Add a personal signature to your blog posts

So happy to be signing off my online blog posts finally. I've always wanted to do this but never explored or search further to find out how-to, since it wasn't one of my top priorities.

But blessings came unexpectedly when I visited a Blotanical member's garden blog two days ago for the first time! Not only was I treated to such an awesome garden display of kaleidoscopic autumn colours, but was introduced by chance to this wonderful site. It was while enjoying the spectacular autumn photos by Jan of Thanks for 2 day, that I playfully mouse over her personalized signature and viola it was a clickable image that linked to MyLiveSignature.com. It's an online personal signature maker that offers free personal signature generator to create your own signature for emails, blogs and others, besides paid service for other advance animated choices. Wow, a treasure hunt that took no effort at all on my part. Thanks, Jan!

Thus, I thought it'll be great to share here my recent delightful discovery and how easily you too can add a signature to personalize your blog posts.

Follow these simple step-by-step process of creating and adding your personalized signature to your blog posts :

1. Go to MyLiveSignature.com. You need not register or set-up an account for its free service. Click on Click Here To Start or the Proceed button.
   
   
   
   
2. To create your new signature, click on the link, Using the signature creation wizard or its icon.
   
   
   
   
3. Enter your name and click the Next Step button to continue.
   
   
   
   
4. Select the font that best suits you. There are 120 different fonts available for selection. (My selection was #29, after going through all 120 of them...hehe, just curious to see them all!). Click on the Next Step button to continue.
   
   
   
   
5. Select the font size for your signature,  by clicking in the circle beside the size # you desire. Then, continue with a click on the Next Step button. (I've selected size #4).
   
   
   
   
6. Select the color for the text and background, and then click on the Next Step button to continue. For my signature's text color, I've selected #131313.
   
   
   
   Some tips on background colour:
   
• White - the default background color #FFFFFF is white. It's fine if that's your blog's background color, otherwise, it'll appear unappealing as in photo below.
  
  
• Choose the colour that matches your blog's background color - enter the colour hex code if you know or go to your blog's Dashboard | Layouts | Fonts and Colors, and get the color hex code of your Page Background Color from there.
  
  
• Transparent - tick in the box beside the word 'Transparent'. This is the best choice I've discovered after trying the previous two. It will fit all blogs, irrespective of your blogs' background colour.
  
  
  
  
7. Set the slope. 10 choices from #1, and #10 having the steepest slant. That's it...when you click the Next Step button, your signature is ready to be used.
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Click on the Want to use this signature? link which will direct you to the generating signature code page where it explains the need for this special HTML code.
   
   
   
   Click on the Generate HTML code link, where you will be provided with 2 options . You can either generate a code for just your signature alone, or generate a combine code of your signature with other additional information. I've selected the first option which is most suited for my blog posts by clicking on the Generate a code for my handwritten signature link. Once the HTML code of your signature is generated, you can then copy and paste the code into your blog posts. Advisable to copy and paste it too into any text editor like Notepad or TextEdit, and save file for later use.
   The website has also provided details on how to add your HTML signature in email messages, blogs and websites. Click on the respective links available to go about it.
   
   
   
   

Nevertheless, here's sharing two ways on how to add your signature to your blog posts :

1) How to add your signature to individual Blogger blog post :

• Go to Edit Posts, then select the blog post that you want to add your signature;
• Click on Edit HTML in the editor window;
  
• Scroll right down to the end of your post, and paste the HTML code of your signature that was generated;
• Click the Publish Post button when all's done.

2) How to add your signature to all of your Blogger blog posts (the past, present and future posts)

• Go to Dashboard | Layouts | Edit HTML, to edit the blog's template;
• Before editing your template, best to save a copy of it. Click Download Full Template;
• Then check the box beside Expand Widget Templates.
• Scroll down or CTRL F to find the code <div class='post-footer'> and then paste your HTML signature code right below it;
• Then, click Preview to see whether your signatures were added and if all's well, click Save Template. Otherwise, click Clear Edits and try again.
  (Note: just to assure you that I've just tried this way and it's just perfect. A big thank you to http://www.betshopboy.net/ for this very useful resource. Now, I needn't use the individual signing method as it's done once and for all, using BetShopBoy's way)
  

This personalized signature can be applied to LiveJournal and Wordpress, besides Blogger, as well as to forums, email messages and websites. Isn't that awesome?

