How to Remove Borders or Shadows in Blogger Posted Images?

If you happen to be annoyed of the gray borders or shadows creeping in the outline of your posted images in Blogger, this trick will remove them.

The step is easy, just go to your Blogger account, click Template} Edit HTML} in your HTML screen, press CTRL+F and type:

.post-body img{

 Then delete the padding code and values

padding: 6px 6px 6px;

Hit SAVE Template. And that's it. Check your posted images if it worked. It worked for me!

Drop me a comment below.

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How to Add a Custom Domain to Your Blogger from Network Solutions?

Everybody says that a blog should have its own custom domain for it reflects the sincerity of the blogger to maintain his/her blog. I don't usually agree with that. I had blogged for six years already and it was only today that I purchased a custom domain. My reasoning was always, what for if my blog can be published for free, people don't usually look in their URL bars to check if it is a .com, .net or a .blogspot.com address. What they are after is your site's contents, right? Old bloggers also talk about custom domain as status of credibility. I also don't agree. First of all, as long as you can provide your readers with a satisfactory content, they will be coming for more! Additionally, if you are not much of a web developer and have very little knowledge on hosting and tweaking things in the cloud, you won't put a finger to an advanced level as long as your page is seen in the web and people are enjoying about it.

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How to Check If Your Blog is Indexed by Google?

Besides the campaigns you are using to promote your site in Facebook, Twitter, Blog Directories or other webpages, you should ensure that your site can also be found in search engine such as Google.

Since, it is a known fact that more people are using Google search (thus the term Googling was born), a blogger should grab this opportunity to receive traffic coming from search engines. It does not only adds traffic but it also gives you some credit that you made an SEO effective content. Of course, you must make your content in such a way that it will show in the first page of search result if not in the number 1 result. For your blog to be included in the search result, it must be first indexed by Google.

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How to Show Related Post Under Each Post?

Showing related posts in your blog will increase your readers' engagement in your blog, thus letting them stay longer and learning more from it. Of course, considering also the reader's interest in your related posts. But the more they are seeing your previous posts, the higher the probability that they will click and read it.

Click image to enlarge

The widget
The widget comes from LinkWithin wherein no registration will be required to acquire it. Moreover, it's absolutely FREE. It shows post with thumbnails for post with images and shows links for those that don't have. You can edit the number post to show (usually 4-5 as long as it fits your post width). The widget can be implemented in Blogger, Typepad and Wordpress or other platform that supports javascripts.

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How to Remove the White Space Above the Header (Blogger Template)?

I've recently removed the white space above the header of my other Blogger blog, i-Share, and placed an expanding Nuffnang ads in it. The Nuffnang ad used to float in that area with so much gap between it and the header. In times that the ad is in minimized mode, it shouldn't be eating that space and the header should be touching the URL bar of the browser thus, pulling more of the blog contents of the above the fold. 

The gaps usually appears after removing the Blogger navigation bar.

 Click image to enlarge

How to Remove the White Gap?
This is applicable for Blogger users.

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How to Earn from Infolinks through eCPM?

What is Infolinks?
Infolinks is an advertsing platform which is engaged in showing campaigns that does not sacrifice the integrity of the website by showing annoying ads in the page.

What are the Ad Unit Choices?
They offer different ways of monetizing your blog such as Inframe (new), InSearch, InTag and InText. These ad units are not like the classic banners we are familiar with because it uses less space. Ads can appear when a reader hovers over a word in your post (InText), when a reader reach the bottom of your post and hovers over the tags there (InTag), or when a reader landed  your site through a search engine (InSearch). InFrame is a brand new earning facility which generates ads through the unused or vacant left and right margins of your blog layout. The ads are only visible to readers who use widescreen desktop or laptop monitors when they browse your site. Even if the ads in Inframe are always on display as readers scroll your pages, they move comfortably with the eyes. They also have InScreen now which shows ads as readers enter or exit the site. Infolinks ads are very minimalist but you earn in many ways while you keep your site's decency.

