The Geometry of a Blogger Template: Columns and Widths

The Geometry of a Blogger Template: Columns and Widths: "

One thing that you need to have in mind when designing a Blogger template is the general width of your template and how the columns inside of it will be arranged. Here is a quick explanation to help you understand how it work’s when it comes to setting columns and width in your template’s CSS.

The elements

There are a couple of elements that you should have in mind when it comes to columns and widths, and those are:

• #outer-wrapper: This is the div that is wrapping all the blog and making it centered on the page, its width is the maximum area that your blog can occupy, (For example if your outer-wrapper have a width of 1000px, it is the maximum width of the whole blog, meaning that all the other widths added together should be less or equal to 1000px)
• #main-wrapper: This is your main column, means the one that hold your posts, it is generally wider than your sidebar in order to hold larger content and text.
• #sidebar-wrapper: This is your sidebar columns, the one that holds your widgets and stuff to the side, it is generally smaller than the main-wrapper, for obvious reasons.

How the columns are arranged

So as you can see the outer-wrapper will always set the maximum width of your template. The main-wrapper and the sidebar-wrapper are floating elements, so you have to be careful when setting valued for their widths because if they don’t fine enough space they will not behave as we want them to.

Let’s do the math, as you can see in the picture below, we have a little simple equation:

X + Y + Z + Y + X + W + K + W + X = outer-wrapper width

Be aware that you need to be careful for what are the real widths of your columns. For example: If you set to your main-wrapper a width of 400px and you having a 10px padding and a 10px margin, you need to add those values in order to get the real width. That would be 400 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 440px.

Final Words

So keep that in mind when you try to make changes in your templates. If you want to add another column remember to enlarge your outer wrapper or reduce the width of your existing column in order to get enough space to fit the new column.

This was a very basic explanation about the arrangement of columns in your templates. I hope that it will help beginners to understand the structure of Blogger templates. For this example I have used a basic 2 column layout, but if you get the main point of it, you will be able to understand all the other layout models.

If you have any questions about it, just drop me a comment below. There are a lot more stuff to come, so to don’t miss out, make sure you subscribe and follow us on twitter.

"

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Free Premium Social Media Icon Set

Free Premium Social Media Icon Set: "

We often observe that authors of websites and blogs make constant use of icons to represent their profiles on various social networks, such as Facebook, Blogger, Twitter, among others. Thinking about it, I decided to create this elegant and exclusive pack of free icons for you to disseminate in high style where you are on the web.

Specifications

The pack contains 16 icons of the most popular social networks. The resolution is 48x48, I try to keep the “Letterpress” style on the logos. I hope you like it.

Terms of use

It’s very simple, like I said, these icons are free and exclusive for Bloggertuts, so you can use them anywhere and anyway, but the only thing I ask you is that you share these icons by linking to this page. It will make us really happy and will encourage us to continue providing high quality freebies to you guys.

Download

First make sure you subscribe and follow us on twitter, then download the icon pack from Here

Enjoy it!

"

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Reading gets personal with Popular items and Personalized ranking

Reading gets personal with Popular items and Personalized ranking: "

(Cross-posted with the Official Google Blog)

Today, we're launching two changes to Google Reader to help you discover more interesting content faster. Just as the launch of Personalized Search improved search results based on your search history, these changes use your Reader Trends to improve your reading experience.

• Explore section - We're always trying to help you discover new stuff in Reader, and today we're introducing 'Popular items' and 'Recommended sources', two ways to find interesting content from all over the Internet. We use algorithms to find top-rising images, videos and pages from anywhere (not just your subscriptions), collect them in the new Popular items section and order them by what we think you'll like best. Now you don't have to be embarrassed about missing that hilarious video everyone is talking about — it should show up in your "Popular items" feed automatically. And to make it easier to find interesting feeds, we're moving recommendations into the new Explore section and giving it a new name — "Recommended sources." Like always, it uses your Reader Trends and Web History (if you're opted into Web History) to generate a list of feeds we think you might like.
  

