Everything Typepad

Spotlight: A Hippity Hoppity Easter

Each week, we scout for great posts in our Typepad Showcase that fit a particular theme and are guaranteed to inspire. This week, we've rounded up some of the best of Typepad's bloggers for an Easter craftacular! Click over and visit, stay awhile, and soak up the atmosphere in these great Typepad blogs.

Let's go!

Amanda Rose & Co. are putting a unique spin on classic Easter eggs with Sharpies!

Check out Bloesem Kids for tips on a perfectly picturesque Easter:

Mustard Seeds' Janna has rounded up everything you'll need for a great Easter, from recipes to music.

And One Crafty Mumma brings us the cutest Easter ever with crochet bunnies!

We hope you enjoyed this week's roundup of fantastic Typepad blogs! Check out more great crafty finds right here. Interested in joining the Typepad Showcase? Submit your blog today - you might just see yourself in the spotlight!

Introducing: A shiny new newsletter design!

If you subscribe to our monthly newsletter (and lots of you do), you already know it's full of great blogging tips, tricks, and inspiration. For a while though, things have seemed a little, well, stale in the design department, so we decided it was time to freshen things up, and we gave it a completely new look!

Now, the newsletter you know and love sports a clean, bright design that puts interesting content right at your fingertips. Check it out!

Are you excited? We're excited! Want to get in on the action? Just drop your email address here and click Subscribe! We promise to bring you interesting content every month, and never to spam you.

We hope you like it as much as we do! Let us know what you think (and what you'd like to see in the Newsletter) in the comments.

Typepad Master Class: Add a Pinterest hover image

Welcome to the Typepad Master Class! If you've ever wanted to delve into more advanced trickery with your blog's design, the Master Class is for you. Topics covered in this series are for the adventurous or advanced blogger, so an intermediate to advanced level of knowledge of HTML and CSS will come in handy. Additionally, these guides will often require Custom CSS or Advanced Templates, so a Pro Unlimited account is necessary to access those areas and achieve the look and effects we cover. Interested in upgrading? Just head over to the Account link in your Dashboard and click on Billing Info to get started.

Typepad's default Pin It button is a great way for you and your readers to add your images to Pinterest. But lately, lots of Typepad bloggers have asked how to get a Pinterest button to show up when hovering over images in blog posts. Today, we've got you covered.

Listen, we get it--you're seduced by neat tricks. They're fancy, they look cool, and you like to show off. We like these things too, which is why this Master Class post will tell you exactly how to setup a hovered image Pin It button. The best part? You don't have to be some Code Jedi, designing your blog from scratch in HTML and Typepad code, calling upon the power of The Schwartz when things get jammed. All Pro plans can use this tip. 

Featured Blog: Welcome Home Taylor

NAME: Taylor
BLOG: Welcome Home
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2011
WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT: Welcome Home Taylor is a fantastic lifestyle blog straight out of The Mitten State, featuring how-tos on everything from hair knots to Snickerdoodle Butter Bars. With great photos and engaging stories, Welcome Home offers plenty of charm and inspiration to spare!

FOLLOW: Typepad

Typepad 101: Put a Banner on It!

Welcome to Typepad 101! Whether you want to add some new features to your blog's design, or simply make your blog more functional, Typepad 101 has you covered. Topics covered in this series are suitable for bloggers at any skill level. Today's project does use a bit of Custom CSS in some areas, so you may need to be at the Pro Unlimited level or above. If you're at the Free Micro or Pro Plus levels and are interested in putting these tricks to use on your blog, you can upgrade your account anytime.

One of the best things about blogging with Typepad is how easy it can be to have a great looking blog in a few clicks, just by using one of our professionally designed Themes. With so many great themes at your fingertips and new themes being added all the time, chances are you'll find the perfect look for your blog.

But what if you want to take it a step further and develop a more custom design without getting too technical? Well, that's where custom banners come in.

There are a few ways to add a great looking banner to your blog. Typepad's Clean, Metropolitan, and Mosaic themes are beautifully designed and come equipped with our banner upload tool. Just click to add your image, and it will be dropped into your design with your blog's title and description overlaid.

