Effect of frequent updating on visits from navbar

Just in case you don't know what a navbar is, below is a screen shot of one:


Actually, that is only the left corner of the Blogger navbar. You want to see the whole navbar, move your eyes up and you will see the whole navbar at the very top of this page. What I want to draw your attention to is "Next blog". That has both been a blessing and a curse - a blessing for those who just want to play "Chance" and it will almost be like playing at the roulette table. You wouldn't know what the next number will be. Similarly, you will get to "random" blogs which you may love or hate. It is a curse to educators who set up blogs for their students. Students clicking on "Next blog" may chance upon blogs with adult content, and that is horrifying to educators. Which is why many want to hide the navbar

Note that I wrote "random" blogs. Actually, it is not that "random". This "Next blog" gives preference those blogs just were recently updated. Which was why when I checked the visitor counter for Lewis Chew blog after publishing a new post, I found an increase in hits from navbar.

Animator Vs. Animation

Coolest Email in a while here is the link
Animator Vs. Animation By Alen Becker

Custom domain through Blogger

Custom domain through Blogger

Interested in purchasing and setting up a custom domain through Blogger? Either read the instructions below or click on the video to watch a tutorial!

You can buy a domain from the Settings | Publishing tab,. Just select the Custom Domain option, enter the domain name you'd like and click Check Availability. This will take you to the Google Apps domain purchase website, which will let you know if the domain is available and proceed with the registration if it is. Finally, you'll go to Google Checkout where you'll make your payment. Your domain is registered with one of our registration partners, either eNom or GoDaddy.

You'll get a domain registration confirmation email from Google Apps. Clicking the link in this email allows you to sign this domain up for an Apps account. Google Checkout will also send you an email with the order receipt.

How do I use a custom domain name on my blog?

Publishing on Blog*Spot is the fastest and easiest way to use all of Blogger's great features. (And for free, no less!) If you don't care to have blogspot.com in your blog's address, though, you can get a domain of your own. We'll continue to host all your content as before, but it will be displayed at your new address. (Unlike FTP publishing, which requires you to buy both a domain name and a hosting service.)

Choose and Register Your Domain

The first thing you'll need to do is to choose a domain name, like mysite.com and register it. You can register domain names from any of a number of different registrars, and you can use .com, .org, .net or any other valid addresses. Remember: you only need to get the domain name; you don't have to pay extra for hosting service. The easiest way to register a domain is to buy your domain directly through Blogger. If you go this route, we'll automatically configure all of your relevant DNS settings and attach your new domain to your existing blog immediately.

Update the DNS Settings

DNS stands for Domain Name System, and a DNS server determines what site a given address takes you to. So far, you have a domain name but none of the servers on the internet know what to do with it yet. To take care of this, you need to create a CNAME record for your domain with the DNS, associating your domain with ghs.google.com. The exact procedure for doing this varies depending on your domain registrar, but you can find instructions for many common registrars here. If yours isn't listed, or if you run into other difficulties, you can contact your registrar directly and they'll be able to help you out.

Once you've told one particular DNS server about your new domain, it will have to transfer that information to all the other servers on the internet, which could take a couple of days. So be aware that your new domain won't necessarily be working instantly.

Update Your Blogger Settings

Almost done! At this point, you have a domain name, and the DNS servers know to direct people to Google when they want to see your blog. But Google hosts lots of blogs, so we have to make sure the right one is associated with this domain. You'll do this on the Settings | Publishing tab for your blog in Blogger.

If you're publishing on Blog*Spot, you'll see a link near the top offering to switch you to a custom domain. Go ahead and click that link.

The Blog*Spot Address setting now changes to Your Domain. Fill in the domain you registered, and then save your settings.

Now the only thing left to do is to tell everybody about your new address!

Notes:

• If your new domain isn't taking you to your blog, wait another day or two to make sure all the DNS servers have been updated. If it still isn't working, contact your registrar to make sure you entered the DNS settings correctly.
• Your original Blog*Spot address will automatically forward to your new domain. That way, any existing links or bookmarks to your site will still work.
• You can use this feature with domains (e.g. mysite.com) or subdomains (e.g. name.mysite.com). However, you cannot specify subdirectories (e.g. mysite.com/blog/) or wildcards (e.g. *.mysite.com).

What is an FTP Server?

What is FTP?

FTP is the publishing method by which Blogger transfers blog files to remote servers, so you only need to know about it if you are publishing to your own website. If you are using our free BlogSpot hosting, the publishing is all taken care of for you automatically.

Blogger works with both passive FTP and SFTP (secure FTP), but not active FTP. If your hosting provider only supports active FTP, you can ask them to enable either of the other versions so that you can work with Blogger.

What is an FTP Server?

An FTP server is a computer that uses FTP to accept uploaded files from users. The address of your FTP server usually looks something like this: ftp.example.com

When you purchase a hosting service, you should be provided with the address of the FTP server to use. If you do not have this information or you are unsure about it, please contact your hosting provider.

Notes:

• The default port numbers will be used (:21 for FTP and :22 for SFTP). Specifying an alternate port will not work.
• Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.

What is the FTP path?

FTP path tells Blogger where to place your blog files on your server. It should be of this format:

directory/directory/ (be sure to include the trailing slash)

If you're familiar with FTP, your "path" is your web-accessible directory. For example, it might be 'htdocs' or 'www' or 'public_html'

Or, if you want to put your blog in a subdirectory, 'htdocs/blog/' etc.

If all this sounds a bit complicated, try contacting your hosting provider for help. They can tell you how things should be set up for your specific server.

Notes:

• Do NOT use http://, ftp:// or ftp.example.com (your server's address)
• The directory you specify must already exist on your FTP Server
• This must not be an absolute path - it should be relative to your ftp root location on the server.

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Detailed Example (optional)

The path setting you use will depend entirely on how your server is configured, so this example should only be taken as an example of how to determine the correct path to use. The actual path shown here will not necessarily work on your own blog.

• Start up your favorite FTP program to access your account. If you don't have an FTP program, or don't know what that is, use Internet Explorer (on a PC) or Firefox (Mac or PC).
• To log in, you'll need to use the username and password that you set up with your hosting provider (not necessarily the same information that you use to log in to Blogger).
• In IE or Firefox, enter ftp://ftp.example.com in the address bar, substituting in the FTP address for your host. When you press Enter, it will prompt you for your username and password. Alternatively, you can enter ftp://username@ftp.example.com and it will just prompt you for the password. If you are using a different FTP program, you can probably enter all this information at once. If it asks for a default path or directory, leave that setting blank.
• Now that you've logged in, you should see a list of files and/or directories on your FTP account. Look for a folder with a name like httpdocs, www, public_html or anything that looks like it's supposed to contain web pages. On some servers, the folder is named the same as your domain, e.g. www.example.com. If you don't see an obvious candidate, ask your hosting provider where webpages are supposed to go. For this example, we'll say that the folder was called www.
• Once you find this folder name, it will be your path setting, e.g. www/. That may be all you need, if you just want your blog to be at the root level of your server, e.g. at http://www.example.com/myblog.html. (This is assuming you're publishing your blog with a filename of 'myblog.html'.)
• If you want your blog in a specific directory, you can just add that to the end of the path, like this: www/blog/. This will publish your blog to a location like this: http://www.example.com/blog/myblog.html. If the given folder does not yet exist on your account, Blogger will go ahead and create it for you.
• Once you've got your path setting figured out, you'll need to enter it not only for your Publishing settings, but also for your Archiving and Site Feed settings. Most likely, you'll just use the exact same settings on these pages. Some people though, like to put archives in a different folder, with a path like www/blog/archives/.