  

  
  


• Personalized ranking - Only have a 10 minute coffee break and want to see the best items first? All feeds now have a new sort option called 'magic' that re-orders items in the feed based on your personal usage, and overall activity in Reader, instead of default chronological order. Click 'Sort by magic' under the 'Feed settings' menu of your feed (or folder) to switch to personalized ranking. Unlike the old 'auto' ranking, this new ranking is personalized for you, and gets better with time as we learn what you like best — the more you 'like' and 'share' stuff, the better your magic sort will be. Give it a try on a high-volume feed folder or All items and see for yourself!
  

  
  

  
  

The goal of personalization at Google remains the same as ever: to help you find the best content on the web. We hope these new features help you do just that — go Explore for yourself.

Finally, we'd love to hear your feedback — share your thoughts on our help group, Twitter or the Reader section of Get Satisfaction, a third party support community.

"

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Google's Eric Schmidt on the Web's Future

Google's Eric Schmidt on the Web's Future: "

ReadWriteWeb wraps up some of Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s comments, and shows off a video excerpt. Quote ReadWriteWeb:

• Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content.


• Today’s teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years – they jump from app to app to app seamlessly.


• Five years is a factor of ten in Moore’s Law, meaning that computers will be capable of far more by that time than they are today.


• Within five years there will be broadband well above 100MB in performance – and distribution distinctions between TV, radio and the web will go away.

[Thanks BizAbh!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google's Eric Schmidt on the Web's Future | Comments]

[Advertisement] Google books on Amazon"

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Locking SafeSearch

Locking SafeSearch: "

Google has added a “Lock SafeSearch” feature, available via their search preferences page. It’s meant for concerned adults who don’t want kids to switch away from the SafeSearch filtering (SafeSearch prevents certain adult content from entering web or image results). Once you enable the lock, Google-colored balls as pictured above will appear stamped on the page, meant to be seen by adults from further away – not even logging out will get rid of them. Once cookies are deleted though the lock is gone (and it’s always possibe to switch to another search engine, like Microsoft Bing).

A technical side effect to all this is that now, logging out is not always a clean separation anymore – e.g. if another person signs in to their own account after you’ve activated the lock and signed out, they will still find your email address on their preferences page (it will read e.g. “SafeSearch is currently locked. If you are philipp.lenssen@gmail.com, you can unlock or verify this preference.”)

[Thanks Hebbet!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Locking SafeSearch | Comments]

[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more..."

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Google China Music Player Gets Makeover

Google China Music Player Gets Makeover: "

Google launched a redesign of their Chinese music player (partnered with Top100.cn), which pops up in a new window when you perform a search at the Music base site. The new player puts more focus on search (results will be loaded in the old window), relocates some buttons, and also links to a music list sharing functionality using a Microsoft or Yahoo account, among others.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google China Music Player Gets Makeover | Comments]

[Advertisement] Want to advertise here? Your ad will show in the blog and feed."

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Google Public Data Onebox Expands

Google Public Data Onebox Expands: "

Google has added a new data source to their Public Data onebox: World Bank data. One data point you can query now is the relative number of internet users for a given country. Try searches like the following to see it in action:

• internet users in china


• internet users in germany


• internet users in usa

Other types of searches, like co2 emissions of ..., are listed at Google’s blog.

As opposed to organic search result answers, which are sort of publicly web-voted on to decide on authority, oneboxes are sometimes more hand-picked, with Google’s employees more directly being the judge on what’s deemed right.

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Public Data Onebox Expands | Comments]

[Advertisement] Want to advertise here? Your ad will show in the blog and feed."

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Google Movies Update

Google Movies Update: "

Google Movies has received an update and now shows more information in regards to movies, theater locations, and movie showtimes, Google at their blog announced. How well does it work for your city?

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Movies Update | Comments]

[Advertisement] Want to advertise here? Your ad will show in the blog and feed."

