Related information regarding editing your Blogger template: Learn to Create the Coding! There is a vast amount of free information online that will help you learn different types of coding. They range from very basic to advanced, so you will always find something to suit your particular needs. Here are just a few:

Learn some basic HTML: One HTML site geared to beginners is Lissa Explains It All, a site written with children in mind. It is very easy to follow, and does include advanced HTML as well. This site has been online since its author was 11 years old, and she is now in college. Other resources:

See this Blogger Help resource, the Barebones Guide to HTML or W3CSchools HTML Tutorial or HTML Goodies for help with learning basic html coding skills. This skill-set will be necessary when you need to edit your Blogger template.

There are also many resources for learning CSS and even Javascript online when you are ready for those; you can find them by doing a search using Google or your favorite search engine.

As your skills develop and improve, you can add CSS: W3Schools CSS Tutorial
The Complete CSS Tutorial

and Javascript:
Javascript Tutorial

Page Tutor

Javascript Tutorial for Novices

Later, you can even use javascripts such as the ones from Dynamic Drive,
Hotscripts or many other such sites on the web.

Contacts in your blog: An Important Note About Spambots and How to Avoid Them:
One important reason for learning to code HTML has already been noted in this tutorial: It allows you to add links of all sorts to your blog, so that both you and your readers have access to the sites you link to. One such link you are likely to want to add is an e mail link, to allow readers to contact you if they have questions. You may want to set up an e-mail account specifically for your readers to use to contact you; this will help keep your regular-use e mail in-box from overflowing. One note of caution: You will likely want to take steps to encrypt the e-mail address that you place on your blog, to prevent it from being harvested by spam-bots. You can do this by using the E-mail Riddlertool from Dynamic Drive. If you would like to create a button for G Mail or one of several other e-mail services, please refer to my tutorial for detailed instructions and necessary resources.

Blogger Help, Features and Resources:
If you need assistance or have questions, a good place to look for information is Blogger Help.

The Blogger Dashboard
Each time you log in to Blogger.com, your first stop is the Blogger Dashboard. Think of it as a central control panel for Blogger. You can view a list of your blogs here, as well as viewing individual posts in a blog. You can edit posts or drafts as well, and you can click the view button to the right of the editor’s list of blog posts to view each entry’s post page, where the entries are each on their own page. This is helpful when you are using tags such as those for Technorati or De.licio.us on your posts. Be sure to check the bottom of the Dashboard page periodically for site news and announcements.

Your Blogger Template
The templates provided by Blogger are written in HTML and CSS code. (Some resources for learning HTML, CSS and more are included later in this tutorial.) The HTML and CSS coding controls the appearance of your blog and the functionality of its features. Blogger does provide a means for users to modify or edit the template. It is not mandatory that you edit your blog’s template; you can have a perfectly fine blog without doing so. There are some advantages to learning to edit the template, however. Among them:

1. It helps you learn to read, understand and begin to create the coding. This is the best way to learn coding; get your hands into it, and play with it. You can certainly find WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) text editors out there by the dozens, but many of them add extraneous code that is clunky and may or may not function as it should. Learn the basics yourself so that you know what to look for and how it should work, then get tools that will automate your work to allow you to be more productive, if you like.
2. It allows you to add your own personal content and touches to your blog, which is a personal medium of expression; for all that a (potentially) worldwide audience has access to it.
3. It allows you to take charge of your blog’s overall appearance and functionality, to make it “yours.” After all, scores of people may be using the exact same template as yours at any given time. You want yours to stand out in a crowd, and you can do that by adding your own personal touches. Besides, if you plan to spend any length of time maintaining your blog (and why would you not, given your interest in blogging and the benefits it can have for your business or other pursuits?), it is nice to have a comfortable, attractive and easy to use “space” of your own.
4. If something should go awry, you can troubleshoot and identify and fix the problem, with or without support.

