Jul 19, 2011

Favicon Your Blog

Zombie Dog likes to blog
An author was raving recently in a podcast about the brilliance of Youtube. You can find anything there. Of course there is so much stuff online now that most people have stopped browsing and are more particular about searching for specifics. Anyway, this author was saying if you want to know how to do something you just search 'how to...' on Youtube. You can learn how to do anything, even make a favicon.

Like most of you I love words, some stick with me more than others (I especially love saying 'chihuahua' whenever I can fit it into a conversation). The original topic of the podcast became lost on me - what the heck was a favicon, and did I want to learn to make one? I rushed over to Youtube.

Well I'll be darned, I DID want a favicon! 

After only a little muddling about, I managed to put a personalise little icon in the address bar of my blog. So now, instead of seeing the orange B for blogger, you'll see a wee little pic of my head that matches my blog background. Want a favicon? Here's the Youtube clip I watched:

Anything over 2 minutes is hard for me to pay attention to, so here's the website where you can upload a picture to be turned into a tiny little favicon (favicons are an .ico file):

Once you have your little favicon created and you've generated a shortcut url (the site that makes your favicon will give you a web address to use as the location for where your favicon is stored), you'll need to add it to your blogger site. 

Go to:  Blogging Tips on this page you'll see instruction on making your favicon, scroll down to:

Add the reference for your favicon to your Blogger template

Follow that section and post the favicon url in your template html. Done!

The favicon can make your blog or website appear a little more professional, and it really wasn't hard. The hardest part for me was finding the code in the template html - but only because I was being impatient, I assumed it would be near the top (like the 'head') but it was half way down. Do you use Youtube for how to videos?

9 comments:

  1. I use youtube videos for just about everything computer related. As a video game player hacking consoles and other warranty voiding activities (if I want to watch movies on my nintendo DS why shouldn't I?) are pretty straightforward once you see someone else do it. It's definitely one of the best uses of the site.

    mood

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  2. I agree Moody - I hate when we pay for things and then are told what we're allowed to do with them. I'm dirty I can't lend a friend a Kindle book I've read because it's not 'loanable'.

    But Youtube is awesome - When I started grooming dogs in a previous life, I'd look up the breed for specialty clips and sure enough someone would be showing me how to get the Miniature Schnauzer clip on Youtube.

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  3. I use You Tube alot! I haven't heard of favicons...gotta check it out. Thanks for the info!
    Blessings, Joanne

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  4. My preferred use of You Tube is to listen to old songs. I haven't heard of favicons either. So much to learn...

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  5. Ha! I want one, too!!! I will have to check this out more carefully when I get home... but should I be a llama? Or me? Anyway... I know I want one!

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  6. This is way cool. I was wondering what that icon was on the design board for days. Thanks for clearing it up! As the name suggests...Dim but Nice :-)

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  7. Ha, I don't watch a lot of utube videos, but it looks like I should. Handy!

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  8. Cool. I live your favicon. My brother made one for my website. I've not ventured to do anything for blogger yet. YouTube is fun.

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