Bot Cyborg

It has been quite a few days, since I started Blogging. On the source code of my blog, it was proudly proclaimed <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-⁄⁄W3C⁄⁄DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict⁄⁄EN" "http:⁄⁄www.w3.org⁄TR⁄xhtml1⁄DTD⁄xhtml1-strict.dtd"> I rushed off to W3C Markup Validator . The fist run showed up 437 errors! Quite high a number it was. Most of them were petty errors like unencoded ampersands in URLs, improper comments and the like. It is true, the extremely demanding XHTML 1.0 Strict standards sometimes becomes too much for web designers, but no one forces a designer to declare <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-⁄⁄W3C⁄⁄DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict⁄⁄EN" "http:⁄⁄www.w3.org⁄TR⁄xhtml1⁄DTD⁄xhtml1-strict.dtd"> either. If Google Blogger is so keen to show off its "XHTML 1.0 Strict" compliance, then it should take up the responsibility that it remains true to its words. Simply asserting some compliance and then relying on the browser to do the rest of the hard ...

People who are not happy with the Orange and White Blogger favicon, can use their own instead. First create a 48 X 48 px image using Gimp or whatever software you prefer. Save the image as a .ico file, say myicon.ico . Upload the image to some webhost like Google Pages or Geocities (Picasa WebAlbum doesn't accept .ico files). Next go to your Blogger DashBoard --> Layout --> Edit HTML. Locate the line <head> After the line insert the code- <link href="http://imagelocation/myicon.ico" rel="icon"> . Replace http://imagelocation with your webhost's address. Save the template. The job is done. Refresh your Blog page, your own icon will appear instead of Blogger's.

With a little tinkering of the HTML code of the Blogger template, it is very easy to insert social bookmarking links like Digg , Delicious , Technorati etc. so that readers can directly bookmark the Blog post. To add these links: Go to your Blogger Dashboard, Click Layout --> Edit HTML. Then check - Expand Widget Templates Search for the line: post-footer-line Just after the line, add the following code: <p/>Add to: <a expr:href='"http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img HEIGHT='20' WIDTH='50' src='http://lh4.ggpht.com/sambitbikaspal/SPAyI0pMJYI/AAAAAAAAAm0/THLvsaJKvJo/s144/digg-logo.gif'/></a> <a expr:href='"http://del.icio.us/post?url=" + data:post.url + "&title=" + data:post.title' target='_blank'><img HEIGHT='20' WIDTH='75' src='http://lh6.ggpht.com/sambitb...

Rendering LaTeX in Blogger is pretty easy thanks to the JavaScript LaTeX equation render engine from http://www.yourequations.com . To enable LaTeX rendering go to the Blogger Dashboard --> Layout --> Edit HTML . Then add the line <script> type="text/javascript" src="http://tex.yourequations.com/"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://tex.yourequations.com/"></script> just before <body/> . Half the job is now done. Then, for example to render: \int_{0}^{\pi}\frac{x^{4}\left(1-x\right)^{4}}{1+x^{2}}dx =\frac{22}{7}-\pi Use the code: <pre lang="eq.latex"> \int_{0}^{1}\frac{x^{4}\left(1-x\right)^{4}}{1+x^{2}}dx =\frac{22}{7}-\pi </pre> The LaTeX code will now be displayed as: \int_{0}^{1}\frac{x^{4}\left(1-x\right)^{4}}{1+x^{2}}dx=\frac{22}{7}-\pi Ofcourse Javascript needs to be enabled in the Browser for the renderer to work.