How to Add a Contact Me Page to your Blog or Website

Turns out to be quite simple using Google docs! Here are the steps:

1. Go to Google docs
2. Create a new form
   
   
3. Customize the form to your liking by filling it with required info (Name, email, website, message...)
   
4. To add new items use the "Add item" button on the upper left. Use this to add more entries. For the message, add a paragraph text.
   
5. Finally, here's how it could look like. Don't forget to name the form and put in a short description
   
6. Now, you can get the code to embed that form in your website or blog. Just go to the "More actions" button on the upper right and choose embed.
7. Copy the embed code to your website or blog. In blogger, you can create a new page for that form and embed the code in it. See how it looks like on mine.

This form will automatically create an associated spreadsheet in your Google docs where it can store all the submissions going through the form. You will want to be notified of those submissions via email for example. To set this up, here's what you do

1. While still editing the form, choose "See responses -> Spreadsheet"
2. In the spreadsheet, go to: "Share -> Set notification rules" and specify how you wish to be notified

Voila!

Cite as:
Saad, T. "How to Add a Contact Me Page to your Blog or Website". Weblog entry from Please Make A Note. https://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-add-contact-me-page-to-your-blog.html

Total Number of Posts and Comments - Blogger Gadget

You can add the total number of posts and comments as a blogger gadget. In your design page, add an HTML/Java Script gadget, and put in the following code:

<script style="text/javascript"> 
function numberOfPosts(json) {
document.write('Total Posts: <b>' + json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t + '</b><br>');
}
function numberOfComments(json) {
document.write('Total Comments: <b>' + json.feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t + '</b><br>');
}
</script>
<script src="http://PLEASEMAKEANOTE.BLOGSPOT.COM/feeds/posts/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=numberOfPosts"></script>
<script src="http://PLEASEMAKEANOTE.BLOGSPOT.COM/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=numberOfComments">
</script>

Voila!

Don't forget to put in your blogger url.

I picked this up from bloggerstop. You can find the original post here:

http://bloggerstop.net/2009/04/blog-stats-total-posts-total-comments.html

Cite as:
Saad, T. "Total Number of Posts and Comments - Blogger Gadget". Weblog entry from Please Make A Note. https://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.com/2010/07/total-number-of-posts-and-comments.html

How to Post LaTeX Equations in Blogger

I've gone through several approaches to post math equations on blogger (check my previous posts here, and here). I found that the most effective and stable method is the one based on the CodeCogs server. Here's how it works:

1. Go to the codecogs online LaTeX editor
2. Type in your equations LaTeX
3. Copy the HTML code that is generated at the bottom of the page
4. Paste it in Blogger (either in the "Edit HTML" or "Compose views").

Here are the settings that I use:

• image type: png
• font: Sans Serif
• fontsize: (10 pt) normal
• resolution: 120 dpi
• background: white
• uncheck inline and compressed
• choose: HTML (Edit) at the bottom (this allows you to click on the generated image and edit your equations! you'll have to copy the updated HTML though)

Voila!

Cite as:
Saad, T. "How to Post LaTeX Equations in Blogger". Weblog entry from Please Make A Note. https://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-to-post-latex-equations-in-blogger.html

How to Cite a Blog & Automatically Generate Citations for your Blog

The MLA format for citing a blog is:

Last Name, First. "Title of Entry." Weblog Entry. Title of Weblog. Date Posted. Date Accessed (URL).

You can find more information on studenthacks and on the Purdue website.

Now comes the fun part. If you’re familiar with the Wolfram mathworld website, there is a “CITE THIS AS” section at the bottom of every page (example). I wanted to reproduce something similar for my blog. As you may have already noticed, there is a “Cite as” box at the bottom of every post. Of course, I didn’t go over every post to add a cite-as box. I used the google blogger API to automatically add this to every post. Here’s how you can reproduce it for your own blog

1. Go to the “Edit HTML” section for your template
2. Enable the “Expand Widget Templates” check box
3. Scroll down (or search: Ctrl + f) for
   <data:post.body/>
   This may require some tweaking as your template may be different. The idea is to locate the “post body” section – right after the body text of your post.
   
4. Copy the following HTML code:
   

   <!-- BEGIN CITE AS CODE - BY T. SAAD -http://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.com --> 
   <br/> 
   <p style='border-width:1px;border-style:solid;border-color:orange; padding:4px'> 
   <font color='orange'> 
   Cite as: 
   <br/> 
   LAST NAME, FIRST NAME &quot;<data:post.title/>. 
   &quot; Weblog entry from <a href='http://LINK-TO-YOUR-BLOG> <data:blog.title/></a>. 
   <a expr:href='data:post.url'><data:post.url/></a> 
   </font> 
   </p>
   <br/> 
   <!-- END CITE AS CODE –> 



5. Save your template

Voila! Don’t forget to put your name and the link to your blog. You can easily modify the above script with little HTML and CSS knowledge.

Cite as:
Saad, T. "How to Cite a Blog & Automatically Generate Citations for your Blog". Weblog entry from Please Make A Note. https://pleasemakeanote.blogspot.com/2009/05/how-to-cite-blog-automatically-generate.html