Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Stopping pictures on your blog from being "clickable"

This article is about how to stop people who read your blog from clicking on a picture and seeing a full-size copy of it.

Currently, if you put a picture into a blog post using the Picture toolbar item, and someone reading your blog clicks on that picture, then the person sees a full-size copy of the picture. There is no universal setting that you can apply to stop this happening, or even an easy way to stop it for specific pictures.

But you can stop it for each picture in a post by editing the HTML that is behind the post and removing the href part of the picture statement. If you're not sure what that means, read on.

Making a picture "unclickable"

1 Put the picture into your post in the usual way.

2 Find some unique text that is immediately before (or after) the picture - you will use this to locate the HTML for the picture among all the other HTML used to make up your post.
Sometimes, I put "XXX" or some other marker text (ie text that isn't used anywhere else in the post) just before it (and take it out again afterwards too!).

3 Click HTML - it's a tab at the top corner of the Post Editor window.

4 Find the unique text (use your browser's Find tool, eg Edit > Find in Firefox)

5 Then find the HTML-code for the picture which will be just before (or after) that. It looks something like this (some settings may be different in yours):

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfecHPsGfszoxGJS4hFS8MtDJyLIfLUsdnB_wOOxuyHrUIpsEvt44JZmDX0lQ_taPis8JSbEngcJX78ib5l0Z2RyJB-KOWvvTL0V0QgfOZy2lRD4ffA_VkOLf1ohlSFab53zOoBZ9eH7bv/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfecHPsGfszoxGJS4hFS8MtDJyLIfLUsdnB_wOOxuyHrUIpsEvt44JZmDX0lQ_taPis8JSbEngcJX78ib5l0Z2RyJB-KOWvvTL0V0QgfOZy2lRD4ffA_VkOLf1ohlSFab53zOoBZ9eH7bv/" width="400" /></a></div>

That looks hard to read. But if you break it down, it becomes something like:

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">

<a

href="THE URL THAT THE USER IS TAKEN TO IF THEY CLICK ON THE PICTURE"

imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"
>

<img
border="0"
src="THE URL WHERE THE SOURCE PICTURE IS READ FROM"
/>

</a></div>

NB provided you've selected "Use <br /> tags" under Edit HTML Line Breaks, then you can add extra new-lines, to make the code easier to read.

6 To make the final picture unable to be clicked, you need to remove the part of the HTML code that says:

href="THE URL THAT THE USER IS TAKEN TO IF THEY CLICK ON THE PICTURE"

So that the eventual code for the picture looks like:

<a

imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"
>

<img
border="0"
src="THE URL WHERE THE SOURCE PICTURE IS READ FROM"
/>

</a>

Job Done!

At this point, you might Publish your post, or you might want to edit it some more - for example by adding alt-text or a title to the pictures, or by showing your pictures in a slideshow.

Either way, I recommend switching back to Compose mode now (using the Compose button at the top right of the editor), so that you don't get confused the next time you edit a post.

Putting a picture into a blog post

Telling Google and visibly-impaired people about the pictures in your blog

Tools for applying copyright protection to your blog

Hosting pictures outside of Google/Picasa

Creating a button that links to your blog

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Setting up AdSense for parked domains

This article is no longer current. It was about setting up AdSense on a domain that you own, but are not using.

However this feature of AdSense was withdrawn in early 2012, so the feature is no longer available.

The information below was correct until then, but has not been update since.

What is AdSense for Domains

Sometimes, you may own a domain, but not actually want to use it for a blog-site as yet. I'm currently working on one new blog for which I found a very appropriate, and available URL.   It won't be ready to be public for a month or more, but I've purchased the domain-name now so that someone else doesn't take it: A lot of the design etc is based around the quirky name, and a lot of work would need to be re-done if I waited and tehn couldn't get the site-name that I want.

Or you may find you own a domain-name that doesn't actually work for what you wanted it to: either your don't want to keep the site on-line, or people don't like the domain name. But you still own it until the current paid period runs out. (Don't forget to disable auto-renewal in this case.)

An option that you have is to show paid advertisements on the domain in the meantime.   This may earn some advertising revenue - and (for domains-in-waiting) it gives an insight into the number of "natural" visitors that a domain gets without any promotion or links. These visitors can some either through people guessing the URL, or following broken hyperlinks set up when the URL was used for something else.

