The Real Blogger Status

One of the most popular third party image hosting services, for Blogger blogs, recently changed their photo hosting service . Photobcket no longer allows embedding of their hosted photos on third party websites, for free accounts. They now require a $399 / year membership, for accounts with photos shared outside their website .

A few blog owners are concerned about blog network performance - and spend time validating and tweaking the template, based on advice from various third party services. I don't know how to use W3C Validation, there are always errors displayed for my blog! And we see periodic questions about validation - and sometimes reports about broken templates , with blog owners following the validation advice, blindly.

There are millions of Blogger blog owners - and each owner has their own idea, how their blog should look. Not every blog owner is willing to settle for using a Blogger supplied template. Some blog owners design their own templates - and others choose templates provided by non Blogger developers. Some blog owners - even those with no technical background - choose third party supplied templates, and demand instructions in Blogger Help Forum: Learn More About Blogger . Not every blog owner can be supported, according to their personal level of need.

Blogger Engineers recently added Blogger template code, to provide images in shares to FaceBook. The added code is included in the standard template header. If you have a custom template, you may need to verify template header content . If you have added the previously recommended Open Graph Code to your blog, to allow Open Graph based post / photo sharing - and you use the FaceBook Developers Debugger tool , you may see a new diagnostic suggestion.

Some third party templates come with extra features - that not everybody appreciates. How do I get rid of the "lorem ipsum" nonsense, that's part of my signature? This blog owner just got a shiny "free" third party template, for her blog. Some custom template providers publish free templates that contain odd, irrelevant details. When I click on the "Read more" link on my blog, it opens up the post - but has added in a odd kind of signature. It displays my name but is using an image that isn't me, and the "lorem ipsum" text. I have no idea where to edit this?

Recently, we have seen a few reports from bloggers who have a blog with a "Cutest Blog" template, who are mystified by the PhotoBucket icon This image or video has been moved or deleted and discussions such as Have a photobucket icon appearing in the middle of my blog that says a picture has been deleted. are common in BHF: Something Is Broken .

Up to now, I've written about Blogger blogs, and Classic vs Layouts templates, as if classic and layouts templates are two separate worlds. Classic = HTML = old school. Layouts = XML = new and shiny. Sometimes, you might want to blur the distinction between the two. Maybe you got a shiny HTML design for your blog, or you want to combine your blog with your web site . And, you want to use Layouts accessories, comments, and posts, written in XML . Is it possible to have the best of both worlds? Use a Layouts Blogger blog, and base the template around HTML code? The answer is, yes. And, it's not all that difficult to do so.

This month, we have another round of bloggers complaining of problems being experienced while uploading templates provided by Pyzam and other third party sources. I'm tired of wasting my time trying to upload a new template that just won't upload. I am new to Blogger and just when I knew where beautiful templates are, that's when Blogger upload starts going crazy. It used to be very easy, no hassle before. I'm starting to lose my interest in Blogger. I'm beginning to resent the fact that is difficult to upload third party templates now. and I have been trying to change my template, but I am receiving error messages every time I try. It states: We were unable to save your template. Please correct the error below, and submit your template again. Your template could not be parsed as it is not well-formed. Please make sure all XML elements are closed properly. XML error message: The markup in the document following the root element must be well-formed. Here we have an...

Third party accessories are a big part of many blogs. As Blogger proceeds to command a larger and larger share of the free online web site market, they encourage (directly or indirectly) the development of third party templates, and accessories. This lets us make our blogs more personal to our desires, and shinier to our egos. Layouts Blogger is more mature, and commands an ever growing share of Blogger. And so, the the selection of Layouts compatible templates and accessories, again provided by third parties, will grow. And as the selection grows, so does the possible risk, from installing what's available on our blogs. As I wrote long ago, what better way to hack somebody's blog (or computer) than by conning the victim into installing the hack , on his own?

One of the neatest features of Layouts Blogger is the ability to backup and restore your template , using a wizard - without having to copy and paste code. You use a single link to download the code, and a two step procedure to choose then upload a template backup. If you're getting a template from an external source, you can upload what you get using the restore procedure, too. If you get a template as text, you'll install using the "Edit Template" window. If the blog uses a Classic template, the "Edit Template" window will, of course, be the only choice.

This week, a few bloggers are complaining about their blogs having lost formatting . For some reason my blog is only showing up as text and pictures I posted- the whole template is gone and it's just black text on a white background. This blog, like the others, is using a GoogleLite template . When you use a standard Blogger template, you include it statically in your blog, and you use the Template wizards to select your template. Many people, who use GoogleLite templates, include theirs dynamically. <style type="text/css"> @import url('http://googlelite.free.fr/stevenson.css'); This is a kewl idea. Why have a plain old static template, which never changes? Why not use something fresh, that changes periodically, without me having to do anything? Well, this week is one example why this isn't a good idea. Apparently, GoogleLite has stopped serving some templates from their servers. Bloggers who have their blogs using their templates, dynamically, are ...

Since migrating to New Blogger, various Bloggers have been lamenting the lack of 3 column templates . Many efforts - such as long threads in some forums - have sprung up, discussing the oversight. Eventually, hacked versions, of the standard Blogger templates, were made available by various template providers. The hacked templates, nice though they are, have several shortcomings. You can't load them using the "Pick New Template" wizard in Templates. When you do load them, you may lose your custom widgets. Blogger doesn't support them. Since Blogger doesn't support the third party products, when Blogger makes changes, it's doubtful that they test any changes against blogs that use them. And the Bloggers using them will occasionally experience problems. In one case, the problem was related to the server hosting the blog components; the template in question was apparently a victim of its popularity, which caused the creators bandwidth limits to be exceeded. T...