Templates

 

A while back, I was chatting with someone.  I told her that it was curious that most of my friends do not maintain their own blogs.  In fact, most have not even heard of the concept.  Interestingly enough, three of them recently started their own journey into blog self expression.  For the benefit of brand new bloggers who are normal people (defined as non-techie or non-geek), here are a few tips:

 

1) Pictures - I used to rip off pictures from Geocities.  I uploaded pictures in my account there and then used the <IMG SRC> tag to retrieve the picture.  Geocities now doesn't allow non-Geocities sites to access these pictures.  Now, I use Hello, which is a partner of Blogger I think.  Look for it.  I keep forgetting how I stumbled upon it.  You may also find another picture server and use the <IMG SRC> tag.  Top of mind are Tripod, Freeservers and Virtualave, if they still exist. 

 

2) Sidebar - My Nakakawiling Sayts section is the example.  How do you pattern it after the template?  Well just look at the tags in the sidebar.  For example, the About, Search, and Previous sections are all enclosed in <h2> tags.  Therefore, you do the same for your new sidebar title.  Study your template though, because it differs for each one.  The items are enclosed in <li> tags for the bulleted effect.  If you want to indent and bullet, use <ul> before the <li> series.  Remember that the tag rule is Last in First Out (LIFO).  The latest tag you open is the first one you close like so: <ul><li><li></ul>.  I never close the <li> tags, however, because I'm not sure if it's necessary.