Tuesday 26 April 2005

technical incompetence moment

Best to get it all over in one fell swoop, don't you think. I do plan on posting something real later on today, however. Now. I could go internet searching for answers to the technical blogmanagement questions I'm about to put to you, dear reader, but I know I'll get more useful information this way. Thanks in advance.

1.(a) I've wasted precious time & killed many Photoshop cells making a lovely banner for my blog. How do I now get it from Photobucket into the template (which is Blogger Minima, basically.) Please be aware that explanations will need to be very simple and clear.

1. (b) Said banner contains images of dressed-up cats which I'm a bit worried might disgust any person who comes here looking for hardcore higher degree literary-studies type material. Can clever people understand the allure of funny kittens, is my question.

2. If I change things in my template, like add new links, then republish my whole blog, does this do something annoying to RSS feeds? Would I be better off subscribing to blogrolling or similar and never playing with the template? And if I edit a published post, does the same thing happen?

3. How do you do that 'read more' button thing?

3.5. Can I put a trackback thing in my template?

supplementaries:

4. Anything else I'm doing that's obviously ignorant?

5. Good place to learn fast about how to do this geeky stuff?


thanks.

12 comments:

BwcaBrownie said...

I want to help but dare not, in case some of The Really Clever Bloggers scream in unison "That's Not How To Do It"!.
But I am looking forward to BazCat Superstar Fashion Week. bring it on.
(whisper: do you go to www.whiskas.com to look at the funny cat pics?)

I grew weary of tangling with Hello uploading pics from my Picasa file. It is simpler to create a Shortcut to the image onto the desktop then I drag that icon onto the Hello icon which triggers the opening of the program, pic goes to blog.

BwcaBrownie said...

of course you know that. may I please claim it's the medication?
having uploaded it, would you not simply paste the html from it's Post place into your template?
Next: Austen and the significance of feline appearances (or lack of)

Phantom Scribbler said...

JM at No Fancy Name has answered the "read more" button question for all of us tech incompetents. (Check her sidebar for the links.) If she comes over to your page for a visit, she'll probably answer the rest of your questions, too. She's a very helpful blogger!

lucy tartan said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
lucy tartan said...

so maybe the world isn't ready yet for the kitties. nevermind.

Off the top of my head I don't think there are any cats in Austen, but there is at least one dog in Mansfield Park. It appears to be the same dog but it's referred to as a he-dog at one point & later on its discussed who will get a puppy when it gives birth. This is either Austen being forgetful or Austen making an incredibly subtle point about the silliness of the woman who owns the dog, you can choose.

Anonymous said...

I am unfamiliar with Blogger templates, but I would assume that they don't make it easy for you to do it...

I imagine only another blogspot type could advise with absolute conviction. If it was MT, then I'd be able and willing :)

Scrivener said...

1a: This one's beyond my ken. As Phantom said, Julie is the person you need be talking to. She is super smart, very good at explaining technical things in relatively simple language, and very nice and helpful. You can email her (her address is on her profile--I'm not giving away a secret or anything) and ask if there's some relatively easy way to do it. You might want to find a Blogger template you can download that would allow you to add a custom picture easily.

1b. I would have to say that clever people can understand that allure, but often will not. Dressed-up cats, just a little distrurbing IMHO. It's not so much about can you be lowbrow and goofy--I'm happy to endorse that--but dressed up cats in the header? I'd worry about scaring some people away. That said, one of the first times I came over there was a big dressed-up cat on a post right near the top, and I didn't flee screaming into the night or anything.

3. Phantom pointed you thataway already, but just in case. That post explains it all clearly enough that even I could do it. Julie is good about replying to questions in the comments too. She's the awesomest.

3.5. Blogger does not currently support trackback. The easiest (only?) way to do that is by installing HaloScan, but you'd have to take their comments too. That'll wipe out your existing comments. And you'll probably want to pay for the upgraded HaloScan (I think it's $12/year) because if you don't you can't access comments that are more than 4 months old. And comments have a maximum length (I think it's 3000 characters now, maybe 5000 characters--which does come up more often than you might imagine, for example with a comment like this damn long one).

4. You're brilliant. And cool. Your blog's cool. All is well.

5. You mean, besides the Blogger help page? Ummm. Well, the aforementioned Julie is pitching a proposal for a book on blogging and we're all very hopeful that her publisher runs with said proposal, because we will all run immediately to our nearest bookstore, or to Amazon at least, and order said book on blogging.

Scrivener said...

My email Julie link didn't work. Damn. Shows you how much to trust anything I say about geeky stuff, huh? But you can figure out the address from there anyway, right? Or just check out Julie's profile and get it there.

Scrivener said...

Dammit, and I skipped #2. Tells you how much you should trust anything I've got to say after a day spent grading essays on Freud.

So, um.

2. I don't know exactly what happens with RSS feeds. I have seen someone complain (I think it was Julie, but her name's been mentioned far too often in this comment section, so I'm going to claim that it was someone else entirely) that every time someone leaves a comment on Blogger comments, it includes republishing the page and so blogrolling chimes in saying the page has been updated. But then again, in a year of reading an awful lot of blogs, I think that's the only time I remember seeing anyone complain.

I just maintain my links manually too. I've thought about switching over to blogroll and haven't mostly out of sheer inertia and stubborness.

But no one's ever yelled at me for faking them out thinking I've added a post when all I've done is put in yet one more link to another blog. (Though a certain blogger who shall remain nameless, though her initials are Phantom Scribbler, once complained that my blogroll was too long to be usable. But it doesn't seem to bother her overly much really.)

In other words, if you think it'd be more convenient to do Blogroll, that's cool more power to you. But I don't think there's any problem with mucking about in your template periodically. And if there is a problem, I'm guilty of it too, at least, so we can keep each other company in the little ostracized blogger corner if there's ever an uprising.

Oh yeah, when you edit a post, you do have to republish the page. But oh well. They'll all deal.

genevieve said...

Hi Laura,
You've done some good stuff with the colours actually. And the headings, it's one of the nicer Minima makeovers I've seen.
I have no idea if you can put a banner into the template or not - if I were you I'd save the one I have first before I try anything that revolutionary. Then when it works you can be the first person who did it, ja?
Very nice blog! came here via Outofthewoods ( I think...)

BwcaBrownie said...

Oh Genevieve that is funny - Out of the woods - thank god you're safe now.
Dr Zeigler - I would love to hear you discuss 1940's melodrama - Barbara Stanwyk movies!
Mr Gorgeous Greenhair - cats were good enough for Raymond Chandler and they're good enough for me.
What movie was is where Peter Sellers played a doctor who wrote a script and blotted the ink with a kitten? I laughed for days and it has affected my memory.
Baz Cat is very special and his admirers WANT the banner.

Scrivener said...

Brownie, Thanks for the nickname, btw.