Once upon a time, flickr had a nice arrangement with MOO and QOOP, both printing services, that let you print cards and calendars and whatnot through flickr. But then they made a deal with Snapfish and the connections with MOO and QOOP were no more, at least, not through flickr. I've made MOO cards (similar to business cards, but smaller) using my pics on flickr since the change, but they don't do calendars, so it was off to QOOP I went to make a calendar for 2011 to put into an art show in May. But they don't seem to let you choose pics from flickr, anymore, or at least, I couldn't see where, and I'd made a calendar that way 2 years ago. So I decided to try Snapfish, and, no surprise, they only have 2010 calendar templates right now. So back to QOOP. But first, I had to download the 12 pics I wanted from flickr because I no longer have them on my PC and didn't feel like sorting through the backup files. The downloading went fairly quickly. The uploading in QOOP was not as fast, but at least they had a 2011 calendar setup.
Finally, the calendar was done. Now I wanted to print up some cards for the art show, too, so back to flickr and Snapfish. The site makes QOOP and MOO, both of which have their annoyances, look positively intuitive. I want 1 each of 12 cards. I set them up in flickr, was directed over to Snapfish and now I sit waiting for them to move over. I've chosen my card design but have no idea if I can do 1 each of the 12 or even if I can choose one photo or if it will default to the first. Granted, my internet connection is slow today, probably because of the rainstorm, but Snapfish seems frozen on Uploading and has been for 3 minutes so far. I think I'll quit for the night. Snapfish, I'm not feeling the love. And I'm not too thrilled with flickr right now, either.
~~~o0o~~~
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Loving the New Template Designer
If you'd been wondering if Draft Blogger was worth trying, any doubts should be erased right now. You need Draft Blogger to take advantage of the new template design features currently in beta. Truly, this is not something to wait for it to be released into Blogger proper. The thing is as flexible as can be. Not only are there 4 basic new templates, each with a few versions, but most of them let you change the background to one of a large variety of designs or stock photos.
The fun doesn't end there. You can also customize the layout, and by customizing, I mean you can customize the overall layout of the blog's body and then pick a layout for the footer, which allows for a whole lot of variations. You can also vary the widths of the blog and the sidebars. Then you can move around your page elements/gadgets and choose colors if you don't like the defaults, and you have control over background colors for the page as well as for the gadgets, links, text, etc. As before, you can add in any header image you want, using the header element/gadget. I would think you can also use your own background images if you upload them somewhere, ie to Picasa, by going into the html and coding it in place of the images that come with the template. I haven't tried that yet.
You should back up your template before you start. I did that a while back, so I plunged right in. But to make sure I didn't lose anything and would be able to quickly add things back (without bothering with the template backup, I opened two different browsers. I did my editing in Firefox. In Chrome, I opened the blog and was able to copy and paste text and links I'd hard coded into the original template into a new gadget in the new template. I was very careful to not refresh the blog in Chrome after saving in Firefox in order to not lose the original until I was ready. I think that sounds more confusing than it was to do, and you probably wouldn't need or want to bother with that, especially if you hadn't typed text and links in between elements in your template's html.
Here are the blogs I've redone so far:
When I have more time, I'll get to my other blogs. I've been wanting to spruce up Cyber Chocolate, and this gives me a good excuse and an easy way to do it.
Edited to add: I decided to do this blog, too. This is a work in progress, though. I want to widen the body and redo the header to fit. That way, I can perhaps add a sidebar so this thing doesn't scroll forever vertically. Let me know what you think about it so far.
~~~o0o~~~
The fun doesn't end there. You can also customize the layout, and by customizing, I mean you can customize the overall layout of the blog's body and then pick a layout for the footer, which allows for a whole lot of variations. You can also vary the widths of the blog and the sidebars. Then you can move around your page elements/gadgets and choose colors if you don't like the defaults, and you have control over background colors for the page as well as for the gadgets, links, text, etc. As before, you can add in any header image you want, using the header element/gadget. I would think you can also use your own background images if you upload them somewhere, ie to Picasa, by going into the html and coding it in place of the images that come with the template. I haven't tried that yet.
You should back up your template before you start. I did that a while back, so I plunged right in. But to make sure I didn't lose anything and would be able to quickly add things back (without bothering with the template backup, I opened two different browsers. I did my editing in Firefox. In Chrome, I opened the blog and was able to copy and paste text and links I'd hard coded into the original template into a new gadget in the new template. I was very careful to not refresh the blog in Chrome after saving in Firefox in order to not lose the original until I was ready. I think that sounds more confusing than it was to do, and you probably wouldn't need or want to bother with that, especially if you hadn't typed text and links in between elements in your template's html.
Here are the blogs I've redone so far:
When I have more time, I'll get to my other blogs. I've been wanting to spruce up Cyber Chocolate, and this gives me a good excuse and an easy way to do it.
Edited to add: I decided to do this blog, too. This is a work in progress, though. I want to widen the body and redo the header to fit. That way, I can perhaps add a sidebar so this thing doesn't scroll forever vertically. Let me know what you think about it so far.
~~~o0o~~~
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Look at the Pretty
Blogger's getting a makeover, according to Blogger Buzz. The actual detailed info is here in Blogger in Draft's blog.One of the most asked for enhancements to Blogger has been new and improved template designs and now, in the draft version of Blogger, we're getting them. Including -- ta da -- 3 column templates.
I will be trying them out. I will be redoing some of my blogs. I am so very happy about this. I just need to figure out how to keep my graphics while changing my template, so it will take me a while to rebuild things. But this is the big update I've been longing for.
~~~o0o~~~
I will be trying them out. I will be redoing some of my blogs. I am so very happy about this. I just need to figure out how to keep my graphics while changing my template, so it will take me a while to rebuild things. But this is the big update I've been longing for.
~~~o0o~~~
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Making Facebook More Social
These 16 Facebook applications sound like they can be useful for both personal profile pages and fan pages. I haven't tried any, so can't comment from personal experience, but I might give one or two a go.
~~~o0o~~~
~~~o0o~~~
Monday, March 01, 2010
Google and Picnik Perfect Together?
Google has bought Picnik, an online photo editor, which should greatly enhance its Picasa photo sharing service. I can't wait to see how this shakes out because Picnik is partnered with flickr, which is owned by Yahoo, Google's main rival. Talk about complicated relationships!
~~~o0o~~~
~~~o0o~~~
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