Have a suggestion for Blogger? They currently have a Suggest and Vote page open. Better hurry though, I think it's only open for a week.
« Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts »
Friday, April 24, 2009
«Suggest and Vote for Blogger»
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
«Label Cloud Widget»
I've added a new widget at the bottom of the page. It's a label cloud; the larger and brighter the link, the more posts there are that have that label.
I saw the widget in use on a random blog I came across, and I really liked it. After a little searching, I found the code and where it came from. I'm using the version that can be found at Widget-based.
For the sake of preservation, I'm going to include the code for the widget here as well. There hasn't been a new post on the Widget-based blog since 2006 (only 8 total posts), and I'd hate for it to be deleted and this version of the code lost.
Installation in two parts, you'll want to Expand Widget Templates for this:/* Label Cloud Styles
----------------------------------------------- */
#labelCloud {text-align:center;font-family:arial,sans-serif;}
#labelCloud .label-cloud li{display:inline;background-image:none !important;padding:0 5px;margin:0;vertical-align:baseline !important;border:0 !important;}
#labelCloud ul{list-style-type:none;margin:0 auto;padding:0;}
#labelCloud a img{border:0;display:inline;margin:0 0 0 3px;padding:0}
#labelCloud a{text-decoration:none}
#labelCloud a:hover{text-decoration:underline}
#labelCloud li a{}
#labelCloud .label-cloud {}
#labelCloud .label-count {padding-left:0.2em;font-size:9px;color:#000}
#labelCloud .label-cloud li:before{content:"" !important}
<b:widget id='Label1' locked='false' title='Label Cloud' type='Label'>
<b:includable id='main'>
<b:if cond='data:title'>
<h2><data:title/></h2>
</b:if>
<div class='widget-content'>
<div id='labelCloud'> <ul>
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<li>
<b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:label.url'>
<data:label.name/>
<b:else/>
<a expr:href='data:label.url'><data:label.name/></a>
</b:if>
(<data:label.count/>)
</li>
</b:loop>
</ul></div>
<script type='text/javascript'>
// Label Cloud User Variables
var maxFontSize = 20;
var maxColor = [168,181,248];
var minFontSize = 8;
var minColor = [0,0,0];
var lcShowCount = false;
var minPostCount = 0; //integer
// Don't change anything past this point -----------------
function s(a,b,i,x){
if(a>b){
var m=(a-b)/Math.log(x),v=a-Math.floor(Math.log(i)*m)
}
else{
var m=(b-a)/Math.log(x),v=Math.floor(Math.log(i)*m+a)
}
return v
}
var ta=0;
var c=[];
var labelCount = new Array();
var ts = new Object;
<b:loop values='data:labels' var='label'>
<b:if cond='data:label.count'>
if (<data:label.count/> > minPostCount) ts["<data:label.name/>"] = <data:label.count/>;</b:if></b:loop>
for (t in ts){
if (!labelCount[ts[t]]){
labelCount[ts[t]] = new Array(ts[t])
}
}
tz = labelCount.length-1;
lc2 = document.getElementById('labelCloud');
lc2.innerHTML = '';
ul = document.createElement('ul');
ul.className = 'label-cloud';
for(var t in ts){
for (var i=0;3 > i;i++) {
c[i]=s(minColor[i],maxColor[i],ts[t]-ta,tz)
}
var fs = s(minFontSize,maxFontSize,ts[t]-ta,tz);
li = document.createElement('li');
li.style.fontSize = fs+'px';
li.style.lineHeight = '1';
a = document.createElement('a');
a.title = ts[t]+' Posts in '+t;
a.style.color = 'rgb('+c[0]+','+c[1]+','+c[2]+')';
a.href = '/search/label/'+encodeURIComponent(t);
if (lcShowCount){
span = document.createElement('span');
span.innerHTML = '('+ts[t]+') ';
span.className = 'label-count';
a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(t));
li.appendChild(a);
li.appendChild(span);
}
else {
a.appendChild(document.createTextNode(t));
li.appendChild(a);
}
ul.appendChild(li);
abnk = document.createTextNode(' ');
ul.appendChild(abnk);
}
lc2.appendChild(ul);
</script>
<b:include name='quickedit'/>
</div>
</b:includable>
</b:widget>
This is the first blog post that uses my new code boxes. I'll still use the old style for short code snippets.