If you're already signed up to be an AdSense publisher, then AdSense for Domain is an easy choice for putting advertising onto domain like this.

The Rules:

You need to check the terms and conditions: here are the full T&C's for AdSense for Domains.

As always with AdSense, clicking your own ads isn't allowed.

But there are some extra conditions too:

You can't use it with domain URLS that are adult/sexual, promote hate, are overly rude, relate to weapons, alcohol, tobacco, illegal drugs, about other illegal things or sensitive current events, or which infringe trademarks (even if it's just with apparent typos).

Also, with AdSense for Domains, you're not allowed to promote the domain. So when you're ready to start publicizing the URL on other websites, you need to take AdSense for Domains off it. I'd assume that this is true even if the publicity clearly says "available next week" or similar.

These are just some of the rules - make sure you read the full details before you get started.

Setting up AdSense for Domains:

(These instructions are based on the new - Nov 2010 - AdSense interface. The process is very similar in the old menus, although the command names and positions may be slightly different.)

If necessary, release your custom domain from being used for a blog.

Log into AdSense with your main account.
(For me, this is not always the one that purchased the domain, but it is always the one that paid for it via Google Checkout. There may be some complications later on if your Google account that has AdSense wasn't the same one that paid for the domain.)

Go into the My Ads tab

Choose Domains from the left-hand menu.

Click the New Hosted Domain button, which is at the top of the list of domains.

Enter the name(s) of the domain(s) that you want to set up AdSense for Domains for (or upload a comma-separated-values file listing them, if there are a lot).
Use the naked format, eg your-domain.com, not www.your-domain.com

Choose the language that most sense for people who might visit this domain. (eg the domain I've parked at the moment is named with a word from the English language, so I've chosen English).

Click the Add Domains button

The system shows a pop-up box, either telling you that the domain was successfully added, or that there is a problem you need to resolve.

There will also be a message that "To begin serving ads, you must now point your domains to our servers. Follow the Domain Setup Guide to complete the setup process for each hosted domain that you have added."

If you bought your domain through Blogger (and probably through other Google products, eg Sites as well) can ignore this message to start with and close the window.

But if you purchased the domain another way (including directly from GoDaddy or eNom), you need to read the Domain Setup Guide, and take whatever actions are recommended.

Clicking the View the Domain Setup Guide opens it in an new window/tab (depending on your browser). --- except that right now, it shows a message saying "We are sorry but the information that you have requested cannot be found. Please try searching or browsing the help centre". If you get this, just search for the Domain Setup Guide using the search field on the screen.

Closing the pop-up takes you back to the My Ads > Domains listing. There will be a new entry on the list, with status "DNS verification pending".

Under the domain-name, there are links for Details (which shows you what the DNS entries need to be), and Request verification.

After you have set up the correct DNS entries with your domain registrar (or immediately, if you purchased via Blogger et al), click on the Request Verification link. This sends a message to AdSense/Google, asking them to check that your domain setup is correct.

Wait: there will be a delay (perhaps 2-3 days), while Google check that it is valid for you to display ads on this domain (remember those rules from the Terms and Conditions section - it seems that they do check), and that your DNS settings are correct.

If a problem is found, this screen will show a message about this, and tell you how to resolve it.

And once AdSense for Domains is enabled, the status changes to Active.

Note: I said above that if you purchased the domain via Google, you don't actually need to do any further setup. This has been true for three of the four parked URLs that I've put AdSense-for-Domains onto. For the most recent one, I found that Google didn't automatically put the right value into the CNAME. I'm not sure if this was because I hadn't set up a domain administrator account when I tried to enable AdSense for Domains, or for some other reason. Either way, I had to go into the Google Apps control panel for the domain (logged in as the domain administrator), get the details for accessing the domain registrar (in this case GoDaddy), and then go in to the registrar control panel and edit the CNAME record to include my AdSense ID. This wasn't actually hard (Google and GoDaddy's instructions were good) but it may seem a little frightening if it's not the sort of thing you're used to doing.

Stay calm, read the error messages carefully, work slowly and if you get stuck pop into the Blogger (if you purchased the domain that way) or AdSense help forums.

Testing and customizing AdSense for Domains:

Once the status is Active, test your domain by viewing it in your browser: it should display AdSense ads. (Remember not to click any!)

