Saving a post if Blogger's Publish button doesn't work

This article is about how you can save a  post even if Blogger's Publish button won't let you save your work.

Imagine you've been working on a Blogger post for several hours.    It's finally ready: you've got the wording exactly right, everything is formatted with bold, italics and bullet-points, your pictures and links are all correct, etc.   

But then your internet connection stops working.   Or you click the Publish button - and get a message like  "Post cannot be saved due to HTML errors".   You can't work out how fix the problem, and you need to stop working on it now!

This may seem like a disaster - hours of work wasted.

But luckily there's a very easy way to save your work, and tools to help you diagnose problems.

Saving your work and recovering it later

How to save the post that you have written

• Switch to Edit HTML mode (this is a tab at the top left corner of the editing window. 

• Select all the text in the window (Ctrl / A does this in most browsers)

• Copy it.

• Go to somewhere outside of Blogger that you can save text:
  Perhaps a text-editor like Notepad, or a plain-text formatted email message.   Even a word processor like MS Word can work, provided you remember to save your file as text.  Or you may want to use a source code editor - see the section below about fixing code errors.

• Paste in the contents that you copied earlier.

• Save the file.

• Switch to Compost mode (this is optional - I usually recommend it so that you don't get confused the next time you come back to Blogger and see the "funny codes")

• Exit the Blogger post-editor by closing the window - say "ok" if the system asks if you really want to leave the page without saving. 

Recovering your work later on

This is the reverse of what you did to save the work:   open the text file, copy the contents, go to Edit HTML mode in Blogger and paste them in.

You should then be able to go in to Compose mode, and see the post as it was when you stopped working on it.

At this point, if the HTML is ok and you have fixed the issues with your internet connection, you can Publish your post.

Fixing problems with your HTML

If there are problems with the HTML, then you need to find them, and fix them.    Usually, fixing them is easy, once you've found them - but the finding can be  hard if you have a large and complicated post.

Sometimes Blogger will tell you what the problem with your HTML is, and show where it's happening by putting the "wrong" code into reverse text when you try to Publish it:  this makes it easy to see if you scan through the HTML for the post.

However sometimes Blogger doesn't show you where the problem is - I've noticed this more often recently when using IE 9.0 on complex posts.   Instead you get an error message like

Your HTML cannot be accepted: Closing tag has no matching opening tag: SPAN

or whatever the specific problem is, but none of your code is highlighted. This can make it hard to track down and fix the problem.

A low-tech way to find the problem is to paste the code from the saved file into Blogger's Edit HTML window in smaller sections, and Publish to work out if the problem is in the code that you just pasted:  if everything in the first section of code can be published, but there is an error message for the next part, then you know what section the error is in.

A major disadvantage of this approach is that you need to publish the post many times, and the first time it will definitely not be "finished".   this is OK if you use a pre-publication blog to prepare your posts, but if you don't do that, it can cause your RSS subscribers to form a bad impression of the quality of your posts.

A better option is to use a source-code editor like Notepad++ (free, Windows only) or XMLSpy (30 day free trial, far more complex code editor), which has tools to help you find and fix problems with your code.

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Putting a badge for a Facebook Page into your Blog

This article describes making a Facebook badge to promote your page, and putting it onto your blog.

What is a Facebook page

This article is about how to make a badge to promote a Facebook Page.

This is an example of the "follow me" approach to linking your blog and the social networks, although for Facebook pages your reader becomes a Fan rather than a Friend.

Many people are confused about when they should use each of the types of "thing" in Facebook, ie

• Profiles - accounts for flesh-and-blood, living, breathing, individual people
• Pages - for websites, brands, and organisations that don't want to approve all their Facebook members
• Groups -  for organisations that want to approve individual members who join (and in return, group-owners can send private messages to individual members.

The most common "thing" for blogs to have is a Page - and a Badge is the tool which Facebook provides to help you to promote a Page on your blog or other website.

