What Should I Give Away When I Get To 100 Followers?

As my follower count increases steadily over time, I am feeling inclined to give something away when I reach that magical, yet completely arbitrary, 100 follower threshold.

So, follower or browser, what do you think would be a reasonable gift for a random follower once I reach that mark?  Fruitcake?

Some new product would certainly be the easiest way to go for me, but it seems rather impersonal.  Perhaps a painted model or unit?  I think I have the chops to provide something nice for the winner.

What are your thoughts?



...and yes, Susan, I know I still owe you a Tardis.

Even Easier Image Formatting / Text Wrapping in Blogger

Blogger has improved their composition form quite a bit.  The esoteric method I posted previously of matching text with images can be done with a much easier process now.

First, the intent:  You have multiple photos you want to write about, and you want the text for each photo to show up next to the photo in question.  Here is an example of where I have done this.

Here's how to do it.  Start with a new post, and add an image.  Click the "left" link on the image control bar to move it to the left of the screen.  Now enter some text to go with that image.  Okay, here's the scary part... I know you can do it.  Be brave.  Click the "Edit HTML" tab above the compose window.  What you will see are two blocks of text, both surrounded by DIV tags.  One is the image and the other is the text you entered.  "Cut" the text you entered from within the second div (leave the <div> and </div> tags there) and paste the text just before the </div> tag surrounding the image.  That's it.  Go back to "Compose" and that text should be locked to the image now.  Repeat for as many photos as you would like.

One final note.  Don't be surprised when Blogger rewrites your HTML to its own purposes.  The intent of the formatting seems to stick even if the gubbins move around.

Upgrade Failed

So I finally clicked the "upgrade" button on my Blogger template. Guess what! Fail! Most of my content went over just fine but for some reason the comments link is refusing to show up on my posts. People can still leave comments, but they have to go into the post itself to do so.

Grrr. I know "black box"ing things makes life easier for 99.9% of the users, but I'm still jealously clinging to my control at the source level.

EDIT: Win! Reading some forum posts, I tried clicking the "Revert Widget Templates to Default" link (in Layout, Edit HTML, at the bottom) and it worked! I don't know what about the comment widget had been modified but apparently the default version is the good one.

Blogger Tip: Wrapping Text Specific to Multiple Images

One thing I've struggled with in my blog is the ability to post multiple images and have text roughly aligned with each image. That way I can actually write about the image that's next to the text.

It's going to take some html changes. Don't be scared. You can do this.

If you don't know what html is, don't worry. It's the language that a web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc.) uses to know where and how to put stuff on the page you are viewing. Html "tags" tell when to start and stop a particular format. The starts look like <this> and the stops look like </this>. Got it? Good, because you don't need to know any of this. Read on.

Here's the quick list of what we're going to do:

1. Load an image into the post
2. Add some text to go with the image
   
3. Add a snippet of html before the image
4. Add a snippet of html after the text

So start by composing a new blog entry and import an image into it. Just for grins at this point, click the "Edit Html" tab in the upper right of the compose window. The code for the image is a big scary block of html that starts with <a onblur="try... and ends with ...border="></a>. It should be about 5 or 6 lines total. Again, you don't need to understand it... you just need to be able to find the <a> at the end.
Okay, so switch back to "compose" mode (upper right tab) and add some text to the post. Now, switch back to "Edit Html." If you entered your text to the right of the image if should show up after the </a> part. That's good. That's what we want. Now find the end of your text. That should be pretty easy to do. Got it? Great. Guess what... we're half way there.

Okay, here's the fun part. Go back to the html and find the beginning of the image code again. Right before the <a paste this code:

<table style="border: medium none ;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="100%">

Good, now go to the end of your text and paste this code in:

</td></tr></tbody></table>

Good. Now go back to "compose" mode and look at it. Okay, so it's not so impressive.... yet. The trick of this is that those code blocks can be repeated to get the text to stay with the relevant image. Each separate picture and the associated text is surrounded by its own "table" tag. This way, the browser knows to keep them separate. The post immediately below this one is a good example of two pictures with associated text.

Here is the updated post html, the parts I added are red. Since there are two pictures there are two "table" tags included, as you can see below:

<table style="border: medium none ;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="100%"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSWLwihwZWVfFdR_DapsP5f3wDUbiWr0t_LeV3-g3a2OUf4G1rmRD4IKmcPON4WyrOjBmpKTtJaUArTPHFxwFUTVYixn_o_DVPgv6ohDcla-fUPls9GS7GQd6T3AbyvYzoGIM/s1600-h/wip1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 243px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoSWLwihwZWVfFdR_DapsP5f3wDUbiWr0t_LeV3-g3a2OUf4G1rmRD4IKmcPON4WyrOjBmpKTtJaUArTPHFxwFUTVYixn_o_DVPgv6ohDcla-fUPls9GS7GQd6T3AbyvYzoGIM/s320/wip1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319591784571512354" border="0" /></a>Hmm. The title sounds like "Kibbles and Bits"... Menites and Kans, Menites and Kans, I'm gonna get me some Menites and Kans.

But anyhoo.... I converted a Killa Kan from various bits, and I think he turned out okay. Meet Stompy and Chompy. I think the rationale behind Chompy's name is self evident, and of course Stompy is up on one leg. The third in the set is tentatively named "Clyde," named for the ghost in Pac-man who broke the rhyming pattern. I don't know what Clyde will be, but he won't be a stock Kan. Anyone care to share ideas?</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table style="border: medium none ;"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="100%"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW7BKuVUUoiBG7FlpdUc-sMU92_6vsgFNQ1TWwqvwK2Of2xQ15z646NKEKaUf3IGz8KIAMx1wIIQrIGlthF-fFf8TMl-9BnL5ykODbw4rvj02tffVjuXqF2gvsgNcR2wvpwfzL/s1600-h/wip1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW7BKuVUUoiBG7FlpdUc-sMU92_6vsgFNQ1TWwqvwK2Of2xQ15z646NKEKaUf3IGz8KIAMx1wIIQrIGlthF-fFf8TMl-9BnL5ykODbw4rvj02tffVjuXqF2gvsgNcR2wvpwfzL/s320/wip1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5319593172141889330" border="0" /></a>Also up are some models from the game Warmachine. I play the "Protectorate of Menoth" faction, and I absolutely love the models in this game. I have a standing challenge for a 500 point fully-painted game around May 1, so I'm planning what models need painting. My opponent will almost assuredly field Khador, so I'm in for a first-class whuppin'.</td></tr></tbody></table>

That's it! Go to town and let me know if it works/doesn't work for you or if you've found a better method to accomplish this.

Template Tragedy

Note to bloggers... don't ever edit your template without scrolling all the way to the bottom of the little windows to ensure that it all loaded first. If the template didn't load into the little window first, then your blog will be broken and you will need to pick your template again from the list, blowing away all your customizations.

I honestly can't remember what links I had out there before, but I'm pretty sure I got all the blogs that I read. Thankfully sitetracker is easy to reimplement.
Wow, was that annoying.