Friday, December 22, 2006

Testing maximum number of authors for a Blogger blog

The title should be "Testing maximum number of authors for a Blogger beta blog" but Blogger has declared that Bloggeer Beta is now out of beta, so, no beta in the post title.

Someone emailed me, asking if it is really true that you can have an unlimited number of authors for a Blogger (beta) blog. I don't know if I had said that in any of my blogs, but to answer his question, I decided to do a little test. I got into the Dashboard of this blog Good Parenting Practices (close new window/tab to get back to this page) and clicked the SETTINGS > PERMISSION tabs. I started to add email addresses to invite to become authors of the blog. I got up to 23 addresses and there still was no message that I have reached the limit. So I still don't know the maximum number of authors one can have for a Blogger blog, but definately it is 23 or more. I have asked the person who emailed me to let me know how many authors he added, and I hope he gets back to me. If he does, I will put an update.

BTW if you are a parent, and you have advice or good information to share, and will like to contribute to this blog, please contact me via that eMail Me link (at the bottom of the sidebar) and I will send you an invitation, and I will have a chance to further test the limit of Blogger.

UPDATE 24 December 2006: Turned out that there actually isn't a limit on the no. of authors allowed for a team blog. See Blogger Limits (close new window to return to this page). Looks like my testing wasn't necessary if only I had tried to look hard enough for the answer.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Photo of traditional kite flying in Kelantan, Malaysia

Traditional Malay Kite Flying


Reason for uploading this photo via Blogger photo upload icon, Phydeaux3 reported when uploading photos via Blogger, Beta IP and Image Hosting Changes (close new window/tab to get back to this page). I just wanted to test if it is so.

Another reason - doing my bit for my country. 2007 is Visit Malaysia Year and hoping to promote tourism to Malaysia via this photo of a Malay dressed in traditional garb flying a traditional kite in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The photo is copyrighted by Tourism Malaysia, but is free to use to promote Malaysia. Lots of programs are being and have been planned for the enjoyment of visitors. You can view the programs and also other aspects of Malaysia at Guide to Malaysia (close new window/tab to get back to this page).

Traditionally, photos uploaded via Blogger are hosted at
http://photos1.blogger.com/....
Sure enough, as reported by Phydeaux3, the photo above is now hosted at
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/.....

If you want the actual URL of the above photo, click on it and you can get the URL from the address bar in the resulting webpage or hover your mouse over the photo and observe the URL in the taskbar or in a "pop-up", depending on your browser.

Update 28 February 2007: Previously, the photo stay on the web even if you delete the post or the photo. Now, when you delete the photo or the post, the photo is deleted from the web. This may be good news for those who post a lot of photos and are worried about exceeding the 300MB limit. Another change in New Blogger. Previously, if you delete the photo or the post containing the photo, the photo remains on the web. Now, if you delete either, your photo is also deleted from the web. See post Uploading photos and deleting posts in New Blogger (formerly Blogger Beta).

Friday, December 08, 2006

Testing Haloscan comment hack for Blogger Beta

Many people using the Haloscan comment system have complained that it does not work for Blogger Beta blogs. amrlion (close new window/tab to get back to this page) mentioned that there is a hack for that and gave this link Getting Haloscan to work in Blogger beta. (close new window to get back to this blog).

I tested the hack for this blog Good Health Articles (close new window to get back to this page).

I followed the instruction in that post, which is, first, to find this block of codes in the template with the widget expanded:

<span class='post-comment-link' >
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item" '>
<b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>

which I found somewhere in the middle of the template (use EDIT > FIND from the menu bar).