How to make a badge to promote a Facebook Page

View all your Pages using the arrow drop-down at the very top right of Facebook's toobar.
(Facebook chance the place for actions like this from time to time - you may need to look around to find your pages.)

Copy the URL for the Page you want to promote
(One way is to right click on its name, and choose copy-link-location- or whatever phrase your browser uses.   Another is to to go the page, and copy the URLfrom your address bar.)

Come back to this article and click  here --- Facebook Social Plugins, to reach Facebook's tools.
(I used to have instructions to launch this from Facebook - but I cannot find any link to it from my Pages page any more.)

Choose Page Plugin  / Web.  

Scroll down the page, and set the options for your badge.  The first one is critical - the others optional:

• Facebook Page URL - this needs to be changed to the URL of your page (which you copied earlier)
  If you have less than 25 Fans already, then your page's URL will be something like http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blogger-Hints-and-Tips/144194435594821 and you can get it by copying the link from the list of Pages for your account.
  Once you have more than 25 fans, you can choose a  page-url on the Edit Info > Username screen.

• Tab - the tab on your page that is shown

• Width - choose a value that suits the space on your template where you want to put the box.
• Show faces, show header:  choose options that suit your purpose and blog template
• Show stream:  this controls whether you show posting from the Page inside your blog

As you choose options, the preview at the bottom updates to show what the button will look like:

When you are happy with the selections, choose Get Code.

• Currently, there are options for an iframe or Javascript SDK:   I recommend using the iframe, unless you are comfortable with the two-part installation needed for the Javascripit, and you are sure that the visitors you want to target will have Javascripti enabled. 

Copy the code provided

Install the code into your blog - there several options for installing the HTML, depending on where you want to put the badge or button.


Job Done!   Your blog will now display a gadget that promotes the selected Facebook page - people can view and like your Page from within your blog.

What your visitors will see

People who visit your blog through a web-browser will see a Facebook area, including a Like button and whatever other options you have chosen.

This can be quite a powerful tool:  you can easily use two or three different combinations on different parts of your blog:  one that has no border, no faces and no header but does show a Stream can effectively look like a "live" feed from your Facebook page to your blog, while another one with different options can show off the size of your fan-base.

Be aware that the Like button shown in this button gives people the option to Like your Page in facebook  - not your blog directly, and not the current post that they are reading.   If you want them to be able to Like your blog or blog-posts, you need to provide this option separately (and many of your visitors are likely to be confused by the different).

As always, people who read your blog via a feed reader (Bloglines, Google Reader, etc), or by email subscription (eg having used follow-by-email) may not see the Facebook item, depending on where is places and what options their email program has.

Customizing the code

You can change the characteristics of the box without having to generate the code from Facebook again.   For example you can later the width and/or height - just remember to do it in both of the places required if you are using the iframe option:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/likebox.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpages%2FBlogger-Hints-and-Tips%2F144194435594821&amp;width=160&amp;colorscheme=light&amp;show_faces=false&amp;border_color=purple&amp;stream=true&amp;header=false&amp;height=395" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:160px; height:395px;" allowTransparency="true"></iframe>

fyi, I could have just quoted this code, and said to use it on your blog.  But I don't usually do this when I'm describing how to link Blogger and any third party product, because it's likely that Facebook (or whoever) will change their code in the future:  it's always safest to get the most up-to-date copy of the code from the source-site when you need it.

The facebook page where you get the code from also has more information about controls you can set in the code, too.   Check it out for more information.

Do you need to own the page you want to promote?

No - not any more.

At one stage, the first step in these instructions was to

"Log into Facebook with a profile (ie personal account) that has administrator rights for the page you want to promote."

But that's no longer necessary.   You can promote any Facebook page that you want to, on your blog.

But be aware that if you show the page-feed on your blog, and you don't own the page, then you have no control over what is shown.   It's possible that a feed from someone else's Page will show material which breaks Blogger's terms and conditions - or which you simply don't want on your blog.    For this reason along, I'd recommend only promoting your own, or closely trusted, pages on your blog.