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Following Google Wave Docs

Following Google Wave Docs: "

“Too much noise” was one of the complaints held against Google Wave. Now Google is starting to introduce concepts of following and unfollowing Wave documents. Now, you need to click Follow to make a public wave remain in your inbox with its updates; previously, that was the default behavior. Muting on the other hand, which was available before, is now consequently renamed to unfollowing. You will still be auto-following Wave docs to which others have added you, though.

Furthermore, Google says they’re also thinking about expanding Wave so that that the following of people may become an option. Doing so would open up yet another use case for Wave which was still missing, namely the one of “opt-in” group-messaging tools like Friendfeed and Blogger.

[Thanks WebSonic!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Following Google Wave Docs | Comments]

[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more..."

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Google's Gizmo5 Acquisition Official Now

Google's Gizmo5 Acquisition Official Now: "

TechCrunch had reported it recently and now it’s made official: Google has acquired Skype competitor Gizmo5. “[W]e’ve acquired Gizmo5, a company that provides Internet-based calling software for mobile phones and computers,” the Google Voice blog writes. “Gizmo5’s engineers will be joining the Google Voice team to continue improving the Google Voice and Gizmo5 experience. Current Gizmo5 users will still be able to use the service, though we will be suspending new signups for the time being”.

TechCrunch wrote, “Google Voice is a great VoIP and phone identity service, but they have no endpoint for calls. Gizmo5, which by the way already integrates with Google Voice, is a soft phone end point for Google phone users. In other words, you will be able to make and receive calls to your Google Voice phone number from your computer.”

[Thanks James Xuan!]

[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google's Gizmo5 Acquisition Official Now | Comments]

[Advertisement] Google books at eBay: background info on Google, AdWords, AdSense, Blogger and more..."

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Facebook Share Count Buttons For Blogger

Facebook Share Count Buttons For Blogger: "

Facebook has now officially introduced the Retweet like buttons for your blogs or sites. These buttons look much similar to the Retweet buttons by Tweetmeme. Facebook has 5 styles of Sharing buttons. Here we will see two of them.

Adding a Facebook share count button will show a neat count of how many times your blog post has been shared on Facebook.

Facebook Share Button Style 1

Code for Facebook Share Button Style 1

<div style="float:right;padding:4px;">
<a expr:share_url='data:post.url' name='fb_share' rel='nofollow' type='box_count'/> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share"/>
</div>

Facebook Share Button Style 2

Code for Facebook Share Button Style 2

<div style="float:left;padding:4px;">
<a expr:share_url='data:post.url' name='fb_share' rel='nofollow' type='box_count'/> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share"/>
</div>

Facebook Share Button Compact Style 1

Code for Facebook Share Compact Button Style 1

<div style="float:right;padding:4px;">
<a expr:share_url='data:post.url' name='fb_share' rel='nofollow' type='button_count'/> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share"/>
</div>

Facebook Share Button Compact Style 2

Code for Facebook Share Compact Button Style 2

<div style="float:left;padding:4px;">
<a expr:share_url='data:post.url' name='fb_share' rel='nofollow' type='button_count'/> 
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share"/>
</div>

How to install Facebook Share Count Button on your Blogger Blog?

1.Select one of the Share Button Styles and copy the Corresponding Code.

2.Now login to your Blogger Dashboard and navigate to Layout > Edit Html and expand the widget templates

3.Find this piece of code

<div class='post-header-line-1'/>

and immediately after that place our Facebook share button code(that you copied)

If you were unable to find this code in your template,then look for the first occurance of

<data:post.body/>

and immediately before that paste our Facebook Share button code(that you copied).

5.Save the template and you should get a facebook share count button near each of your blog posts.

