Everything TypePad: January 2012

Did You Know?: Recovering a Lost Post

It happens to all of us. You're working on a post and something happens - your electricity goes out, your web browser crashes, or another unforseen circumstance.

If this happens, you might be able to recover your post since TypePad saves your post while you're composing. To restore your post, click the Restore Auto-Save Content button in the Rich Text editor. It's located here:

If the button is active, you can click it to restore your post. Please note that this won't always work since crashes and the like can cause a problem with the script.

We also recommend that you save your post as a draft while you work on it, which is especially true for longer posts or posts that you spend a long time editing. The Restore Auto-Save Content feature should only be used in an emergency as the post is not actually saved to your account.

You can read more about restoring your posts and tips for making sure to save your work in our Knowledge Base.

Posted by The TypePad Team at 11:10 AM in Did You Know? | Permalink | Comments (9)

Featured Friday Roundup: Blog Your Passion!

Over the past few weeks on our Featured Blog, we've been focusing on bloggers who write about what they're passionate about. From family to fashion, art to acting, writing to crafting, these bloggers are talented and dedicated to both their passions and their blogs. Have a look and find a new favorite!

Have you submitted your blog to be featured, yet? Do it now!

Posted by The TypePad Team at 3:56 PM in Blogging Community | Permalink | Comments (0)

Quick Tip: Customize The Categories Module Header

Did you ever want to change the heading for the Categories module in the sidebar? Well you can with Custom CSS. (Custom CSS is a feature available with the Unlimited and higher plans.)

If you are using the Category Cloud module in your sidebar, you can use the below CSS:

.module-category-cloud .module-header { font-size: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.1em; } /* Do not edit this line */ .module-category-cloud .module-header:before { font-size: 10px; content: "View Posts By Category"; letter-spacing: 0.1em; }

If you are using the standard Category List module in your sidebar, you can use the below CSS:

.module-categories .module-header { font-size: 0px; letter-spacing: 0.1em; } /* Do not edit this line */ .module-categories .module-header:before { font-size: 10px; content: "Topics"; letter-spacing: 0.1em; }

Within the CSS, you can edit 3 of the attributes:

The content attribute is where you will include the text you want to display as the header of the module instead of Categories.
Adjust the font-size to match the font size of the sidebar module headers set for your design.
Adjust the letter-spacing to match the spacing between characters of the sidebar module headers set for your design.

After you customize the CSS specific to your Category module, go to Design > Custom CSS, enter the CSS code in the text field, and click Save Changes to update your site.

Posted by The TypePad Team at 1:55 PM in Tips and Tricks | Permalink | Comments (0)

Blogging with your iPad; Blogsy + TypePad Make it Happen

Giveaway has ended. Winners will be announced on February 3rd, 2012.

We've heard from many of you that blogging on TypePad from your iPad has needed improvement. Your feedback prompted us to team up with our new heroes over at Blogsy to integrate TypePad into their truly stellar iPad app. It's a great way to blog from the couch, or anywhere else, and we know you'll love the experience!

We are blown away by the dedication the Blogsy team has for creating and maintaining such a high quality app. So much so, in fact, that we're hosting a giveaway! 10 lucky TypePad users will receive Blogsy for free. All you need for a chance to win is an iPad and a little effort!

To be eligible to win a free copy of the Blogsy app, you need to Like, Tweet, Reblog, and/or Favorite this post. Once you've done that, leave a comment here to let us know about it (share the URL if available so that we can confirm your activity). In two weeks (02/02/12) we will draw the names of the winners and announce them here on the blog. note: winners' contact info will be passed to Blogsy so they can be sent the promo code.

To learn more about Blogsy, watch the introductory video below or read more after the cut. Whatever you do, make sure you get the app from the iTunes App store and revolutionize the way you blog!

Continue reading "Blogging with your iPad; Blogsy + TypePad Make it Happen" »

Posted by The TypePad Team at 2:30 PM in News | Permalink | Comments (34)

A New Design Was Just What The Doctor Ordered

One of the common design requests the TypePad Blog Services team receives is to match a blog's design to a person or organization's website. We handle this under our Design Implementation Service. Donna contacted us on behalf of Surety Pro Pharmacy to request a Design Implementation. She provided the design and the image files used in it, we made it work on TypePad. We like the Design Implementation Service because it shows off the full range of what you can do on TypePad. If you're like Surety Pro Pharmacy and looking to start a new blog that matches your website, contact us with your request. You may be surprised at what's possible on TypePad!

P.S. You can view this and many other great blogs in our portfolio.

Posted by The TypePad Team at 3:18 PM in TypePad Blog Services | Permalink | Comments (1)

Take a stand against SOPA

Many of you in the TypePad community have reached out to ask about our stance in regards to SOPA. In short, we at TypePad believe in intellectual property rights but not in one-sided legislation that promotes censorship without recourse. As such, we do not support the SOPA and PIPA legislation as currently written. We encourage you to form your own opinions and, as always, to express them on your TypePad blog.

If you're interested in learning more about SOPA, How Stuff Works has a great, easy to understand article. If you'd like to take a stand against SOPA, go here. The SOPA Strike site has a script you can use to black out your site here, which can be added to your blog using the "Embed your own HTML" module.