Want to add the text directly to your banner with Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro instead? You can do that! Our Pro Unlimited and Pro Premium bloggers can use some Custom CSS to remove text and ribbon overlays. Learn more about that here.

Not so handy with Photoshop? No problem! Use a free service like Picfont or Ribbet to add your text, or Pixlr to crop, add text, and make other nifty edits.

Want to customize your colors, fonts, and column widths along with your banner? Then our Theme Builder is the perfect tool for you.

Ready to be inspired? Let's look at a few different types of custom banners that some great Typepad bloggers are using:

Photo based banners are a fantastically memorable way to make your blog stand out. Just open your photo in Photoshop (or use the online services mentioned above), crop it to the proper size, add your blog's title, and you're in business, just like Seymour Library, here:

If you're armed with basic to intermediate Photoshop skills (or you've hired a designer), you're ready to get fancy! Spend a few bucks on a stock illustration from a service like iStock Photo, match it up with great colors and text, and voila, you have a splendid banner that matches your blog's brand, like the one Petite Eco Kids is rocking:

A text only banner might seem simple, but it can bring a modern, classic look to your blog while allowing you to use a font that may not be found on all operating systems, without the need for special coding. Note To Self wears this look really well:

Most blogs feature their banners across the top of the page, resting evenly over its columns, but it certainly doesn't have to be that way! Why not color outside the lines, so to speak, and get creative with your banner? The more original your blog is, the more memorable it will be!

With a little Custom CSS and the Embed Your Own HTML module (here's a tip), you can shift your blog's contents up, and display your banner on the sidebar, as seen on The Ampersand:

You can even use your banner to highlight different parts of your blog. At Design Editor, the main content and sidebar are cleverly defined with a single banner:

We hope you enjoyed this lesson! If you're ready to get started and you find yourself with questions about how to make a great banner for your blog (or if you already have a great banner and you want to show it off), just leave us a comment!

PS: If you want to have a custom banner designed for your blog without breaking the bank, we can do that! Learn more here.

Five Great Alternatives to Google Reader

By now, you'll all have heard the rather sad news that effective July 1, 2013, Google Reader will be shutting down. If you like to read blogs in an organized, easily digestible way (like we do), chances are you're a big fan of Google Reader (like we are). We're also willing to bet that you aren't looking forward to the legwork needed to find a solid replacement  - one that will allow you to keep up with your favorites in a way that doesn't resemble the old school method of bookmarking and checkingdaily for a new post. Luckily, we're here to help with that.

Even though Google Reader is going away, they've provided ample time for you to move your data (and a handy way to pack it up). And since Google Reader isn't the only RSS game in town, you have lots of options in your search for a replacement. In fact, some great alternatives have already been discussed around the web today (check out The FJP, Lifehacker, and CNET).

We'd like to share our favorites with you too, so here are our picks:

Your Typepad Dashboard. Sure, it's exclusively for reading Typepad blogs, but your Dashboard is the best place to see all your favorites in one place, along with other handy items, like comments that other people have left on your own blogs. Not following many Typepad blogs? Head on over to the Showcase to find a few new favorites and really get that Dashboard hopping.

Bloglovin'. Available on the web and your iPhone and Android phones, Bloglovin' is the fashionable darling of the RSS reader set. New posts are displayed in a clean, visually pleasing way, and they offer a super easy import option to make your move painless. The downside? They don't offer an option to move feeds into folders, which may be a deal breaker for super organized types.

The Old Reader. It's just like Google Reader used to be before a few beloved features were removed, so come get your warm fuzzies here if you're feeling nostalgic. They offer browser extensions for Chrome and Safari, and easy, drag and drop folder organization is a big bonus (a quick note: due to the number of folks moving over from Google Reader, they've throttled their import process, so some patience - or the will to add feeds manually - will come in handy).

Feedly. Currently syncing with Google Reader (and therefore using its API), Feedly are currently cloning the Google API, so your feeds will be transferred seamlessly and will continue to work as Google shuts down. Slick, easy to organize, and user-friendly, Feedly lets you choose different layouts, and organizes content by relevance. One tiny caveat - you'll need to download an extension for Firefox or Chrome to use it on the web.