To backup your template in Blogger: From the Blogger Dashboard, click the name of the blog for which you want to back up the template. The edit window will appear. Notice across the top of the window there are several tabs, including a Template tab; you will need to click this tab. On the next screen, there is a large window in which your template’s code appears. Place your mouse anywhere in this window, right-click your mouse, and choose select all. Copy all of the text (code) in the window. Open a text editor such as Notepad, and paste the selected text into the text editor. Give the file a name, and save it to your hard drive. Now, you have a backup copy of your template. Get into the routine of saving your template this way each time you edit it, and provide a distinctive name each time. Then, if something goes wrong, you can easily restore a saved copy of the template.

On a related note: You can also backup your entire blog.
detailed Instructions for doing so are available. It is of course easiest to do this when you have only a few posts and it is a good idea to make this a part of your regular routine. If you choose not to back up your posts using this method, you can simply save each of your posts in a text file in a folder on your computer. Also save any links you have in your sidebars on a regular basis. As with any backup, it is far better to have one and never need to use it than to need one and not have one available.

To restore a saved copy of a template: Select and delete the entire existing contents of the template window, then open your saved template file, select all of the text in it using your mouse or keyboard commands, then just copy the text into the blank template window, save your changes, and republish the blog.

To edit your template: You can edit your template by adding to or modifying its code. You can add links to your sidebar for quick access to favorite sites, or you can add various pieces of javascript or other code to add features to your blog. To edit, just copy the template code into your favorite text editor such as Notepad. Another good, free editor is Crimson Editor.
To change your template: If you decide to change your Blogger template, be sure to make a backup of any links or other code you want to keep, so you can place it in the new template. Changing the template without doing this will result in the loss of your added data or code. Under the Template tab, click “Pick new” to choose a new Blogger template, select the new one you want to use, then click the “use this template” button.

A Word About Viewing Source Code
When a novice blogger first looks at source code, it will likely seem wholly nonsensical and incomprehensible. It may even seem like a foreign language and it may feel like it will never be possible, let alone easy, to read. Do not let these impressions deter you. Put the blog you are viewing the source code for in one window if you are using IE (or in one tab in Firefox) and view the source code for the very same blog in another window or tab. Take note of where certain “landmarks” such as the links section are in the blog when it is open in standard view (that is, the blog itself is visible, not the source code), then take note of where the code for those same landmarks is within the source code. You will soon learn to orient yourself by looking for familiar landmarks. Open your text editor, and practice creating snippets of code (such as hyperlinks) so that they are click-able when you are finished. Soon, you will be able to write hyperlinks as quickly as you can type. One suggestion: Go ahead and create a second, “tester” blog, so that you can experiment without causing harm to your main blog’s template..

Some of the templates offered by Blogger as standard are similar to each other, while others differ sometimes markedly. This can take some getting used to, especially for a beginner. Remember: This is a learning process. Give yourself time to look around and do as much reading of help files and other Blogger information resources (including this tutorial!) as you can, and do take time to explore the various tabs, Windows and Settings within Blogger itself.

Blog Traffic: Tell People About Your Blog
Congratulations! You are now a blogger. Now, you may begin to feel as though you are shouting into an empty bucket: “Hello. . . ! Is anyone out there?” It can begin to feel rather lonely. When you’ve created your first few posts, you will likely want to think about how you can “advertise” your blog’s existence, or “presence” on the Internet. One way to do this is word-of-mouth: Tell friends and associates, and ask if they will spread the word. Another way is to register or list your blog on blog search engines. There are many blog search engines you can choose from, and you can even choose several. Here’s a selection from a recent Google search:

· Feedster: Feedster This one is for RSS feeds
· FeedBurner: FeedBurner
· IceRocket: IceRocket
· BlogExplosion: Blog Explosion
· Blogdex: Blogdex
· Blogarama: Blogarama
· Blogdigger: Blogdigger
· Bloglines: Bloglines

You can register your blog for free with any or all of these or other search engines. Blogger.com also offers helpful suggestions to help increase traffic to your blog. Find them here. Once you have your blog established with just a few posts and have registered with the blog search engines of your choice, the next step is to let those search engine sites know when you’ve updated your blog. You can do so by pinging the sites. As with most things that are blog-related today, you have several pinging services, such as Pingoat to choose from. Here is one site I found that provides a list of several pinging services you can choose from; you can use more than one pinging service as well.

