How to take better pictures - no matter what sort of camera you have

This weekly blogger tip is complements of Shutterfly:   tips about how to take great photos, of various types, no matter what sort of camera you use.

Why?


Why take your own pictures, when there are so many free-photo-search tools out there?

Well, if you want your blog to be copyright-legal, then you need to either find free-use photos, or make your own. Creating your own post-photos is especially useful to prove that your local blog really is local (like this) - and taking pictures that I take myself and host pictures in Picasa / Google+ Photos means that my posts always have a thumbnail image.


How?

Great tips from the pros, here: http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/

The best bit is that this isn't just a glossy, or a snobby "fancy-cameras-only" guide.    There are tips for every combination of  camera type:
  • DSLR
  • Smartphone
  • Point and shoot
and photo type:
  • Portraits
  • Selfie
  • Bokeh
  • Macro
  • Action shots
  • Close up
  • Wide angle
  • Food
  • Candid
  • By the water
  • Landscape
  • Panorama





PS Shutterfly said
"Please share this interactive on your site or blog. Just copy and paste the code below"

So I did. But it looks like it's not working 100%. To get into their tool, click here: http://www.shutterfly.com/how-to-take-the-perfect-photo/


Happy snapping!

Giving your Blog a Home Page

This article is about the options for setting the home page for blogs made with Google's Blogger.


Blogs don't have a "home page", main page or "landing page" in the same way that regular web-sites do.  Instead, they show the newest post first, since (hopefully!) most readers will be return visitors, coming back to see what's new.

But there may be blogs/websites where you want a welcome message or a particular post to appear first whenever someone visits your blog, or where you want to put all your posts in reverse order.

This article is about options for giving your Blogger blog a "home page".

It lists four options, and gives advantages/disadvantages of each approach, and links to articles with details about implementing each case. If you can think of any more approaches, please leave a comment below.


Options for giving your blog a home page include:

  • Static page combined with a custom re-direct - as discovered by Nitecruzr, and now described here.  This was my recommended method of home-page implementation for a while.   However it did not work on mobile themes for a while, so I changed my mind.  But it does work on them now, so I'm back to recommending it again.


Advantages and Disadvantages of each option


Option Advantages Disadvantages
Static page and custom re-direct No theme editing is needed

Easy page editing - no messing around putting content into a gadget

No gaps on other pages due to the gadget being "missing"

Simple, elegant, and fully functional for both desktop and mobile visitors.
Back in 2011, I wrote:  
"Google probably didn't intend to give us this option when they set up custom re-directs, so it's possible that they might remove it again.   It's such a nice solution, though, that I think it's worth the risk for now".
But it's now 2017, they haven't removed it yet.   So I'm thinking that it's not going away any time soon.
Show all posts in reverse order Great for new readers - they can "follow the story". Return visitors have to navigate down to where they were up to last time:  the blog has no way of helping them to remember where that was.

You can't use most of Blogger's date features:  newer and older posts links will take the reader in the "wrong" direction.  And you have to manually enter any dates that would be relevant.

Your posts will get "older" as you write more:  this may confuse search-engines, and there's a risk that google might to things to "very old" posts in the future.
Make one post always show up first You can still use all of Google's date features.

Readers will know when you actually posted to your blog.

Great for returning readers:  they can see your (current) welcome comments, and then go straight to the latest post after that.
You have to remember to edit the "chosen" post every single time that you make a new post - one day, you might forget.

This approach probably won't work on multi-author blogs:  there's a very high chance that someone would forget to edit the chosen post and change its date.
Show a "welcome gadget" on the home page only Doesn't need any changes to Post date-time settings.

Your blog still functions like a blog (older/newer post links , archive gadget etc).

An HTML/Javascript gadget can be very flexible, and you can get Blogger to write all the HTML for you - see Making a Gadget Like a Post.

You can use things other than text, eg a picture or even a poll.

It includes an extreme option:  you could show no posts on the "home" page, and just show the gadget.
You need to edit your theme to make this work.

You need to re-do the theme customisation every time that you change to use a different theme.

The welcome gadget isn't one of your posts: it's not included in exports of your blog contents (It is in an export of your theme - but the words inside it are not included).

A gadget cannot show quite as many things as a post.  

Doesn't work for mobile device users if your blog has a mobile theme enabled, unless you some some specific things to make the gadget show on mobile.


Can you think of other ways?   Please leave a comment below.



Setting the homepage's post date into the future doesn't work

Some people suggest that you can set the post-date of your main page in the future - and at some times  this has worked.

But now that scheduled posting is working the way most people expect it to (ie if you write a post today, and publish it with tomorrow's date, then it is shown to your readers from tomorrow onwards), this will not work - because your "home page" won't show until that future date is reached.

There may be some ways you can fudge it in to working (eg post the page with a date in the past, and then post it again with a future date).   But I VERY STRONGLY don't recommend this:  even if they work today, they may stop working at some time in the future when Google make a change to how future-dated posts are handled.



Related Articles

Displaying a gadget only on the home page

Showing your oldest post first in Blogger (AKA Showing your posts in reverse order)

Making one post always come up first

Changing the date for a post.

Stopping certain pages from ever appearing on the home page

AdSense, mobile templates and Analytics - and how they do (or don't) work together


If you

then it's an extremely good idea to have at least one AdSense ad-unit that was made with Blogger's official AdSense widget rather than by getting the code from AdSense and installing it manually.



