Removing Blogs From Your Reading List

One of the strangest cases of confusion, exhibited in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?, comes from people who only want to remove a blog from their Reading List, using the "Manage Blogs I'm Following" wizard.

I can't remove a blog from the Reading List - there is no trash can in the Manage wizard!

Here, I'll advise you to not look for a trash can icon, for some blogs.

To remove blogs from your Reading List, click on the gear icon to the far right of "Reading list", on your dashboard.

Start with the "gear" icon, to the far right of "Reading List".

This gives you Blogger: Manage Blogs I'm Following, which contains an inventory of all Followed blogs, by blog title. Alternately, try Google Friend Connect: Sites I've joined. You may be able to use the latter, when the former does not perform.

In many cases, you'll see the unwanted blog, listed in "Manage Blogs I'm Following".



If you don't immediately see the title of the blog that you are trying to remove, in the "These are the blogs and sites" list, don't worry. Go to the Reading List and look at each individual blog in the list, one by one, until you find the problem content - then look at the title used by the problem blog. Always start with the correct title.

Having the title of the problem blog, go to the list of blogs by title, and "Settings".

Once you know the correct title, go back to the Blogger / Friend Connect inventory, and find that title in the list. Click on "Settings", next to the title.

When you click on "Settings", you may have to login to Following / "Friend Connect". If you have to login, select "Google" - then use the correct Blogger account name and password.

The "Stop following" link is in the popup window, for the blog.

In the popup window for the correct title, you'll find the Basics tab selected, with your profile displayed. Beneath the display of your profile, you'll find the title of the blog again - and to the right of that (possibly requiring that you stretch the width of the popup window), you'll find the link "Stop following this site". Click on the link, hit "Stop Following" to confirm, and you're done.

Just don't waste time looking for a trash can icon - if you don't see the unwanted blog, immediately.

Custom Domain Publishing - Moving Back To BlogSpot, Using The New GUI, Isn't Obvious

The New Blogger GUI (2011) has been available for just over 6 months - and we see new confusion about using it, daily, in Blogger Help Forum: How Do I?.

How do I cancel my custom domain redirect, in the New GUI?

This is one specific question, that's been asked, recently.

The answer to that specific question is actually right there, in front of us - we just don't see it.

Blogger, like Google, likes to use overlay panels for some displays, such as how you see the picture below - when you click on it.

In the new GUI, if I look at the Blog Address settings for this blog, in Settings - Basic - Publishing, I see

See the "X"?
(Click on the picture, to better see the details.)



"Edit" is a link, that lets me "Edit" my custom domain settings. The "Edit" wizard (which simply pops up in the same display, when I click on "Edit") does not let me change the URL of the blog back to BlogSpot - and this is the start of some confusion.

To remove the custom domain redirect, and re publish the blog to the domain - or publish back to BlogSpot - one must click on the "X" in the top right. With the publishing shown as

blogging.nitecruzr.net                Edit               X
bloggerstatusforreal.blogspot.com     redirects

clicking on the "X" lets me remove the custom domain redirect. Clicking on "Edit" only lets me change specific custom domain settings, such as selecting the "naked domain" redirect option.

When you click on the "X", you will get a verification popup.

Are you sure? This will remove the current custom domain.

And you'll want to hit "Yes".

So, click on the "X" (it's actually in black - I show it in red, above, to make it more obvious), to clear the custom domain redirect and publish back to the original BlogSpot URL. If you don't see the "X", click in the upper right corner of that window - to the right of "Edit" and just left of the window border. Apparently, not all browsers display the "X" properly.

When You Search For Important Email, Search Carefully

Many Blogger / Google procedures involve email communications, with you needing to read - and respond to - email from Blogger / Google.

Some email systems automatically sort incoming email, and put important (and not so important) email into different folders. Many times, email from Blogger / Google may be sorted into a folder where you would not always normally look - or may be sent to an email address that you might not think of, immediately.

It's to your personal advantage, to find any email that is being sent to you - even stuff in Bulk / Spam.

One of the best known folders, besides Inbox, where email may be found would be "Bulk" / "Spam".

"False Positive" filter effects are unavoidable.

All email systems may occasionally put important email into either "Bulk" or "Spam". Any time when you are awaiting important email from Blogger / Google, such as when you are trying to recover access to your blog, or when you make (or maybe, need to make) an important purchase, always look in both the "Inbox" and "Bulk" / "Spam" folders.

If your email system provides an "Incoming" mail log, it's never a bad idea to scan the log, periodically.

Consider all possible email accounts that you might own.

