You may have all noticed the little widget that I have at the bottom of my posts. Several of you all have emailed and asked how I put it there ~ and others of you might wonder what in the world it’s there for. I like it because it pops-up, but that’s just me}. This is the one that I’m talking about:

Why use social bookmarking tools?

Social bookmarks are a great way to organize and search through various web resources ~ basically just sharing great references that you find. You can keep your bookmarks private or share them with others.

~ quick way to share links with others via Facebook, Twitter, email and morewhen you find something that you really like

~ great way to save information for future use {I store things I find for later in our studies}

~ can email yourself or others a great link that you find ~ I do this with recipes or fun game ideas

Want to add the sharing widget to your own blog? I opted for the ‘Sharing is caring!’ logo rather than the original ‘Sharing is se*xy ~ just didn’t seem to fit the overall theme of my blog, you know?  Here are two great tutorials that will show you:

Sharing Social Bookmark Tool ~ this is the main tutorial that even includes blinking text to show you where you need to insert your own links {facebook, twitter, email, etc…}.

Sharing logo ~ this post provides the image code to use to replace the image with the ‘Sharing is Caring!’ image

You can also choose to delete the ‘sharing’ image and just have the buttons all by their little lonesome. Find the following code in your html {once you have the above coding installed} and change it as below.

background:url(‘http://i43.tinypic.com/2ueii3t.png‘) no-repeat left bottom;
position:relative;

Replace the line in red above with the following line:

background:url(;) no-repeat left

Note: Several of you have asked too about my widget being shorter than the one in the tutorial. I deleted several of the ‘pop-up’ buttons. For example, in the first part of the tutorial {the long coding section}, I deleted the sections that I didn’t want buttons for {reddit, yahoo, etc…}.

If you’d like the html coding that I used for the second section, please leave a comment with your email address and I can send it to you. I removed it because of some of the emails I was receiving ~ not exactly ones I’d like to get!

That’s it! Have fun installing it!

I’m not super fond of that little box that shows up at the top of searches that I do for specific topics on my own blog. Pretty much unnecessary for the most part.

This is the one that I’m talking about:

Want to know a quick and easy way to remove it?

1. BACK UP YOUR TEMPLATE. I know it seems easy, but trust me ~ you just never know!

2. In your Blogger account, go to DASHBOARD ~ LAYOUT ~ EDIT HTML  and be sure to click the little box that says ‘expand widgets’.

3. Find the following block of coding in your html {you can copy the first line and use the CTRL + F keys to find the line}:

<b:includable id=’status-message’>
<b:if cond=’data:navMessage’>
<div class=’status-msg-wrap’>
<div class=’status-msg-body’>
<data:navMessage/>
</div>
<div class=’status-msg-border’>
<div class=’status-msg-bg’>
<div class=’status-msg-hidden’><data:navMessage/></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div style=’clear: both;’/>
</b:if>
</b:includable>

4. Replace the above coding with the following block of coding:

<b:includable id=’status-message’>
<b:if cond=’data:navMessage’>
<div>
</div>
<div style=’clear: both;’/>
</b:if>
</b:includable>

5. Save your template and the box will be gone!

Some of you have been asking me some questions in your comments and as much as I would love to reply ~ I can’t!!

Many of you do not have an email address linked to your comment, so there is no way for me to reply personally to you. The return email address for your comment reads “noreply-comment”.

You can QUICKLY fix this by clicking just one little box. Go to your user profile and check the box where it says ‘show my email address’. No one else will be able to see your email ~ except the person you are leaving a comment to.

You know those cute little buttons over in people’s sidebars? You know how when you put one in your sidebar sometimes it might be centered in the sidebar….or all the way over to the left of the column….and then they end up all funky looking? Or maybe you put them on your sidebar and they all clump together with no spaces between them?

Does it drive you nuts? Well, it drives me nuts and I get a little, ummmm…particular about having things ‘just so’. ‘Cause I’m just picky like that.

If you want to center those buttons in your sidebar, be sure to add the following html code when you copy/paste their button code:

Place this before the code: <center>

And place this after: </center>

If you would like to add some spaces between your blog buttons here’s a quick and easy way. Between the two codes at the following: <p></p>

Quick and simple….now go fix your sidebars!