Saturday, September 02, 2006

Moving upstairs

At Susan's behest I thought it would be a good idea to to post about my monumental move to Beta Blogger... it was monumental for me, okay?

What is it?
Upgraded Blogger apparently - it will come to all eventually. Count me as one of the many guinea pigs! You know me, new buttons an' all.

Who can have it?
I thought it was open for all, but maybe not yet. There has been a little sign on me dashboard for a couple of weeks - maybe longer - I'm not that observant.

Do I need a degree in blogology to do it?
No definitely not, you're talking to me - Princess Airhead (although I do have a diploma in toilet cleaning, must have because no one else in our house can do it!). The only thing that you have to do is open a googlemail account if you haven't already got one - I did. Easy anyway and googlemail is dead handy for blogging because you can nip between the two in a flash! Passwords to googlemail and beta blogger are one and the same - less headaches!

What's different?
Not a lot. The format is exactly the same, posting, template etc. The whole look is a bit neater, dashboard, posts etc, and you can publish at the speed of light. No waiting for the interminable clock - bonus!

What's new?
You can fiddle with your template, change your colours, layout, font. Expect changes when I've got me head around the whole shebang and managed not to delete the whole thing in the process. There are other mysterious things that I haven't had a look at yet because I had to go shopping, but it all looks fairly simple.

Drawbacks?
As far as I understand (so don't quote me on this) if you change your template (background etc) you can't take your links with you, they have to be added later. Blogger will kindly make a copy for you though, so not much problem just a bit of time.
I found commenting on other blogs a little different - Blogger now sees me as a separate entity and refuses to let me post until I have told them who I am - well really!!

I also thought that I had a) cocked up the site metre and b) cocked up the whole world's site metre. Turned out to be just bad timing. Thanks to Skint for letting me know that I wasn't responsible for destruction on a global scale! Btw I now have two site metres and one is telling me that I am possibly the most popular person I know - guess which one I'm keeping?

8 comments:

Gabriele Campbell said...

Dang, this thing won't let me comment. Another try.

Also, Microcrap gives me a safety warning when the comment window opens; seems it doesn't trust Beta Blogger.

Unknown said...

You're here!!

Marie said...

Thanks for that, Minx.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Minx. Very interesting. I shall keep a watch for beta. Looks good.

Anonymous said...

Eternally hopeful, she tries yet again... Will this damn thing let me leave a comment for Minx or not... grrrr!

Anonymous said...

How odd, I can comment, but not as a blogger and so have to comment as a linkless Atyllah. Swines!
Now, to repeat what I've been trying to post... As far as I can gather, Beta Blogger has only been offered to some people. If you have a Beta Blogger logo on your dashboard, you can switch (you don't have to, not right now, anyway, but eventually everyone will be migrated to Beta Blogger.
I've chosen not to switch yet as apparently certain sites like Flickr and Audioblogger are not yet compatible with Beta Blogger - I for one don't want to lose my nice little Flickr badge and links.

Unknown said...

You need to sign in as 'other' then put in a name and web page, you should then come up as 'Atyllah the Hen' in glorious technicolour.
Not sure about the Flicker stuff. Beta is supposed to make templating much easier. Maybe you could export it and then download it to new page. Oh listen to me, I nearly sound like I know what I'm doing - Hah!
Will investigate at some point when I'm feeling braver!!

Anonymous said...

Trouble with this "other" thing is that you have to put in your website at each comment, the system does not seem to remember you....this isn't just beta blogger it is also in "classic blogger" (is that what they call the Oldies version?)