Netvibes. Netvibes is a bit of a giant, allowing you to monitor all your apps, feeds, sentiments, Tweets and even enterprise systems — all in real-time. If you're into having everything in one place, then Netvibes' Dashboard might be perfect for you. Just make sure to select the Basic/Free level, or end up paying $499 per month for the privilege.

And there you have it - our top five! We hope our picks help make your transition away from Google Reader a smooth and easy one! Got questions? We might just have answers, so be sure to leave them in the comments! Your Typepad Team is always here to help.

Typepad Master Class: Tips and Tools for Creating Themes

Welcome to the Typepad Master Class! If you've ever wanted to delve into more advanced trickery with your blog's design, the Master Class is for you. Topics covered in this series are for the adventurous or advanced blogger, so an intermediate to advanced level of knowledge of HTML and CSS will come in handy. Additionally, these guides will often require Custom CSS or Advanced Templates, so a Pro Unlimited account is necessary to access those areas and achieve the look and effects we cover. Interested in upgrading? Just head over to the Account link in your Dashboard and click on Billing Info to get started.

We've previously covered steps for getting started with making themes. Now we'd like to give you some tips and tricks we use ourselves when creating themes and remind you how you can submit a theme so it can be used by other Typepad subscribers.

First, some basic tips.

Just do it! Start out small by customizing the colors for the Tonic theme. There are only four lines of CSS!

body { background-color: #;}
#banner, #footer-inner { background-color: #; }
#alpha, #beta, #gamma { background-color: #; }
h2.date-header { color: #; }

Apply the Tonic theme to your blog, copy the CSS above, paste it in Custom CSS, plug in your own colors and you're done.

Or if you're more ambitious, try customizing the colors for the Clean theme. Apply the theme to your blog and check out the CSS for one of the color variations. Copy the code and paste it into Custom CSS and from there, you can edit the colors to your heart's content. It's a fun, easy way to get started.

You don't need to start from scratch, ever. The Heartbeats theme we came out with before Valentine's Day was created with Dapper as a starting point, and Dapper is based on Clean. Why reinvent the wheel? Pick a theme you like the general idea of and go from there.

There is no one right way to go about making a theme. Maybe you like to draw the design first in Photoshop and then code it or maybe you like to just start fiddling with colors and fonts to see what you like. It's up to you.

Tools and Resources

Every designer has their own favorite tools; here are some we like:

Firebug
This is a handy browser extension that allows you to edit code and see the result on the live page, without having to change the actual code so it's published. You can then copy the code, paste it in  Custom CSS in Typepad and save there.

Web Developer Plug-in
This plug-in and the Firebug extension complement each other well. They have similar features but are in different formats so you might like one over the other.

Live CSS Editor
Allows you to open a little text box for any web page so you can type in CSS and immediately see the result.

Design Seeds
Lots and lots and LOTS of color scheme ideas. This site is invaluable if you're stuck and need some inspiration for colors.

Google Web Fonts
This is our preferred service for adding in fancy fonts to our themes. Choose a font, click Quick Use, copy the @import URL for the font and paste it in Custom CSS. Make sure to apply the font to the correct classes in the CSS.

Using Google's Web Fonts

CSS3 Generator
Fun little tool for cranking out CSS in a snap.

Pixabay
Solid resource for public domain images that you'll actually want to use.

Subtle Patterns
Exactly what it sounds like. A bit of visual interest with texture can go a long way.

CSS at Smashing Magazine
If you really want to get into the nerdy stuff, Smashing Magazine has tons of information.

Submit Your Theme!

One of our goals for this year is to get you - the community - more involved with Typepad's feature development. Putting out new themes on a regular basis is part of that and we want to get all of you designers out there on board with stocking the theme gallery with great designs.

The themes that have proven to be the most popular aren't the fanciest or have the most images involved. In fact, the simple, clean themes are the ones that do best. So don't think you have to spend hours and hours toiling away on a design.

To submit a theme, just go here and fill out the form. We'll contact you about the next steps for getting your design featured on Typepad.

If you have questions about creating or submitting a theme, just let us know by opening a help ticket or dropping us an email.

