Remove Blogs You Follow from Dashboard's "Reading List"

How to remove titles from "Blogs I'm Following" in the "Reading List" below the Dashboard list of your own blogs: Go to bottom of page under your blog titles that you're following. Next to "Add" is "Manage"--click it. You'll see a page called "Manage blogs I'm following". On the far right side of each title is the word "Settings"--click it. On the far right side of the new page you'll see "Stop following this site"--click it. You will be asked "Are you sure?" in a small pop-up window. Click on "Stop following" to confirm that you are sure! After a few seconds, it shows your original list minus the blog you just removed from the list. FINISHED!

Blogs Disappear

Like Socks In The Dryer?

Come Back, Black Sheep! One of the silliest and yet one of the most efficient ways of "losing track of a blog post" happens when one is not quite paying attention. It has happened to me three or four times now and even now that I know to suspect it, it still mostly catches me by surprise. What It Is, Is Butterfingers, Bubba! Sometimes as I “publish” and exit the program, my fingers slip and seem to stumble and slide over an extra key. I’m never sure what I did! But when I “view” my blog, today's post isn’t there. Whatever happened, I have since learned the end result; today's post date has changed! I’ve learned to use the Search feature and hunt the title down. Sure enough, it turns up easily enough, except that instead of being at the top of the blog, the date has changed and now it’s on the page for some previous month, possibly even for some previous year. The post that doesn’t exist! That post is pretty thoroughly hidden, if you don’t know to look there for it! The Simple Fix So I edit the post again and correct the date. When I Publish this time, I’m more careful with my butterfingers. There’s today's post at the top of the blog, right where it’s supposed to be. You don’t have to be a genius to solve the Disappearing Blog Act, you just have to remember that the trick exists and how it works!

Can I Print My Blog To Paper?

You can print your entire blog, including posts and comments, to paper if you wish. I never have done it and have no familiarity, so I'm sending you to NITECRUZR, my next-door Expert.

Can I Save My Blog?

The Export/Import Feature

You can save all, including photos, comments and posts, but excluding the template or Gadgets, by Exporting. This could also be viewed as a different form of BACKUP. I've only done this export/import 4 times so far, but it seemed pretty easy by just following the instructions under Settings --> Blog Tools. The shorter blogs copied very quickly, though the long one (more than 1800 posts) seemed to take a long time, then I decided it was hung up on a screen that showed a motion that meant the blog was still copying. I finally killed it, but then it turned out that the blog had fully copied--for all I know, it was possibly almost as quick as the short ones (180 posts) had been! NOTE: In one case, I Exported twice by accident and ended up with two copies of every post on that Destination Blog. I therefore conclude that the Export does not Overwrite what's already there. So if we make 3 or 4 "backups" over a period of time to the same Destination Blog, we'll have 2, 3, or even 4 copies of the various posts, depending on how long they've been on the original blog. This is neither harmful nor desirable; if it happens, just be aware that you'll just have to do some housekeeping some day in the future if you decide to use that Destination Blog. This is supposed to work between Blogger and these other platforms--export and import blog content between Blogger, LiveJournal, MovableType, and WordPress. I used the option that allowed all the posts to be published as they're copied, but apparently you can also NOT do that and later publish them selectively (one by one?).

CLICK HERE FOR SCREENSHOT YOU'D SEE AFTER CLICKING THE "EXPORT" BUTTON.

Just remember that the idea is to

Open the source blog and go to Settings --> Blog Tools --> Export Blog. You will export the blog posts that you wish to copy to another location such as your own hard-drive, not to a second blog (yet). Now open the destination blog, which may be empty or not. Go to Settings --> Blog Tools --> Import Blog of the destination blog. You will now use Blog Tools to finally Import the posts that were copied above. More carefully-considered detail can be found at this informative post by Roberto.

ALSO SEE BLOGGER'S ARTICLE.

[More below...screenshot of Blog Tools]

Most Erotic Blog Post Ever!