Click image to enlarge

How to Earn:

You can earn from Infolinks through eCPM or the number of times your readers hover over the word and allows the ad to show and be clicked. Their eCPM is also higher than Kontera or Vibrant Media. They pay every 45 days when your balance reach the minimum threshold which is either USD50 (for Paypal, ACH  for US resident, Payoneer or eCheck) or USD100 (for Bank Wire or Western Union). Also, they have an exclusive Infolinks Prepaid Mastercard on which they can make payments free of charge. 

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Generate Income from Nuffnang Ads

Why Nuffnang?
If you are a blogger with readers from the South East Asia, Nuffnang ads is suitable for you. It is Asia-Pacific first and leading blog advertising community.

I have been hesitant to try this network before because of the negative reviews I read from posts of other users. Some say that it took months to have a particular campaign or it never really show ads. But I am not satisfied with those reviews until I tried it. Yes, it doesn't easily show adds besides their default ads, but all you have to do is wait and ads will really start showing. As you can read from my post here, ads started showing after three weeks of just the Churp Churp and default Nuffnang ads, it also continue to show more ads. You just need to update your blog with posts as well as the survey form in your Nuffnang account. It's not a painstaking wait after all.

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Smowtion: eCPM and PPC Ad Campaign for Your Blog

Basically, Smowtion is recommended for new bloggers with few pageviews each month. You can earn from this ad network based on 1000 pageviews and the number of clicks your readers made. Since you are still new in the blogosphere, your pageviews might be around 100 per day (30 days = 3000 pageviews). You can really earn from this through the PPC campaign. Though they may be times that you can see clicks in your analytics, but those clicks are not converted into cash because the campaign is exclusive for per impression.

I have been using Smowtion in i-Share to generate income from pageviews even if it is only 0.02 per 1000 visits. It's still income, better than zero at all.

The ads can be filtered through the Creative Filter so you can stop those annoying flash ads which says You win something or those blinking mouse cursors. Even if you will limit the ads to be shown, it will not demote your bog into a cheap one. Readers are very sensitive to those annoying ads, remember that always.

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Enjoy Shrinking URLs with AdF.ly

Whenever I go into someone's blog, I noticed the yellow bee in one of their banners saying, "Shrink URLs and get paid!". It caught my attention and clicked a banner. In the past years, I only engage in banner campaigns because it's simple to set-up, just have the code and add an html/java widget and it's done. But I think I found another way to have advertising without bothering for a space in my blog. No more html codes, just URLs. It's like redefining your URL into another one but they will still land on their designated URL when they wait for 5 seconds and click the SKIP AD button. You coat the URL with the ad and earn. It's not tricking your viewers, because they will still get what they want after 5 seconds. AdF.ly is much better than infolinks nor clicksor inline texts, because it doesn't affect the loading of your page, no pop-up when a viewer hovers over the link, every view counts and you get paid! It's all about the views. So, when you have a blog and you want to create links to one of your post in your blog or link your viewers to other sites, AdF.ly will suit you.

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First Post: A Start to a New Venture

End of First Semester 2012, from being hooked to online blogging while studying for my exams, I decided to create Colored Chalks.

So, why Colored Chalks? 
 -As I have read from bloggers regarding online money making, I was convinced that different bloggers have wide range of perspectives on monetizing their blogs. Some had reverted to doing bizarre things on the internet just to boost their website traffic while others played it calm and simple and still gaining much visitors. I also came upon some forums and learned that ad serving depends on the content of your blog. There are ad networks who prefer gaming sites, others prefer entertainment sites while still others accept publishers depending on their traffic and geo-location. Like the colors of a rainbow, there's a lot of varieties that makes the spectrum of websites and blogs. But these are all opinions and not everything lasts to start a foundation. It's a continuous evolution on the world wide web. Hence, just like chalks. It doesn't mark for life yet it still leave imprints for some time. That's one of the goal of this blog. It views to serve at a specific time but not promise to establish firm foundations on online blogging and marketing.

Used and dusted. 
I chose to came at that tagline since I will be compiling my learnings from web surfing and from reading other people's experiences and as much as possible comparing those to my own. Hope that you will learn from Colored Chalks and be able to spread the word wirelessly.

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