EDIT: I've decided to maintain consistency and use this style of code block for all code; even short snippets. Please tell me what you think of it.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
«Caturday: Rage Break Worst»
Blogger is having some issues. Posts or the entire blog are periodically blanking out. I hope it will be corrected soon.
Friday, February 13, 2009
«Finally Linked AdSense and Analytics»
I finally got the option available to me to link Google AdSense and Google Analytics. I've only been waiting since they announced it in October of last year. I know Google rolls out updates slowly to their users, but come on... That took 5 months!
It probably would have been longer if I didn't run across their AdSense / Analytics interest form. The link to this form can also be found at the top of the Official AdSense blog.
So I have them linked. I should be able to get more detailed information about the performance of my ads now. Although at the time of writing this, no data is showing up in my Analytics account about AdSense yet.
One little thing that threw me for a bit during the linking process: They ask you to chose a primary domain to link to. All other domains other than the primary must have an additional bit of code inserted in. I was thinking that since I use a few subdomains (extras, www, and pictures) that I'd need this little code snippet. However, I couldn't find it anywhere.
Turns out that by "different domains", they really meant different profiles in Analytics. I track all my subdomains under the same profile in analytics, so I should be good. I shouldn't need to add any extra code anywhere.
You might be wondering why I even have ads. Well, they're primarily to pay for my domain name and monthly hosting costs. "But wait!" you say to yourself, "Blogger is a free service! There's no hosting costs involved!" Well, you're right... Sorta.
I pay (through GoDaddy) for my mastermarf.com domain name. I also have a hosting account through GoDaddy that hosts the Games section, as well as all the images you see here on the blog. I did not like the limitations of the built-in image hosting that blogger provides. And yes, I do make enough from the ads to cover my costs.
Friday, January 30, 2009
«Blogger For Dummies»
I'm actually surprised it hasn't already been made some time ago. I just read over at Blogger Buster that Google Blogger will be added to the "For Dummies" book series.
They have every other subject imaginable. I've already seen one in the bookstore about blogging in general. I've never actually bought or read one of those "For Dummies" books. I've always thought they're somewhat demeaning. I don't want to admit I'm a dummy, so why would I buy a book for one? I have one on Linux that was given to me, but I've never read it.
If I see this one in the bookstore I may look through it, but I'm pretty sure I already know enough about Blogger. I doubt I'd buy it.
Friday, January 16, 2009
«Traffic Returning»
My web traffic is returning, this last week wasn't too bad. Still hasn't returned to the normal weekly averages, though. You damn students need to go back to school after Winter break. Or visit my site and play the games from home.
Usually, my traffic peaks around 2,500 visits a day during the week, and the weekends drop off to about 500 visits a day. However, during the Winter break, my traffic flat-lined at around 250 visits a day, no matter what day of the week it was.
What's the post popular page? By far Pyro Sand 2, accounting for about 48% of my traffic. Sadly, the actual blog here only accounts for about 12% of my traffic.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
«Hot Water Tank Failure»
Over at my dad's house we've had a hot water tank failure and not the time to fix it. We have it disconnected so it doesn't keep leaking, and we now have a replacement tank. So, what could possibly be more important to do around the house than re-gaining hot water? (Taking a shower would be a bit... cold.)
Answer: Snow removal. Specifically from the roof. After all, if the roof caves in hot water isn't going to do us much good. Last week we had 2-3 feet of snow dumped on us, then we went into a bit of a cold and clear period. We figured it'd warm up and melt off. Well, it warmed up... And started to snow again. We're supposed to get up to another 2 feet. Crap.
It's a rather small house, however it is 2 floors tall. A slip and fall off the roof could very well be fatal. So that's what I'll be doing today. Shoveling snow I mean; I don't plan on the fatal part.
And no, this week's Motivational Monday won't be proof that I survived it. I've scheduled that post ahead of time already.
EDIT: After Monique's comment, I decided to make a little update here. I didn't have to shovel the roof, so I'm fine.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
«Live Blog Activity Widget»
I've did away with the poll widget in the sidebar to make room for the new "Live Blog Activity" widget by Wowzio. I may do polls again later, we'll see. The polls were not as active as I would have hoped, so it was time for something new.
Here's the results from the poll before I removed it. "More posts about...": Me (the author) 2, Ketchikan Alaska 1, Random crap 3, and Other blogs 3. I I'll keep it in mind that random crap and other blogs ranked the highest. I was actually a little surprised that Ketchikan, Alaska didn't get more votes.
