Most Frequent Blogger Questions: August 2006


MFBQ
Most Frequent Blogger Questions

MFBQ

Most Frequent Blogger Questions

I don't know more than I know--sometimes I know even less!
Click to see the incredible list, All The Things I Don't Know! If some portion of this blog is unreadable in Firefox, Internet Explorer, or whatever, tell it to go to hell then try another browser!!!

I don't know more than I know--sometimes I know even less!

Click to see the incredible list,

All The Things I Don't Know!

If some portion of this blog is unreadable in Firefox, Internet Explorer, or whatever, tell it to go to hell then try another browser!!!

EMERGENCY STEPS

Kick-starting The Blog
1. Refresh (F5) or Ctrl-F5 2. Clear cache (delete temporary Internet files) and cookies in Tools-Internet Options. 3. Add a question mark to the end of your blog's internet address in the address box and see if it will show the latest update. (Can also be done with other people's url's in the address window.) 4. Republish (if in classic Blogger) 5. Reboot 6. Log out and log back in again (may change to an untroubled server) 7. Change or reload the browser (IE, Firefox, others) 8. Try a different computer, or see if you can duplicate the problem or avoid it in a post in another blog (make a test blog, whether in the same account or a second account, that's not public so nobody will see you screwing around!) ---Not necessary to do all of these at once!---

Kick-starting The Blog

1. Refresh (F5) or Ctrl-F5
2. Clear cache (delete temporary Internet files) and cookies in Tools-Internet Options.
3. Add a question mark to the end of your blog's internet address in the address box and see if it will show the latest update. (Can also be done with other people's url's in the address window.)
4. Republish (if in classic Blogger)
5. Reboot
6. Log out and log back in again (may change to an untroubled server)
7. Change or reload the browser (IE, Firefox, others)
8. Try a different computer, or see if you can duplicate the problem or avoid it in a post in another blog (make a test blog, whether in the same account or a second account, that's not public so nobody will see you screwing around!)

---Not necessary to do all of these at once!---

Blogger may make problems for some computers about accepting cookies, especially when you are using the new versions of Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers. Difficulties with accepting scripts may be caused by security systems, antivirus programs, firewalls, and some add-ons. Check all your settings.

You may need to change your browser settings, or to list www.blogger.com and blogger.com as "trusted sites" in your Internet Options-Security so that scripting can occur.


USEFUL BLOGGER HELP FILE http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=41971&topic=8914 [For Newbies or anyone else who gets lost in the rain in Juarez.]

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Clear Cache


Refresh/ Clear Cache/ Restart/ Delete Temporary Files/ You may need to clear your cache (delete temporary files and cookies), or Refresh, or restart your computer. Try the Refresh button (F5 or the double-arrow icon up above) or Ctrl-F5 first, then consider the cache. Sometimes our computer will hold an old memory of our blog and won't spit it out! See if you can shake it loose. The preceding may work wonders (sometimes) for links or icons that have disappeared from your screen. Of course, your trouble may just be a Blogger Quirk due to your server being disrupted or worked on. You have my pity, but that's not worth much. For those of you unaquainted with the cache or the "Temporary Internet Files", go to the Tools tab up above and click it. At the bottom of that revealed menu will be "Internet Options". On that menu you will find where to click to Delete Cookies or Delete Temporary Internet files (which is the cache). I know, it's double lingo for the same stuff! It never hurts to restart your browser or even to change your browser (temporarily) just to see if it is easier with the particular problem that you have. For more information on how and why to clear your cache, see: Windows IE Clear Cache and CLEAR CACHE IN FIREFOX AND OTHER BROWSERS.

Refresh/ Clear Cache/ Restart/ Delete Temporary Files/

You may need to clear your cache (delete temporary files and cookies), or Refresh, or restart your computer. Try the Refresh button (F5 or the double-arrow icon up above) or Ctrl-F5 first, then consider the cache. Sometimes our computer will hold an old memory of our blog and won't spit it out! See if you can shake it loose.

The preceding may work wonders (sometimes) for links or icons that have disappeared from your screen.

Of course, your trouble may just be a Blogger Quirk due to your server being disrupted or worked on. You have my pity, but that's not worth much.

For those of you unaquainted with the cache or the "Temporary Internet Files", go to the Tools tab up above and click it. At the bottom of that revealed menu will be "Internet Options". On that menu you will find where to click to Delete Cookies or Delete Temporary Internet files (which is the cache). I know, it's double lingo for the same stuff!

It never hurts to restart your browser or even to change your browser (temporarily) just to see if it is easier with the particular problem that you have.

For more information on how and why to clear your cache, see:

Windows IE Clear Cache

and

CLEAR CACHE IN FIREFOX AND OTHER BROWSERS.

END.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Clear Cache in Different Browsers

Clearing cache in different browsers:

(Stolen from: delite, who says she stole it from Google)

To clear your cache in Internet Explorer:

1. Log out of your AdSense account. Close all other open browser
windows.
2. Click the 'Tools' menu at the top of your browser, and select
'Internet Options.'
3. Click the 'General' tab at the top of the dialogue box.
4. Click 'Delete Files' under 'Temporary Internet files.'
5. Select 'Delete all offline content' by checking the box.
6. Click 'OK.'

