Satoko's Blog*: Advise for my kohai

I found this in my feed reader today. It's full of good advice from one of your predecessors.

• Satoko's Blog*: Advise for my kohai (2013.04.03)

'via Blog this'

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Two gadgets for sidebars

For our writing course, two of the most important gadgets to have in your sidebars are a Recent Comments gadget and a Labels gadget.

Labels gadget

Labels gadgets help visitors find posts of interest on your blogs. If you haven't added a Labels gadget to your blog yet, ask a classmate or peer who has to help you do so. Here's a breadcrumb trail you can follow:

• Dashboard (yours): Design: Page Elements: Add a Gadget (sidebar): Basics: Labels: "+"

Please remember to Save your Labels gadget after you make sure the title is in English ("Labels"), and after you configure it as shown in the first screenshot below. 

You also should note that Labels gadgets will be invisible on your blogs unless they have at least one post that has labels on it (see: Critical Step for Startup Labels posts, April 21, 2011).

Recent Comments gadget

The Recent Comments gadget, as you can see in the next screenshot (below), should be at – or very near – the top of (one of) your sidebar(s). (Some blog templates have more than one.) That will enable all blog visitors to see at a glance what's new (your most recent blog post) and what's hot (most recent comments) whenever they open your blog.

That is, as long as the graphic in your banner (and other elements in your header) aren't so big they force posts and sidebar elements out of sight. If they do, you probably need to rethink your blog layout (;-{))!

The breadcrumb trail leading to Recent Comments gadgets is as follows:

• Dashboard (yours): Design: Page Elements: Add a Gadget (sidebar): More Gadgets ...

From there, however, finding the right gadget gets tricky, unless you know some tricks, yourself. At present, there are over 1000 More Gadgets to choose from. The trick to remember here is to use the search function:

Though we'll be getting more gadgets where those came from, those two should be enough to get your through today!

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Please check out the Gadgets sheet ...

... in the Gadgets, Pages, and Settings page of the Writing Studio Blog. I updated it today with instructions and URLs for setting up your own Class Feeds.

I suggest putting one or both of those feeds at the foot of your blogs, where you'll be able follow recent blog posts by classmates and peers during summer vacation. On the Design (layout) page of your blog, you can click on Add a Gadget, and find the Feed gadget tool in the Basic collection. However, you need to make sure to plug in entire URLs from the Gadgets page of the spreadsheet. They're long, and complicated, so copy and paste them carefully into your new Feed gadget(-s).

I also want to remind you that, starting Aug. 1, you'll be able to count posts and get extra credit for early book reviews in your Fall semester Proto-Portfolios (Aug. - Jan.). Blog on!

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New Sidebar Gadget: Followers

A new Blogger gadget that I've just added to the sidebar opens another avenue of access to Writing Studio Blog updates. It's down to the right, between Local Favorites and Subscribe via gmail (now Get mailed!) gadgets. It's the green starred item in the sidebar Layout screenshot (right).

The first avenue for notification of updates was subscription via mail functionality provided by Feedburner, which I blogged up last January (Subscribe via Gmail Today!, 2008.01.10). You may have missed that, if you failed to read up on previous posts as I suggested at the beginning of Writing III. Some folks prefer mail notifications; others depend upon handy lists of links to favorite sites in their own sidebars, or feed readers there or elsewhere (for example: Google Reader).

Now signing up to follow a blog generates an RSS feed in your own Dashboard, and there are at least two ways to get started. One works for any Blogger blog (though it doesn't seem to work on Edublogs, at least not right away); you just grab the URL of a blog you want to follow, and "ADD" it to your Dashboard Reading List. Here's a snapshot of the list I've started:

The "ADD" button is at the foot of your list.

The other way to follow a Blogger blog is to find one you want to follow that displays a Followers gadget. You can subscribe through the gadget, and updates from that blog will automatically appear in your Dashboard Reading List. For more info. about following, including private or public following options, I recommend these Blogger Help Center posts:

• What is following?
• How do I use the Blogger Reading List?
• How do I add the Following gadget to my blog?

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Wordle Word Clouds from RSS Feed and Bookmark Tags

The image above, I've just created with Wordle, a web application that creates word clouds from a variety of sources: text clippings, URLs or page feeds, and even a set of social bookmarking tags. I used the FeedBurner feed for the Writing Studio Blog as the source for this image.

The screen shot above of a pop-out window from the web app. shows the Edit, Language, Font, Layout, and Color control tabs in the toolbar (top), as well as the Print, Randomize, and Save buttons (bottom). If you are creating word clouds of private or personal content, Wordle recommends against saving them to the public gallery in the Save to gallery dialog box.

The image below, I've created from a set of del.icio.us tags. The Wordle Create function automatically used a different layout than the one for the Writing Studio Blog feed (above). Though I'm uncertain how accurate or complete these illustrations are, they do add a visual flavor to the content itself.

Images created by the Wordle.net web application are licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.
http://wordle.net/faq

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RSS Feed Displays

RSS feed displays come in widgets of all sizes, shapes, and colors, and can provide you and visitors to your blogs with up-to-date information gathered automatically from all kinds of online sources, including blogs and wikis. There are at least four different RSS feed displays that I'm currently using on the Writing Studio Blog. There will be prizes in class for the first students to spell out in a comment on this post:

• the exact number (total) of RSS feed readers displayed on the top page of this blog, plus
  
• the title and location of only ONE (1) of those RSS feed displays.