If you liked this post and if it helped you in implementing the facebook buttons, then please consider sharing this post on Facebook using the button on the top-right of the post :)

Link: Additional Share Button Styles on the Facebook Developers Wiki

Permalink :Facebook Share Count Buttons for Blogger

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Gone Google at EDUCAUSE 2009

Gone Google at EDUCAUSE 2009: "Last week the Google Apps for Education team headed to Denver for EDUCAUSE 2009 where the higher education community meets annually. It was at this conference three years ago that we first unveiled Google Apps for Education. Since then, we've witnessed staggering growth in the world of cloud computing in education. Lots has happened over the past year especially: more than 100 new features have rolled out in Google Apps, we've engaged well over six million students and faculty (a 400% increase since this time last year), launched free Google Message Security for K-12 schools and have integrated with other learning services such as Blackboard and Moodle.

These developments are just the beginning. According to the newly-released 2009 Campus Computing survey statistics, 44% of colleges and universities have converted to a hosted student email solution, while another 37% are currently evaluating the move. Of those that have migrated, over half — 56% precisely — are going Google.

To toast the students and faculty that are shaping this movement, we hosted our customers and EDUCAUSE conference attendees at the Denver Public Library. Check out the photos to see what these schools have to say:



We also did something different this year and invited some student ambassadors from schools using Google Apps to come to Denver and share how using Apps on campus helps make their lives easier. Daniel Miller who works at University of Washington's Ethnic Cultural Center uses Calendar to let students on campus know about his organization's events. Sociology major Robin Brown uses forms in Docs to collect data for her class surveys at Notre Dame. Taylor Bell at Boise State relies on Gmail's filters and gadgets to seamlessly access to his Calendar, Docs, Tasks and Chat. After losing his journal, Vaughn Parker at Temple University created a Calendar to keep track of his assignments and share them with his classmates and professors. (There are many more of these student stories, too).

Every year, more schools move to Google Apps so they can spend their time focusing on students, not servers; on higher learning, not higher costs. If you're a school, you can go Google, too. Check out www.google.com/appsatschool to learn more.

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Product Marketing Manager

"

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Google Sidewiki: The first 50 days of valuable entries and new API features

Google Sidewiki: The first 50 days of valuable entries and new API features: "It's been just under 2 months since we launched Google Sidewiki and we've already seen a great number of valuable entries that have been written worldwide.

From product tips to online petitions and from expert health advice to programming help, Sidewiki users are finding many useful and creative ways to help others. We've been really excited by these uses of Sidewiki and wanted to share 10 of these great entries with you:

• Jason Young speaks from personal experience and gives detailed insight into tuning a bass guitar on EMG's Bass Tips site.
• Antony Carthy, a programmer in South Africa, wrote tips on how to find latitude and longitude coordinates on Google Maps.
• Google's own Matt Cutts warns visitors about a deceptive website.
• Shalin Gala of PETA calls on readers to sign a petition next to an article about animal mistreatment.
• Ron Burk suggests a missing reference for a medical article.
• The Mayo Clinic uses Sidewiki to welcome visitors with a special webmaster entry on its homepage (this one requires Sidewiki to view).
• Jesse Poe from New York offers up great insights in a review of an iPhone app by Daniel Johnston, one of his favorite musicians.
• Alfonso Grandis from Italy talks about his eye-witness account of a recent earthquake.
• David Davis, a software engineer from California, improves a snippet of code in a programming tutorial.
• Michael Roizen from the Cleveland clinic adds his advice about H1N1 vaccinations.

If you haven't used Sidewiki yet, you can download it at google.com/sidewiki as part of the Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer. If you're using Google Chrome, Safari or other browsers without the Google Toolbar, simply install the Sidewiki bookmarklet.

We're also releasing a top-requested feature for our API today that makes it easy to retrieve all Sidewiki entries for an entire domain. With this addition, you can look for new entries created on any page of a website and also subscribe to them via RSS (such as this RSS feed for all Sidewiki entries on the Google Blog). See our Sidewiki API documentation for all of its details.

We look forward to seeing many more great entries and keeping you posted with new features — follow us on Twitter for the latest news and highlights. Try using Sidewiki right now to add your feedback to this blog post and read what others are saying!

Posted by Ario Jafarzadeh, Sidewiki User Experience Designer

"

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