This isn't really the most erotic blog post ever; I just thought I'd see who was awake this sleepy evening. If this isn't February 3, I guess you weren't.

Hide Blogs on the Profile List?

How Can I Show Some, Hide Others?
Go to Dashboard Click on Edit Profile About 4 items down, it says "show my blogs" and that's where You then click where it says "Select blogs to display" A list appears and you should click on the ones you wish to display. Be sure to "Save settings" in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Revert To Never-Never-Land?

I found a curious thing, though I may be among the last to discover it. I just took a recently-created blog, played with it, then subjected it to the "Revert to Classic" button. Oddly enough, the system "reverted" it even though it had never been a classic template. I didn't test everything about it, but I thought it was very curious. Maybe someday I'll think of some use for this marvellous piece of information. Till then, la di dah...

Transfer Blog From One Account To Another

In 4 easy steps:

Nitecruzr's Post

http://bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-transfer-blog-from-one-account.html

OR USE

Blogger's Instructions

or More Blogger's Instructions.

Google Blog Search

It used to be that you could click on someone else's "favorite" things in their profile or even in your own profile and you could link to those people in Blogger whose specific interest reflected some of your own. A lot of people have complained about that feature being done away with in New Blogger. You could look up everyone who was interested in masturbation, approbation, Christian Cooking, diabetes, or whatever ticked your clock or worried you. I noticed recently Google has a new Blog Search that is similar, but dissimilar, to the above. It's better than nothing! The search is not limited to any one brand of blogs, but claims it will eventually list all brands of blogs in it's search parameters. Check it out: Google Blog Search

Later: The "favorites" feature in your profile has now been restored to Blogger, so you now have two means of searching!

Those unhappy about losing any other Blogger feature should contact Blogger at Wishlist. State your desire. Even if they don't answer you (and they won't), you will have had your say. Blogger has now removed it's Wishlist.

END.

How To Upgrade A Migrated Blog

When a blog has been Migrated to the New Blogger servers (all blogs now are), but the template has not been Upgraded, you will not yet have access to the additional features of New Blogger. You can continue to sit on your Classic template if you wish. You do not have to Upgrade, but you can.

Current instruction page from Blogger: http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=44474

Original New Blogger Instructions
Customize Design : To Upgrade, look for the tab beneath "Template" that says "Customize Design" and click on it to select a new template.

My Version Of Instructions
Customize: 1. Click on "Customize" in the Navbar above your blog. 2. You'll see some instructions that terminate with "Learn more about Blogger Layouts customization". 3. The last few words of that line is supposed to be a link that you can click on to proceed. If it doesn't act as a link, use the Refresh button and clear your cache and cookies to correct it!

If you have been used to a customized template, the system will save a copy of your current template. You will be stuck with this new template until you can re-customize it, bit by bit. You CANNOT replace the New template with your Classic template with Copy and Paste. They are incompatible. However, if at length you cannot stand New Blogger, you can REVERT to the Classic template. But you cannot leave the New Blogger servers nor can you refuse to migrate to them when advised to do so. If you are a new blogger, you likely started out in Layout mode and are better off there, though it is possible to change to a Classic template.

The Blogger Help-Blogs List

I used to think there were only 3 or 4 such blogs, but it seems to me like there are twenty or more. I'll have to count them on fingers and toes and hope they don't exceed my grasp! Here are the ones that I've heard of, but I won't categorize or put them in any order. I may have included some bad ones or left out some good ones--but I can always revise as I go!

Useful Blogs
The Real Blogger Status Blogger Tips and Tricks How Can I Do That? Some Template Tips & Tricks Compender Beta Blogger For Dummies Hackosphere The View From Here phydeaux3 Freshblog Friedbeef’s Tech Beautiful Beta Hoctro's Place Logical Philosopher Beta Bloggers Resources

Blogs Don't Really Delete

Addendum to orignal post:

NOW THEY REALLY DON'T DELETE!

