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The Blogger Team have released Product Ideas for Blogger : a lembaga based on the Product Ideas platform which enables us to suggest and vote on new Blogger features, gadgets and even Blogs of Note : One of the primary factors that drive innovation and improvements on Blogger is the voice of our users. We always take your feedback to heart, and we use it do help make Blogger the best service it can possibly be. Take a look at this screenshot to get an idea of how this lembaga works: We can log in to Product Ideas for Blogger using our Google account, then vote on existing suggestions by clicking the tick (vote up) or cross (vote down). When you choose a category (features, gadgets or Blogs of Note) you will be presented with a question you have not yet voted on, followed by the most popular suggestions. You can also get an idea of the ratio of "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" votes by looking at the vote bars to the right of the suggestions: It's also...

Some time ago, I was able to preview Susan Gunelius' new book, Google Blogger for Dummies , which is now available to buy from your local bookstore. After receiving my own copy, I've spent the past few weeks reading intently in order to provide you all with my full review of this "Dummies" guide. Blogger for Dummies ? The "For Dummies" series of reference books published by Wiley are complete guides on a range of subjects which present information in plain English. "Dummies" books are offered as complete guides on the given subject, where the information presented makes the subject easy to understand even for a complete beginner. In Google Blogger for Dummies , Susan Gunelius offers a simple and comprehensive approach for understanding and making the most of the Google Blogger platform. Chapters range from "Setting up your blog" right through to "Making Money With Blogger" and "Boosting your Search Engine Ranking"....

If you use Google Latitude , you can now display your current location on your blog using a Google Public Location Badge. Google Latitude is a feature of Google Maps which, should you choose to enable this, allows selected friends and family members to see your location. You can also give permission for Latitude continuously update your location in the background. The Public Location Badge is a gadget which you can easily add to your Blogger blog to provide readers with your current location. This feature may be especially useful for travel bloggers or personal bloggers who wish to share their location with friends and family members. How to add a Public Location Badge to your Blogger blog In order to add a Public location badge, you will need to use Google Latitude. If you have a compatible mobile phone, you can install the latest version of Google Maps on your handset and use this application to update Latitude with your current location. Those who do not have a compatible ha...

One of the functions most voted for in Blogger's recent Product Ideas forum was the ability to summarize blog posts on non-item pages. I've written about a few different approaches to this, but these methods were never so easy to implement. Luckily I came across this tutorial from Quite Random which offers the simplest - and most useful - method of displaying post summaries automatically for our Blogger posts, complete with a thumbnail from images used in our posts. This customization is very easy to implement (there are literally only two steps) with very little editing of the template required. I installed with immediate success on several templates to test it out, and with only a little tweaking on one of my most customized designs. In short, this is a fabulous implementation of post summaries for Blogger. Be sure to pop over to Quite Random to check out this post and learn how to install this hack for your own Blogger blogs. However... This is not my only sour...

I realize my posts have been rather scarce lately, mostly because I've been so busy with work and other commitments which have left me so little time to write posts for this blog. So let me explain what's happening with at the moment, along with a few hints about what you can expect in the forthcoming weeks. Problems with my file hosts Many of you have reported problems downloading templates and other files which are hosted on http://bloggerbuster.com. This is because my hosting service has been completely overpowered by the sheer number of requests for files and has been temporarily suspended. I need to transfer all of my files over to a new (enhanced) hosting account which can cope with this level of bandwidth, but I'm afraid it's taking a little longer than expected due to some issues I'm having with FTP. I may well need to move all these files to a completely different location, and if so, I will of course update with the new URLs you'll need to d...

Over the past few weeks, I've been working with Bloggers improved API for Gadgets and have now completed work on several useful gadgets which can be installed with just a few clicks. I've found that the Gadget API offers a much better interface to the end-user than HTML/Javascript widgets (although it takes me far longer to create Gadgets than widgets!). While they are a little more difficult to create, I think the end-product is worth the effort: Gadgets can be added from within the Blogger dashboard (so we don't need to use search engines, or visit the owner's site to install). Gadgets are easily customized, and can be easily reconfigured after installation The new API includes the ability to include Blogger post and comment feeds for the blog in which they are installed. Developers can ensure gadgets blend with the theme in which they are installed using "Skins" parameters. How to install Gadgets in your Blogger blog Gadgets are as easy to install ...

Tony from Engadgeteer has sent news of a great new widget developed for Blogger users: a recent posts widget which includes thumbnails from your posts . Here is a preview of how the gadget would appear in your blog (based on recent posts from ): <br><a href="http://bryandel.net/feed/feed2js2.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloggerbuster.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault%3Falt%3Drss&amp;num=3&amp;h=75&amp;html=y">View RSS feed</a><br> The gadget is very easy to install in your blog: simply visit the widget generator page and edit the settings as required. You can preview your feed and then add it to your blog sidebar using the "Add to Blogger" button on the top right of the page. Thanks Tony for letting me know about this widget!