Monday, August 27, 2007

Problems with Blogger's RSS feed for comments

There seems to be an issue with the RSS feeds for Blogger comments. I wrote before about how to embed a blog's recent comments into a blog widget, displaying recent comments for your front page readers.

It worked when I put it on this blog before. Now the blog date and author are the only elements showing up.

I thought I was doing something wrong, then I saw there were several Blogger users with the same problem on Google Group for Blogger.

I'm not sure what the issue is. Blogger has done something to the API that is killing the comment feeds. I'll just leave the widget up to see if it gets fixed.

While I'm at it, I do have a gripe with Blogger's comment RSS feed. I've received some comment spam on this blog. I deleted the spammy comments, but they still show up in my comment RSS feed. The only solution to get rid of them is to have newer comments push them out of the immediate posts.

If anyone has a solution to these issues, feel free to comment or email me.

Google Facebook Application - Share your searches with friends

Steve Rubel posted a link on his Twitter feed to a Google Operating System about a new applicaion for Facebook.

You perform a Google search through Facebook and it is shared with all your Facebook friends.

I'm not so sure if I want all my Facebook chums to see what I'm searching for, and I can't see the immediate benefits this would have.

I could see sharing a Google search where you use a whole arsenal of advanced search operators, showing off your mad Google skills.

It is cool to see Google and Facebook starting to integrate.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Search this blog with the new search feature

Blogger In Draft now offers a search box for Blogger. As usual, adding it to my Blogger page took only a few clicks.

The part I like is how the results appear at the top of the blog content without taking you to another page. You can search all you want without leaving the article you are reading.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Digg and my Google Reader Feed added to the Blog Laboratory

I added my Google Reader Feed and RSS content from Digg.com on the far right column.

I share stories using my Google Reader account. If you are unfamiliar with Google Reader and RSS, you should check it out on your Google Account. It is the best RSS reader around. The share button adds selected stories to a page and an RSS feed that can be used on your blog or other page.

The stories from Digg.com come from the Digg Widget that I added to the sidebar. While there are ways to dress up a Digg feed, I kept it simple to blend in with the design of my blog and to keep the headlines from pressing on the sides of the column.

Friday, August 3, 2007

Ray Bradbury on the art of writing.

I found this video on YouTube of Ray Bradbury talking about the art of writing. I posted this on my other blog, but it's such a great video clip I am posting it here too.

Ray Bradbury is in his 80s and still passionate about his craft. He's an amazing writer and an inspiration.

Another template change!

I made more changes to this blog template. I was not totally happy with the topper and made some more tweaks. Now the test tubes look like they are filled with luminous substances.

I found the test tube images on StockXpert, a great resource for photos for blog headers.

Charles Gnilka is now on Twitter

I just started a Twitter account and added the Twitter badge to this blog. It took less than a minute to get it running. Twitter did an excellent job of creating an easy-to-add badge to Blogger.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

New template with two columns and wide background

I just uploaded a new template with two columns. I also made a new topper graphic and made the background continuous. Uploading the new header was easy with the template editor.