The next instruction is to do this:

"DELETE the code that is in between the code above and the "<'/b:if'>" that comes next. If you don't do this you'll see both the blogger comments AND the haloscan comments come up."

that is, to delete the codes from <b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'> to the next <'/b:if'> and insert the following codes, (the XXXX being your haloscan user name):

<script src='http://www.haloscan.com/load/XXXX' type='text/javascript'> </script>
<a expr:href='"javascript:HaloScan(" + "\"" + data:post.id + "\"" + ");"' target='_self'>
<script type='text/javascript'>postCount('<data:post.id/>');</script>
</a>


I am using Ramani's 3 column template and what I found was this:

<span class='post-comment-link'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>

<b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>
</b:if>
</b:if>
</span>


That is, instead of just one "<'/b:if'>" I found "</b:if>", and there were more than 1 "</b:if>". I deleted the portion up to the second "</b:if>" and replaced it with the above codes with the XXXX replaced with my Haloscan username.

That is, I deleted :

<a class='comment-link' expr:href='data:post.addCommentUrl' expr:onclick='data:post.addCommentOnclick'><b:if cond='data:post.numComments == 1'>1 <data:top.commentLabel/><b:else/><data:post.numComments/> <data:top.commentLabelPlural/></b:if></a>


and replaced it with the given codes above, and thus ended up with this:

<span class='post-comment-link'>
<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType != "item"'>

<b:if cond='data:post.allowComments'>
<script src='http://www.haloscan.com/load/blogsmith' type='text/javascript'> </script>
<a expr:href='"javascript:HaloScan(" + "\"" + data:post.id + "\"" + ");"' target='_self'>
<script type='text/javascript'>postCount('<data:post.id/>');</script>
</a>
</b:if>


There were a few updates, one of which I was required to look for the following:

< id="'comments'" var="'post'">
< id="'comments'">
< name="'comments'/">
< 'h4' >

I couldn't find it, and I didn't proceed with the instructions in the updates. However, what I found is that the hack worked for the main (index) page and the archive pages, but in the individual post pages (permalinks), the blog was still stuck with the Blogger comment system. Perhaps it was because I was using Ramani's 3 column template rather than the standard Blogger beta template. If you really want the Haloscan comment system to work for the individual post pages, you can try to proceed further than what I have done for this blog Good Health Articles

Update 9 December 2007: With a little hint from Logical Philosopher or amrlion (close new window/tab to get back to this page) and a little experimenting, got the HaloScan comment system into the individual post page. But the system exist together with the Blogger comment system. Got an email from Ron of Rodentia (close new window/tab to get back to this page) suggesting going to SETTINGS > COMMENTS and set "Comments" to "hide" which I did. I checked the individual post page, and sure enough, I get only Haloscan comment there, no Blogger comment. I checked the main page. None of the posts there had any COMMENT, neither Blogger comment or Haloscan comment. So that ended my little bit of experimenting. I reset the COMMENTS to show and I am back in business again with only Haloscan comment in the main page and the archive pages, and the Haloscan comment coexisting with the Blogger comment in the individual post page. I am going to see if I can get any suggestion from amrlion on how to get rid of the Blogger comment in the individual post page. If I do, and it succeeded, you will see an update here.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Testing uploading of a large photo to Blogger Beta blog

Someone said that when he uploaded a photo to a Blogger beta blog via Blogger photo upload icon, it was not resized, but came out huge. This is a suprise to me, so to see if it is really so, I am going to upload a really huge photo (3.30 MB or 2487 x2528 pixels) and see what happens (I chose CENTER and LARGE for the upload):
Malaysia Petronas Twin Tower
Petronas Twin Tower

Well, it turns out OK. It took me 5 minutes to upload. I viewed it with Opera, but just to make sure it doesn't cause any problem in Internet Explorer, I also viewed the post in IE (large screen) and it also turned out OK. The sidebars are where they should be. I also resized the screen to 800x600 resolution by pasting javascript:top.resizeTo(800,600) into the address bar, and it still was OK.

BTW, the image is the Petronas Twin Towers, what used to be the tallest building in the world, and is copyrighted by Tourism Malaysia. It can be used for promoting Malaysia. I am also helping to promote Malaysia by posting the image here and also giving a link to my other blog Guide to Malaysia (click "BACK" button to get back to this page). Malaysia will be having a Visit Malaysia Year 2007 and we hope to see you there.