The Real Blogger Status

We see the frustration, in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue , almost daily. My blog has disappeared from my dashboard, and my subscribers are getting spam! How do I get my blog returned to me? and I got a new computer, and now I can't access my blog. Who can I call at Google, to get this fixed?? These are two blog owners who have the same problem, but do not understand the connection.

The practice of " Due Diligence " is a responsible precaution, taken by all businesses that have any future as businesses. Blogger / Google, being a business, subscribes to this practice. This affects their involvement with us, their "customers", in various ways - though not all "customers" understand the implications. Some blog owners find out about the limitations unwillingly, in discussions in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken .

There's a popular adage In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. I would amend this to read In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death, taxes, and browser differences. I've written about this before , yet still we see the occasional confusion and naivete, reported in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken . Why does my blog look so good under Firefox, yet so scrambled under Internet Explorer? I can name three possible problems, which may be present in the template in any blog. Custom code. Old code. Third party code. Custom code . If you installed any template tweaks , did you test your changes in multiple browsers ? Old code . Blogger releases various changes , in the templates which they provide. If you got your template last year, there may be a fix that could help you, this year. Third party code . I've published various warnings about third party code. This article continues that series. In case you s...

There are different ways to get into a properly designed swimming pool. Most pools have a shallow end, possibly with steps - and a hand rail. Cautious people like to walk down the steps, slowly, holding on to the rail. At the other end, where it is deep, some folks like to dive (head first), or jump (feet first), and go in quickly. Summer is just around the corner - in the USA anyway. Some pools, that are not heated, you may not enjoy using for a couple more months. If you dive in to an unheated pool, you may not enjoy the feeling (you may not have any feeling in your body). Use the steps, or hop in to the shallow end, if you're experienced in early summer swimming. If you've been reading about my experiences with the new post editor, and about the new designer templates, you may wonder about how to get into that swimming pool. The water isn't very clear, and you may not know how deep it is anywhere. And, it's a good idea to know where the steps are, so you ...

When you tweak the code in a gadget, based upon my instructions, you'll be editing the template HTML . Or, you might be using the Layout wizard, to locate and remove a problem gadget. You'll do most editing with widget code unfolded . You'll have a lot of code to sift through - and with many gadgets in your blog, there's always the chance that you'll see the code for one gadget, and confuse it for another. If you delete or tweak the wrong gadget, you may not like what you get. Before deleting anything, or editing the template, take an extra minute, and find the specific gadget, by its name. This could save you a lot of grief.

Your blog depends upon traffic for its success. Anything that affects the traffic to your blog, such as a change in the URL, affects the success of your blog. If you republish your blog to a different BlogSpot URL, as with migration to a custom domain , you will not lose any content. Both comments, posts, the template, and all custom settings, will stay with the blog. And if you plan the republishing effort, you can minimise the loss of traffic.

I use excerpts of articles from other websites, in a few of my posts - when the other websites provide more in depth description of the issue being discussed. I use some websites, such as WikiPedia , more than others. It's good practice to at least link back to the originating website, when copying or quoting any significant amount of unique content. There are so few restrictions, in general, what content we may include in our blogs - so it makes sense to be polite when we include content from other websites. In most cases, and to keep my posts relatively short, I prefer to simply quote a brief, relevant snippet of content, and link back to the originating website.

Have any of you seen this sort of offer, when looking at third party accessories, and contemplating installation? You don't do a thing! For Blogger blogs, we offer "EZ Install"! Just give us the blog URL, and an account name and password, sit back, and let us do the work! and maybe later, you're posting in BHF: Something Is Broken Somebody is posting spam posts on my blog! or Where did these ads come from? I didn't put them there! or worse yet Why is my blog deleted? I don't post malicious script! All of these concerns have been noted, in real problem reports, and were caused by real mistakes.

In Information Technology ("computer" / "Internet") organisations with any size or complexity, one of the fastest growing groups in the organisation will be Change Management. The job of Change Management is to coordinate all changes in the product that involve more than one component of the product. This is because any change that involves multiple components generally involves changes made by more than one person or group in the organisation. Your blog is a complex structure, and frequently can be as complex as any moderate sized IT product (yes, really). You have an edge over many IT organisations, though - you own and control your blog (though you don't control the changes made by Blogger, which can contribute to your observed problems). You, personally, don't (probably don't) need a Change Management staff, but you could do well to use Change Management principles, when making changes to your blog. Having well documented changes can help you tri...