My grateful thanks and appreciation to MyLiveSignature.com for this wonderful signing feature. God bless you all for your generosity! You've put a thousand smiles and a wide grin on my face! :-)

How to backup and restore your Blogger blog posts

Thumbs up to Blogger for having ingeniously designed an easy way for us to backup our Blogspot blogs and be able to restore it in case the need arises.

Can you just picture the nightmare if all our posts strangely disappear one day for no apparent reason? Having spent much precious time, effort and hard work in writing and publishing them, only to have it all go up in smoke! I think I won't be able to stop crying then!

I've been blogging on Google Blogger platform for a few years now, but had never thought it necessary to backup my posts and comments, after all, Google is so solid and reliable, I reasoned! However, a recent email from the Blogger Team a couple of months ago had me mystified and set me thinking the worst!

Appended is an excerpt of Blogger's notification to me:

"Your blog at: httpxxxxxxxxxx has been identified as a potential spam blog. To correct this, please request a review by filling out the form at httpxxxxxxxxxx.

Your blog will be deleted in 20 days if it isn't reviewed, and your readers will see a warning page during this time. After we receive your request, we'll review your blog and unlock it within two business days. Once we have reviewd and determined your blog is not spam, the blog will be unlocked and the message in your Blogger dashboard will no longer be displayed.......

We find spam by using an automated classifier. Automatic spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and occasionally a blog like yours is flagged incorrectly. We sincerely apologize for this error."

Of course I responded immediately and all was fine within a few days. But, just thinking that my blog could have been deleted if I had overlooked this email or my computer went kaput coincidentally or I was vacationing during the grace period of 20 days, really gave me the shivers!

This experience had taught me to be wiser and sent me on a google search to learn how to save my blog posts. I'm not going to take risks anymore or procrastinate on this matter. And, I'd strongly recommend that you to do the same...you can never know when your precious blog(s) could go up in flames. You're not in control of your blog, Google Blogger is!

Learn how-to backup your blogspot posts and comments,
using the Export Blog feature in Blogger :

1. Go to Dashboard | Settings | Basic, and click on the Export Blog button.
   This will allow you to save your blog's entire current posts and comments in your hard disk.
   
   
   
   
2. A new page to export your blog will load. Click on Download Blog button.
   
   
   
   
3. The download manager window will pop up. Click OK to save the XML file to your computer's hard drive.
   (Update Nov 21: Computer can go bust without warning! Thus, to be doubly sure, best to save or backup your Export Blog's XML file at your email account as well. A little extra effort goes a long way).
   
   
   
   

Simple and easy steps, quick too isn't it?

However, take note that this Export Blog feature will only export your blog's current posts and comments already published at that time. You will need to repeat this process periodically, depending on how often you publish newer posts. Bear in mind too that this feature only backup your posts and comments, and does not save your blog's template and other page elements that you've configured for your blog.

Learn more in the following backup tips:

1. Backup individual blog post, using Blogger's BlogSend
   - this BlogSend feature allows each of your blog post to be automatically sent to your email address, which can then be collectively grouped as you wish in your email account. This is another way to ensure that all your posts are backed up, even the newer ones while waiting for your periodic Export Blog process as advised above.
   To do this - go to your blog's Dashboard | Settings | Email & Mobile. At BlogSend Address, type in your email address in the box provided, then click the Save Settings button.
   
   
2. Backup your blog's template
   - go to Dashboard | Layout | Edit HTML. Click on the Download Full Template to save a copy of it in your computer's hard drive.
   (Update Nov 21: it's strongly recommended to backup your Blog's template XML file at your email account as well because computer can go kaput at any time when you least expect).
   

Thus, should ever something unforeseen happens which results in losing all your blog posts, you can then use Blogger's Import Blog feature to import your blog's entire posts that you've saved as a backup copy earlier.