Anyway, back to the new widget. I think it's pretty nifty. Whenever a page on the blog loads, it gets the user's location and source. It then sends that information to every open instance of the widget on the blog. So any new entries in the widget you see appear are live. It obtains your location based on your IP address. Javascript is required to see the widget, but most everything requires javascript these days anyway. I hope there's enough activity on the blog to make the widget worth it. I'll just have to wait and see.
How did I find this widget? I was checking out some of the links in a recent Blogger Buster article about tutorials and sites for Blogger users. A few of the other links in the article were interesting as well.
It's going to be interesting to watch the widget. Sure, I use Google Analytics to track my traffic. I could already see locations and such of my visitors. But there's just something special about seeing the live hits. Oddly enough, among my most popular articles is More About Sea-Monkeys. If the screenshot I took of the widget is any indication, you'll be able to see the live data to back up that claim. Another popular one is Lots of Google Images.
Please, leave feedback about the widget in the comments if you wish.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
«Master Marf Domain Name»
Take a look at your address bar in your browser; it no longer has ".blogspot.com" in it. I'm no longer just a subdomain of blogger! My blog is now located at http://www.mastermarf.com. Even if/when I change to a different host, I own the domain name and it would be carried over. I bought the domain through GoDaddy.com. I thought about doing away with the useless "www" subdomain and just be http://mastermarf.com, but the DNS settings would be a little tricky with how I have it setup with blogger.
Speaking of hosting, I have this free ad-supported hosting from GoDaddy. I hate the banner ads at the top, so it looks like I'm in the market for a cheap ad-free hosting service. From what I've read, GoDaddy is great for buying domain names from, but their support and track record for their paid hosting sucks. So I want to go with a different hosting company. Any suggestions, anyone? You can leave them in the comments.
For now, I'll deal with what I have. I think I'll slowly move all my pictures from Picasa to my own domain. I have a subdomain all set for just pictures (take a look at the address in this example).
For photos, I'll lower the quality of the thumbnail (image you see embedded in the blog post) to speed up page load time, and you'll be able to see the true full-sized, high quality images Picasa never let me upload when you click to view full (that post now has the larger images, I've updated it to have the size I originally wanted).
Another example of this is the Touched By His Noodly Appendage desktop background in one of my old posts (click the image in that article to view full). I've did a few, but it will take a while longer than I initially thought. I'm starting with the oldest posts and working my way up. I figured I may as well start this now, because even when I get a different host, all the addresses will remain the same.
Oh, I forgot to say that this domain change on the blog will not force anyone to update webfeed subscriptions; it's still the same Feedburner address.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
«Googlepages To Be Canceled»
Googlepages has been marked for cancellation. This poses a problem for me far beyond my blog supplement pages going away. Anything hosted on a googlepages domain, including my background images and CSS on my blog here (essentially everything that makes my blog's template what it is), will be gone. Hello Google Page Creator Users,
I'm not sure exactly when this will be, but I'm not happy about it. I might have to find a webhost that I'd have to pay for. I definitely don't want to revert back to a default Blogger template. When I figure out what to do, there might be a few glitches and/or problems while I do the transition. I don't think Google Sites will do what I would need it to do.
Here's the notice in the announcement they made in the Google Page Creator Discussion Group:
*sigh* Perhaps this will finally convince me to get my own domain name after all...
We are no longer accepting new sign-ups for Page Creator because we
have shifted our focus to developing Google Sites. Google Sites offers
many of the capabilities of Page Creator along with new features like
site-level navigation, site-level headers, control over who can see
and edit your site, and rich embeddings like calendars, videos, and
Google docs. Simply put, we think that Google Sites offers a better
experience for creating web pages and websites. Consequently, we will
be shutting down Page Creator later this year.
If you are currently a Page Creator user, you can continue to use Page
Creator and your pages will automatically be transitioned to Google
Sites later this year. We are committed to making this transition as
smooth and easy as possible, and we will post more details as we get
closer to the transition time. You can also manually move your web
pages from Page Creator to Google Sites or other service providers at
any time.
Page Creator has always been a Google Labs project (Labs is our
"technology playground" where we let users test-drive experimental
products and give us feedback so we can innovate more quickly). Since
launching Page Creator in Labs, we've learned a lot and have
incorporated those lessons into Google Sites. We think the Labs
program, which allows users to try new things before they're fully
baked, lets us innovate faster and ultimately create the best possible
products.
