Certainly, the price is right: free! WordPress is another popular platform, but it seeks to monetize its platform with some "nickel and dime" things like charging to allow use of a separate top-level domain for a site (other than at WordPress.Com).
Some common topics encountered when setting up an "optimal" Blogger page are addressed here. This is in no way a complete tutorial though.
RANDOM POINTERS
JUMP BREAKS
Blogger offers the convenience of a toolbar button for Jump Breaks. This creates the "read more" break point in a blog, for which only a limited amount shows in the initial view.
[For more see: http://buzz.blogger.com/2009/09/you-might-as-well-jump.html]
One would think that the Template Designer function would be accessed through the Template menu, but that would be wrong. In the Blogger interface world, that would be put in small type in the upper right corner of the Layout view. Huh? Oops! It turns out the Template Designer can be accessed from the Template page. However, it is hidden behind the "Customize" button under the miniature view of the page in the Template page. Then, oddly, the Layout page is available as a menu item under the Template Designer. Oh, well!?
BLOGGER BACKGROUND IMAGE
The Template Designer has dozens of stock background images (pictures, patterns). These are accessed by tapping the small triangle to the right of the pane showing the current background image. Note that various template element's colors will change with the selection of a new stock background image.
WHAT IS A FACEBOOK COVER IMAGE?
Facebook (which invokes a "love it or leave it" reaction) has a new "timeline view" (mandatory as of sometime in April 2012 for most users). Part of this page style is a "cover image." This is a picture or banner graphic which will act as the "header" for the timeline. It is optional and can be ignored. They suggest NOT using someone else's picture/header/cover and making something unique that will "brand" your individual persona.
Blogger has a similar option. Without bothering to change any part of the "banner" area, which is where the blog title and "extra little description" and an option image goes in the header, simply add a picture (with the same width as the settings for the width of the page/header) to the gadget/widget in the Layout view which is just below the header/banner area.
If the Pages already has Tabs (see other section here), then the one single gadget/widget allowed at that spot will already be occupied and there is no option to add a second one.
WHERE ARE THE BLOGGER PAGE TABS HIDDEN AT?
In any template in Blogger, the pages can be viewed as Tabs, a list in the Side Bar (reposition to either sidebar by drag and drop once go to Template view), or "not at all." The choice is made by going to the Design view, selecting Pages, and then choosing the "Top Tabs" setting (drop down menu upper right of list of pages) for "Show pages as" menu. It is advisable to keep the names of the pages limited to single worlds or short phrases such as Blog (use this for the blog "Home" with the latest posts), Contact (use a form for slightly better security, if there is a gadget/widget or 3rd party service code to use), etc.
AUDIO & VIDEO ON BLOGGER
AUDIO & VIDEO
As of April 2012, Blogger cannot directly support/host audio or video. However, it can embed code that allows it to stream audio or video from some outside service.
Posting music/audio: http://support.google.com/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=80259
[This is out of date and not much use]
There is an "Insert Video" button in the Blogger editor toolbar. This allows video to be imbedded if it is already an externally hosted item, such as at YouTube or other externally hosted item.
Facebook, YouTube, and others will also provide "imbed code" which can be put in the Blogger "code" gadget/widget.
AUDIO HOSTING SERVICES
It seems that this is a weakly supported area of functionality for the web. A search for free and paid "podcast hosting service" yielded mostly ancient webpages and wimpy seeming services. Perhaps the decline is due to people using services such as DropBox or Box.Com to host their files for streaming?
APPLE iCLOUD SERVICE
There is a new Apple iCloud service to replace Me.Com, iDisk, and the other mishmash of Apple cloud space over the years. It has some kind of music streaming capability. [Testing of its sharing capabilities is pending testing of the service once an account is set up.]
BOX.COM - PODCAST OR MUSIC AUDIO HOSTING
One of the simpler ways to host audio is to make a public folder on Box.Com (formerly Box.Net). If a person was fortunate to get the free 50 GB of storage for free for life, this is able to hold a significant amount of audio. It uses a flash player that can appear in a page by editing the HTML and inserting the "embed code" generated when choosing sharing options.
The "icon" for the player can be made as big (and ugly then) as a person wants, but setting a height of 30 and width of 375 provides a "slice" of the icon that is just the player strip portion on the bottom. This gives it a more traditional player look. It has "Box" branded on the player, but it is not too obnoxious. Unfortunately, there is no "plain vanilla minimalist player" which is unbranded.
Example of code for one tested audio file:
<embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="30" src="http://www.box.com/embed/bbxysutssm2b93f.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="375" wmode="opaque"></embed>
RSS FEEDS
ADDING RSS FEEDS FROM OTHER WEBSITE ACTIVITIES
RSS is "real simple syndication" and is a means to "push" (feed) the activity of a website to a "portal" in another site or to a news or RSS reader. In order to allow Blogger to access the feed use RSS Feed gadget/widget. Simply enter the appropriate RSS feed URL form field for the widget. Some websites make it harder to find the RSS feed URL. See the following for some of the common social media website RSS feed URL formats.
TWITTER FEED WORKAROUND
Twitter decided to obscure access to the RSS Feed associated with each account. However, there is a workaround:
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/alecbreton.rss
[This stopped working, so see the next version.]
[Substitute your account name in place of "alecbreton".]
Next version to try: http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/{userID}.rss
To find a Twitter User ID use this tool: ID For Twitter User
Entering in that tool "alecbreton" yielded the ID: 63531481
Thus, the resultant RSS feed URL is:
http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/63531481.rss
[This stopped working as well?]
For more information see:
RSS feed for a Twitter user [It is possible to have only favorites be fed instead of all of them.]
Create a Twitter RSS feed for Tweets, Searches, Hashtags, Lists or Favorites
TUMBLR FEED
The Blogger basic widget for RSS Feed can also feed a Tumblr account feed. Enter the following in the RSS Feed URL form field for the widget:
http://alecbreton.tumblr.com/rss
[Substitute your account name in place of "alecbreton".]
PINTEREST FEED
http://pinterest.com/alecbreton/feed.rss
[Substitute your account name in place of "alecbreton".]
For more see: How To Find Your Pinterest Board or User RSS Feed [It is possible to have only a specific Pinterest board instead of all of them.]
"Been there, done that!"
Copyright © Alec Breton - alecbreton.blogspot.com
