Thepipbuzz

This quick-tip is about a new overlay results format which Google Custom Search Engines have just introduced - and which looks like it will be their new standard.  Custom Search Engines have announced a new layout - which appears to have become their new standard option. Search-engine creation is much the same as it was, but at the end you only get one piece of code to install, and it can just go in the place where you want it (no more messing with editing the <header> in your template). The search results page is shown as an overlay on top of your regular page.  As always with custom-search-engines, there are ads-by-Google at the top of the page, and if you have already become an AdSense publisher you can use your custom-search-engine to share the revenue . The big question is - will this new layout approach work in Blogger?    If I was writing an article, I'd test it out somewhere else first, and have some advice about the options, likely problems etc. ...

This quick-tip is about subscribing to a YouTube channel using an RSS feed-reader, like Google Reader Most bloggers  know about other blogs and websites in their niche that they want to keep an eye on, to either know what's going on, or as inspiration for their own posts. Previously I've explained that RSS was invented to make this simpler : you can get a summary of changes on all interesting websites in the one place (called a feed-reader), rather than having to regularly visit each site individually. Video is increasingly popular: many bloggers are putting videos in their posts or their posts into videos, and some have even abandoned their blogs and are only publishing new content to a YouTube channel. I've just found that it's very easy to subscribe to a YouTube user or channel in RSS / Google reader, meaning you can see a list of new videos from you reader, without having to go to the channel in YouTube. Follow these steps: Find the channel or person you want t...

This article describes Blogger's share-to-Google+ feature, and shows how to stop Blogger offering to share to your Google + circles every time you publish a new post, and what you cannot (yet) do with the feature. Automatically updating Google + from your blog If you have linked your blogger-account to your Google+ profile, then by default you are shown a pre-filled Google+ share box with details of your post in it, every time that you publish a post, including times when you edit a post that has already been published . The share box has a snippet and thumbnail picture  based on your post, and section where you can add a comment, remove the description, choose the circle(s) to share it with, and say to also email people who are not in your circles. You can change the picture associated with the shared post using the arrows (hover over the top left of the suggested picture - the arrows circle through the other available pictures. Or you can remove it using the cross button (h...

This quick-tip is about removing the coloured section that is in the background in Blogger's Travel template. Recently, I've been using the Travel template a lot:  it just seems to line things up more sharply on the page. Today I noticed that there is an option for setting the Sidebar background colour under the Template Designer > Customize > Advanced tool.  However it doesn't seem to work. Investigating the template shows that as well as this sidebar background colour (which is correctly set by the option above), the template also specifies a background image  (ie not a colour) to use in the sidebars.    This isn't removed when the overall background image for the template is removed, and cannot be controlled from the template designer. But it's simple enough to get rid of it, by following these steps: 1    Edit the template in the usual way. 2   Tick the expand widgets checkbox. 3   Find this code: background: $(widget.outer.back...

This quick-tip is about the Webmaster Tools Tool Data Validator tool - which is an easier way to "teach" Google about the way things are described on your blog or website. Recently, Google announced a new feature in Webmaster Tools called the Data Validator. This is like a simpler way for website-owners (which is what bloggers really are) to tell Blogger about structured information that they put onto their sites - by point-and-clicking at the information on screen, rather than by learning the intricacies of Rich Snippets and the snippet testing tool . What they've released so far is just an English-language tool for events - "such as concerts, sporting events, exhibitions, shows, and festivals". To use it you need to visit Webmaster Tools, select your site, click the "Optimization" link in the left sidebar, and click "Data Highlighter". And obviously you need to have verified the blog in Webmaster Tools before you start, and to do the ...

This article describes the Creative Commons search tool, which you can use to look for pictures, videos, music etc that are available for other people to use under a Creative Commons license. What is Creative Commons Previously I've described how copyright applies to bloggers , how you can protect your blog-content from copyright theives , and what you can do if they take you work anyway . The focus in that series was looking after your own rights. But rights always come with responsibilities. The details vary by country, but in general you cannot just copy other people's recent work without their permission - in the same way that they cannot copy yours. Some people, though, are happy to give other people permission to use their work , often with certain conditions (eg you must including an attribution link to the creator). Creative Commons is an easy, legal way for creators to give permission for things they create to be used by other people. It is a framework which offer...

This quick-tip is about Google's winter 2012 product cancellations, which appear to have less impact on most Blogger users than their recent seasonal purges. Today, Google have announced their next round of discontinued products - they used to call it "spring cleaning", but this time around have at least acknowledged that it's winter for half the world, and summer for the other half! Some Google Calendar features are to be discontinued, specifically: Creating new reservable times on a Calendar using Appointments Smart Rescheduler Add gadget by URL. Check your calendar via SMS/text message Create event via SMS/text message (GVENT). My guess is that this may affect some Blogger users, who have integrated a calendar with a blog. It's a fairly specialist area, so likely to be a small number. There are a few other discontinued features, but I suspect they won't affect bloggers to much extent: Google Sync a tool giving access to Google Mail, Calendar and Contact...