Besides checking the multiple sections of any one email account, you should also consider the complex interactions between Blogger accounts, email clients, and Google accounts, and examine any possible email addresses - both GMail and non GMail addresses - current and past, with similar persistence.

Consider all individual email accounts, that may be combined automatically.

If you use GMail, or any email delivery service which provides ability to manage and use multiple email accounts from a single email desktop, you should check settings in every such email system, for multiple account setup.

Your Blogger account needs to be based on an active email account (GMail, or non GMail). If you are intentionally obscuring your Blogger account, you're going to have a problem here. There are various reasons why you may not see every key email message, in your Inbox, at first glance.

Diligent searching may reduce time spent in online forums.

Searching for incoming email, carefully, may reduce the amount of time you spend in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, asking for help retrieving your account name or email address from Blogger records, or asking why your non BlogSpot URL now redirects your readers to a page full of advertisements.

Prevent disappointment and future regret - check your "Bulk" / "Spam" folders, for all possible email accounts and clients which you use, periodically. And consider possible spoof filtering effects.

Choose Your Registrar, When Buying A Domain

When you purchase a domain - either as part of the "Buy a domain" wizard, or when you purchase directly from a registrar - you are free to use any registrar that you wish, for the purchase. The "Buy a domain" wizard (which should be your preferred method of purchase) lets you use either eNom or GoDaddy - and which registrar you use is your choice - though the choice is not made obvious, by the wizard layout.

The selection of which registrar to use, in "Buy a domain", is always your decision - though the selection process is somewhat obscure. Just go slowly, and look carefully for the right link.

Start from the Good News display. Find the tiny link at the bottom - "Learn more", next to the name of the chosen registrar.


And, there it is. If you don't like the choice made for you, pick the other.



The choice is right there - you just have to know where to look.

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The Stats "All Time" Display, And The 2010 Numbers

Occasionally in Blogger Help Forum: Something Is Broken, we see a curious question.

My blog Stats display is missing a complete year.

The problem is actually right there, in front of all of us - if we look.

Look at the Stats Overview tab, and the graph at the top of the display.

What happened to "2010"?


My suspicion is that it's a deliberate omission, to get the graph to fit in the limited horizontal space. How will they get "All Time" to fit in that space, as the Stats display gets older, and "All Time" covers more years?

That being the case, it should not be that much work to add a little "broken line" symbol in the border, between "2009 October" and "2011 March". Look how smoothly the line flows, in my graph, right through 2010. What does your blog show?

Fast forward to 2015, and we'll know the answer.

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And in 2012, we now see the same display oddity with the numbers from 2011.

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Blogger Magic - A Static Home Page

Every week, somebody asks for such a simple blog feature.

How do I have a single blog post always displayed, for the home page?

There are many things that Blogger has yet to provide, and this is one. A blog, by definition, contains a dynamic home page, with the most current posts displayed.

Today (sorry, too late!), if you view this blog, this post will be displayed, at the very top of the home page. Tomorrow, this post will be displayed, just not at the top of the home page. In a couple weeks, this post will not be displayed on the home page, at all. That is how blogs work. If you want to display anything else, you don't have a blog.

That's the purist position, anyway. A blog is simply a web site with the latest posts displayed on home page (the main page), and hidden older posts (the archives).

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(Update 2012/06/06): The recent "Search preferences" feature allows us to setup a true static home page, with none of the complications below.

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The neat thing about this magic trick is that it's not difficult to make it work. I categorise this trick as a snake, after the old taunt from my mother

If it had been a snake, it would have bitten you.

It's so simple, really.

1. Make the blog not display any posts, for home page.
2. Add a text gadget.
3. Tweak the text gadget to only display, when home page URL is displayed.
4. Use the Pages gadget, and index the rest of the blog. Add links using various label searches, pages, and posts, as you like.

Make The Home Page Not Display Any Posts
If you make the main page not display any posts, you get an empty home page. Settings - "Posts and comments" contains the "Show" setting. Set "Show" to "0 posts", and the blog has an empty home page.

Add A Text Gadget
Add an HTML / Text gadget, positioned just above or below the "Blog Posts" gadget. Setup the new gadget just like the blog post, that you would want permanently displayed. If you want to use the post editor to compose the gadget, do that.

Tweak The Template
This is the one part of this project, that requires any technique. Use the Template Editor, and edit the gadget template, for the gadget that you just added, so the gadget only displays when the home page URL is being displayed.

Use The Pages Gadget, To Index The Rest Of The Blog
Once you have a static home page gadget, just add links to the rest of the blog. You can have links in the new gadget - and you can have an index in the blog header, or in the sidebar. Use your imagination here, it's your blog.

That's it. Really.

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