Mobile Blogging - Opera Mini Issue

Yesterday I made a post to this blog via the Opera Mini browser on my SonyEricsson P1i. I accessed the Blooger Create Post page and used that to make the post. After typing the first two lines I decided to try uploading an image and clicked the Image toolbar button. The upload image page displayed properly but I was unable to upload an image. Then I canceled that page and returned to the create post page and continued typing. You can see that post here.

The post was successful. However this morning I found an "Draft" in my Blogger Posts page and it turned out to be a post with the first two lines I had typed before navigating to the image upload page.



Strange! I suppose this happened because of the Auto Save feature of Blogger. Not sure though. Will try to reproduce again when I have a minute.

Mobile Blogging - Opera Mini

This post is being made from the regular Blogger post editor accessed using Opera Mini.

Can I add images this way?

Clicking the image button on the toolbar does bring up the blogger add image screen but I was unable to do anything with it. The browse button is not clickable. Oh well.

Create Slide Shows With Picasa Web Albums

Blogger Templates has a great online tool to help generate HTML code for Picasa Web Album based Slide Shows.  I am reproducing it here for my convenience. I have made a few small changes for posting here.

 

Installing a Picasa Slide Show In Blogger Or Other Web Page 1 Go to the album you want to display in Picasa Web Album. 2 Right-click on the  button and "Copy shortcut" (?). 3        e.g. http://picasaweb.google.com/jsmith/Album2007?authkey=kqiIFUT#s123456789123456789 4      e.g. My Beautiful Album 5        (You have to be logged in to your Blogger account) 6 Not at Blogger.com?       Get the code

Disclaimer:

This code is from Blogger Templates. Please visit their Picasa Slide Show Post to see the original. No copyright violation is intended.

[Update] - A link to this post has been added to the side bar.

Pictobrowser - Changing Background Color

I figured out how to change the background color for the Pictobrowser!

Code for my Pictobrowser.

<embed
name="PictoBrowser" align="middle"
src="http://www.db798.com/pictobrowser.swf"
width="500" height="580"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
flashvars="ids=72157600558349014&amp;names=Mamli And Holi 2004&amp;userName=gautamsatpathy&amp;userId=76312656@N00&amp;titles=on&amp;source=sets"
loop="true"
quality="best"
scale="noscale"
bgcolor="#000000">
</embed>

Note the bgcolor attribute in the HTML code generated for your Pictobrowser. Just change the color value to whatever you want. The default value generated by Pictobrowser is White (#FFFFFF). I prefer Black (#000000).

Technically you can do a lot of cool stuff with the Pictobrowser generated HTML code. You can put it in a DIV etc. I have not tried changing the dimensions or other values yet. Will post again if I learn anything new.

Pictobrowser - A Really Cool Piece Of Software!

The previous post about a Flickr photo slide show is based on Pictobrowser, the creation of Carlos J. Gómez de Llarena (Creative direction, interaction design) & Diego Bauducco (Concept, graphic & interaction design, development).

What they have created is not only a great tool to display pictures but also a brand new distribution model. Each web site using Pictobrowser is a source of HTML code for new users to embed Pictobrowser in their web sites & blogs. Do read about it on the Pictobrowser web site.

Okay. Now let us see how we can use this thing.

Setup Instructions:

1. The first thing is a Flickr account. Get one if you don't already have one. You can use your Yahoo account.
2. Upload your photos to Flickr.
3. Mark your photos as "Public"
4. Create some Sets, and / or Groups. The Sets / groups must be public for Pictobrowser to be able to retrieve them.
5. Click the Info link at the bottom of a Pictobrowser like the one below. (See Screen shot below)
6. This will display the "Get Your Pictobrowser" page. Enter you Flickr User ID on this screen and click the Submit button. (See Screen Shot below)
7. Pictobrowser will use the User ID to access Flickr. It will display a blank screen with Sets, tags & groups as clickable buttons on the top. (See Screen Shot below)
8. Click the Sets button (or Tags or groups). Whatever. Pictobrowser will access Flickr and pull a list of you public Sets (or Tags or groups. Whatever. (See Screen Shot below)
9. Click the Set you want to use. Pictobrowser will display a new screen with the required HTML code. Copy & paste it into your blog post screen in HTML Code view. (See Screen Shot below). You can also use this screen to see a preview of your new Pictobrowser.

Screen Shots:

Click Info (circled in Red above) link at bottom of Pictobrowser. Go back to Setup Instructions.

Enter your Flickr User ID. Go back to Setup Instructions.

Pictobrowser accesses Flickr. Select Sets. Go back to Setup Instructions.

Pictobrowser pulls list of public sets from your Flickr account. Select the one you want to use. Go back to Setup Instructions.

Go grab the HTML code! Go back to Setup Instructions.

Pictobrowser In Action

Blogger - Archive Calendar

Thanks to Phydeaux3 I have added a new Archive Calendar to the sidebar of this blog. Complete instruction's on Phydeaux3's blog.

Phydeaux3, you rock!

Google Gadgets On My Blog!

I have managed to change my blog template yet again :-)

This round of experiments were in trying to add Google Gadgets to the blog's sidebar. I have added a Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Index tracker and a gadget showing the weather here in Hyderabad.

To add a Google Gadget you need to do the following:

1. Find a gadget on the Google Gadget showcase.
2. Click the "Add to your webpage" button under the gadget.
3. This takes you to the gadget configuration page. Change whatever parameters you wish to personalize and click the "Get the code" button.
4. Copy the HTML code generated into a text editor.
5. Open your Blogger Template for editing in the "Page Elements" tab.
6. Before you proceed any further make sure you have a backup of your template by using the "Download Full Template" feature.
7. Add a new Page element of type HTML / JavaScript. Paste the HTML code obtained in step 4 into the new element.
8. Modify position of the new page element and save your changes.
9. Refresh the blog to see your new Google Gadget!

Enjoy!

Windows Live Writer - From Work

I am writing this from work. Lets see how well Live Writer works from behind the firewall.

 

Update:

It works! Great.

Windows Live Writer

I downloaded and installed Windows Live Writer last night. This is the first post using Live Writer. Lets see how this works.

I have tried using other offline Blog post editors, without much success. Most of them have nice features but almost all of them cannot handle a proxy server. As a result I cannot use them at work. Sad.

If this works for me then I will move to Live Writer completely. Have to figure out all the features though. Particularly how images are handled as I do a far amount of photo blogging.

Testing Email Blogging

This is a test of email blogging.

What I do is me: for that I came.

(from "As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame" by Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Template Mods Phase 1

I am still not as familiar with the Blogger Beta templates as I am with the older Blogger templates. Anyway, I started with a simple template ad made some modifications. Phase 1 is over. I have the stuff I want in the first cut. Will stay with this for the time being and make changes as I learn more about the Blogger Beta stuff. I would love to use the Beta template stuff in my old template.

Hello World!

Hello World!

Till recently I was using Thingamablog for by personal blog. The blog was hosted on my personal web site. I have been having a little trouble of late with FTP and other such details and decided to switch to Blogger. Particularly the Blogger Beta. Unfortunately Blogger Beta does not let me publish to my own web space. Well you can't have everything.