Back in the AdSense > AdSense Setup > AdSense for Domains tab, you can customise the look of the screen by selecting the domain (use the check-box to the left of the name), and choosing Actions > Edit from the menu items just above the domain list. This lets you:

Put the domain into a custom channel (for tracking performance)
Edit the keywords that are used to help choose what advertisements to show
Edit the colour-scheme of the displayed ads.

Auto-renewing custom domains

Setting up an administrator account for your custom domain

Using a custom domain for something other than your blog

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

AdSense and AdWords - understanding the difference

Deleting Blogs and Blog-posts

Transferring Blog Ownership.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Chery Face

A fórmula mágica dos chineses parece ter fôlego inacabável. Dessa vez o modelo que chega é o Face, com a extensa lista de itens de série por baixíssimos R$ 31.990. Tal vantagem pretende fazer seu impacto no segmento dos hatches de entrada, cujos nomes principais são VW Gol, Fiat Mille e Uno, Chevrolet Celta, Ford Ka e Renault Clio.

O visual externo do Face não nega que ele é um verdadeiro upgrade do QQ, pois conserva o estilo hatch-minivan. Mas foi um upgrade muito bem-feito, pois se o mais antigo usa quase intocado o projeto da GM que gerou o Chevrolet Spark, o segundo passou pelas mãos do estúdio Bertone, e conseguiu essas linhas modernas e até elegantes, sem quaisquer traços orientais.

Isso condiz com a proposta do Face, de oferecer o espaço interno amplo com tamanho externo compacto do irmão mais velho, mas adicionando doses generosas de bom gosto. É o caso da cabine, que recebeu revestimentos em três tons combinados sem excentricidades, e do motor, 1.3 16v a gasolina de 84 cv que deve fazer o carro rodar com mais folga (e segurança) que o QQ com seu 1.1.

O pacote de equipamentos do Face é fechado e inclui ar-condicionado, airbag duplo, direção hidráulica, trio elétrico, freios ABS, sistema de som multimídia, rodas de liga leve, sensor de ré, faróis de neblina e pintura metálica. O modelo tem garantia de três anos, e sua marca possui serviço próprio de seguradora.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Citroën AirCross

Quando a Fiat brasileira criou a primeira Palio Adventure em 1999, não é difícil de imaginar que ninguém de lá jamais poderia imaginar o tamanho do legado que ela criaria. Suas vendas cresceram bastante, depois surgiram outros “aventureiros” na própria marca, as concorrentes se interessaram e começaram a copiar a ideia…

Eis que se formou toda uma categoria assim, que depois passou até a ter as próprias ramificações, e que já motivou a criação de projetos inteiramente novos, e agora motiva a Citroën a trazer um modelo da Europa exclusivamente adaptado para esse “ringue”.

Isso mesmo, como o C3 XTR já não tem mais o (pouco) fôlego de antes, os franceses aproveitaram a inédita C3 Picasso da matriz, e aplicaram a receita consagrada pelos aventureiros urbanos, criando o interessante AirCross. O que antes era uma pacata minivan com cabine espaçosa e estilo que lembra o Kia Soul virou um mini-jipe com charme muito maior que o de clássicos como Ford EcoSport. Seja por detalhes como o parabrisa panorâmico ou pelos apliques e adesivos externos sem exageros, o AirCross inspira imponência sem perder o estilo.

Sua cabine também demonstra esmero, com materiais foscos e colunas finas para melhorar a visibilidade, e um pacote de equipamentos surpreendente, com ar-condicionado digital, computador de bordo, direção hidráulica, freios com ABS e EBD, airbag duplo e sistema de som com MP3, entre outros. Seu motor é o mesmo 1.6 16v flex já usado na marca, que gera 110/113 cv (gasolina/álcool), e ele oferece a vantagem da garantia de três anos. Seu preço começa em R$ 53.900.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Deleting Blogs and Blog-Posts

This article is about the issues involved in deleting a Blogger blog.

Before you start:

If you need help with deleting a blog, make sure you understand the words that are used to describe things in Blogger (ref Blogger, Blogs and bloggers, Posts Pages and Screens: some basic definitions) - many people say "blog" when they really mean "post", and are then surprised when they follow some simple instructions and all their "blogs" (sic) disappear.