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How to rename picture files in Picasa-desktop

This article is about re-naming files from within Picasa-desktop, to provide SEO benefits for your blog.

Picasa's desktop software is a good tool for organizing and editing photos on your local computer.   And it is still available for you to use, even though Picasa-web-albums has been replaced by Google Albums + Google Album Archive.

For pictures that are important in your blog, I still recommend preparing them in a tool like Picasa-desktop and then uploading the finished versions to Google Photos before putting them into a post, because:

• The desktop tool has better editing tools (cropping, zooming, auto adjustment, adding watermarks) and Picasa-web-albums does.

• It lets you control the size of the uploaded file

• It's easier to ensure sure that you still have full-size files on my local machine for printing etc, as well as smaller, more optimized, copies to use on web-pages.

Picasa-desktop folders have a very nice relationship with files and directories with the Windows file system:

Each Picasa folder = one directory on your computer
Each Picasa photo = one file on your computer.

And this means that you can set various properties (eg file name) from either inside Picasa or from Windows.

Ways to associate keywords with photos in Picasa-desktop

Picasa-desktop has two tools for adding keywords to photographs:

• You can enter a caption for each photo. This is basically some text, which is stored "inside" the photo, in a hidden-field that is only visible when you are using a software tool that displays the captions. (In technical terms, the caption is stored inside the  IPTC/XMP Description field inside the JPEG etc file that you have.)

• You can enter one or more tags for each photo - again, text (individual words or phrases) that is stored in the  IPTC/XMP Keyword field.

Unfortunately captions and tags aren't shown when you put a photo in your blog.

This means that the captions and tags are possibly not used by Google in understanding what the photo is about: I've never heard any SEO experts recommending that the  IPTC/XMP fields should be keyword optimized.   For some bloggers this won't be an issue - but it is if SEO is important for you blog.

Another approach is to put the keyword(s) into the file-name, because file-name is one of the factors that Google looks at when it is indexing images.   And this has a nice spin-off for you as well - it means that they keywords are available to any file-search tools that you use on your computer, not just to specialised ones that work with images.

For a long time, I believed that to change the name of a file, I had to go out to my Windows files (using Windows Explorer or similar, and rename them there) - and then wait for Picasa to catch up with the change that I'd made in the file system.   But one day I accidentally hit the F2 key, and found that it opens up a very useful dialog box indeed.

How to Change the name of a file in Picasa desktop

Navigate to the picture that you want to change the file-name for, using the Picasa-desktop software.

Press the F2 key. This opens a Rename Files window.

Type in a new name for the file, for example    concrete-pig-outside-butcher-shop-in-ireland

Click the option buttons if you want to include today's date or the file-resolution in the name  (I don't usually do this, because I organise my photos into folders according to the date they were taken)

Click Rename to save the change


Job done!    The file has a new name in your computer's file system, and is still loaded in your Picasa database.

How to change the name of a file in Google Album Archive or Google Photos

Currently there is no way to change the name of a file after it is uploaded it to either Google Album Archive or Google Photos:  .

One option is to download the photo, rename the file on your desktop, and re-upload it.   But if you change the name in this way, you also need to change the link to the file in every place that it has already been used.   That said, if you only use your photos in one place each, then making a new copy with a different name, uploading it and changing all the existing links can be a good way to deal with copyright theives who have hot-linked directly to your photos.

How to choose "good" names for your picture files

Early SEO advice was to use:

• Lowercase letters only (some computers don't like uppercase)
• Only hyphens between words (not spaces, underscores, etc)
• Regular characters only (no á é etc)

Today, I'm not sure if it matters so much. In most cases, it's probably more important to use rich, descriptive key words  that describe all the aspects of the photo, than to worry about how they're laid out.   But I do tend to follow the advice anyway - just in case.