No matter how you feel about SOPA or PIPA, now is a great time to remind ourselves that our representatives in Washington DC are just that, our representatives. So stand up, speak up and be heard! Contact your Rep or Senator today.

Posted by The TypePad Team at 11:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

A New Year and a New Chance to be a TypePad Champion

It's a new year, so what could be better than to kick it off by becoming a TypePad Champion?

A great way to be show off and become a TypePad Champion is by participating in our Get Satisfaction forum. The forum allows you to share your opinions, tips, and recommendations for blogging with TypePad. Have you done something specatcular on your blog that you're proud of? It might be just the thing that someone else is looking to do. Or you just might have the answer to a question that a fellow blogger is asking.

If you become a Champion, you'll get free time applied to your TypePad account and a Marc Johns SAY Media shirt. What coud be better?

Posted by The TypePad Team at 3:59 PM in Blogging Community | Permalink | Comments (2)

Did You Know?: Using the Custom HTML Widget

While there are lots of great widgets out there (like the ones from LinkWithin or FeedBurner), sometimes you just want to add something else to your blog. This could be anything from a Twitter or Flickr widget to an image that links to an advertiser's site. You might even want to place Google Adsense ads in your sidebar. It's simple to add all these things and more to your blog using the "Embed your own HTML" widget.

If you have code already for your sidebar, simply go to Design > Content. Select Widgets and then the "Embed your HTML" option and click the "Add this module" button. You would then paste your code into the new pop-up window.

It will look something like this:

Once you've done that and saved your changes, you'll see the code that you added to your sidebar. You can read more about how to do this in our Knowledge Base.

We hope you found this useful! Check back every other week for more "Did You Know?" tips to help make your blog even better!

Posted by The TypePad Team at 2:20 PM in Did You Know? | Permalink | Comments (1)

Taking Flight: A New Way to Edit Images in TypePad

We're happy to announce a significant new feature based on your feedback and built with a great new partner. Over the past several months, we have been developing, testing and tweaking a new image editing tool with our friends at Aviary. Today we're happy to announce it's ready for public beta. Read on to learn more about this great new addition to Typepad and to find out how you can get immediate access to it.

We've partnered with Aviary to integrate their image editing tools directly in TypePad. After you insert an image into your post, you can double-click on the image to open the Aviary editing tools. You'll be able to crop, rotate, add text, and make a dozen other edits to your images directly from within TypePad.

You can add text directly to your images as shown above. The added text can easily be resized and rotated to fit your image as well.

One of the most requested features is the ability to easily add captions to photos. With the new editor, you can now add captions!

You can also rotate images directly within TypePad. If you frequently use both horizontal and vertical oriented images, you'll find it so much easier to rotate your images to the correct orientation from within TypePad.

Aviary offers fun tools to apply filters to your photos and decorate photos of your pets with hats and mustaches using the stickers tool.

Check out the Knowledge Base article on the new image editing tools to see all the available editing options.

Additionally, the update to TypePad has introduced new changes to the editor that will make it compliant with Internet Explorer 9. When you are using TypePad beta, you won't need to use compatibility mode to make the Rich Text editor work in this browser any longer.

What does beta mean? The new edit image tools are still in beta because we are still developing the feature. With the features in beta, you may run in to some quirks or errors when inserting and editing images. The best way to test a new feature is to allow TypePad bloggers to use it and let us know if you encounter any problems. While we have being trying to break the new features ourselves, in order to resolve any bugs, for the past several months, TypePad bloggers utilize our blogging tools in ways we can't even imagine. Your feedback is what is going to help us to optimize the image editing tools for you.

To try out the new insert image and edit image tools, you can join the TypePad beta team. Go to Account > Summary, check the box next to Join the TypePad Beta Team, and click Save Changes.

You can opt out of TypePad beta any time. Any images added to your post using the new image editing tools will remain the same if you do decide to opt of beta.

Posted by The TypePad Team at 1:27 PM in News | Permalink | Comments (28)

Made With Love, Powered By TypePad

Over the past few months we've been looking at how you as TypePad bloggers design your blogs. Via our Featured Blog and the great new Themes we've introduced, we've seen you rock everything from our awesome Pre-Defined themes, to your own tweaks with the Theme Builder, to completely custom designs using Advanced Templates, and it all comes down to one thing: everyone wants a great looking blog. A great design can go a long way in making your blog memorable and gaining return readers, too.

It's been both exciting and inspiring to see how TypePad bloggers embrace blogging, not just in content but in design. To say bravo and let you know how proud we are that you're blogging with TypePad, we've designed some buttons for you to display in your sidebar, and tell the world that you care enough about your blog to craft it with the best. Below, we've included our favorites, designed by the TypePad team.

To add a button to your sidebar, simply copy the code beneath your badge of choice, and paste it into an Embed Your Own HTML module at Design > Content. We've got a step by step tutorial right here!

And before you go, we've got a few questions!

Which of the buttons below is your favorite?
What other styles would you like to see us design in the future?
Would you be interested in designing a button like this for the TypePad community to use? If you do, we'll make it easy for you to add your button right in your TypePad account!

We want you involved, so we'd really love to know what you think. Thanks, and happy blogging!

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