Learn how-to restore your blogspot posts and comments,
using the Import Blog feature in Blogger :

1. Go to Dashboard | Settings | Basic, and click on the Import Blog button.
   This will allow you to restore a previously saved copy of your blog's entire posts and comments into a new blog or your existing one.
   
   
   
   
2. A new page to import a blog will load. Browse and find the exported file (.xml) from your hard drive and fill out the word verification. By default, your imported posts will remain unpublished until you publish them from your dashboard later. You can however, check the box beside 'Automatically publish all imported posts' if you wish so. Then click the Import Blog button.
   
   
   
   
3. Almost instantly or within no time at all, your new blog is created or the entire posts with comments imported as seen in the screen shot below. You can then choose to publish all imported posts or select posts to publish.
   
   
   
   

Check out Blogger's help on how do I import and export blogs on Blogger.

Go on, procrastinate no more and backup your Blogspot blog posts regularly as an essential exercise! After all, it is so very simple, easy and quick!

Hope these blogging tips have put a smile on your face today! :)

Add copyright notice to a web page

It is strongly recommended that you protect your work online from copyright infringement, by placing copyright notices to them.



In this article, I'd like to just share on how to include a copyright notice to your blogs or web pages, one on every page will suffice.

To do that, you'll need to add the copyright symbol © besides other text. The usual format would be to include the following in sequence:

1. the word, Copyright
2. the copyright symbol, ©
3. the year of publication
4. the copyright owner's name
5. the statement (this is optional). An example of a simple cover all statement will be 'All rights reserved'.

Well, the best way to add the copyright symbol to a web page is to use a HTML character entity.

• Just type the character entity name, &copy; (ampersand+copy+semi-colon) at the place where you want the copyright symbol to be.
• The other better and reliable alternative is to use the character entity number, &#169; (ampersand+#169+semi-colon).
• Tip: take note that some browsers may not support this character entity name, so best to use the entity number, &#169; instead.

An example of the copyright notice to be typed is : Copyright &#169; 2009 Jacq's Blogger Tips.

And, that will give the following display : Copyright © 2009 Jacq's Blogger Tips.

Okay, next is to learn how to place the copyright notice at the bottom of your web page or blog's footer section. Blogger.com has made it so easy for us bloggers, with little or no technical knowledge.

It can be done in 2 easy ways in Blogger's Layouts feature, either via the Page Elements tab or Edit HTML tab. Choose the former which is the easier way if you do not know much about HTML.

A. Here's how-to use the Page Elements tab to add the copyright notice :

1. Go to Layout | Page Elements tab in Blogger
   
2. Click on Add a Gadget tab (choose the one at the bottom of the page for the footer). A pop-up window appears with the list of available gadgets. Select the HTML/JavaScript widget by clicking on its thumbnail or the blue + sign at the right
   
   
   
   
3. The Configure HTML/JavaScript window will appear. Type the following sample text (mustard-coloured) in the Content box as shown in the picture below:
   Copyright &#169; 2009 Jacq's Blogger Tips. (Replace the year of publication and author's name to those of yours)
   
   
   
   
4. Click Save and then View Blog. (Take note that font-size and text alignment of your created copyright notice is already catered for by your blog's template, though you can change them if you know the relevant html codes. Just click the related Page Element gadget to edit, if so desired).

B. Or, you can use the Edit HTML tab (hehe...not for the faint-hearted!) :

1. Go to Layout tab and click on the Edit HTML sub-tab
2. This will open the Edit Template HTML for you to edit the contents of your template
3. Scroll down to the very bottom of content box. Insert the following sample text (mustard-coloured) between the footer-wrapper and outer-wrapper as seen in the image below:
   <p class='fineprint' style='text-align:center'>Copyright © 2009 Jacq's Blogger Tips.</p> (Replace the year of publication and author's name to those of yours)
   
   
   
   
4. Click the Preview tab to have a look at the result. If satisfied, click the Save Template tab. Otherwise, click the Clear Edits tab and try again, probably to amend the HTML codes of font-size and text alignment or reposition the inserted text. Then, Preview again and if still unsatisfactory, Clear Edits and try again. Finally click the Save Template tab when all is done.

