Archive for November, 2006

Set up your favicon

November 13, 2006

A favicon (short for “favorites icon”), also known as a page icon, is an icon associated with a particular website or webpage. Browsers that support favicons may display them in the browser’s URL bar, next to the site’s name in lists of bookmarks, and next to the page’s title in a tabbed document interface, such as Firefox.

Creating a favicon is not much difficult. Here’s a step by step guide

  • Create a16×16 pixel faviocn.bmp file using Adobe Photoshop, or Jasc’s Paint Shop Pro.
  • Reduce the colors to 16 colors.
  • Save your file to a Windows Icon Format (favicon.ico).*
  • Upload the file with FTP to the root section of your web site.
  • Open up index.html, and add this line after any meta tags in the HEAD section but before the </head>.
    • <link REL="SHORTCUT ICON" HREF="http://mysite.com/favicon.ico">

Reload the page… and try adding it to your favorites or bookmarks. Once you’ve added it to the favorites, close the browser and then open it again, and return to the site? Does it show up now? It should! :)

* If you can’t save files in .ico format, download the plug-in for Photoshop here.

Windows Live™ Writer

November 7, 2006

Installed Live Writer at my friend Vikram’s behest and checked out its features. The interface is pretty cool..kind of MS Word. It’s stil in Beta version. Its features include:

WYSIWYG editing: You can edit using the style of your blog, including fonts, colors, line spacing, margins, etc.
Offline editing: You can compose and edit drafts even when you’re not connected to the Internet
Blog preview: See exactly what your post will look like in the context of your blog before you upload it, you know what your blog will look like.
Compatibility: It supports publishing to Windows Live Spaces, as well as Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, and many other blog hosting services.

Windows Live Writer

You can also set the properties of individual posts like allow comments or not, allow or deny trackbacks, insert Windows Live Map in your post, insert tags with tag providers like Technocrati, Live Journal, Flickr etc.

Download it now. It’s free!