How to add a 'Stumble it!' button to your Blogger blog posts

After the resounding success of my post How to add a social bookmark button to your blog posts, I now present the eagerly awaited and longed for sequel: how to add a Stumble it! button to your Blogger blog posts.
First, go to the StumbleUpon buttons page and choose a button. Then choose ‘Blogger’ and copy the produced code but WITHOUT the first line (beginning and ending with a bracketed ‘p’).
Then, as with the previous ‘AddThis’ button:

1 - Select Layout > Edit HTML
2 - Check the Expand Widget Templates checkbox
3 - Copy and paste the code snippet into the template, right after the (div class='post-footer') tag
4 - Click Save Template

Be sure to back up your template beforehand, in case you accidentally make a complete and total hash of it.

The result will be a beautifully elegant little Stumble it! button at the bottom of your blog posts like the one just below.

What are you waiting for? Stumble it!

How to install a social bookmark button on your blog posts

Today I finally added an ‘AddThis’ social bookmark button to my blog posts. It was so easy - it took me all of 3 minutes - I can’t believe I haven’t done it sooner. As always, knowledge is power. Also luck. So many blog tip sites make it look so complicated you don’t even dare try it.

First, fortunately for me, I use the AddThis button – the #1 bookmarking and sharing service – which helps because it includes all the others and you don’t have a gazillion icons at the bottom of your post. When you choose your button on the AddThis site and click to get your code you are taken to the code page where you find the simplest instructions on how to install a button on your posts. So simple I will repeat them here:

Blog post button

To include the button beneath each post,

1 - Select Layout > Edit HTML
2 - Check the Expand Widget Templates checkbox
3 - Copy and paste the code snippet below into the template, right after the (div class='post-footer') tag
4 - Click Save Template

Of course you should always save your template before making any changes to it in case you make a mistake. But if I can do it, you can do it. The result is the nice little bookmark at the bottom of this post (mouse over it to see a list to choose from).

So shipmates, I know you have all been chafing at the bit in frustration at not being able to print, e mail, share and otherwise redistribute all my little nuggets of insight. Well now, thanks to AddThis, those dark days are over…

Blogger 3-column Minima template and Favicon

A little detour into form here: after looking around vainly for some time for help in adding a third column to this site, I finally struck gold in the least likely of places (isn’t that always the way?) The worthy food site Wandering Chopsticks had a post on the subject pointing me to The Beginning Blogger’s Guide. Here I found the only complete, easy-to-follow guide for converting to a Three column Minima layout that I felt I could trust. Still, I did test it out on a test blog first. But it worked perfectly. The result is this 3-column minima layout you see before you. (I did alter the widths of the columns in Julian’s code in order to keep the same widths for my post and original sidebar columns). I also followed Julian’s guide to How to add a favicon to your Blogger blog using Google Sites to host the favicon image. You can convert your own logo or image to a favicon or find ready-made favicons at Favicon.cc. So, a big thank you to Wandering Chopsticks and Julian at Beginner’s Blogging Guide and I hope you are encouraged to make these changes to your own blog.