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Related Articles

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How Secure Is Your Document Sharing Provider

Companies and Enterprises are constantly on the look-out for a reliable and enhanced way of sharing files among their employees without leaking vital information. This is where file-sharing services such as Dropbox and SugarSync come into play. Box, Google Drive and other cloud hosting providers offer users the ability to sync files and folders, make them accessible everywhere and emphasize on security thus a lot of businesses seek their well-regarded services.

The past few weeks have been overwhelming for the providers with the trending news of Dropbox going through so far another security breach. This begs the question, how secure is your document sharing provider? Dropbox being one of the most reliable cloud service providers had recently reset most of its client's passwords owing to a data breach that had occurred in 2012. Nevertheless, even with all these steps of ensuring user security they were hacked and data stolen from its users.

Owing to this, cloud service providers have put in place new safety measures to try and curb the threat. Some of these include the two-step verification whereby the user is required to enter a password and verification code sent to them via mobile phone. Another security step that has been put in place is advising the users to unlink any older devices that are no longer in use. These may be smartphones, tablets or even unused computers that were once attached to their Dropbox accounts. Another safety measures the providers have put in place, although it has been part of the package in their services, is file encryption and monitoring web sessions. By tracking and keeping a record of web browsers that have logged into a user's account, the client can monitor illegal activity in their account and report quickly.

But is this enough? Are your business and company files safe or are they vulnerable and at the mercy of your competitors? With the millions of passwords and personal data lost at the Dropbox security breach, a lot of uncertainty and questions have been raised on how secure is your document sharing provider?

Source: https://www.firmex.com/virtual-data-rooms/

How to turn your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot?

There are many good things about turning your iPhone to a wireless hotspot. For example, you are travelling somewhere and you are carrying your laptop or tablet. You have two options, you can work offline on the tablet or laptop, or browse the internet on a very small screen. It would be great if you could use your 3G or 4G connection of the iPhone and go online on your laptop or tablet, right?

The good thing is that you can easily do this with your iPhone. It is quite easy to share your cellular connection with other devices you use. This feature is popular as tethering and it is really helpful -you don’t have to look for a café or a restaurant to use the internet or search for a free public hotspot.

Turning your iPhone to a wireless hotspot is quite easy. However, we recommend you to contact your carrier first and see if they allow this option or whether it is included in your monthly plan. This will exclude the chances of any unplanned extra fees. You also have to take care of your monthly bandwidth quota. In case you have a limited bandwidth for the month, make sure to use this option only when you really need it.

How to create an iPhone hotspot

Tethering basically transforms your iPhone to a wireless router just like the ones we all have at our homes. Of course, you won’t be able to login to the new router using its default IP (for example 192.168.1.1 and password) and tweak its settings, but it practically does the same job. Then the iPhone sends wireless signal which enables us to connect our devices to the internet. The laptop or tablet can connect to the iPhone either by USB, or Bluetooth or wireless. It is quite good to know that your beloved iPhone can do this. So, if you want to turn your iPhone to a wireless hotspot follow these steps:

1. Tap the Settings icon
2. Then tap on Cellular and turn on Cellular Data. Make sure to set it to 3G or 4G in the Cellular Data Options.
3. Go back and tap Personal Hotspot and turn it ON..
4. Tap on Wi-Fi Password and enter a password you would like to use to connect your devices. At the same time this will prevent others from connecting to your wireless hotspot.
5. On the laptop click on the Network icon and from the available networks select the one labeled as “iPhone” or similar.
6. Click on that network name and enter the password you have set up earlier.

Now you will be able to browse the Internet on any device you connect to your personal wireless hotspot. However, don’t forget you are using the data connection from your iPhone. Maybe you won’t get so good performance as with the Internet connection you have at home, but we are sure you will be able to do all the tasks you want to do.

Don’t forget to turn OFF the hotspot when you don’t use it since it will drain your iPhone battery very quickly.

