The Real Blogger Status

Any time that we give advice about transferring control of a blog to another Blogger / Google account, or using another email address with your blog, we try to include additional advice If the blog contains pictures that were uploaded using post editor, do not ever delete the Blogger / Google account. This detail, in some cases, seems to be seen as a myth or superstition. Some superstitions have basis in reality - and this is one such superstition. When you upload pictures using the post editor photo upload wizard, they are hosted in a Picasa account that's tied to the Blogger / Google account. You can transfer control of the blog itself, using Settings - Publishing. Unfortunately, this transfers only the blog. The Picasa account, where the pictures are hosted, remains with the current Blogger / Google account. If you "clean house", and delete the unused Google account, your pictures go away. Here, you may wish to review the connections between Blogger accounts...

One of the most useful skills to have, when diagnosing a problem with your blog, is looking at the page source code. Every browser has this alternative, called "Page Source" or "Source", and generally accessed from the "View" menu. I'll instruct you to View - Page Source for such basic tasks as Determine the blog feed URL . Identify the blog owner . Verify the template name and vendor . Extract HTML code, to use when embedding a gadget in a page or post . Sometimes, even this basic task is impossible.

In a new volume of the series " Tales Of The Hijacked Blogger Blogs ", today we have multiple reports of blogs redirecting to "hijriah.jentayu.com/hijriah.php". This tale is somewhat less exciting than the previous episodes in this long saga, however. The problem code, which is causing the hijacks, typically appears in various HTML gadgets, and is not difficult to find. The code appears to consist of simple HTML gadgets, intentionally installed by the blog owners. You'll probably not find this hack by editing the template HTML code - it will be an HTML gadget , located in your sidebar or maybe the blog footer / attribution section. If you use a text only proxy , like the Rex Swain HTTP Viewer or the Web-Sniffer View HTTP , you can retrieve the blog in safety. Then, do a simple text search on "hijriah.jentayu.com". You'll find something like </div><div class='widget HTML' id='HTML7'> <h2 class='title...

Many blog owners - or prospective blog readers - do not understand the significance of " third party cookies ", in Blogger. Recent changes in Blogger commenting, and setting changes by blog owners, possibly related to the new comment filters , have created a variety of problem reports which involve "third party cookies". Blogger authentication cookies, which are created under "Blogger.com" and read under "BlogSpot.com" - or whatever non BlogSpot address the blog in question is published to - are affected by the "third party cookie" option. "Third party cookies", as with all cookies, are affected by filters which may be found in any section of a layered security policy .

The new "Preview" mode in Blogger Post Editor is a considerable improvement over what we used to have - but it still can cause confusion. Lately, we see occasional glimpses of confusion, about it's use. I changed my blog, and the changes were visible when I hit Preview - but the blog was unchanged when I Published, and then viewed my changes.

Blogger has been using CAPTCHA ("word verification") screening , to verify human presence in various Blogger processes , for several years. This is necessary, to prevent spammers from automating the processes of creating new blogs, and submitting "unlock" requests for spam locked blogs. CAPTCHA verification has its weaknesses though; and as spammers have been exploiting those weaknesses for some time, Blogger recently added additional tokens in some Blogger processes. You may be required to provide the number of your mobile / smart phone, as a token. When you setup a new blog. When you submit a request to have your blog unlocked after being (falsely) classified as spam. When you attempt to publish too many posts in one day. This requires that your phone receive / send SMS messages from / to Blogger, to verify your identity as a person, and not an automated process. You provide the phone number of an SMS capable mobile phone. Blogger sends a verification re...

Many times when diagnosing a problem, we may need to examine the URL that is attached to a link. Every link has a caption (that we see) - and a URL (that we can't see). The URL is the important part of a link - and knowing how to extract the URL can be a crucial part of diagnosing a problem. This post has a title "Extracting The URL Behind A Link", and the title (as with every post in this blog) is the caption to a link. The URL that is attached to the link, in the title here, is http://blogging.nitecruzr.net/2010/09/extracting-url-behind-link.html .