Thing 25. Blogger's Toolkit

I had problems with this "Thing." A lot of the tools just weren't interesting to me (for example, I really don't feel the need to monkey around with more image applications and widgets), and some I found too complex or had other difficulties with.

For instance, I tried Clustrmap. Even though I didn't think I'd get very many hits on my blog, I thought it'd be interesting to be able to map what I got. But I originally set up Clustrmap to run on my old Wordpress blog and subsequently had problems with my account and password when I tried to use it on the new one. With this mapping concept in mind, I also gave Gvisit a shot. The application seemed easy enough to work with, but I had the impression it would be a widget that I could install and use on my blog. Instead, I found it was only a link to Google maps. I didn't find this useful, as I couldn't figure how someone reading my blog could use it.

Another application I considered was for adding a tag cloud, something I've found valuable in such applications as discovery layers. While the documentation on this particular site blog (phydeaux3) made it seem easy, I was a little wary of installing it on my template, even after I'd saved it. Most of the documentation was straightforward, but then it became confusing, not matching up with what I saw on my template. So, once again, I figured it wasn't for me.

About the only thing I added for this "Thing" was a search box. And that, of course, as super-easy, as it came from the list of Blogger widgets. One click and there it was. Presto.

So I didn't get much out of this "Thing." Hope I have more success on the next one.