Google+ comments arrive in Blogger

Today Google announced that the Google+ comments will now be integrated with Blogger, which will aim to give a more social experience with comments, and better integrate its social network with its own services.

Currently, Blogger uses a rather old comment system. It isn't really feature rich, and isn't exactly as simple to use either (like having to reload the page to submit a comment, for example). However, there are third party alternatives out there, such as Disqus, which is used here.

Here's a list of reasons why I choose Blogger over WordPress, from a technical perspective

A website that I visit just talked about them moving to another WordPress hosting company. They talked about topics such as load, performance/scaling, and other terms around hosting a website. They talked about using a Managed WordPress hosting company, which will monitor their WordPress install and fix issues on the spot, usually before anyone noticed a difference.

Blogger releases feature that allows users to tag people from Google+

For those of you who love Google+, which is Google's social networking service, you can now tag someone in your post. There are many good reasons for tagging someone. One might be to just mention their name, one could be to give someone else credit for something. Either way it's easy!

Blogger now using HTTPS, for me at least

I was loading up my Blogger dashboard today to create a post about Google Apps not being free anymore, but right as I was about to write that post, I decided to write this instead.

While looking at my URL bar, I noticed that the URL that was loaded was a HTTPS one. For those that didn't know HTTPS was only on the login portions of Blogger, basically the Google login system. If you tried to visit https://www.blogger.com, you would be redirected to the normal http version of the page.

Techman's World Gets a Redesign

Hello readers,

As you have now noticed, Techman's World has finally gotten an update to the site that is supposed to be beneficial to everyone, and Techman's World itself.

If you guys remember, I wrote a post a few weeks ago asking if I needed to do a redesign, and based on community response I decided to go though with it. I did try to redesign the template before, and it failed because I couldn't find a way to get the comments to work.

I did the redesign this morning, via Blogger's template editor. I heavily modied it, so you should not notice any customization differences in terms of custom CSS styles, if you pay attention to that.

The template should perform well in every browser, including (hopefully) Internet Explorer 9. If you can, please load up a page in IE9 and see if everything functions correctly. Everything should work or at least look decent, and comments should load correctly.

So, let me know in the comments below on what you think.

Connecting Blogger to Google+

Starting today, I have decided to upgrade connect my Blogger account to Google+. This is carrying many improvements for Techman's World, and is making SEO easier, as well as just "human" SEO better.

Google+ is that social network on Google. It is along the lines of Twitter and Facebook, though I would say that it is closer to Facebook because you can actually speak and create posts similar to Facebook.

The Old Blogger Interface is gone, old users are now forced to use the new interface

It has been about two days now. Two days of what? Well if you were a user of the old Blogger interface, you might have started up your Blogger dashboard the other day to discover that you were in the new interface, and you was not in your got-used-to old interface. You might have been trying to click the settings gear to go back to the old, but that option in the drop down is also not there. Trying to follow old bookmarked links now redirect the new interface.

Blogger Custom Domain Settings are back!

A few weeks ago I published an article on here that stated that the Blogger custom domain feature was disabled while the Blogger team was making changes. I might be a few days late, but wanted to say that I have discovered that the feature is now back online.

Blogger = No Disqus HTTPS Support at all

A week or so ago I write about me discovering HTTPS support coming to Disqus 2012. Right now, that feature is in testing. You can still refer to that article to test it out yourself, and report your findings to Disqus if you have issues.

Blogger has disabled a feature, and it might be affecting you

As stated in my Disqus 2012 HTTPS article, I often dig around into common public information, when I ran across this. Blogger has disabled domain redirects (custom domains) for any new people looking to register a custom domain, and right now there is a little maintenance message in place of what used to be the link that starts the domain process under that box.

Blogger still has its old interface, but it is going away in the coming months

While loading up the Blogger Dashboard (to make a new post, which turned out to be this one), I decided to revert back to the old interface, just to see how it was like, because I upgraded to the new interface and never looked back.

Well when I did, the old interface was still intact. Previously Blogger stated that the old interface was going away in April, but apparently they extended it for a lot longer.

Blogger Adds Custom Permalink Support

Blogger has slipped in a (somewhat) quite feature, something that has been long-awaited...custom permalink support. Before you get too happy, let me explain because it might not seem like what it sounds (trust me, I got it wrong the first time too).

Site Update - New Posts use a "Jump Break"

Hello everyone, just wanted to post another site update here. Not many real changes here, but just wanted to point it out.

How To: Add Disqus comments to your mobile template via HTML editing

If you are like me, you have a blog that is powered by Blogger. Sure, you can use WordPress.com, but it is harder to use, and you can't add JavaScript and plugins like Disqus.

By default, Blogger has its own native comment system. It has gotten better, but still lacking in core features.

So like me, I installed Disqus here. That is why you see Disqus here instead of Blogger Comments.

But you have one issue - getting Disqus to work in your mobile template.

Well in this Techman's World How-To, I'm going to guide you through it through images and text.

The first thing to know is if you installed Disqus. In this case I'm assuming you used the Blogger widget.

1. Go to the Blogger Dashboard
2. Select your blog(s)
3. Select Template from the options menu along the left.
4. Click on edit HTML under the "Live on Blog" thumbnail image.
5. Confirm the warning about HTML
6. Click the tick at the top to expand widgets
7. Press CTRL + F
8. Type in "Disqus" NOTE: If you have another Disqus widget, you might get to that first. Make sure you please you placed your Disqus widget at the very bottom right corner in the layout tab first. If you have another widget, the Disqus embed widget should be the very last one anyways.
9. Add a mobile='yes' after locked='false'
10. Save Template (thanks to Jim Hirshfield in the comments for the heads up)

Here is some images below.

Blogger getting new look in April, most likely final notice

If you have been using Blogger, you should already know that Google has been trying to get you to switch to the new blogger interface. You might have been able to escape the change, but you thought wrong. In April, Blogger is getting a new look in April. The image above shows this on  the old style dashboard. I personally have been using the new interface, but had to go back to the old one to make regular template backups. I was experimenting with my HTML of this page earlier today, trying to get a new button put in, which I will talk to you about at some later time.


Draw your own conclusions below if you want. I will have mine posted below.