Also, make sure that you understand that your Blogger account is just a Google account (except for Blogger accounts created pre 2006). If you want to "delete" a Google account (not just a specific blog), think about whether you really need to delete it as opposed to just never logging in to it again.

Deleting a blog:

If you own the blog and know the password of the Google account

Log in to Blogger, using the owning account
In pre-Sept-11 Blogger: Choose Settings > Basic > Delete Blog.
In post-Sept-11 Blogger (aka the new interface):
Choose Settings from the drop-down main menu, then
Choose Other from the left-hand bar
In the Blog-tools row, click Delete Blog.

Only do this if you want to delete the URL (ie blog address) and not use it again.

If you want to keep the URL, then just delete all the posts (see the next sections). If you want to give the URL to someone else, delete the posts and then transfer the ownership.

If the blog has an pictures stored in Picasa-web-albums, then they will not be deleted. If you want to delete them, you need either manage them from Picasa-web-albums directly, or delete all the posts individually (not using the bulk-selection method) before you delete the blog.

If you don't know the password

The first step, if you don't know the password is to use the the Forgotten Password screen, which asks for the blog's URL or the email address that you used to identify the Google account.

If that doesn't work, Google have some more suggestions for you.

The very last option, if nothing else works, is to take Google's Account Recovery Exam. This attempts to re-connect you with the account using the email account that you had listed with it and/or any other security information that you (or Google) provided in the past.

You will need to convince Google that you really did make the blog: this could be difficult if you don't have access to the email address that you originally associated with the Blogger account, but it may not be impossible if you can answer some other security questions correctly. There may be cases where this seems harsh or unfair, but it's necessary so that Google doesn't start deleting blogs based on malicious requests from people who don't own them at all.

If your blog was created before 2006, you may not have converted your original Blogger account into a Google account. In this case, use the Legacy claim form.

If the blog belongs to someone else

You cannot generally get blogs that don't belong to you deleted, unless the person who published it is willing to delete it themselves - the first step is to try asking them.

There are some exceptions, including:

Taking action against a blogger who has used copyright material without permission, and
Dealing with someone who is impersonating you or breaking Blogger's terms and conditions in some other way - in which case you need to use this workflow.

If the blog belongs to someone who has died

In this case, Google have a special procedure which lets the person who is legally responsible for the blog-owner's affairs get access to their Gmail account: once they have access to the Gmail account, they will also have access to the blog via www.blogger.com, so they can delete it as described above.

Note that this procedure requires the legal representative to:

Have an email account themselves, and
Have received a email message from the deceased person, and
Send in a copy of the full message header from this email message.

So, thinking ahead, if you want someone to be able to access your blog(s) after you have died, it's a good idea to make sure that you've emailed them from the Google account associated with the blog - or give them some other way to access your password(s).

Deleting blog-post(s), without deleting the blog:

To delete one blog post:

Log into the dashboard
In the list of Posts for the blog, hover the mouse over the title for the post: this lets you see links just underneath it for Edit, View and Delete: click the Delete link..
You will be shown a summary of the post and asked to confirm the delete.

If the post contains any photos that are stored in Picasa-web-albums, you will be asked if you want to delete them as well. If you do want to delete them, tick the check-box. It's not automatic because these photos may be used in other blogs or posts as well.

To delete many (or all) blog posts, but not the Blog/URL:

Log into the dashboard
In the pre-Sept-11 blogger inteface:Choose Posts > Edit posts,
Use the tick-box at the left of the post titles to select all the posts you want to delete
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click Delete
In the Sept-11 Blogger interface:In the list of Posts for the blog, use the tick-box at the left of the post titles to select the posts you want to delete. (There are links in the top row for selecting All, Published, etc)
Click the trash-can icon at the very top of the list, just beside Revert to Draft..

The number of posts per screen is limited by a drop-down arrow at the top right, and defaults to (I think) 50: if your blog has more posts than you are displaying (some of mine have several hundred posts), then you may need to do this several times.

