Blogger Fix: Inserting Star Ratings (For Custom Templates)

While it's awsome to see Google unleashing new features within Blogger, if you are unable to implement them within your own blog, you may find yourself catching the dreaded "Google Derangement Syndrone" (aka GDS) where every other phrase is "Google is so Fraking stupid" (or something like that).



In order to avoid this contagious disease (which first broke out in Redmond, WA), you need to find solutions to problems--and today's problem is implementing the star rating system within your customized Blogger blog (aka BlogSpot).

After logging into your blog, first click on Layout, then Page Elements.

Then scroll down to the Blog Posts page element, and click on the Edit link.

 

A new window shold appear. Next, check mark the Show Star Ratings box...

...then scroll down and rearrange where you want the star ratings to appear.

Save your changes, then click on the Edit HTML section (which should still be underneath the Layout tab).

Next you need to BACK UP YOUR TEMPLATE! I would recommend either copy & pasting your entire code within Google Docs or Note Pad (highly recommended) by clicking on the Expand Widgets Template box...

 

...then holding the Ctrl button while pushing the letter "A", then the Ctrl button again while pushing the letter "C" and once over into Google Docs or Note Pad push the Ctrl button and the letter "V".

You can also just simply download the template to your computer as well by clicking the Download Full Template link underneath the Backup / Restore Template section.

After backing up your template, scroll down towards the bottom left of the screen and hit the Revert widget templates to default link.

A "questionnaire" should appear (note: hey that rhymed!) informing you that this will change all of your widget changes, although your data will be safe.

 

Simply click the OK button to continue, then save the changes to your blog.

That's it! Now you should have the star ratings system in your blog.

You will also notice a few changes with your blog layout, which you can easily correct since you wisely backed up your template (if went against my advice, then you are a fool person who doesn't like taking my advice).

If you still have any questions, feel free to comment below. Enjoy! ;-)

Update: Inserted image for clarity.



Update 2: Also, for those of you trying to get the comment form working, Amanda has provided an excellent solution over here.

The iPhone Has Been Hacked!

Yeah, I know, I am a geek, but I have been drooling over getting the iPhone for quite some time, although I didn't feel like selling my soul to AT&T.

Now it seems that someone has liberated the iPhone, which is good news for Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint fans!

(Engadget) The iPhoneSIMfree.com team called us up to prove their claim that they cracked Apple's iPhone SIM lock system, and prove it they did. (No, we don't have a copy of the unlock software, so don't even ask us, ok?) The six-man team has been working non-stop since launch day, and they're officially the first to break Apple's SIM locks on the iPhone with software. It's done. Seriously. They wouldn't tell us when and how they would release it to the public, but you can certainly bet that they'll try to make a buck on their solution (and rightly so). We can hardly believe the iPhone's finally been cracked. No, scratch that -- we just can't believe it took this long.

Again: we can confirm with 100% certainty that iPhoneSIMfree.com's software solution completely SIM unlocks the iPhone, is restore-resistant, and should make the iPhone fully functional for users outside of the US.

What makes this really ironic is that later on today, a second company also accomplished the same thing!

I am still trying to figure out if this would be legal for me to use (although according to this lawyer it is, but I'll have to get a second opinion) but it looks like an iPhone is definitely in my future...although I might have to choose between that and the OQO.

Cyber Terrorists Beware: No Googlebomb For You!

It looks like Google just got rid of (or at least greatly suppressed) the ability of bloggers and websites to Googlebomb those they despise.

(Google Webmaster Blog) People have asked about how we feel about Googlebombs, and we have talked about them in the past. Because these pranks are normally for phrases that are well off the beaten path, they haven't been a very high priority for us. But over time, we've seen more people assume that they are Google's opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That's not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception. So a few of us who work here got together and came up with an algorithm that minimizes the impact of many Googlebombs.

Previously typing in failure in Google brought up President Bush (thanks to liberal bloggers) and Israeli bloggers did something something similar to Prime Minister Olmert.

It looks like for the first time (in a long time) Google has recaptured the Internet (or the Internet on its servers) before politics ruined it for everyone.

Note: I wonder if Yahoo plans on doing the same thing for their search engine?

Update: Silly me! I forgot the to add the "quotations" for my source. As well as corrected a noticeable spelling error.

