Blogger templates

Free Blogger Templates

2005-04-07T14:38:00.000-07:00

Free Blogger Templates

The following are some templates I designed for my blog. Since I made so many (and will likely make more), I decided to make them available to the public for free. Here's how to use the template for your blog (note that these will only work for blogger or blogspot blogs). some of templates are not finished yet but keep watching for updates :)

Click on a screen shot you like. The link will take you to the template.
View the source for the template. In most browsers, this can be accomplished by right-clicking in the browser window and selecting "View Source" from the context menu.
Select all the text in the source window. Copy and paste it into your Blogger template edit field.
Make any desired customizations, such as adding links. To add links, go to the "Add links here" comment in the template code and follow the instructions.
Click "Save Template Changes" and you're good to go.

Blogger Archive Settings

2005-01-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

The blog archive is a very important feature, because this determines how users will be able to browse the previously published posts at your blog. Here are some features you need to designate for your archive:

Archive frequency . The default is monthly, which is good for blogs that are not especially active, but you will want to choose weekly or even daily archiving if you have a very active blog, since the archive appears on a single page of its own. If all the posts to your blog in a given month are too much to comfortably browse on a single page, then you should choose weekly or daily archiving.
Enable Post pages . The default answer here is "Yes" - and it is one of the best features of Blogger! Post pages mean that each post can appear separately on a page of its own, with a nice-looking filename that is based on the Title of the post. So if you ever want to link to your blog, you should definitely have the Post pages enabled!
Archive Path . This, again, is only for advanced users. If you have divided your webspace into subdirectories, then you can designate a specific subdirectory here for the archive content of your blog. This subdirectory must already exist in your webspace; the Blogger software cannot create subdirectories for you. Most users will probably leave this blank.
Archive URL . You only need to designate the Archive URL if you are using an Archive Path. Most users can leave this space blank.
Archive Filename . It is important to designate an archive filename here which will be used to name the pages that are created as part of your archive. The suggestion provided by Blogger, archive.html, is a good option.

Blogger Comments Settings

2005-01-14T12:48:00.000-08:00

Blogger Comments Settings

The Comments feature is new to Blogger, and it is a good idea to understand how the Comments options work, since you have some important choices to make here. The main thing to understand is that Comments are published as part of your blog automatically. You can receive an email notification when Comments are published, and you can delete any Comments that you consider inappropriate - but you do not control the initial publishing of the Comments. Keep that in mind, as you think about the following Comments options:

Comments . Note that the default setting for Comments is to Show the comments! If you do not want to make Comments part of your blog, then you should change this option to Hide.
Who can comment? The default setting is that Only Registered Users of Blogger.com can submit comments (and their Blogger display name is included as part of their comments). You can open this up so that anybody can comment (meaning that you have effectively anonymous comments). You can also restrict the comments to "Members" of your blog, if you have a group blog to which other users have been admitted as members.
Default for Posts . By default, new posts have comments, You can change this option so that by default, the new posts that you create do not have comments - and then if you want to turn comments on for a specific post you can choose to do that. Note that if you are going to turn comments on for some posts, you should make sure you have chosen to Show comments.
Comment Notification Address . This is the email address that will be automatically notified when a comment is published at this blog.

Blogger Formatting

2005-01-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

There are many formatting options that are pretty straightforward (date and time formatting, time zone, etc.). There are also some formatting settings that are specific to the world of blogging, which are explained below.

You can choose what to Show on the main blog page. You can choose to display a certain number of posts, or posts from a certain time period. The default option is to show the posts from the preceding seven days on the main page. If you have a very active blog, you might want to display less; if you have a blog that is less active, you might want to designate a specific number of posts to show instead.

The default setting for Line Breaks is "Yes", which means that when you hit the Enter key as you type your post, this will be equivalent to hitting the Enter (return) key in a word processor. This is usually what people prefer when they are creating their posts. However, if you are going to be writing your posts in HTML, or cutting-and-pasting your posts from an HTML editor such as Dreamweaver, then you must change this option to "No" (since HTML uses a different system for indicating line breaks in a text).

By default the Title you give to the post is included.

A Links field can also be included, but this requires some advanced editing of your template, so beginning users will probably not use this option.

Finally, you can create a Post Template , which is very useful if each of your posts is going to follow a standard kind of format. For example, if you are doing a blog about movies, you could create a Post Template that would prompt you to always start with the title of the movie, the director, the date and venue where you saw the movie, etc. The Post Template is only a prompt; for any given post, you can override the content of the template and create something totally different if you want.

Blogger Publish Settings

2005-01-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

If you want to automate the publishing process, so that you do not have to enter your username and password every time you want to publish, then you can include this information in your Publishing settings.

Note that if you have a group blog, only an Administrator can adjust these settings. Members of your group blog are not able to access or modify the FTP settings that are recorded here.

You already entered your FTP Server and other information when you created your blog originally. You can choose to change that information here if you want.

Getting Started with Blogger

2005-01-14T12:34:00.000-08:00

Go to Blogger.com and, if you already have a Blogger account, log in with your Blogger username and password. If you have a Blogger account, and want to add a new blog to your account, you should first log in, and then you can create a new blog if you want.

If you do not have a Blogger account, click the big orange arrow that says Create Your Blog Now . In order to create a blog, you must have a Blogger account, with a username and password. Once you have a Blogger account, you can create as many blogs as you want with that account.

If you have a Blogger account and cannot remember your your log-in information, click on the "Password: ( forgot?)" link.

Create An Account screen. To create an account, fill in the required information: username, password, display name, and email address. The username is what you use to sign into your Blogger account; your username information is not displayed anywhere else. Your display name, on the other hand, will appear as part of your Blog. You can choose to use your real name as the display name, or a pseudonym. Y ou can choose to change your display name later on; you cannot change your user name.