We seriously thank each and every one of you who have taken the time
to use, write about, offer suggestions, and become passionate about
Google Page Creator. Sites will be an exciting way to continue and
extend the great things you've been doing; we can't wait for you to
start using the service.
Sincerely,
Thursday, July 31, 2008
«Series Title Standardizations»
I decided to go back and edit the post titles of a few of my post series. It occurred to me that they were not in any way standardized.
- Caturday usually just had the word "Caturday" somewhere in the title.
- Cruise Ship Watch used a colon separator.
- Motivational Monday used a hyphen as a separator.
- Musical Taste had the longer name of "Insight Into My Musical Taste" followed by "Part #", it didn't even say the artist name in the title.
I had a hard time deciding exactly what I was going to use as a separator. I liked both the colon and the hyphen. What ultimately made up my mind is Blogger uses a colon to separate the name of the blog from the post title, so I figured I'd keep to that.
See the rest of “Series Title Standardizations”»
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
«Nostalgic Calculator Programs»
I wasn't sure that I'd get that Spirit of Glacier Bay Cruise Ship Watch posted yesterday. Blogger was having issues with uploading images; I kept getting internal error messages. I was ready just to call it quits and try posting it today as my main blog post for the day. Out of frustration more than anything, I decided to try it one last time... And it went through! So I got that posted on time.
Yesterday when I was downtown taking pictures, I ran into Catlin, an old friend I hadn't talked to since we were in high school math classes together (that's why I wasn't around for your lunch break, Trevor). Usually I don't mention names without permission on my blog, but I figured there's no harm with only first names.
You know I have to say, math classes were my most interesting classes in school. I could pretty much ignore the lessons taught in class and still ace the test. That gave me time to discuss theoretical astrophysics with Catlin. Or to write rather unique programs on our Ti-83 plus calculators. I still have a few of those programs. The interesting thing was, the math teacher was ok with what we were doing, he even got into it sometimes.
Heh, I remember one program that the teacher didn't know about... There was this girl that sat in front of us in class, and you could always see her underwear when she sat down. We wrote a program to predict the color of her underwear on any given day. Surprisingly, sometimes it was accurate. If I remember right, it worked off of a pseudo-random number generator. Each color was assigned a number. It would generate a random number, and give certain numbers more weight (more likely to be randomly chosen) depending on how often she wore the corresponding color. Interesting thing about a program like that is the more data you input, the more accurate it gets. So it would get better every day. No, that's not one of the programs I still have. I think we abandoned it when the seating chart was changed.
Now a-days, I don't even remember how to program on the calculator. I've moved on to greater things.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
«If Only Blogger Was Valid XHTML Strict»
This post may be a bit technical or unclear for some of my readers. I don't claim that I've worded it as precisely and clearly as possible, either. This is my entry for the contest the banner above is about.
I would like to see blogger blogs conform to the XHTML Strict doctype they declare themselves as. They can't do much if the blog authors don't use the correct markup, but at least their end could. I didn't see this on the Blogger Wishlist page. There's not anything complicated that's stopping them from conforming, either. Most of the errors are because ampersand symbols (&) are not written as "&" in the code. The only other errors on their side are because they use an inline frame for the blogger navbar at the top and XHTML Strict doesn't support the iframe tag.
The problem with not conforming to standards (especially when you declare a doctype), is not every browser will deal with the errors in the same way. You will get unpredictable results, or bugs that only happen in some browsers.
Speaking of inline frames, it would really be nice if the blogger polls didn't use an inline frame. The first problem with it is, as I pointed out above, the doctype XHTML Strict doesn't support inline frames. The second problem I've ran into with it is it sometimes has a useless (and annoying) scrollbar to the right of the poll.
That scrollbar caused me much grief. I tried to find a way to get rid of it with CSS code. I figured out if I applied an "overflow: hidden;" style to it, I wouldn't get the scrollbar. The problem I ran into is in XHTML, grandchildren selectors in CSS do not work on the iframe tag. What's strange is child selectors do work. My plan was to apply the style to iframes only within the "poll" div class.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about. This was the grandchild selector I was going to use:div.poll * iframe {
overflow: hidden;
}
What this means is, it will only apply this style to an iframe that's within any tag that's within a div tag with the class "poll". The asterisk (*) is a wildcard, meaning any tag.
