Herself's Webtools » blogger template

How to create iPhone icons and separate page icons

Linda MacPhee-Cobb — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Creating icons for iPhones and the iPod Touch is not all that different than creating bookmark icons. First you create a 57×57 png image.

If you want an icon for all of your website or a default for pages that do not have individual icons then just name your image:

apple-touch-icon.png

and upload it to your home directory.

If you are on Blogger or some other software where you can’t upload the icon you can place it anywhere on the web and create the following link in the ‘head’ section of your pages:

If you have different pages people might wish to bookmark and you wish to have a separate icon for each then:

- create the icons

- upload them to the root directory of your website

- In the head section of pages that you wish this icon to appear add the following:

I tried doctoring photos and shrinking them and using them and the results were pretty good. Gimp works well for creating icons this way. One site reported that creating larger icons and letting Apple convert them resulted in clearer pictures. It didn’t for me but if you are using photo images you should give it a try.

Apple will round the corners and gloss up your icon. You just need to create the square image and let Apple do the rest. ‘Trust the force’.

I could not get this to work on an old section of a website that uses frames. It may or may not work on framed sites.

If you change or add an icon it does not update on users phones/touches. It must be rebookmarked for the new icon to appear.

Hack the Blogger Denim Template Up to Size

Linda MacPhee-Cobb — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 12:00:00 +0000

Let’s face it 800×600 is more than a little cramped and less than 10% of the population is using 800×600 screens. A bit more real estate on Blogger would be nice. Denim, Stretch Denim, Washed Denim and Stretch Denim Light are nicely hackable templates. It is very easy to change the colors, up load a header picture and no one will recognize it before long.

First back up your template!
Go to your dashboard
->layout
->Template
->Edit HTML
and select Download Full Template.

Now pick your favorite Denim Template
Template
->Pick New Template
Pick any one of the Denim series and hit ‘Save Template’

Go Back to ‘Edit HTML’
There are only 4 lines we will edit on this template:

OLD

#header{
width: 760px;

#content-wrapper{
width: 760px;

#main-wrapper{
width: 464px;

#sidebar-wrapper{
width: 240px;

NEW

#header{
width: 950px;

#content-wrapper{
width: 950px;

#main-wrapper{
width: 580px;

#sidebar-wrapper{
width: 300px;

Then click ‘Save Template’.

View it and see how you like the new look.

You can play around with the main-wrapper width and the sidebar-wrapper width but keep the total of the two 880px.

How to Add You Tube Videos to Your Posts

Linda MacPhee-Cobb — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve been meaning to cover this for weeks and kept getting detoured. You can add You Tube videos to your Blogger posts, WordPress posts, or just regular webpages and it is totally painless.

First sign up for a free You Tube account.
Add the video you wish to post to your favorites.
Go to My Account -> My Custom Players -> Create Custom Player
Answer the questions about how you want your personal You Tube Player to appear
Add the video
Copy and paste the code right into your post.

* Did you know you can take video on your mobile phone and send it straight to You Tube? How cool is that? I’ll have to go take some videos now.