What are the dangers of creating an iPhone hotspot

There is always a possibility that someone will try to connect to your iPhone hotspot and use your bandwidth without your knowledge. If you have set up a password as we have mentioned before you shouldn’t worry about this. However, if someone guesses your password you will be notified when he or she gets connected to the wireless hotspot. If this happens you will be notified so you can react in time.

Another thing you have to take good care about is the bandwidth. It is quite easy to forget paying attention to it while you are surfing. However, you can always use third-party apps to control the bandwidth. At the same time avoid downloading large files or updating your computer. This can consume large amounts of data and very soon you will hit the limit. So, always make sure to pay attention to this. Plus, when you use your iPhone as a hotspot you will notice the battery gets drained faster than usual.

SEO in 2017, Digital Home Assistants, Mobile Indexing, and AI - Oh My!

SEO in 2017, Digital Home Assistants, Mobile Indexing, and AI - Oh My!
Looking to discover a new SEO strategy that will help optimize your site? Have you taken into consideration how digital assistants and apps have changed the way buyers operate? If you haven’t already approached your boss with a model about how to adapted to these changes it might be too late.

As the rise of digital assistants like Siri and Amazon Echo become smartphone staples and home automation ports, it's important to recognize that changing your SEO methods is no longer an option. 180Fusion is a leading search engine marketing company that specializes in generating leading SEO terms and site optimization. We sat down with them, to help loop together what it is you need to understand about the ever-changing strategy of SEO content while catering to the world of artificial intelligence and mobile.

Here are three approaches to SEO that will better position you in a world conforming to assistant search:

Hey Google, Alexa and Siri: Optimizing For Digital Assistants

The number of consumers turning to digital assistants for answers to their questions is on the rise. Marketers will have to adapt if they want to stay relevant in a world where the use of personal operating systems and mobile apps for shopping becoming par for the course.

Digital assistants like Siri, Google Now, and Amazon echo are completely redefining the search and shop process. Rather than producing a run of results when they’re asked a question, they produce an immediate answer negating the duty of the user to filter through various options and stumbling across your website.

Your business should dodge becoming obsolete by playing the same game that these digital assistants relying on existing web search algorithms do. Because they use content that will supply them with sufficient and accurate answers, you should provide them with answers that are specific and significant.

As they are now, interactions with digital assistants are conversational, thus digital assistants seek out results that are conversational. Optimize your site's SEO by including colloquial terms, long-tail keywords, and detailed questions. Create posts that venture into niche territory. Be the source that a know-it-all digital assistant links to and your site your brand will score instant credibility points and increase user return.

Mobile First Is No Longer Optional

The amount of time people spend using their phones for searches is skyrocketing. Smartphones give people the luxury of instant access to information they had to drive home or to the office for. It’s why going mobile with your site isn’t an option anymore, especially because search engines like Google rewarding mobile-friendly sites with more positive rankings.

As you create and design content for your site, it becomes key that you reflect on how it is that you use and access the internet. Smartphones that have even more capabilities of a computer have changed the ways people want to receive information. Not only do they want instant access they want to have it fed to them easily. Secure visitors who access your site via mobile by presenting them with a site that is mobile responsive or designed to account for device screen size so that the site can be displayed on different screens. 180Fusion created a mobile responsive corporate website that detects the screen size of a device and accounts for its different dimensions. Use mobile SEO and optimization to provide a site designed and structured to run on a mobile at a page speed that won’t frustrate your user and turn them away. 

Do It All With Artificial Intelligence

The development and improvement of artificial intelligence means that we’ll have access to smarter and more human-friendly search engines. Results that come from a search take into account your location, the amount of clicks from similar queries and even your own search history. AI developments will allow for an adaptation in result rank as algorithms take in what prompts the most clicks and translate it into relevancy. This means a heightened importance of SEO optimization for marketers and the content that they create.

