Friday, September 15, 2023

Find the accounts on your blog

3 shaddowy silhouets with question marks instead of faces
SOURCE: ICON LIBRARY

A reader asks,

Is there any easy way to tell if any other account has made a post [on a blog]?

The question has special urgency in light of Google's plan to start deleting inactive Google accounts, beginning in December of 2023. 

If there are old accounts on your blog, and Google deletes them, the images they've uploaded will be deleted too.

Monday, September 11, 2023

Stayin' alive

 KEEP YOUR BLOG ONLINE

Drawing of a man waking up in a coffin
Google's plan to start deleting inactive accounts (and their blogs) begins this December.

What does it mean to you, and how can you protect your blog?

The actual requirements are simple. Just publishing blog posts keeps the account active.

But there's a nasty surprise for some blogs.

Saturday, June 24, 2023

Everybody jump!

Children jumping
photo: Lighttruth (CC BY-NC 2.0)

The old jump break offers hidden benefits to all Blogger blogs.

Before Blogger introduced the jump break in 2009, blog themes displayed entire posts stacked on top of each other.

The break allowed blogs to make a main page of posts truncated with "read more" links to each post on separate post pages. (It still does that, for older blog themes.)

Today, the most modern blog themes truncate posts automatically. But the jump can help even these blogs in ways not anticipated in 2009.

Thursday, June 8, 2023

Automated lists by topic

Stylaized graphic of a woman presenting a list
image: mohamed hassan
Tag your posts with labels, and you'll be able to create dynamic lists of links to all the posts with a label.

"Dynamic" means the list revises itself automatically whenever you add or subtract a label from a post.

Wednesday, May 17, 2023

Welcome to Blogger

A stick-on name tag that says "Hello, I'm..." but is blank

New here?

Maybe you know exactly where you are going with your new blog. If so, don't let me slow you down.

For my part, when I was getting started, I was uncertain about the right way to do things. 

I'm writing this for newcomers, though old hands may find a few tidbits of interest too.

Monday, May 1, 2023

Set the table for blogging

An elborate formal place setting with many utensils and wine glasses
Photo: Hopefulromntic21 (CC BY-SA 4.0)

At the end of the setup process for a new blog, you'll find yourself at your blog's dashboard: the private back end of the blog where you can write, edit, format, and run your blog.

To get your blog started, you can click the New Post button at top right on your dashboard.

It's not a bad idea to try this out. You can always edit or delete a practice post later.

But one dashboard section that deserves your early attention is the Settings page, full of controls and options. 

Saturday, April 15, 2023

Database filtering blog posts
with logical NOT

Elon Musk with a "no" slash over his face
Adapted from Steve Jurvetson (CC BY 2.0)

Attentive reader Peggy K wishes for a way to make such complex blog searches as "all my posts about Twitter that are NOT about Elon Musk."

(My hypothetical example, not hers.)

Seek no further.