Changing the Color Style in Blogger, Part III

After all that, I hope you're ready to make the changes. If you've never made any changes to your template before you don't need to worry about ruining your site as Blogger has a "Revert widget templates to default" link. If things go kablooie click on the "Revert widget templates to default" link and everything will go back to what it was.

If you have made changes before then I assume you know that you need keep a back-up copy just in case. Otherwise the "Revert widget templates to default" link will erase all your previous changes.

First thing to do is to make certain that you like the class name. I think it is good practice to use descriptive names. In this case "sideRight" or "sideLink" or what-have-you. If you want a different name go back into LAYOUT > EDIT HTML and change the name of your style.

Then you'll have to add the class name to all the links on the right side. Don't worry if you have lots of links, you won't have to make many changes. HOWEVER this will probably be your first forray into changing server-side scripts so it will be a little different than what you're used to.

To test this out and to give yourself confidence to a CTRL F (to find information on a page) and type in "href" in the text box. You will probably have two matches. Go and verify that for yourself. Now select "Expand Widget Templates."

Here's where the confusing part comes in. You have to find the correct href to make changes too. If you're labeling your widgets you'll have an easier time. For my first few changes I searched for the WIDGET label, then it's easy to see where to make the change. The first image shows the text as I found it. The second one with the class added to

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE IT LARGER AND CLEARER

CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE IT LARGER AND CLEARER

You'll see that I called the style "side". I did that to keep all the code lined up from image to image. Side is a bad name. It's not descriptive enough and there are too many "side" to do an efficient search. "sideRight" is a far better name.

Remember, after you make a change. Save it, take a look at what you've done. You can always reverse it later.

How to Organize your Programs in Windows

Maybe it's because it's a pet peeve of mine but I hate going seeing unorganized programs on a client's machine. Each time I mention it to someone I get the same "I didn't know I could organize my programs."

On XP right-click on the START button and select Open All Users. Select Programs and then create folders and move programs around as desired.

Microsoft versus i4i: Patent Trolling or Patent Infringement

There's a good article in eWeek, Patent Ruling Against Microsoft Hinges on Meaning of Custom XML, reviewing the patent infringement lawsuit between i4i and Microsoft.

Here's the kicker: Reading through the decision, it's almost as if both the jury and judge felt that the XML editor portion of Word was the only place where XML was being used (it's not) and that this is where the alleged metacode data structure was being created (doubtful; if there is one, it would be created elsewhere).

One of the problems I have with this lawsuit is that the process which was "patented" in 1994 had become commonplace five years later - without i4i doing anything to bring it into the market. It seems more and more to me like patent trolling to me.

Meta-Tag Generators, Which is the best?

Readers of this blog know that I've been saying, for a long time, that META tags are not very useful and, for the most part, not worth your time. Do not waste your time and money developing META tag generators. META tags will not help you get your site ranked higher.

The only value of META tags is that accurate META tag information may help in clickthrough. Google and other SEs will sometimes display the META description in their results page.

See Meta Tags and Title Tags

AOL, Google & Facebook

At one time AOL was the 800 pound gorilla. They were the social networking site of the 1990s (and I must say that I ridiculed the idea at the time). AOL tried to be the portal by which we all entered the web. They failed. At one time people feared the rise of Microsoft. Now Microsoft has become like AT&T: last years powerhouse and today's ho-hum large corporation.

What will become of Google and Facebook? Combined they will make one hell of a team.

Who uses Meta Tags in Search Ranking

As far as I know Yahoo is the only major search engine that still supports the META keywords tag. The question that must be asked is: how high in their algorithm to they place the META tags in comparision to words in the title, body, anchor text, etc...?

We know that the META keyword tag is still being indexed and used in Yahoo's site description. For that reason and that alone it would make sense to KEEP the field (as well as META description) if, and only if, your CMS already has it built in; and you have default keywords and descriptions so employees do not have to waste time with them.

All in all, while these META tags don't hurt, they don't particularly help either. If they are automatically entered fine. Don't remove them. I don't see a ROI should you need employees to spend any time deciding on values for either of these tags.

Facebook and IE6

As of a few days ago Facebook no longer supports IE6. Hurray

Facebook puts up the following notice to IE6 users:

Did you know that your browser is out of date?

Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 is no longer supported. To get the best possible experience using our website we recommend that you upgrade to a newer web browser such as: Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer 8. The upgrade is free. If you're using a PC at work you should contact your IT administrator.

IE6 has been on the Facebook chopping block for about a year. See Facebook Doesn't Really Support IE6

What this mean for site owners, web developers, IAs, and the like is that one more nail is being put into the IE6 coffin. I'm not a Microsoft hater but IE6 is a terrible browser and testing for its non-standard idiosyncrasies takes an awful lot of time (money).

Of course, until big corporations do a system wide upgrade IE6 will continue to be a thorn in our side. Large corporation don't care if their employees can't use Facebook. It may even be considered to be a reason to forstall upgrades. :-) Nonetheless when major corporations, such as Facebook, stop supporting IE6 the writing is on the wall. IE6 is going the way of NN4+

As a side note, as far as my sites are concerned, IE6 is about 15% of the total usage. That's too high a percentage to ignore.