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Library Thing Widget

This quick post announces the addition of a LibraryThing widget to the sidebar. The widget feeds on recent additions to my LibraryThing catalog (above), a long-awaited follow-on to the very first post on this blog last year (An Extensive Reading (ER) Project, March 1, 2007). This post is also the second half-century post (150 of 150, today) on the Writing Studio Blog.

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Archives, Feeds, Labels, Settings and Such

In this post, I focus on blog settings; I provide a freshly extended list of blog features, functions, and requirements for on-going participation in the Writing Studio (Writing IVc).

0. A blog!

This is pretty obvious, but everyone has to have one, and to use it regularly for posting the various writing assignments listed here, including:

• free-writing (quickposts, photos, media, links),
  
• typing speed trials (quickposts, typing),
• book reviews (books, links, photos, reviews),
  
• intensive writing assignments (essays, graphics, media, movies, photos, reviews), and
• collective/reflective works (assignments, essays, reviews, portfolios).

Suitable labels for those kinds of posts are in parentheses (above).

Beyond the obvious, that is, by now routine, extensive writing on you blogs (above); there are several other points on which I would like you to focus your attention this week. In class, computer lab. assistants or I will help you make certain that your blogs adhere to the following requirements.

1. Archives

Blog archives must appear near the top of blog sidebars for Writing IVc. This is a requirement continuing from Writing IIIc, last semester. Especially if you didn't take part in the Writing Studio last semester, you should make certain that your archive is at or near the top of your sidebar.

However, there is a change from last semester. That is, to save space in your blog sidebars for the next item (Comment Feeds) if you haven't done so already; you need to switch your blog archives from weekly to monthly display mode.

2. Comment Feeds

Comment feeds are a new feature that also will be required at or near the top of your sidebar in the immediate future. Adding comment feeds provides extra degrees of access to your blogs. That is, in addition to archives (above), and labels and reverse chronological page displays (below). Displaying recent comments from posts on your blog, in your sidebar, is a community-building measure that enables both regular readers and occasional visitors to find active discussions on your blog quickly and to join them easily.

I posted a recipe for sidebar comment feeds earlier on the Writing Studio Blog (Comment Feed Recipe...; October 24, 2007). Please review that post, and then follow the steps to add a comment feed at or near the top of your sidebar. If you need help using that recipe to create a comment feed widget for your sidebar, ask a student who has one already, a lab. assistant, or me.

3. Labels

You must have a widget in your blog sidebar that displays the labels for posts on your blog. This is a continuing requirement from Writing IIIc.

The list of labels below shows minimum requirements for Writing IVc; the number is up from first semester to automatically collect information that you'll need for your portfolio. I've listed new requirements in bold italics:

• books, essays, links, media, movies, portfolios, photos, quickposts, reviews

• Reminders:
  
• Any number of suitable labels can be used together (separated by commas); &
• Every post must have at least one label attached.
  

The easiest way I can think of to make certain that you have all of the currently required labels is to:

1. Select all of the labels above at once;
2. Copy them into the computer clipboard (Ctrl+C);
   
3. Create a temporary new post on your blog entitled "Required Labels";
4. Before you publish that temporary new post, click in the "Labels for this post" field;
5. Paste all of the labels above into the labels field of your temporary post (Ctrl+V); &
6. Save the post, temporarily.

After you have saved that temporary post with all the required labels attached, please check the list of labels in your blog sidebar to make certain that all of the required labels appear. If the required labels do not appear, you may need to publish your required labels post.

Then correct any similar but inaccurate labels visible in the sidebar - on individual posts. The lab. assistants or I can show you how to do this, but we'll expect you to complete the process yourself. When you have finished checking and correcting all of your labels as necessary, you can open and save that temporary post as a draft (keep it; you may need it again).

Settings

A laboratory assistant or I will help you find and confirm the following settings:

• Backlinks (enabled);
  
• Comment Moderation (OFF!);
• Page Displays (last two weeks); &
  
• Security Measures:
  
• Unlisted blogs,
  
• Comments from registered Bloggers only, &
  
• Word verification (ON!).

There may be a few other settings that you need to check. I may remember them after breakfast, or before class. So please review this post later.

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Comment Feed Recipe for Sidebars

• [YourBlogURL]/feeds/comments/default/?alt=rss

Above is a quick and easy recipe that can use to add a comment feed to your sidebar. You can use a feed like that in your sidebar to display recent community activity on your blog.

Note: I added the "?alt=rss" bit to the end of the default feed, because the add a feed tool in the Blogger layout preview didn't recognize the default feed address.

All you need to do to add a recent comments feed to your sidebar is:

1. Replace "[YourBlogURL]" in the recipe above with your complete blog URL, starting with the "http://..." part;
2. Open your Blogger Dashboard;
3. Click on the "Manage: ... Layout" link in your Dashboard;
4. Click on "Add a Page Element" link in the sidebar preview;
5. Click on the "Add To Blog" button for the Feed tool;
   
6. Paste in your comment feed URL; then
   
7. Click "Continue" to fine-tune the feed settings!

I decided to display short previews of the five most recent comments, with links, dates and authors included.

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