Blog Metamorphosis

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Accessing Facebook,Twitter from Gmail

Author: Sparkling Star | Posted at: 1:45 PM | Filed Under: 2010, Social Networking | 4 comments

"Google Buzz" is the New Buzz in town with everybody now Happily Buzzing from their Gmail A/Cs!

But there are certain functionalities which "Google Buzz" doesnot support viz..
1>Intergrating Orkut and exporting Buzzes from Gmail to Orkut (in spite of Orkut being Google's very own product! .. Still Wondering why!)
2>Integrating Facebook and exporting Buzzes from Gmail to Facebook.

But,Mashable explains a New Way of "Integrating Facebook and Twitter into your Gmail Account and Accessing FB and Twitter right from your Gmail"! Cool Na? Here's how:

1>Activate “Add any gadget by URL” in Gmail Labs — you’ll find it near the bottom of the list.

2> Now go to Settings –> Gadgets. Here you’ll find a place to add Gadget URLs.

3>For Twitter, add this below code in the url space given:
https://twittergadget.appspot.com/gadget-gmail.xml

After adding, you can access your Twitter Account from Gmail and it looks something like this screenshot:

4>To integrate Facebook into Gmail, paste this below code:
http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/104971404861070329537/
facebook.xml

NOTE: Actually, my post width is not wide enuf to display the entire FB url in one line itself.. so i had to break it into 2 lines :)
So after u copy the link,make sure there is no space before "F" in Facebook... Thanks to Venky for pointing it out.. :)

After integration,you can access your FB right from your Gmail and it looks something like this screenshot!

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Blogger introduces "PAGES"

Author: Sparkling Star | Posted at: 6:01 AM | Filed Under: 2010, Creating Pages | 4 comments

Creating a Static Page(like Wordpress.com) in Blogger was a tedious process and required "Work Around".
Now,Google has made it simpler for bloggers to create "Static Pages" easily.
Google has introduced the "Pages" feature to Blogger enabling Bloggers to create up to 10 pages.

How to use the Blogger's 'Pages' Feature:
1>Go to Posting-> 'Edit Pages' Tab and click on "New Page".
2>Type in the content in your new page an publish it.
3>Link this to a "Pages" gadget. The Pages widget lets you add links to your pages as tabs at the top of your blog, or as links in your blog's sidebar
4>In the Pages widget, you can decide which pages will be linked and in what order they will appear..

For Custom Templates,

Pages gadget will not be supported to be displayed Horizontally,so you need to do a teeny weeny change in Html Code. Click here for Full Details

Monday, January 25, 2010

Changing Templates made easier in Blogger!

Author: Sparkling Star | Posted at: 5:49 AM | Filed Under: Blogger Tips-Tricks-Treats | 1 comments

Previously, changing templates was a tedious process in blogger/blogspot blogs due to loss of already existing widgets/gadgets,whenever we used to change new templates with the existing ones.

Recently,Google has incorporated a feature which allows us to still carry over the widgets from existing template onto the new ones.

This feature will display a dialog box containing the following:
1>Keep Widgets
2>Delete Widgets
whenever you upload a new template for your blog. So,if you wish to retain the existing widgets/gadgets from previous templates,click on "Keep Widgets" and all the widgets from your previous template will be retained!

Well,personally for me,shifting of these widgets onto my newly uploaded template was a tedious job. Now no more!!

Love the New Features,Gadgets and Implementations of Google to Blogger/Blogspot ever since its 10th Birthday! ;)

Monday, January 4, 2010

Creating 2 Sidebars for your template

Author: Sparkling Star | Posted at: 9:39 AM | Filed Under: Sidebar Enhancements | 16 comments

Wish to have 2 sidebars for your template? Its no "Rocket Science". You just need to follow these steps:
1>Go to Layout-> Edit Html->Backup your current template
2>Search for this code:
#sidebar-wrapper { width: 220px; float: right; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ }

3>When found, copy the code found and paste it right below the same code making the following changes shown in Red
#left-sidebar-wrapper { width: 220px; float: left; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ }

This will create a CSS code for your Left sidebar. Now,we need to create HTML code for the new left sidebar.

4>Now search for this code: <div id='main-wrapper'> and immediately before this section,paste this code:
<div id='left-sidebar-wrapper'> <b:section class='sidebar' id='left-sidebar' preferred='yes'/> </div>

Now you have created both CSS and HTML Code for the New Left Sidebar.

5>When you preview you template,you will notice that your Right Sidebar would have shifted to the bottom. This is because, you need to resize the Outer-Wrapper to fit in both your sidebars.
So,search for :
#outer-wrapper { width: 660px; margin:0 auto; padding:10px; text-align:left; font: $bodyfont; }
and change the width to say 880

6>Now,when you preview your blog, you will notice that left sidebar is very close to your blog posts. So,just add a minute code (shown in red below) in this code:

#main-wrapper { width: 410px; float: left; margin-left: 20px; word-wrap: break-word; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */ overflow: hidden; /* fix for long non-text content breaking IE sidebar float */ }

7>Save your template. View your blog! Enjoy your new 3 Columnar Template with 2 Sidebars!