all new Blogger accounts are on the platform previously known as "beta"

Read thusly: Blogger Buzz: New Accounts on New Blogger

What does this mean? Essentially, several portions of Sams Teach Yourself Blogging in a Snap are now moot.

Performancing for Firefox 1.3.5

The Performancing for Firefox extension, a blog editor, supports the "new" Blogger platform in its latest official release (version 1.3.5).

I have been beta testing the PFF extension + new Blogger for a few months now, and they work just fine together.

» read announcement

Audioblogger is going away

Topic 45 ("Creating an Audioblog") in Chapter 7, "Additional Blogging Tools," talks about using Audioblogger.

Audioblogger will go away on Nov 1, 2006. Please see the announcement at Odeo, which includes several links for phone-to-blog audioblogging options.

on using Windows Live Writer

I was going to write about using the brand-spanking-new Windows Live Writer blog editor, but as you can see it requires the .NET framework. I refuse to install that on my machine. My Windows laptop is fast, runs smoothly, and has crashed exactly twice in four years (knock wood)—and I am not messing with that by installing some bloated framework just to test a blog editor. Sorry. It would be unlikely to sway me from using Performancing for Firefox anyway.

So as not to be all negative nelly on you, I will say that when I first saw the announcement about Windows Live Writer the first thing I thought was "cool, I'll try it and write about it!" I don't talk lovingly about Microsoft, and have great internal conflict about having a Windows-based laptop, but lookee here—Microsoft made a product that supports a whole host of blogging platforms besides their own, right out of the box: Blogger, WordPress, TypePad, LiveJournal, even Radio Userland and so forth. They get a gold star for that. Also, it's free. Another gold star. Sure sign of the apocalypse, don't you think?

Since I won't be discussing it, let me point you to people who are:
- at Digital Inspiration, here (basic) and here (tips and tricks)
- a post at Freshblog rounding up some other posts
- a review of WLW at Performancing , including user comments

[cross-posted at No Fancy Name]

technorati tags: windows live writer, blogging

Amazing New Blogger Things!

More on this later, but via Blogger Buzz comes the Blogger in beta announcement.

There are SO MANY lovely things being added to Blogger, which dovetails nicely with discussions about refreshing this book.

I am not one of the lucky few who could migrate their existing account with the new and improved Google accounts login (hey guys, pretty please could you sneak me in there?) but I created an account on the beta site and can test that way. I'm stoked!

technorati tags: blogger

blogger in a snap: en español!

Sams Teach Yourself Blogging in a Snap has been translated and published in Spanish!

If you pay attention to blog metrics such as David Sifry's State of the Blogosphere reports, or if you are just a worldly and generally aware kind of person, you'll know that English is the primary language of only a third (or so) of all blogs. Personally, a good 15% of my blog traffic comes from countries in which Spanish is the primary language—and most of that traffic goes to my how-to posts. So, while the author is never involved in things like securing translation rights for books, I found it to be an incredibly appropriate choice for the first translation of this book.

I don't get one red cent from individual purchases, but that really makes no difference to me. I just want a gajillion people to have a good, basic book on using Blogger, and in their own language! The book can be found online at El Corte Inglés, Librería Hispano Americana, Casa del Libro, ALIBRI Llibreria, Agapea, and probably a ton more places but I'm not hip to Spanish booksellers online. Despite the fact that my name is misspelled on the cover, I think it's a cool book.

[cross-posted at No Fancy Name]

technorati tags: blogger

bloggerhacks wiki

Since the beginning of time (August 2005), John at Freshblog has been compiling a list of Blogger Hacks from all around the web. These hacks range from how to implement categories, different things one can do with Blogger-based comments and archives, and other template goodies like my expandable posts how-to and a gajillion other things having to do with layout and tagging and blah blah blah. One can imagine how keeping links to these things all on one post can be time-consuming and also difficult for the user to figure out what's been added recently and so forth. Plus, the post just has one-line descriptions along with the links.

But now there's the BloggerHacks wiki! Each hack is listed individually on a page, the page is categorized appropriately, and best of all the hack pages all follow a standard template containing information and links for the author, skill level, general method of implementing the hack, and links to sites using the hack. Of course, the detailed post describing the hack (and required code) still remains the primary source of information; the wiki is simply a catalog you can browse and get a feel for things before you click through and start wading through code.

Have a look! Many contributors spent time moving the hacks from blog to wiki and writing additional info, and since it's a wiki it's open for additional contributions. For instance, add your own link on a wiki page describing a hack you use. I tried to put in as many links to users who have implemented my expandable posts how-to, on its wiki page but if I missed any, add yourself!

[crossposted at No Fancy Name]

technorati tags: blogger, bloggerhacks, blogger hacks