Periodically, we see an anxious query I just got an email from a friend Your blog looks like crap. What do I do now? Help! Oh yes, I think I tweaked the template a couple weeks ago. So if you made the change to the template "a couple weeks ago", why did you wait until today , to find out from your friend that you have a problem? Blogger Blogs are easy to work on. As easy as they are to work on, though, they still demand respect, and responsible practices are still relevant. If you make changes, test your changes using different browsers. Any time that you make a change to the blog, or even when you post a new article, check out the change, preferably using multiple browsers. When you test, you need to see the blog as your readers may see it - so prepare to logout and login a few times, to view changes then make adjustments. If you have a second browser or computer , this would be an excellent way to use one - to stay logged in on one browser, and make changes m...

As I told you earlier, in Backup Your Template (Classic), you should always keep a copy of your template local to your computer, just as you should always keep a complete copy of your blog itself. That advice hasn't changed for New Blogger blogs; if anything, it's more necessary.

One of the neatest features of Blogger "One Button Publishing" is the "one button" design. Don't like the layout of the blog? Change the template! Don't like the colour of the background (the post area, the sidebar, ...)? Change the colour! Don't like the Title, don't like the URL, ... Whoa. Slow down. The URL, that is the Universal Resource Locator, is known all over the Internet. Or should be, if you're publicising the blog properly . That's your public name - don't be changing that on the spur of the moment.

Blogger One Button Publishing makes it so easy to setup and maintain a very attractive, organised, and useful website. Anybody who knows how to turn the computer on, practically, can have a Blogger blog. And anybody who knows a minimum about computer coding can have a customised Blogged blog. And that's one of the biggest problems with Blogging. As easy as it is to customise a blog, it is just as easy to screw it up. And the more that you depend upon your blog being online, the sorrier you will be when it's not. Even in businesses, this risk exists. In businesses, though, we practice risk management. You can, and should, do likewise. Backup your blog . Have alternate copies of everything, in various formats. Monitor your logs , even when no problems are being experienced. And when problems are being experienced, involve your logs in diagnosing the problems. Report your problems . Some problems can only be resolved by involving Blogger Support. It's their program -...

OK, you've got a kick ass web site. It's attractive, has good content, and it's nicely organised. Then you get email from your friend Dude, your web site is crap. How did this happen? You think it looks great. Frequently, this happens when you design and test your blog for one browser, and your friend uses another. Firefox and Internet Explorer, which use differing code and display standards, are famous for this problem.

Your blog is almost a living, breathing thing. It's your presence on the web. The posts in your blog are equivalent to the flesh - they give the blog content, features, and personality. The template is equivalent to the skeleton - they give your blog structure. The template isn't visible, like the posts are - but it's equally as important. Change the template, and you change the way all of the posts are displayed. Hopefully, you back up the entire blog, maybe by mirroring it , periodically. That's a very good idea. You don't want to have to involve Blogger Support, except in extreme situations - like when your blog gets deleted . (Note): These instructions are specifically written for Classic blogs. They will work for Layouts blogs also - but for Layouts blogs, Blogger provides a GUI template backup for backing up and restoring the template. It's also a good idea to back up the template. If you make changes to the template, back it up before and ...

If you spend any time developing your blog, you'll probably not going to enjoy recreating it again. Occasionally though, mistakes happen. Maybe you hit the "Delete This Blog" button, and realised it just a microsecond AFTER you hit the Yes button. Too late. Now you have to wait for Blogger to restore it, and hope that it doesn't get taken by the spammers in the meantime. Maybe you just tweaked the template a little too much, and can't get it right again. Maybe you're plagued by the problem of the week, Blog Corruption / Hijacking . Maybe you would like to carry your computer around, and show others your blog (or look at it yourself), even if you're not online. If you can, by a miracle, get Blogger to restore your blog, or if you're one of the lucky ones reading this who doesn't have a problem, take a couple hours and Backup Your Blog. One solution for this need is HTTrack, which is a free and very easy product to use. Note this caution when ...