I Need Your Help

Hi Everyone!!

It seems like I have been away from blogging for WAY TOO long and I really miss all of you! It feels really good to be writing at this very moment. So much has happened in the last 2 years and I can't wait to begin sharing with all of you again.   

I am working on putting together a FREE tutorial series to help Teachers Pay Teachers sellers with product creation and I would love to hear your thoughts on what tutorials would be most helpful to all of you.

There is no much content out there now and a plethora of videos and blog posts specifically geared to help new sellers, so I would like to focus on content that is fresh and would be most helpful.

Please respond in the comments below and let me know what specific content you would like to learn when it comes to creating digital products. Be as specific as you like. I really want the free tutorials to be helpful.

Also... don't feel shy if you think your question is "stupid".. chances are, there are many out there who might need help in the same area.

Tutorial: How to Remove Required Title from Blogger Sidebar Gadget

Time to learn a new Blogger trick!!

Although I rarely use the image gadget in Blogger, I recently had a client who ran into a very common problem that she needed help with. After helping her out, I decided that this topic would make a great beginner tutorial for all of you as well. 

Plus ALSO (in my best Junie B. voice), I am way overdue on posting a new Blogger tutorial for all of you.  Get ready to learn something new and super EASY!!

Title: How to Remove the Required Title from a Blogger Gadget

Level of Difficulty: Beginner/Easy 

Time: Less than 2 minutes!

NO CODING REQUIRED! (this may or may not be a lie....)

Have you ever tried to add an image gadget to your sidebar without a title... only to get this annoying error in Blogger... requiring you to include a title (see visual below)? 

Those of you not familiar with code or those of you that just don't want to mess with the blog template might have chosen to either add the stinkin' title to the image, or not add the image altogether. 

You might have even gotten clever and uploaded the image to Photobucket, grabbed the HTML image code and uploaded an HTML/Javascript Gadget instead. Of course, this will force you to work with code, but it will get the job done.... with some time and effort. 

Good for you for your quick thinking...but I have something even easier that will save you a great deal of time and effort, and won't require coding or an image hosting account. 

There is only ONE step in this tutorial!! 

The next time you want to upload an image to a Blogger image gadget WITHOUT being forced to add a title, simply, add the following text in the same place you would add the title text from within the gadget form... <!--> and click SAVE (see visual below). 

When I am all done, I end up with an image and...

LOOK...

WARNING: It is about to get GEEKY up in here!!

What did we just do?? 

Well friends, we just tricked the gadget into "thinking" there was a title, but in reality, we sent a coded message to not show the title text!!  I know, I know... I told you that there was no coding involved...I LIED!!! Technically, you did not have to open your blog template and add code or add CSS, but the text you added to the title is actually HTML...Hyper Text Markup Language... for those of you who fear the fact that you just used code!! ha!! 

Here is what the text you just added really means...that is... if you want to get a little Geeky with me for fun. 

I will attempt to break this down and explain this in the most basic way possible...

The angle brackets <  > (also known as inequality signs) "house" messages (tags and content) we want to send in HTML. The text between the angle brackets is typically referred to as a TAG name.  With HTML and CSS, we can communicate to web browsers and tell it how to display our content!! Pretty COOL stuff, huh?? 

Here is the breakdown of the HTML tag we typed as the title of our image gadget:

<   "ET PHONE HOME"   

The angle brackets open our communication with a web browser (just like dialing a number on a telephone) and let the web browser know what we want it to do or not do. When our code is written properly, the web browser determines how to display our content on the web based on the tags and content we communicated typed.

!  "Here Ye, Here Ye!"   

The exclamation point is typically followed by a declaration like, <!DOCTYPE html>, which tells the web browser what language we are using and how to display the content for that language. 

I am really trying hard to make this as simple as possible to understand...

The text that follows a declaration will determine the content type to the web browser. Basically, the exclamation point tells the web browser to pay attention.

-   "NOTHING, NADA, ZILTCH"

The two hyphen's we included told the web browser to display NOTHING as the title text. 

I created a little visual to help make it easier for you to remember what to type inside the gadget title form entry when you do NOT want a title to appear. 

Save it, Pin it, print it on a sticky note, or ignore it.... whatever will help you save time should you run into this problem in Blogger ever again.

I hope you all have enjoyed learning something new today!! Keep checking back periodically for more quick Blogger Tutorials!!  Thank you for stopping by & I would love to read your comments below!!

Blogger Header Missing on 3AM Designs

Hi everyone!! I have a quick post to announce only for those of you I have had the honor to work with. I have had two of my clients inform me that their Blog header suddenly disappeared. At first, I thought there might have been something wonky going on with Blogger, but I now believe that I might have been the cause of  this error. 

Because I am hiking this morning, I decided to write a quick post just in case I lose service in the hills. I am not sure if there are any more of you missing a header, but I hope if you are one of the lucky ones, that this will bring you a little peace of mind. 

My phone broke a few weeks ago and I finally got my replacement last week. I have been slowly setting everything up, but when I synced my google plus images,  I believe that I might have chosen an option to delete some of the duplicated images, not even thinking about anyone's header images. 

The header image is the one image I do not host, but instead, upload within the Blogger header widget. Because of this, I did not think twice about deleting some of the images I had on Google plus. Although I do not host those images through my Pjotobucket account, I hadn't thought of the fact that the images are hosted through Blogger and my Google/Picassa every time I upload a picture into a post or into a Blogger template. 

So..... If you are a client and friend of mine whom I have had the honor to work with, and your header is missing, here is what you will need to do... It will literally take you less than a minute to resolve and will not require any coding or my assistance. If you do get stuck and require my assistance... Do not feel bad about having to contact me for help. I will be more than happy to help you.

 Follow the directions below...

Directions:

Luckily, I provide every client with a zipped file of all of the images I create for their personal design, which you will need to make sure is un-zipped and the files saved where you can easily find them.

1. Log into your Blogger account 

2. Choose the Layout option from the sidebar menu

3. Open the header widget by clicking on the edit link at the bottom of the widget.

4. Choose to upload your own image. I make locating your header image very easy. It will be located in its own file folder (digital of course) within your design folder. Locate that folder and upload the image which will be labeled, header or h1. You will most likely be able to recognize it as your header and not need to read the image name. Upload the image when you find it and before you choose to save, make sure to click the option in your header widget, to replace the text with the image. I am not at my computer at this time, so I am not sure if that is the exact wordage.... But their pose is to make sure that your blog name does not show up in the form of a header title over the image. To do this, just make sure that you have selected to use the image instead of the text. 

5. Once you have uploaded your header image and selected the correct option within the widget, click save, refresh your browser, and check to make sure your header shows up.

I am so very sorry for the inconvenience, and if you need any help, please feel free to contact me. If you are a previous client of mine, you will have my email address engrained in your brain for sure...hahaha

 I have checked a few blogs and not all are missing headers, so it seems to have only done this to a few of you. 

Thank you so much for your understanding and I really hope you are all having a wonderful break... Those of you already on break!!!  Okay... I think I am ready to keep hiking... Hahaha... Thank goodness I brought my survival gear... I am not sure I could have done this without my iPad... Hahaha