See my post NEW Undelete Button on Dashboard

Deleting blogs is a misnomer. Deleting your blog is problematic. Spam bloggers can jump on it (probably via robots) as soon as you "delete" it. Somehow Blogger's procedures allows them not only to grab your old address, but in many cases keep the content (posts) as well! Your writing then is used as "cover" or "bait" for the lazy-ass spammers; they keep your blogful of content alive, for their gain. (They may steal your content by pulling up a cached version of your blog on the web.) Even if none of that happens to you, Google caches (for instance) will not let your dead horse be buried. Cached versions linger on for long periods, so that you haven't really made it "disappear" utterly.

If I wanted to delete one of my blogs, I'd replace the content with a single dummy (aka "stub") post, one that just exists, that doesn't say much. Maybe it could say "Oink!" or some other favorite message of your own. I'd leave it like that, hoping that further Google rides across the Internet to Cache everything would then cache my dummy post.

I can't help but think Blogger may someday deal with the spammers so that Bloggers can delete without such worries. However, there is no telling how far away that is.

Never underestimate the value of contacting Blogger about such undeleted blogs. I have known them to obliterate all trace of them or to get them back for us, but it is often difficult to get their attention. Contact them at Blogger Support. Be persistent.

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.

Old and Unattended Blogs

Wondering If You Can Have One Of The Deserted (Sometimes Empty) Blogs With The Great Names? Logically, you'd think Blogger would get rid of Blogs like that, but they never do. Their policy is otherwise. They're giving everyone a very long time to decide to come back and blog some more. There is no "expiration date". Blogger Employee says: "Unfortunately, there is no way to take over a Blogger domain that has already been claimed by another user, even if that user hasn't published for quite some time. Blogger accounts and Blog*Spot addresses do not expire and we like giving users the option to come back to their blogs after long absences. The only suggestion we can offer is to contact the owner of the domain you are after---if they have chosen to list their email address---to see if they are willing to delete the blog." So you need to think with more imagination. If it's the address you want, come up with one that's similar by adding a word or a letter or a number to the front or back of it. Or place hyphens or underscores between the words. The name on your blog can be anything, you know. It's only the URL that has to be unique. I don't know that most people pay attention to the URL. We just click on the links! Not many of us memorize your url and type it in from memory! I can barely type in my own from memory, frankly. Consider the Marine motto that Clint Eastwood advised new marines in the movie "Heartbreak Ridge": Improvise! Adapt! Overcome!

ADDENDUM
Yet more detail can be seen at this Blogger Help page: I need to contact another user. An additional consideration since Blogger added the UNDELETE feature. It's one more push in the same direction--Blogger makes it a little easier for users to get their own deleted blogs back and still says nothing about Newbies who may desire those old URL's.

Lost Or Deleted Blogs

Go to Blogger's explanation page about it.

More good info at The Real Blogger Status: My Blog is Gone!

Delete Your Blog

Instructions down below have been superceded by Blogger moving the "Delete Blog" button to "Blog Tools" at the top of the Basic Settings menu, to the right of "Export Blog" and "Import Blog". See this screenshot.

How to delete your blog without prejudice: Go to Dashboard. Click Change Settings. (In Beta, click Manage Settings.) Go to bottom of page. Click the "Delete Your Blog" in the dark box. It will ask you to confirm it, but that will be it. WARNING: It would not be without merit to also see this post: Blogs Don't Really Delete

BELOW IS A SCREENSHOT OF BLOGGER'S DELETION PAGE--CLICK ON IT AND READ IT CAREFULLY!

Change Title Of Blog

You can change the title of Your blog without much trouble. Change it to anything you want. It's the url (web address) that has to be unique, not the blog's title. Go to your Dashboard. Click on Settings for that blog. Title is right there toward the top. Change the old name to the new name. Scroll to bottom of page in order to Save Settings.