An Introduction to Blogs
Before I ever began writing my blogs, I was reading them. You can find interesting, informative, instructive, fun, newsworthy or even controversial blogs everywhere on the Internet; just use a search engine such as Google’s new BlogSearch or similar search engine, (more below about these), and begin reading. When you find blogs you like, you can place them on a blogroll, in a list that you can even post on your own blog. I use a free Blogrolling account for this, and I’ve placed a bit of code into the template of my blog to display the blogroll in a sidebar. The blogroll is, in my opinion, better than simply having bookmarks for various blogs in a folder. For one thing, if I am away from my own computer and for some reason I can’t access my bookmarks, my blogroll will likely still be available (unless of course the blogrolling site is down.) Plus, clicking an easily visible hyperlink for a blog is quicker than rummaging through folders looking for a link. Also, I began viewing the source code of blogs I enjoyed, to see how the coding was written and how features such as drop-down menus were implemented. If you have Internet Explorer, go to View in the menu bar, and choose Source. This will open the source code so that you can see it and study it. I find it helpful to use Mozilla’s Firefox browser and its “View Source With” extension, (setup to use my favorite text editor for viewing the code) because I can keep the blog open in one tab and open another tab for viewing source code; it is a matter of a mouse-click or two to switch back and forth between the tabs. This is how I learned to read Blogger’s source code, and I used a text editor to copy and work with code I wanted to use, to learn how it worked.

Getting Started with Blogger: Create Your Blog
You have decided you want a blog. This is easy to do with Blogger:
Step 1: Go to http://www.blogger.com/start, and click on the “create your blog now” arrow. The first step is to create a Blogger account. Here you will choose your user name, set your password, (you will need them each time you log in to Blogger.com, although you can check the “Remember Me” box to set a cookie for your log in if you like) and choose a display name for your new blog’s signature line. Just fill in the requested information (including a valid e mail address) in the text boxes, then read and accept the Terms of Service. Click the Continue arrow to proceed.

Step 2. Choose a title for your blog, and enter the URL (this may be a form of your blog title. Example: One of my blogs is titled “Angelsong’s Firefox Index”. The URL I chose is http://angelsongsfxindex.blogspot.com, which is the actual web address for the blog. Complete the word verification by typing the text you see into the text box. Click the Continue arrow to go to the final step.

Step 3: Choose a template for your blog. There are a number of templates available on Blogger; choose any one you like. (You can change your template later, if you like.)
When your blog is created, you can begin posting right away, or you can create a profile for yourself and tweak your blog’s settings first. You will see an edit window where you will type your blog entry; provide a title for your first post, and write whatever you like. You can create as many blogs as you like, and you can have blogs for different purposes. It’s completely up to you. That is one of the best things about blogs and blogging: The blogger is in charge.

Preface: THe inspiration for this tutorial came to me last week in the form of an Instant Message from an online friend, who left it at 2:30 AM. My friend said he has decided he wants a blog, and he "needs blogging 101." I found the message later that morning, and this is my response. I have decided to include it as part of my blog in case others need it also.


If you’ve been out and about on the Internet at all, you have likely seen references to “blogs”, “blogging” and “bloggers”. You may even have read a blog or two, (if you are reading this, it may even be a blog entry!) and now you’ve decided you want a blog (or several) of your own. Welcome to an exciting and dynamic part of the world of online writing and publishing; come on in! This tutorial will help you get started by providing some basic blogging information plus somewhat more advanced information and resources. I know I am presenting a lot of information here; this is a collection of resources and information I’ve gathered in a little more than a year of blogging. To make it easier for you to use and refer to, I’ve created sections. Take what you need, use it, and then come back for more when you are ready. No rush, no pressure; you can proceed at any pace comfortable for you.

