I fought Google Gadgets and won!

[UPDATE: 22 Nov. This brief tutorial is now out of date. Please see the new, full-blown tutorial at its new location.]
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[UPDATE:] There was a flaw: clicked links opened the product page in the gadget window. Now fixed to open in a new window / tab. 
New filename is v1_1 (full name: http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100521288542998786592/zazzle-by-highton-ridley-v1_1.xml)
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It's been a long eleven hours! ([update: now 25!!]

Google gadget for Zazzle

I couldn't find a way of displaying search results from my Zazzle store in a small panel, suitable for my blog.

So I wrote my own - which other zazzle storekeepers can use too.

The key things it does are:

• Searches your store for the tags you decide
• displays the products, matching the search
• Make sure you use your associate id in the config (see below) so you get the credit for referrals 
  
• clicking the picture takes you to that item in your store

See it  in action at the top of my right hand panel (I can't get it to work in posts).

The really great thing is that you can have lots of them, each for a different search. Wouldn't it be great if you could put all your fun products on a page you've got which is to do with humour?

Simple, use the gadget with a search for all your products that are tagged with "fun". Do the same for your page about your favourite band. The list goes on...

So exactly how do you do this? Well, read on...

Blogger Blog

To get it onto your Blogger blog, from dashboard, choose "layout" and "add a gadget". In the window that pops up to let you choose your gadget, choose "add your own" and give it the following url

http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100521288542998786592/zazzle-by-highton-ridley-v1_1.xml

You then get a chance to configure it. The settings you'll want are

• Title: Whatever you want.
  
• Height: 220 (or, I guess, a multiple of 220 [Update: two require 434]
• Show Dates: (go on, you can guess this time!)
• Number of entries: 99
• Zazzle rss feed. This deserves a few words. Look at mine

• http://www.zazzle.com/HightonRidley/rss?qs=fun&at=238582202591969585
• "fun" is the search query - all your tags are searched. If you want the tag "fine art", use fine+art
• the number at the end is your associate id. Get it from your store.
  Then you'll get the credit from any referrals
  
• Note: When you change the Zazzle rss feed (including the query string etc), the preview won't show the changes. You'll only see them once you've completed adding the gadget (grrr!)
  

• Box colour: Each product returned is surrounded by an outline. Set the colour here.
  

Ordinary webpage

(or an FTP blogger blog)

Here's the code I use: Copy and replace the relevant bits and put on your page or in your blogger (classic) template sidebar:

<div style="width: 200px;">
<script src="http://www.gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/100521288542998786592/zazzle-by-highton-ridley-v1_1.xml&amp;up_show_date=1&amp;up_num_entries=99&amp;up_MyZazzleFeed=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zazzle.com%2FHightonRidley%2Frss%3Fqs%3Dfine%2Bart%26at%3D238582202591969585&amp;up_ItemBoxColour=96%2C96%2C96&amp;synd=open&amp;w=200&amp;h=220&amp;title=My+Zazzle&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&amp;output=js"></script></div>

The relevant bits are:

• HightonRidley: change to your own store name
• qs%3Dfine%2Bart: change to qs%3Dyour_search_query%26
  (this does a search for fine+art, note that %2B is used in place of the "+" symbol)
  
• 238582202591969585 change to your_associate_id
• &amp;title=My+Zazzle change to the title you want.
  Note the + is used in place of a space here
• ItemBoxColour=96%2C96%2C96 change to ItemBoxColour=red_value%2Cgreen_value%2Cblue_value

Whew! Well, that's it. If you have any questions, I'll try and answer them but remember that I'm not techy. I know just enough to be dangerous! hehe!

If you use the gadget, drop off a link to your page / blog in the comments, I'd love to see how you use it :)
comments / feedback always welcome :)

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Making the draw and other bits 'n bobs

So, a big day today—the day you've all been waiting for...

October giveaway...

So a little later I'll be drawing the winner from the Hat Of Wonder And Hope. Come back this evening (uk time) to see if you won. Good luck to all who took part!

Gadgets...

I also spent a little time this morning maintaining my blog, updating the template. Nothing huge—I added the top 10 Member Visits gadget, replacing the Member Links gadget. The links one had to go, as it didn't respect the blocked members and allowed anyone to leave spam links.