I'm not an expert on HTML, but one who aspires to improve, and having tried it out on 3 of my Blogger blogs, thought it best to record my experience here so that others may benefit.

I'm delighted that having attempted to Edit HTML/Template for the purpose of adding the copyright notice/symbol, it enabled me to choose which way best suits which blog of mine. Happy too that in researching to do this article, my knowledge about copyright and html has increased in depth. :-D

Other related links:

• Copyright Notice fact sheet from UK Copyright Service. 
• FirstWriter.com - some insights on copyright protection 
• Copyright Symbol Webpage - how-to create them

Go on...add a copyright notice to your blog! It's really simple!

How to type the copyright symbol

There may be times where you'll need to type the copyright symbol, the circled C (©) on your images that you want to upload online, probably even on a text document, website or blog to indicate your copyright.

Just learnt today that it can be easily done on my iMac keyboard and thought I'd share it here.

Frankly, I've been using Mac for slightly more than 1 year now, but had not bothered to find out what keyboard keys to use to type this symbol. Can't believe that I've procrastinated far too long, choosing to remain ignorant of such a simple task, until someone wise me up on this matter.

Follow these easy steps :

Just use these combination of keys to type the copyright symbol ©

1. Place your cursor where you'd like to type the symbol;
2. If using a Mac, hold down Option and press G (i.e. Option+G);
3. If using a window-based PC, hold down Ctrl and Alt at the same time and press C (i.e. Ctrl+Alt+C)
   or alternatively, hold down Alt and type 0169 on the number pad at the right side of the keyboard (i.e. Alt+0169).

Try it, it's as simple as ABC!

Points to note :

• You must always use the number pad at the right side of the keyboard to type 0169 on a PC, which is normally not available for laptops. You can't use the number keys at the top of the keyboard.
  
• Alternatively, you can copy and paste the copyright symbol from a website.

Create a free blog with Blogger

Interested to start your own blog? Well, it can be simply and easily done. There are a quite a number of free blogging services such as Blogger, TypePad and LiveJournal that you can choose from.

Don't know much about the last two, but I can ascertain that Blogger which is Google's free tool for blogging, provides one of the easiest way to set up a blog. Moreover, it is reliably hosted by Google Blogger on blogspot.com and Blogger is always continually improving and upgrading its services for the benefit of its users. I've been blogging with Blogger since late 2005 and am most satisfied, more so now with its new blogger layout features that keeps me mentally exhilarated and stimulated. :-D

Okay, back to creating your free blog at Blogger. Follow these 3 easy steps :

1. Create an account
2. Name your blog
3. Choose a template

Simple and fast, done in a jiffy! However, best that I elaborate a little to guide you along the process of creating a blog.

1. To start, go to Blogger's Homepage, https://www.blogger.com/. But, I'd suggest that you watch its video tutorial on how to create a blog first, to familiarize and get a better overall view.
   
   
2. Next, you'll need a Google account before you can create a blog.
   
   (a) If you already have a Google Account, perhaps from Gmail or other free Google products, type in your 'Username' and 'Password' and click 'Sign In', at the top right corner; OR
   
   (b) if you don't have a Google account, click the 'Create A Blog' button, to easily lead you to create a Google account. Assuming that you already have an existing email address, fill in the details as required and click the 'Continue' arrow.
   (Just in case, you don't have an email address, you may want to sign up for a Gmail account here which will give you the Google Account. You can then use your Gmail username and password to sign in at Step 2(a) above)
3. Then, you'll be directed to 'Name Your Blog'. Before you key-in the blog name and address, click on the 'Learn more' link to know what is a URL. Click 'Continue' arrow when all's done.
   
   
   
4. Final step is 'Choose A Template'. Scroll down to see the available templates in Blogger's library, click to preview template to help make your selection. Click on the circle next to the name of the template you've chosen, and end by clicking on the 'Continue' arrow. Voila...your blog is now created and ready for you to start posting.
5. If you're not ready to do a post as yet, just sign out.
6. Whenever you're ready to do a post, just sign in again at http://www.blogger.com/.