This is what I ended up using, a child selector:div.widget-content iframe {
overflow: hidden;
}
This will apply to any iframe within a div tag with the class "widget-content". For now, this works for me because I don't have any other widgets that use iframes. However, if I had any other widgets that use an iframe that I wanted scrollbars in, this would be a problem. I'd probably find a way around it by editing the widget's html code to give the poll iframe an ID. However, that's something I'd have to re-do every time I change the poll.
I suppose this wasn't a suggestion for a new widget (as the contest was asking for), but rather a suggestion to improve the existing. Eh, whatever... If you want to get technical, I'm requesting a poll system that does not use an iframe.
Monday, June 2, 2008
«Technical Difficulties»
Google Page Creator is having some problems. Because all my blog's background images and css are hosted on Google Page Creator my blog is slow to load, or doesn't load at all. If it does load, it's unstyled.Oops!
Google Page Creator is having a little trouble right now.
This is not because of anything you did; it's just a little hiccup in our system that will hopefully go away soon. We apologize for the inconvenience, and recommend you try reloading this page.
I hope they fix it soon. Why bother writing a blog post when it won't even load? Because I think the web feed still works and at least this post can be read from there to alert my most loyal readers to what's going on. Because, you know, my most loyal readers subscribe to my web feed.
EDIT #1: It also appears that Google Groups is not working right. I wounder what sort of problems they're having over at Google...
EDIT #2: Seems to be fixed now. Crisis over...
See the rest of “Technical Difficulties”»
Sunday, May 25, 2008
«Tagged Again»
I've been tagged by Monique...
1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
Am I suppose to remember something specific? I was 11... Umm... I was in school. I don't remember events by date too well.
2. 5 things on my to do list for today.
- Go through my Google Reader like I do every day.
- Copy some stuff on my thumb drive to bring over to my computer at my mom's.
- Probably schedule my Motivational Monday post for Monday.
- Go back to town and stay at my mom's place (I've been at my dad's for the past few days).
- Go for a walk.
3. Snacks I enjoy.
Dark Chocolate.
4. Things I would do if I were a Billionaire.
I'd move the hell out of this town.
I'd move to Washington and buy some land around a lake or beach front, and have a relatively small castle built on the land. The castle would be built in a medieval style, at least on the exterior. I'd a few hidden rooms and passageways built into the place. It would be medieval in appearance only; the entire house would be wired with fiber optic for a 10Gb/s or even 100Gb/s network to every room, with network jacks as abundant as outlets in a modern home.
I'd have quite the computer network going. I'd probably even cluster some together to form a supercomputer. That way if I want to render videos or fractals, or perform complex mathematical equations I'd have the processing power for it.
I'd buy some gold bars and stash them in a hidden room. Got to have my own little treasure horde in my castle.
I would pay the Scott-e-Vest company to custom design a black leather trench coat with 100 or more pockets.
Beyond that, I'd save and invest most of it. I'll buy things as I decide I want them.
5. Places I have lived.
Only place is Ketchikan, Alaska. I grew up in a different house than I'm in now, but I've lived my entire life here so far.
6. Bloggers I want to know about.
Drek and Looney. I don't even know if Drek reads my blog or not. But both of you can consider yourselves tagged for this.
See the rest of “Tagged Again”»
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
«Post Scheduling Feature»
First off, a very minor color change was made to the layout. Look for an orange color (example color) in various places. It's used sparingly because it is meant to draw attention. (I took the color from the webfeed icon)
I was almost going to switch to Blogger Beta (Draft) just so I could have scheduled posts. But now there's no need to because post scheduling has been released for everyone. So now you don't know when I'm actually writing the posts... *mischievous eyebrow raise*
Hopefully what this will mean for my blog is more posts made at 12:01 AM. I'm in the Alaska time zone, and as such, by the time it's Tuesday for me it's already almost Wednesday for other parts of the world. For example, in Australia it would appear I'm lagging a day behind on my posting. So I try to post things for a day as early as I can, and how much earlier than 12:01 AM can you get (and still have it register as being on that day)? Before, if I didn't stay up and make a post after midnight, it wouldn't be until around noon that the post was made. Now I can write a post ahead of time and schedule it for later.
Theoretically, I could schedule several posts ahead of time. Then I could take a break or even die and you wouldn't even know it...
That's something that has come to my mind on more than one occasion. I'm involved in a few online communities, but there's no way they'd know in the event of my untimely demise. They'd just assume I stopped caring or just abandoned them. How sad.
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