2 Basic How-To's in Layman's Terms

Last night, I got a brand new shiny toy... A 24-inch, HD LCD widescreen monitor. I mean, wow. Considering my old monitor was from 2002, this thing is...beautiful. It's actually a television with a VGA output, so we got two birds with one stone! Lemme tell ya, LOST looks amazing.

I've been meaning to address this for a while, but the new monitor has inspired me, so in lieu of my usual scintillating *ahem* post, I thought I'd do a drier, though hopefully helpful, addressing of two blogger-related topics.

1. Comment Reply

   I've seen a good many people wondering how one directly replies to a follower's comment, rather than doing a cumbersome @@@ reply in your own comment box. This answer is actually very simple, but it depends on one HUGE detail:
   Having your email address enabled in your public profile. If Blogger doesn't have access to your email, then the address that the comment will show is this: noreply-comment@blogger.com
    In order to enable your email address, just take the following steps:

   1. Go to Edit Profile on your Dashboard (beside your photo)
   2. Under Identity, make sure there's an email address entered.
   3. At the top of the Profile, under Privacy, check the "Show my email address" box.

 If you follow all these steps, then whenever you leave a comment on someone's blog, they will be able to reply directly to your email!
  And the way to do this is as simple as can be--just hit "Reply" on the email with the comment, like you would with any regular email.

   The upside to this method is that you can often make a longer, more personalized response to the commentator, and sometimes they'll respond and you have a nice little dialogue! Yay, friendliness!
   The downside is that the folks who don't have this enabled may think that you are stuck-up and unfriendly for not replying to your followers' faithful comments.
   Catch-22! I'm just telling you how to do it; I'll leave the moral dilemma up to you.

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2. Customizing a Blog Header! 

   This is pure vanity, but if you've been following me for any period of time, you know that I change my layout about as often as I change my contacts. I'm an artist and a writer, so visual interest is important to me. 

  As you may or may not know, Blogger recently introduced Blogger in Draft, which gives you the ability to further customize your blog design past the Minima Dark or Minima Blue variety. B-I-D is pretty fun, but still somewhat limiting, unless you're really HTML-savvy. 

 Personally, I think that headers are what make blogs stand out from each other. I know 4 blogs that have the exact same design, but each heading is different, and that makes all the difference. 

  Making a customized header is about as easy as anything you could hope to do, and you can do it with the simplest of Windows-included software: PAINT! 

  The first thing you want to do is find a picture that's to your liking, whether something from the public domain or something from your own photo files. 

  

   Size: an image width of 660 pixels will perfectly fill the header space; height is really for your own discretion. I like pictures in the height range around 400 pixels, personally. 

  Now that you've selected the picture that you want, it's time to gussy it up with your blog name, your name, and anything else that you'd like. 

   In Paint: open the picture. In your Toolbar, select the text tool, then make sure you choose the transparent text box option--it's the bottom one. Next, simple drag the size box you think you might need, then type in everything you want. Be sure that you have it as you want before you click anywhere outside the text box--otherwise, you'll have to start all over again, as there's no going back in to edit the box. It takes some experimentation with font size, colors, etc, especially if you're using a highly-colored picture. 

    Note: fonts are really where it's at, if you ask me. And since this is my blog, I'm going to assume that you are indeed asking me. There are plenty of websites where you can safely download all kinds of crazy fonts that might be perfect for a blog header (and nothing else). Just Google Free Fonts and go crazy! FYI: the font name in my current header is Pad Thai. Fun! If you need help figuring out how to implement your newly downloaded fonts, feel free to email me! 

  Now that you have a beautiful header image, head back to your Blogger Dashboard. 

  First and foremost, if your Template is "Classic," you need to change it, preferably to a "Minima" style. This will allow you greater flexibility in editing. 

  Next, click on the Layout tab. 

  Click "Edit" on your header box. 

  Choose a File from your computer, then find the picture you just beautified and select it. 

  Under Placement, select "Instead of Title and Description" 

  I don't select "Shrink to Fit," but you can experiment with that, if you'd like. 

  Finally, Save! 

  Then view your blog and its lovely new header. 

  Note: If you don't want to be that complicated, you can just find a pretty, simple picture that's right around 660px wide/ 200px tall and when you go to the Header tab in your Layout, choose "Behind Title and Description." You'll have to use the Fonts and Colors to edit your blog title until its readable. 

I actually use Picasa to edit my pictures--you can rotate the font on a complete 360 axis, which is a bit more fun. Picasa is extremely intuitive, and it's a great place to store all your photos and keep them organized.


Anywho, hope this wasn't too boring...
Hopefully the weekend + my shiny new monitor will restore some of my mojo, so next week I'll have some hi-lariously good posts.

Happy weekend!