What is a blog? Defining a few terms:
Let’s begin with a few definitions. A “blog” is short for “weblog”, which is simply an online journal or diary to which one or more people post entries on a regular basis. A blog can be used for a business, to share news and information about a product, service or company, or it can also be personal, to document events in day-to-day life. A blog can also be useful for instruction via posted tutorials. For some people including myself, a blog may be their first foray into the world of online publishing, and can be a way to gain certain skills, such as writing or editing hypertext markup language (HTML) or cascading style sheets (CSS) code, via editing a blog’s template. I will provide more information about templates and editing shortly, so keep reading . . .

“Blogging” is the process of creating and maintaining a blog. A blog is maintained via postings, or entries made on a regular basis. A “blogger” is a blog’s writer or contributor.. Note: I draw a distinction between “blogger” and “Blogger”. For the purposes of this tutorial, Blogger refers to a specific blog platform, which is owned and operated by Google. (There are many other choices of blogging platforms available; you can search them out on the Internet. Some of these are free; others require a fee. Also, some, such as Blogger, are hosted; others require you to have a web server to upload them onto. Blogger is hosted on Blogspot. This discussion focuses on Blogger, since that is the one I am currently using and therefore the one with which I am most familiar.)

Blogger is a good choice of blogging platform for beginning bloggers, because it offers useful features that are fairly easy to use (such as editable templates) and it is free. New features are planned for Blogger, and several have been added to make it easier and more productive for new users. One such feature is Blogger for Word. This is a downloadable plug-in for Microsoft Word that makes it possible to write, edit and post a blog entry from inside Word. This tutorial is being composed in a Word document. It is also possible to include photographs in a blog entry, using Blogger. Formerly, a user had to do this via two external programs. Currently, all it takes is a few mouse clicks in Blogger. You can also host photos and other types of small files such as icons on an external site such as ImageShack.

Last night, Jay had to go out of town. It wasn't a business trip, and it didn't sound like it was much fun...but it was necessary. He had an appointment at a sleep clinic to be tested to see if he has sleep apnea. I've been concerned about this for a while, since I noticed that he appears to stop breathing periodically during sleep. (That's the definition of sleep apnea).

So it was off the VA hospital northwest of the city for the night. He had a motel style room, with bath, and a technician to run the equipment while he slept. He told me it took 45 minutes for the elelctrodes and monitoring equipment to be attached, after he did some baseline measures for calibraiton of the equipment. He went to bed between 10:30 and 11 PM, and he told the technician when he was going to bed. The test began a few minutes after that, and ended at 6:30 AM, when the techician woke him to remove the electrodes.

Now, we have about a month to wait until the results are available; he is to phone for them in a month. All the techician would say this morning was that Jay moved a lot, and that the testing yielded "good data". Bottom line is, we're not sure what to think. I suppose we'll just have to wait.

While surfing the internet today, I came across Virtual ScratchPad. Matthew Sheffield, the blog's author, has described a simple way of putting categories into Blogger. See his postfor complete instructions, code and information. This looks like a good approach if you have not yet implimented categories on Blogger, and would like to do so.

For some time, I have read a number of online computing newsletters. Among them is Inforpackets Gazette, by Dennis Faas. Doug, my collaborator on The Handicapped Computerist, also reads Infopackets. Yesterday, I returned from lunch to find an IM from Doug: "E-MAIL". He had sent me a copy of an e mail he received from Dennis, who has invited interested bloggers to participate in writing articles for inclusion in Infopackets. Doug responded to that invitation by telling Dennis about "HC" (our shorthand for The Handicapped Computerist), and Dennis has invited us to be contributors! Both Doug and I are very excited to be asked to contribute to Infopackets. If you'd like to subscribe, it's free, and you will find much useful and informative content, along with files to download, if you enjoy trying new programs.