Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blogger. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Google Admin Console Access Without A Google G Suite Account

Over the years we have created several special-purpose blogs using the convenient Blogger host service from Google. Instead of using the default blogspot.com domain for the blogs' URL, we opted to use Google's domain service to register a unique domain name. Google makes that option incredibly easy, and we greatly appreciated using the feature that is built-in to Blogger instead of having to use a stand-alone domain registration service and then having to edit the various MX records to point back to the Blogger site.

These blogs were only needed for a limited amount of time and we had no desire to keep them active forever. It is easy enough to delete the blog on Blogger. In fact, Google even allows you to download the blog content for posterity before you delete the blog. However, the domain registration lives on and will continue to renew each year if you have provided Google with a valid credit card account.

In Google's domain renewal notices, they instruct you to "sign in to your Google Admin console" to manage your domain registration renewals. This is necessary to either update your payment information or to cancel your domain registration. It would seem that signing on to your Google Admin console would be simple enough. The trouble is, Google requires a G Suite admin account to access the Google Admin console. If you try to use your Gmail account information, you receive the following error message, "admin.google.com is used for G Suite accounts only. Regular Gmail accounts cannot be used to sign in to admin.google.com."

Having created our domain registration within Blogger, we did not have a G Suite admin account, so what were we supposed to do? We scoured the G Suite support pages and made dozens of Google searches and found no clues. Finally, in the G Suite Administrator Community, we found an obscure mention of a special admin account that allows Blogger users to access the Google Admin console to manage their domain registration.

You can use bloggeradmin@yourdomain.com (where yourdomain.com is your domain name) to log into your Google Admin console, even if you don't have a G Suite admin account.

Presto!

This information allowed us to cancel our domain registration services that had been automatically renewing despite our best efforts. We hope it helps you too.

Monday, April 8, 2013

Embedding a Moot Forum in Google Blogger

Moot is a re-imagined forum application introduced as a beta version in April 2013. In the developers' own words, "Moot is a radically different discussion platform, unencumbered by the weight of unnecessary features and distractions. It places the conversation back to the forefront. Clean user interface, persistent content and deep integration into the site will allow a more natural and meaningful discussion to take place. People will focus on topics they care about."

You can read more about Moot at their website. The neat thing is that you can use the Moot application to provide full forum capability, or to provide a simple comment system for blog posts, photos, articles, or whatever you choose.

If you have found this blog post, you probably already know all about Moot. You have likely created a forum to test and now you are interested in embedding the product into your Google Blogger site. This task is actually very easy to accomplish, and I believe the following guides will prove helpful in getting the basic functionality working on your own Blogger site.


To install Moot as a forum.

1) Create a Moot forum at Moot.it

2) Configure your blog to properly host the Moot forum application. Log-on to your Google Blogger account and navigate to the blog's admin menu; select "Template" and then select "Edit HTML"


After the <head> tag, enter the following HTML code (i.e. that code shown below in red characters):

     <head>

     <!-- 1. Moot style -->
     <link href='http://cdn.moot.it/1/moot.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>

     <!-- 2. jQuery library (v1.7+ required) -->
     <script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js'/>

     <!-- 3. Moot application -->
     <script src='http://cdn.moot.it/1/moot.min.js'/>

     <!-- 4. Moot mobile optimization -->
     <meta content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0' name='viewport'/>

     <meta content='IE=EmulateIE7' http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible'/>


Select "Save Template" and "Close"

3) Create a new page on your blog to display the forum. From the blog's admin menu; select "Pages," "New Page," and "Blank Page"


Enter a descriptive name for the new page (i.e. Forum) and in the page edit dialog, select "HTML"


Enter the following HTML code to place your Moot forum in this Blogger page.

     <a class="moot" href="http://api.moot.it/[forumname]"></a>

Where [forumname] is the name used when you registered the new forum at Moot.it. Do not include the square brackets.

Select "Update" and "Close"

That's it. You have successfully added a Moot forum to your Google Blogger site. For more information, please refer to the Moot documentation.



To install Moot as a Comments system.