To clear your cache in Mozilla Firefox:

1. Log out of your AdSense account. Close all other open browser
windows.
2. Click the 'Tools' menu at the top of your browser, and select
'Options.'
3. Click 'Privacy.'
4. Click 'Clear' next to 'Cache.'
5. Click 'OK.'

To clear your cache in Mozilla and Netscape:

1. Log out of your AdSense account. Close all other open browser windows.
2. Click the 'Edit' menu at the top of your browser, and select 'Preferences.'
3. Click the '+' next to 'Advanced.'
4. Select 'Cache' under 'Advanced.'
5. Click 'Clear Cache.'
6. Click 'OK.'

To clear your cache in Safari:

1. Log out of your AdSense account. Close all other open browser windows.
2. Open the 'Safari' menu on your browser's toolbar.
3. Select 'Empty Cache.'
4. Click 'Empty' in the dialogue box.

In some cases, it may be necessary to clear your cache more than once.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Avoid Search Engines

To AVOID the search engines
put this meta tag in the template anywhere between the <head> and </head> tags <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">

nitecruzr (below) commented:
The meta tag "noindex, nofollow" (which is what you get for selecting "No") isn't authoritative. If a search engine robot doesn't follow the rules, it may continue anyway, and index what it finds. The Google spider may obey the meta tag, and others may ignore it. See this post. If you want a private blog, you have to make it a private blog. http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2007/09/make-private-blog.html (There is also a post on Private blogs on this blog.) Chuck [Blog*Star 2006 - 2008] Real Blogger Status: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/

nitecruzr (below) commented:

The meta tag "noindex, nofollow" (which is what you get for selecting "No") isn't authoritative. If a search engine robot doesn't follow the rules, it may continue anyway, and index what it finds. The Google spider may obey the meta tag, and others may ignore it.

See this post.

If you want a private blog, you have to make it a private blog.

http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2007/09/make-private-blog.html

(There is also a post on Private blogs on this blog.)

Chuck [Blog*Star 2006 - 2008]
Real Blogger Status: http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Backup Your Blog

The HTTRACK program seems to work, though I'm not sure if it's a full backup. I was told that's what it does and I'll believe it until I have reason to doubt their veracity!

How to Backup Your Blog

The advent of Beta has raised some question about the efficacy (or at least the speed and size) of the HTTRACK backups. See The Real Blogger Status--Beta for details.

I tried it once (on the Beta) and it did seem to glitch and at first I thought it did not complete all the posts, but later I saw I was wrong. So it is problematic at present, but it seemed to work. (01/06/07).

[Warning! It did take about 3 hrs. to backup my 1000 posts!]

END.

Table In Blogger Post

There are two fixes below for tables in Blogger. The second one (highlighted in yellow) is the one I prefer--it's less work.

One trick is to type the whole table out on one continuous line; then you won't end up with a lot of extra line breaks imposed on it by Blogger. That's what produced the ONE TWO THREE FOUR below.

ONE	TWO
THREE	FOUR

Go to Blogger Article

This is something I learned about late, but it seems to be very effective, especially if you're going to use tables often. It's probably far better; at any rate it changes things another way, using css:

Table Formatting In CSS

My explanation of it is as follows, changing the table in the CSS:

Place the following line of code in your CSS:

.nobr br { display: none }

And place the DIV tags around your table as below:

<div class=nobr>
<table border=2>
<tr>
<td>PICTURE</td>
<td>OR TEXT</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>

See also Table Used For Horizontal Photos.

END.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

How To Indent

1. IN YOUR CLASSIC TEMPLATE, FIND THE FOLLOWING LINE:

<style type="text/css">

(In New Blogger's template, you may have to search for Body or some word typically found in the style sheet.)

2. BELOW THE STYLE LINE (AND PROBABLY BELOW THE "BODY" LINE, INSERT THE FOLLOWING:

#inden
{
text-indent: 25px
}

or just

#inden {text-indent: 25px }

3. SAVE THE CHANGE.
4. AFTER YOU GET IT TO WORK, YOU CAN INCREASE OR DECREASE THE 25PX ABOVE.
5. GO TO EDIT POST.
6. IN EACH POST PARAGRAPH INSERT THE FOLLOWING:

<p id=inden> TEXT </p>

Below is an example of the indent:

This is just quick and dirty, and not quick enough for some people, since it requires that you write the code for each of your paragraphs! It would be easier to write the code only once!

So far I've been too bone-headed to figure that out. [That statement is no longer true: see Text Indenting In Paragraphs, a newer and simpler approach.]

Origins

Mama Mouse,
who used to participate in the Help Group and is sorely missed, suggested the idea of stickyposts a good while before Blogger began "flagging" long-term messages with a Tack symbol among the other posts by mere mortals, which made me think at the time of a bulletin board with stickyposts. There's still no way to stick them to the top of Blogger Help Group if you're not Blogger, so it turns out that the only way to do any good is to set myself up over here as an overbearing small-time knowitall or ad hoc advisor. Just another impudent putz who started a blog to explain how Blogger works and some of how it doesn't work!

Sometimes my true Rat nature seeps into the answers like a urine stain (like "What the HELL do you want to know THAT for?"), though mostly it doesn't. I try to keep it respectable here, but that's difficult...

Samuel Johnson: "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it."

We here at Most Fiendish Blogger Questions salute you for getting this far!

MFBQ