Revisiting That "404 WWW" Blogger Issue

After previously posting about how to fix the mysterious 404 WWW issue with Blogger, I think I may have found a faster (and more simple) fix.

I tested this out with one blog already, and I am sure everyone else is going to love this as well (well, mostly everyone else).

Note: This may or may not require you to sign up with Google Apps (I don't think it should, but you never know).

1. First, login to your host account, and locate the area of your account where you can create sub domains (on GoDaddy simply pull up the page listing your domain(s) and click on the one you want to create an account on. Then click on the Manage Sub domains account).
2. Next, create a sub domain on the page. Since we all love Google, lets call it "google" (no pun intended).
   
3. Underneath you should have an option to forward the domain to a URL. Simply type in your www.mydomain.com (with the "WWW's") and click save.

Now what is going to happen is that whenever someone clicks on mydomain.com it will automatically select the sub-domain google.mydomain.com as its first choice (don't ask me why it does this, but it does for some strange silly reason).

As soon as your "google" alias pops up, your server will redirect you to mydomain.com.

This is a lot more simple and easier than my previous explanation (and a lot faster too). This should work after ten minuets, but give it a day to make it "round the net."

As always, feel free to comment if you have any questions, concerns or praises (I like those) regarding this issue.

Update: You should not need to point this CNAME to a host directly. Also, I updated the "google." to "google" (without the period) in the post.

Resolving That "404 WWW" Blogger Issue

For those of you who switched their blog*spot blogs to Google's custom domain for blogger, you may have run into some unexpected errors, mainly being only able to publish either directly to your domain (example: mycoolblog.com) or to the "www" address (example: www.mycoolblog.com) but not both.

After finding many other bloggers experiencing the same thing, I decided to do some testing to see if there was a way to resolve this.

Note: Make sure your CNAME has an alias of www (or the place you want to publish your blog) as well as having the host account point to ghs.google.com.

1. The first thing I did was create a Google Apps account, adding my blog domain to its services.
2. Next, I would select the available Google services. Although you can select all or none of the features to add to your blog, you must choose the Domain Web Pages feature.
3. After adding this feature, you should see a link that says something to the sort of Activating the web pages (underneath the Domain Web Pages image). Click on it.
4. Make sure that you put "www" as the publishing address. This will do one of two things. Either a) It will kick blogger from originally publishing to the domain (which is good) or b) blogger will refuse to move (not as good, but okay). If blogger is stubborn simply publish on mycoolblog.com, in order to let Google Apps have a turn at "www."
5. If you are unable to publish to "www" via Google apps, create a new sub name/alias instead. On the left should be in bold a category called Services. Find the Domain Web Pages link and then click the Change web publishing address on the screen and select an alias such as "about," "google" or even "darnell" if you would like. ;-)
6. Visit the "www" domain (or the alias you created in its place) and make sure you see a 404 error in an off color mellow yellow orange (note: what is that color anyways?). If you don't see it, try refreshing a couple of times.
7. Wait about five to ten minuets after seeing the 404 error, and then delete your Domain Web Pages from your current account, and republish blogger to the "www."
8. Give the internet 24 hours and with any luck (as well as some prayers) your mycoolblog.com should redirect to www.mycoolblog.com.

After testing this on several of my weblogs (ColonyWorlds.com, IsraGood.com, InsideOrkut.com as well as this one) I found this to be the only consistent method that seemed to make this work (as to why it works, you'll have to ask someone else that question).

One of my blogs redirected within a few seconds. Another one took several minuets while two of mine took almost 24 hours before they were functioning. I would also give it 48 hours until all of your friends see the same thing, (as it takes awhile for the new settings to register throughout the entire internet.

If you have any problems, comments or questions, feel free to post them here.

Update 1/17): If this doesn't work (or is too slow/confusing for you) try this easier and (hopefully) faster one.

Resolving That Firefox Leak...

Thanks to Forever Geek I finally found a way to reduce the memory hog leak on Firefox that was killing me every time I was online.

Here are the instructions for those of you also afflicted with the "Slow-mo-fox" disease.

1. type "about:config" (no quotes) in the browser.
2. Find browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewer
3. set it's value to "0″

This reduces the memory, but Firefox can also continue to steal your thunder even when you close it down. These next tips will help put an end to that issue.

1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.

My computer already feels a heck of a lot faster. Now I can actually write about my life.

Note: It looks like this may have resolved my earlier issue with Firefox before too. :-)