1) Create a Moot forum at Moot.it

2) Configure your blog to properly host the Moot forum application (Please note that this is the same first step as used to install Moot as a forum. If you have already done that, you can skip to the next step). Log-on to your Google Blogger account and navigate to the blog's admin menu; select "Template" and then select "Edit HTML"


After the <head> tag, enter the following HTML code (i.e. that code shown below in red characters):

     <head>

     <!-- 1. Moot style -->
     <link href='http://cdn.moot.it/1/moot.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>

     <!-- 2. jQuery library (v1.7+ required) -->
     <script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js'/>

     <!-- 3. Moot application -->
     <script src='http://cdn.moot.it/1/moot.min.js'/>

     <!-- 4. Moot mobile optimization -->
     <meta content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0' name='viewport'/>

     <meta content='IE=EmulateIE7' http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible'/>


Select "Save Template" and "Close"

3) Create a comments feature for your content. From the blog's admin menu; select the existing page or post where you would like to add the comments feature. In the page edit dialog, select "HTML"


Enter the following HTML code where you would like the Moot comments feature to display.

     <a class="moot" href="http://api.moot.it/[forumname]/[pagename]"></a>

Where [forumname] is the name used when you registered the new forum at Moot.it, and [pagename] is a unique name for this comments feature. Each comments feature you add to the Blogger site must have a unique [pagename] to manage the users' comments. Do not include the square brackets.

Select "Update" and "Close"

To be most effective as a comment system, you should consider changing your Blogger site settings to hide Blogger hosted comments (Admin Menu, Settings, Posts and Comments, Comment Location - Hide) and (Admin Menu, Layout, Blog Posts - Edit, Comments - uncheck).

That's it. You have successfully added a Moot comments feature to your Google Blogger site. For more information, please refer to the Moot documentation.


Customizing the Moot application look and feel.

The Moot application automatically inherits the style of your Blogger template. However, if you need to fine-tune the look, you can override the CSS to customize the Moot forum or comments feature as you wish. This may be a more advanced task for some users.

1) Log-on to your Google Blogger account and navigate to the blog's admin menu; select "Template" and then select "Edit HTML"


After the lines of HTML you added to configure your blog for Moot, enter the following HTML code (i.e. that code shown below in red characters):

     <head>

     <!-- 1. Moot style -->
     <link href='http://cdn.moot.it/1/moot.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'/>

     <!-- 2. jQuery library (v1.7+ required) -->
     <script src='http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js'/>

     <!-- 3. Moot application -->
     <script src='http://cdn.moot.it/1.0/moot.min.js'/>

     <!-- 4. Moot mobile optimization -->
     <meta content='width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0' name='viewport'/>

     <!-- 5. Moot Custom CSS -->
     <style>
     .moot {
         font-size: 14px;
         font-color: #666666;
     }

     </style>


     <meta content='IE=EmulateIE7' http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible'/>


Select "Save Template" and "Close"

In the example above, the CSS customization sets the Moot font size to 14 pixels tall, and the font color to dark gray (#666666). You would enter your own custom CSS here. The Moot CSS reference provides the information used for their application. Use caution changing these values and keep good document on the changes you made. Some edits can render your Blogger site unusable.

I hope that this brief tutorial helps you enjoy the Moot application on your own Google Blogger site.



Monday, August 11, 2008

The Social Networking Phenomenon

I have to admit it.

I've become somewhat addicted to social networking. Or at least the concepts behind it all.

And it's not just me. My wife, daughters and son all participate in on line social networking in one way or another.

Web sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and of course Blogger really intrigue me. What is it about these web sites? What is it that makes them so popular? What draws people of all ages from around the world and all walks of life to them?

I've thought about this for a while. Well, not for 'really' long, but long enough to develop a hypothosis.

I believe that these on line communities (in one form or another) have become a substitute for the close knit families and neighborhoods that have disappeared during the last few generations.

Friends and families are often dispersed across the country or even around the world. This is much different than in years gone by when multiple generations of a family would live in the same city, neighborhood, or sometimes even in the same house!

In the last few decades, our modern societies have lost their connection to family and friends. I really think that we miss that, and that it has adversely affected our society and culture.

Social networking is really nothing other than a mechanism for people to communicate with each other again. Family and friends are finding each other; catching up on years of missed events and news; reconnecting with people that they really love, people that they have missed.

We are also making new connections. We are finding new friends and developing relationships without actually meeting each other in the physical sense.

I believe that social networking makes technology truly personal, almost in a human way. We are connected again.