Name Your Blog . After you have created your Blogger account, you will be taken to a screen that allows you to create a blog as part of your account (you can have as many different blogs as you want; you can choose to create more blogs later). The screen you will see allows you to name your blog. You also have to say where you want to publish your blog.

Name Your Blog. The title for your blog may be displayed as part of your blog (or you can choose a different display name) - and you can also choose to change the name of your blog later.
Blog Address . The Blogspot hosting service will allow you to publish your blog for free, but there will be a banner ad across the top of every page your blog. This is a good option for someone who does not have any web space available to them. At OU, all students, faculty, and staff have web space that is available to them, so you will probably not want to use this option for school-related blogs.
Advanced Setup . The Advanced Setup option allows you to publish your blog in your own web space. In order to publish your blog in your OU webspace, click on the Advanced Setup link .

Advanced Setup . The Advanced Setup screen prompts you for information that will allow you to publish your blog in your OU webspace.

Blog title . The title for your blog may be displayed as part of your blog (or you can choose a different display name) - and you can also choose to change the name of your blog later.
Listing . A "listed" blog means that the blog is included in the Blogger directory. An "unlisted" blog is not included in the directory. NOTE: Just because a blog is "unlisted" does not mean that it is not public! Your blog will be available for viewing on the open Internet, like the other webpages that you publish in your OU webspace.
FTP server . The name of your FTP server is either students.ou.edu or faculty-staff.ou.edu .
Protocol . You can use FTP as your publishing protocol (you may already be familiar with FTP from having used web-based FTP in Internet Explorer, or an FTP program such as WS_FTP).
FTP path . Unless you are an advanced user, you can probably leave the FTP path blank. The FTP path allows you to publish your blog to a subdirectory inside your OU webspace. In order to use this option, you must have already created a subdirectory in your OU webspace (the Blogger software will not create that subdirectory for you).
Blog filename . If you want the blog to be the "home page" for your website, you can name it index.html. Most people will probably not use the blog as their main home page, though. In that case, you should give it some other name. Make sure you do not include any blank spaces or punctuation in the filename. The filename should end in .htm or .html.
Blog URL . Because of the way the OU webspace works, this can be a bit complicated. What you need to do here is to append the filename you chose to your OU webspace address. Your OU webspace address is based on your dotted name, and is available through the Online Directory at http://search.ou.edu . For example, someone named Jane Q. Public would have a webspace address like this: http://students.ou.edu/P/Jane.Q.Public-1/ In order to create the blog URL, just add the blog filename (for example: training.html) to this address: http://students.ou.edu/P/Jane.Q.Public-1/training.html. Don't worry if you make a mistake here; this is something that you can come back and correct later if you accidentally put in the wrong URL.

Choose a template . On the next page, you will be asked to choose a blog template. The nice thing about blogs is that you can change your template at any time, so that your blog looks completely different - but your content will remain unaffected. So it really does not matter much which template you choose at this time. You can change the template whenever you want in the future. So just choose one, and then decide later what template best suits the content you end up creating.

Start posting! After your blog has been created, click on the Start Posting arrow in order to proceed.

About Blogging

2005-01-14T12:18:00.000-08:00

BLOG = weB-LOG. A web log, or "blog," is a great way to share information online. Blogging software allows you to create webpages without having to learn anything about webpage design or website maintenance. The information you want to publish is organized in a "journal" format, with the most recent days appearing on the front page of the website, and with previous days accessible through the archive pages, which are all created for you automatically. You type the information you want to publish into a form, hit the publish button, and you are online!

Here is some terminology that will help you understand more about blogging and how you can get started with your own online blog!

Blog service . There are many companies that provide blog services. One of the most popular free services is Blogger.com.

Blogger.com . Blogger.com, a part of Google, provides its services for free. It costs nothing to create a Blogger.com account, and as part of your account you can create as many blogs as you want.

FTP . FTP, or file-transfer-protocol, is how the pages of your blog are transferred from your blog provider (for example, Blogger.com) to your web space (for example, your OU webspace).

Posts and posting . The entries that you make to your blog are called "posts," and the process of creating and publishing those posts is called "posting."

Archive . As you accumulate more and more posts in your blog, the older posts are moved to an "archive" where they can still be viewed, although they are no longer shown on the front page of your blog.

Permalink . A very important feature of blogging is that each post has its own unique URL, which makes it possible for people to link to your blog posts. This permanent post address is usually called a "permalink" (although this terminology varies from one blogging service to another). Blogger also uses the term "post page" to refer to the permanent webpage where a blog post can be found.

Template . The template provides the design of your blog (the posts are the content). Since the design and the content are separated, that means you can change the look of your blog at any time, without having to make any changes to the content you have published.

Comments . Many blogging services, including Blogger, allow people to make "comments" about the posts in your blog. You can decide if this is a feature that you want to use or not.

Group blogging . Although most blogs belong to specific individuals, there are also "group blogs" where more than one person is able to post to the blog. It's easy to make group blogs at Blogger.com .

Syndication . Because content and design are kept separate in a blog, it is possible for the content of your posts to be exported to some other location, separate from your blog. This process of exporting your content to another location is called "syndication."

Site feed . If you decide to make your blog content available for syndication, you do this by means of a "site feed", which is a special webpage that reproduces your blog posts without any of the template's design features. The site feed is in a format called XML, "Extensible Markup Language."

Blog aggregator . A blog aggregator is a software program that allows you to collect the content from many different blogs into a single location. There are blog aggregator programs that you can install on your computer, or you can use a web-based blog aggregator like bloglines.com .

Javascript . Another way to use a site feed is to display that site feed as content inside a webpage or inside Blackboard! No special programming skills are required, thanks to the good folks at Maricopa Community College !