hand corner, you'll see your name with a little triangle next to it. Click on the triangle, and you'll see ...

... this. Blogger Profile. Click on it.

Then on the screen that comes up, click on Edit Profile in the top right.

Then, just enter whatever email address you want, and save. Easy peasy. And remember-- it doesn't have to be the email you sign in with-- it can be any email address you want. (Although I wouldn't recommend setting it to somebody else's email address just to be funny. But that would be funny.)

If you want to reply to your commenters' comments by email:

This is actually pretty simple, too. All you have to do is have Blogger email any comments to the email address you use for this kind of thing. When those emails come in, you can just reply to them (as long as they set up their email-- if they didn't, their email address will show up as noreply-comment@blogger.com)

If you're using the old Blogger interface, Go to your settings tab, click comments, then scroll to the bottom, enter whatever address you want for the Comment Notification Email (this one doesn't have to be the one you sign in with, either.) Then click Save Settings.

If you're using the new Blogger interface, go to Settings on the left, then choose Mobile and Email (still on the left), then enter the Comment Notification Email. Whatever email works for you, regardless of what you sign in with.

Piece of cake, right? Any questions?

Do you comment to comments via email ever? If so, help me try to talk everyone into enabling their email in the comments. Then I don't have to speak for you when it comes to the whole non-nefarious uses thing. :)

Blogger How To Questions

I want to do a Blogger tips / tricks / fixes segment on my blog soon. Now, I know that not everyone who blogs uses Blogger blogs, but does seem to be the majority. (Plus, my posts on how to do things in other blogging programs would be about as helpful as a computer without a keyboard. Or a mouse. Or a touch screen.)

I blogged on Blogger for years before starting this blog, so it's possible I'll know some answers to your questions. And if I don't: I just happen to not be afraid of research! That, and I have a husband who's crazy smart. He comes in quite handy.

So I'd love to hear what things you think would be helpful!

• Things about images?
• Links? 
• Posts? 
• Sidebars?
• How to turn off that annoying captcha? (And never fear. Blogger is freaking amazing at weeding about the spam comments for you. FREAKING AMAZING. Seriously.)
• Things you've seen on other people's blog that you'd love to know how to do on yours? 
• Crazy things Blogger does that you don't know how to fix? 
• Things you've wished it could do, but you're convinced it can't do?

Let me know any questions, and I'll do my best to do a post on them. I know that not all questions will come to your mind right at this second, so if you come across any while blogging, come back or email me.