This is because the a majority of gadgets don't show up on the screen when a visitor using a mobile device (cellphone or tablet) looks at a blog which has a mobile template set up for it - and by default this includes AdSense gadgets.   When a mobile visitor looks at a blog, Blogger does check to see if AdSense is used on it, and if so it shows one or two ad-units to them.  But unfortunately these checks only detect AdSense gadgets, not AdSense code in HTML/Javascript gadgets or added directly to the template.   So the net effect is that unless you have one of the official AdSense gadgets, mobile visitors to your blog will not see any AdSense ads.

Some more things to note

There is a way to explicitly say that certain gadgets should be shown on your blog when it's viewed in mobile.    However I've found that due to a problem in Blogger, if you use this method, you will get an error message every time you try to manually edit your template.

Also, because of the limits to the number of AdSnese ads you can show, it seems logical that the one official AdSense gadget on your blog should be a link unit - specially since AdSense earnings through Blogger gadgets are not reported in Analytics even if it is properly set up for your blog.   However at the moment, if you try to add a link-unit to a Blogger-site, then you get an error message like this:


"Please correct the errors on this form"
The error message when you try to add an AdSense Link unit in Blogger

This only appears when a link-unit has been selected, and I have not been able to find any way to work around this problem when adding a link-unit of any size.


Non-US based Amazon Associates must "perform all services" outside the US

An interesting addition to Amazon's terms and conditions for their Associates (announced here):
“If you are a Non-US person participating in the Program, you agree that you will perform all services under the Operating Agreement outside the United States. If, for any reason, you cannot comply with this requirement, you must notify us using this link for an exception.”

My guess is that this is something to do with tax-regulations, and is worth a few moments thought (at least) for Bloggers who use Amazon Associates links to earn money from their blogs.    

But it also made me wonder about bloggers who travel a lot:   we possibly shouldn't be doing any work inside a country where we don't have a visa that allows us to work.   I wonder if that includes writing blog posts, or perhaps even drafting but not publishing them or taking pictures for them? 

Look at the receipients of the "registration will renew automatically in X days" email to work out your domain-administration login name

This article is about how you can work out what Google Account to use to check custom domain renewal details from the reminder emails that Google sends in the month before the domain registration expires.


Domain registration warning emails

If you have a custom domain that you purchased through Blogger (when that service was available), and you have not transferred that registration to another domain registrar, then every year you will get a series of email messages like this:





The message text is:

Hello,
Your domain name, yourDomain.com, is configured for automatic renewal with registrar REGISTRAR (usually enom or goDaddy) on DATE. Each registration renewal is valid for one year.
Google will charge your account after the renewal is complete. To ensure uninterrupted service, please follow these directions to update your payment method if needed.
If you don’t want to renew your domain name and continue using Google Apps, you should turn off automatic renewal under the ‘Domain settings > Domain names’ tab in your Google Apps Admin console at http://admin.google.com.
Please do not reply to this email; replies are not monitored.



What you need to do

The specific action that you need to do varies, according to what you have set up before, and what policy changes Google may have had.
  • You may need to verify that you accept the current billing arrangements. 
  • You may need to check that the credit card which you have registered on your account is still valid (even if it was previously, it may have retired since).
  • You may even want to cancel the renewal, and thus give up the custom domain (in which case, I'd suggest re-directing your blog back to blogspot, too).


The only way to check what is required is to log on to your Google Apps Domain Administration account, and see what it tells you to do.

And pretty much the only thing you should not do is nothing:  you almost certainly either need to check your credit card, or cancel the renewal.


How to log on to your Google Apps Domain Administration account

What account to log on to

Many people say that working out what Domain Administrator account they need to log in to is difficult - and some are (mistakenly) absolutely convinced that they were able to renew previously using only the Google account that they use to manage the blog.

Unfortunately, the name of the Domain Administrator account can vary, depending on when you purchased the domain and whether or not you set up an administrator account for it at that time.

But, based on the reminder message that Google are now sending, there is a simple way to work it out:  look at the addresses that the reminder email is sent to.  What I have noticed lately is that these are:
  1. The Domain Administrator account, and 
  2. The Blogger account that set up the blog




Once you clearly understand that:
  • The Domain Administrator is not the same as your Blogger account, 
  • The Domain Administrator probably has an account-name like    bloggeradmin@YourDomain.com   or    your-admin-name@YourDomain.com

then hopefully this will be enough to help you understand which account you need to use.


Then log on - adding the account to your list

Click on the link in the email, which will take you to the Google Apps Admin console ie http://admin.google.com

Most likely, the Domain Administrator account that you worked out above will not be in the list of accounts that Google knows about on your PC (for a range of reasons - including that this is probably an account that you only use once per year).  So you need to use the Add Account button at the bottom of the list ( you may need to scroll down to reach it).



Enter your full Domain Administrator account name    eg   bloggeradmin@YourDomain.com

Either enter your password, or click the Need Help / I don't know my password options to get Google to help you with the password.    

Click Sign In


... and then follow the steps in the screens that Google presents to set up your billing and / overify your credit card.


Note:   Logging in to this account is likely to log you out of your standard Blogger / Gmail account.   If for some reason you don't want this to happen, then you may need to use a different browser to do the Domain Administration login.



Related Articles:

Setting up your custom domain

Understanding Google and Blogger accounts