As search engines use artificial intelligence to improve analyzing search objectives, keyword research accuracy becomes more critical. Marketers have to hone in on keywords and then make them relevant to the content they create. Accordingly, frame of reference and content relevance are now more important factors than old methods that aimed to achieve keyword density.

Speaking of relevance, video content mustn’t be undervalued. Especially because search engines like Google have started to favor videos in search results. As they also improve upon detecting what visual content is about, the game for visual content creators completely changes. For them, considering SEO when creating visual content becomes crucial.

It might all sound intimidating, but improvements in AI will make SEO become a strategy that is more intelligible and regular. Focus on delivering valuable and suitable content to searchers and you’re already ahead of the game.

Productivity Tool Preview - Able2Extract Professional 11

The majority of our office documentation comes in PDF - the most known, universal format for viewing and storing documents. No matter the industry, profession or experience, everyone is still using it.

The PDF’s main trait is its non-editable nature. You cannot edit or change any content inside a PDF document, by default. Two reasons why:

1. Security - PDF format is the most secure type currently available, thus you are unable to easily alter documents.
2. Portability - PDF files tend to always keep the layout so they can be viewed and shared across devices and platforms.

Because you cannot copy or edit a PDF file, various companies develop software to help us solve that particular problem. One of those tools is Able2Extract, whose latest version is set to be released on December 5.

This brand new office productivity solution is called Able2Extract Professional 11 and we had the pleasure of reviewing it prior to its release.

Here is what you will have a chance to see in the latest build:

PDF Creation

Having in mind the latest document security concerns in almost all competitive industries, the developers of Able2Extract decided to up the ante and provide complete document encryption and decryption, upon PDF creation.

This means that you can set up document owners, configure passwords and share your documents securely. There are two ways to create PDFs in Able2Extract:

1. After clicking the right-mouse-button on a supported file, select the "Print" option and choose Able2Extract Professional 11 printer.
2. By clicking on a "Create" button in Able2Extract, the software will immediately make a PDF document from your desired file.

PDF compression is another sub-task, which allows you to set up image and text compression, therefore reducing file size for when you send it through email.

PDF Editing

Using Able2Extract’s upgraded PDF editing engine, you will have a chance to perform a wide variety of operations, most notably:

• Add, remove and edit PDF text
• Add images and vector shapes
• Change text size, font color, fill and outline text blocks
• Move and rotate all content blocks
• Rearrange one or several pages
• Combine multiple PDF files into one document
• Split PDF documents
• Rotate and delete pages across the document
• Resize any individual page

Additionally, users can now redact (black out) all sensitive information from their financial and legal documents.

PDF Conversion

Able2Extract Pro 11 will keep the main strength of its predecessors. After all, this software is primarily a PDF conversion software. Version 11 is empowered with an improved OCR engine that enables you to convert scanned PDF documents into fully editable formats.

All conversions work the same: open your PDF by clicking on the "Open" button and selecting the desired file. Since Able2Extract is one of the most advanced converters out there, it supports conversion up to 12 different formats, such as:

• PDF to Word
• PDF to Excel
• PDF to Image
• PDF to CSV
• PDF to PowerPoint
• PDF to HTML
• PDF to AutoCAD and more

As usual, users can use Custom conversion features to manually set up all needed parameters. Take note that the custom conversion is still limited to PDF to Excel and PDF to CSV.

PDF Annotations

In Able2Extract Pro 11 users do not need to install any plugins for annotations, as this new feature runs right inside the new Annotations Panel, which supports following annotations:

• Sticky notes
• Comments
• Highlight
• Underline and strikeout text
• Stamps and watermarks
• Hyperlink and attachment

Having in mind that this is just a quick preview, you can rest assured that the actual software provides even more productivity enhancing features, as these are just some of the new things you will get with Able2Extract 11. The tool is in many ways a useful product that can solve any PDF problems you might have.

A lifetime, single-user license will go for $129.95 and the software is available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux users.