On a similar note, I had to block one member who was a bit zealous (i.e. spam-and-run) in leaving proselytising statements about his brand of Christianity. I don't have a problem with the various forms of religion, it's just forcing them down folks' throats that I find off-putting.

Similarly I've blocked another couple of followers with no interest in my blog but who were just spam-following (i.e. hoping folks will click their heads and then click the link to their dubious / mucky / commercial sites).

A social week...

I've had good friends staying as house guests this week while they were visiting their eldest son who has just started at Plymouth University.

Their young daughter had great fun seeing and playing with him again. Of course she misses him a lot, even though she skypes him almost every night from back home.

On Friday they all went to the circus in Ivybridge and had a great time and on Saturday we went to Mansour's for them all to try their hands at throwing pots. Everyone got messy with clay and had huge amounts of fun.

The rest of Saturday was spent getting my house back in order after their visit. It's a real joy to have the house filled with gurgling laughter and the to-ing and fro-ing of growing kids, relived as you go around tidying up after they've left.

..And now I can get back to catching up on all your blogs, which will be nice!


comments / feedback always welcome :)

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Oops! Tweet button corrected...

Just a quickie if you noticed it.

Because of where I'd put the tweet button in my template, it was referring to the previous post and not the current one. Putting it at the bottom of the post is more logical and, more to the point, works properly!

Sorry if it confused you like it did me, doh!

comments / feedback always welcome :)

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Blog maintenance - SEO stuff

A diversion from photography for some blog maintenance ...and whew, am I glad that's over!

I'm slightly technical—just enough to be dangerous—and have long been trying to make something happen in my classic template that is a piece of cake in the layouts types of templates.

Wobbly knees?

If your knees wobble at the mention of html, then this is not for you—nor if you use layouts templates (where you get to click and drag page elements around). If this is you, please go and do something more interesting—maybe have a look at my main site instead :)

Still here? Hokay, it's like this. I wanted to make sure that the 'titles' of the pages (the names that appear in you browser's tabs or in the browser's windows title bar) were 'friendly' to search engines.

Trivial? No...

What I'm talking about might seem fairly trivial but is one of those things that helps propel your blog to the top of the pile in search engine results. Well, maybe not so much a propelling, more of a bubbling up.

Before I started messing, every single page used my blog's name in the titles, as generated by the template.

Instead, I wanted my posts' titles (this post's title is 'Blog maintenance - SEO stuff') to be used on the post pages (the one you get to when you click a post's title). I know this will improve things from the search engines' points of view.

Now the greedy little search engine spiders, when feeding on the title meta tags on my pages, will get to dine on what I'm posting about (the post's title) rather than the same old, same old of my blog's name.

Template change

In my blog template (remember, this is a classic template) right at the very top, where it used to have:

• <head>
• <title><$BlogPageTitle$></title>

I changed it to:

• <head>
• <MainPage><title>Musings in Monochrome - the art of bw photography</title></MainPage>
  
• <ArchivePage><title><$BlogPageTitle$></title></ArchivePage>
• <itempage><title><blogger><$BlogItemTitle$></title></blogger></itempage>

NB The tags in the last bullet look strange, with </title></blogger> seeming to be the wrong way round—but trust me, they're not. But I don't know why!

What is the effect?

Look at the title displayed by your browser in its title bar (or on the tab that this page is displaying in).

• If you're viewing my main page, the title will be 'Musings in Monochrome - the art of bw photography'.
• However if you're viewing it on its own post page it will have the title 'Blog maintenance - SEO stuff'.
• Finally, if you're viewing it in the archive the page will have the title 'Musings In Monochrome: August 2009'
  NB The words "Musings In Monochrome" in this last example comes from my blog setup (blogger dashboard->settings->Basic->Title).

So that's 180 post pages that will now benefit. Surely that's got to result in more people finding me/my blog in searches? I use Google Analytics, so I'll be able to keep an eye on whether it does.

Anyway, I just thought I'd share :)

comments / critique / feedback always welcome :)

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A couple of template updates

Just been dabbling with my blog template. I've added the gfc Wall gadget. It's been on the main site since I started using gfc and I thought it made sense to have it here as well.

It's intended for general posts, stuff not related to a particular blog entry.

I've got it set to allow anonymous posts -- is it just me, or I am I too optimistic that it won't end up getting abused?

We'll see ...it would be so nice to be pleasantly surprised and be able to leave it set this way forever.

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