Share Your Ideas

Even if you're not a designer, you can get involved by sharing ideas for color schemes, themes, and designs you'd like to see. Feel free to leave a comment below - we'd love to hear your feedback.

Featured Blog: The Ritzy Bee Blog

NAME: Maria + Kelly
BLOG: The Ritzy Bee Blog
TYPEPAD MEMBER SINCE: 2008
WHY YOU'LL LOVE IT: Maria and Kelly are seasoned event planners whose wedding planning and production firm crafts uniquely styled wedding experiences that tell quite a unique story. Their companion blog features fantastically curated elements that also tell a great story, featuring details that are sure to inspire anyone planning a wedding - or anyone who wants to live a charmed (and charming) life!

FOLLOW: Typepad | Twitter

Spotlight: What's Cooking? Tomatoes!

Each week, we scout for great blogs in the Typepad Showcase that fit a particular theme and are guaranteed to inspire. This week, we've hand-picked four great Typepad bloggers who are cooking with tomatoes and want to show you how they do it. Click through the photos below to visit and see why we think they're fantastic.

Zach and Clay from The Bitten Word are cooking up some Stewed Scallions and Tomatoes:

Steve at Oui, Chef is roasting tomatoes for a Tomato-Basil Tart with Sharp Cheddar:

Mountain Masala's Craig Mitchell teaches us how to make Tomato Powder:

And finally, Chef Pinod whips up a gorgeous vegetarian Paneer Shashlik:

We hope you enjoyed this week's roundup of great Typepad blogs! Check out more fantastic foodies right here. We'd love to see your blog in the Typepad Showcase, so go ahead and submit it today - you might just see yourself in the spotlight!

Typepad 101: Verify Your Site With Search Engines & Pinterest

Welcome to Typepad 101! Whether you want to add some new features to your blog's design, or simply make your blog more functional, Typepad 101 has you covered. Topics covered in this series are suitable for bloggers at any skill level. If you're at a plan which doesn't include a necessary feature, you can upgrade to put these tricks to use on your blog.

When you first create your blog, it's a good idea to verify your blog with search engines to make sure your blog is indexed right away. If you are a fan of Pinterest, you can also verify your site there as well using similar steps.

Most sites will offer you a couple options to verify your site. The easiest option to verify your Typepad blog is to download a unique file provided by Google or another site. Then, you can upload the file to the File Manager in your Typepad account.

For specific instructions for each site, please see the articles linked below:

• Bing
• Google
• Pinterest

When you download the verification file to your computer, make note of where the file was saved. It may be easiest to download the file to your computer's desktop for quick access later. You don't need to keep the file once you have uploaded it.

In Typepad, go to Library > File Manager. You'll either upload the verification file to the Home folder in the File Manager or the individual blog folder which will depend on the address you submitted for your blog.

Upload Verification File To Blog Folder
You would upload the verification to the individual blog folder if you submitted the blog's address - i.e. http://example.typepad.com/foldername - to the site. In the previous example, the blog's folder is "foldername", and you can click the folder name in the File Manager to open it and upload the verification file. You'd also upload to the individual blog folder if you have mapped a domain or subdomain to the individual blog, instead of the entire site.

You can find your blog's folder name at Blogs > (select blog) > Settings. Once you have the correct folder open at Library > File Manager, click Browse or Choose File (depending on your browser), select your file, and click Upload.

Upload Verification File To Home Folder
The verification file can be uploaded to the "Home" folder in your Typepad account if you submitted the shorter URL for your blog to the search engine or Pinterest or if you mapped a domain to your entire site, instead of an individual blog. The shorter URL for your blog would be similar to http://example.typepad.com.

The Home folder is the default at Library > File Manager, so you don't need to open any other folder. Simply click Browse or Choose File, locate the file on your computer, and click Upload.

Once you have uploaded the verification file to your Typepad account, you can go back to the search engine, Pinterest, or other site and confirm your blog is ready for verification. That should be all it takes to verify your blog!

If you wish to verify your blog with a service not listed and encounter difficulties, let us know by posting to the forum, and we'll help you with verification.