Removing a blog from your Profile:

If you have a blog that you don't want to delete, but which you do want to delete from your Blogger profile, then:

Log on to Blogger
In pre-Sept-2011 Blogger: From the Dashboard choose Edit Profile > Select blogs
In post-Sept-2011 Blogger, from the drop down menu beside your email address in the top right hand corner of the dashboard, choose Blogger Profile
Un-tick the blogs that you don't want to show
Press Save Settings at the bottom of the page)

Deleting a Google account:

Make sure that you are certain you need to delete the Google account: in many cases, it may be safer to leave it in place, even though you never use it again.

To delete your Google Account, follow the instructions on this page.

The page doesn't say what will happen to your any Blogger blog(s) that you Google account owns. However at the moment it looks like the blog(s) are not deleted. If you want to delete the blogs, you must do this separately (see above), before you delete the account.

If the blogs contain pictures from Picasa-web-albums, these pictures may be deleted.

And if the blogs contain items from other Google-hosted products (eg Docs, custom-maps), then it's likely that these items will also be deleted.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Peugeot 3008

Apresentado no último Salão do Automóvel, o belo crossover finalmente desembarca no Brasil, importado da França. Sinal dos tempos modernos, o 3008 é mais um SUV lançado por uma marca que até pouco tempo atrás ninguém esperaria que fizesse tal coisa. Caso da Porsche com o Cayenne, BMW com o X5 e da Volkswagen com o Touareg, mas todos estes em maiores proporções.

O exterior do 3008 é a maior identificação da sua marca. A frente consegue ter os grandes faróis felinos e agressivos com a grade enorme mesmo sem deixar de lado o tamanho maior de um carro desse tipo. Já suas laterais com detalhes cromados inspiram modernidade sem recorrer a revoluções, enquanto a traseira traz arroubos de esportividade, notados nas lanternas de formato irregular e na tampa do porta-malas em duas partes.

A Peugeot diz-se ter inspirado em um avião ao fazer o painel do 3008, e isso se nota no estilo extravagante do console central, em que se destacam os porta-objetos e o local da alavanca do câmbio. De resto, ele apresenta recursos típicos das minivans, como o porta-malas regulável, em que o piso do compartimento pode ser fixado em duas alturas diferentes ou retirado, para variar a capacidade de carga coberta. Sob o capô ele traz um 1.6 turbo THP, que produz impressionantes 156 cv e 24 kgfm, prova de que a tendência do downsizing definitivamente vai chegar um dia a todos os carros.

O modelo vem em duas versões. A básica Allure sai por R$ 79.900, e já traz computador de bordo, direção eletro-hidráulica, faróis de neblina, sistema de som multimídia, rodas de 17 polegadas e retrovisores elétricos. Já a top Griffe sai por R$ 86.900 e adiciona bancos de couro com aquecedor, sensores de chuva e crepuscular, ar-condicionado bizona, retrovisor anti-ofuscamento e freio de estacionamento elétrico, entre outros.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Fiat Palio Weekend Trekking 1.6 16v

A Fiat definitivamente está disposta a se desfazer dos motores 1.8 da Chevrolet o quanto antes. Em questão de semanas renovou praticamente a linha inteira, trocando esse motor pelos novos 1.6 e 1.8 16v da linha E.torQ, deixando apenas o Stilo intacto – já que ele tem dias contados com a chegada do novo Bravo. O problema disso é que a linha acabou passando por mudanças rápidas demais, e um caso disso é a Palio Weekend Trekking.

Com a remodelação da linha Palio em 2008, esta versão e a básica ELX foram planejadas para ter apenas o menor dos dois motores disponíveis, o 1.4 Fire. Mas eis que no ano passado a Trekking ganhou a opção do 1.8. E eis que no ano seguinte ele precisou ser abandonado, para agora ser substituído pelo 1.6 16v. A grande vantagem é que este motor é mais eficiente que o antecessor. Por ter um projeto muito mais recente e usar dezesseis válvulas, ele atinge desempenho superior ao antigo e ainda consumindo menos.

Mas a Trekking é muito mais do que um novo 1.6 16v de 114/117 cv e 16,2/16,8 kgfm de torque. De série ela traz direção hidráulica, computador de bordo, suspensão elevada e rodas de liga leve. Já a lista de opcionais é a clássica sedução da Fiat, que oferece até sistema de som multimídia, entre outros. Fora a excelente novidade do preço: segundo o site da Fiat, a Trekking 1.6 16v vem com o mesmo preço da 1.4 Fire, R$ 43.940.

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