Here are the poll results in full:

I'm happy to have conducted this poll as I now realize that my "how-to" style articles are among the most popular and requested from readers as a whole. I was surprised to see that none of the options I'd posted received a huge minority though. Hopefully this means all of the post types I publish here are useful for your needs and interests?

Other suggestions

On the original poll page, some of you suggested other ideas for post content. In particular, Alan suggested a regular "Question and Answer" post (which was seconded by many others in the comments for this post). Thank you Alan, I think this is an excellent idea!

Due to the amount of email I receive, it has become increasingly difficult for me to answer all questions sent by email; using a Q&A feature would enable me to answer some Blogger related questions in a way all readers may benefit from, as my answers will be published on the site.

I plan on posting this Blogger Q&A feature each Monday (beginning next week) so if you have a question about your Blogger blog which you'd like me to answer in Monday's post, please leave me a comment with your question and blog URL below this post. I can't guarantee to answer every question, and will instead focus on the questions which are of the greatest interest to you all.

Another redesign for Blogger Buster..?

In recent weeks, I've received constructive feedback to suggest how the design of this site may be improved. Currently, my templates makes heavy use of scripts and images; these slow down page loading time, and can make reading articles difficult for those browsing with images disabled.

Reader experience of Blogger Buster is of great importance to me. While I do love the current design, I have begun designing a new and improved template which I hope will be much more beneficial to you all.

I'm also considering adding a forum to Blogger Buster, which I feel would add a greater sense of community and interaction to the site. Would you like to see a forum added to the site?

Thank you for your feedback!

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll, and also to those who offered feedback via comments and email. I truly appreciate all feedback and suggestions for how Blogger Buster may be improved, so don't be shy: tell me what you think!

Don't forget to ask your Blogger related questions for Monday's Q&A post by leaving your comments below.

About the competition

This competition has been launched in celebration of Blogger Buster's first birthday, and is part of a community project to raise awareness of the features which we (the Blogger community) would most like to use in Blogger.

For the chance to win the ultimate blogging package or one of five runner up prizes (see below), you will need to write a post explaining the feature(s) you would most like Blogger to add, then post a comment on the competition page with a link to your entry post.

Be sure to read the entry requirements and rules on the original competition page, and post your entries there!

First Prize: The Ultimate Blogging Package

The main prize on offer in this competition is The Ultimate Blogging Package: a selection of useful products which I have hand picked as the most useful products and services which are tailored to the needs of Blogger users.

The Ultimate Blogging Package includes:

• A unique, professional Blogger template (which will not be available for public download)
• A copy of the Problogger book
• A complete blog tune up
• One year domain name, email address and basic hosting package from GoDaddy
• A set of Moo Mini-Cards
• A one month 125px advertising slot here on Blogger Buster

Here follows a full description of each element in the package:

The Unique Blogger Template

I have designed a unique Blogger template as part of the main prize:

This is one of the best templates I have ever designed! It is based on a new design concept I've been working on for Blogger Buster (more news about this in coming weeks) so you can be sure it is optimized for SEO, loads very quickly and has loads of other great features including built in tabbed navigation (I finally figured out the method!).

This design will only be available to the first prize winner of this competition. It will not be released as a download here at Blogger Buster (either free or paid).

As an extra benefit to the prize winner, I will personally install this template in their blog.

In the event that the winner does not require use of this template for their own blog, the winner will still receive the copyright for this template and are permitted to offer this as a download from their own blog instead. However, I will only install this template into a blog owned or operated by the prize winner themselves.

A complete blog tune up

To complement the Blogger template offered to the winner, I will also provide them with a tune-up for their blog which will further optimize their blog for search engines and ensure it loads as quickly as possible.

This part of the prize is not transferable, and will be provided only to the first prize winner.

A one year domain name from GoDaddy (Includes basic hosting and email)

Blogger users can associate a custom domain (eg: www.yourname.com) with their blog. A domain name purchased directly from GoDaddy comes complete with a basic hosting and email package, allowing extra flexibility for bloggers who need online storage for their images and scripts, and also a professional email address.

The winner of the ultimate blogging package will receive a voucher to purchase the domain name of their choice (.com, .org, .net only), and if required I will help set up their custom domain, hosting and email account (not transferable).

You can read full details of the domain package here.

A copy of the Problogger book

ProBlogger the book is an excellent resource for learning how to build and monetize a successful blog.

Written by Darren Rowse (ProBlogger.net) and Chris Garrett (ChrisG.com), this book is a bestseller of the blogging genre and has received excellent reviews.

Unlike other books that are big on potential and theory, ProBlogger provides results based on the authors own experience of what really works through practical, tried and tested advice.

No matter which genre you write about through your blog, this is an essential book for your reading list!

A pack of 100 Moo Mini Cards

Moo Mini-Cards are a fun and practical way to promote your blog offline. Unlike regular business cards, you can personalize each Moo card in your pack using pre-made templates or your own designs.

This prize includes international shipping, and details will be sent to the winner in the form of a voucher to redeem at Moo.com.

A one month 125px advertising slot here on Blogger Buster

The first prize winner will also win one month's free advertising here on Blogger Buster in the form of a 125px square ad at the top of the sidebar to assist in promoting their blog (worth $30).

5 Runner Up Prizes

As the winners will be drawn purely by luck, I felt it was only fair to offer a small selection of runner up prizes too. So in addition to the ultimate blogging package, five runners up will win:

500 Entrecard Credits

Entrecard is a new and highly useful social network which allows members to earn points which can be used to advertise for free on other members' blogs.

Each runner up will receive 500 Entrecard credits transferred to their account to help towards advertising on other blogs in the network.

One month 30px square advertising slot on Blogger Buster

Each of the five runners up will also receive a one month advertising slot in one of the new 30px square slots which I've introduced to the site.

These slots are currently available through BuySellAds for $10 per month; the size of these ads is similar to a large Favicon and link to your blog (or a page within your blog) using title tags to explain what your site is about.

Ideas submitted so far

If you're looking for ideas for your own entry post to this competition, why not take a look at some of the entries already posted? So far we've seen some really great suggestions, including:

• The ability to upload images and have them display without size modification (from Theresa of Eyebald)
• A comment form beneath posts (from Kazi of Free Software for PC)
• Tabbed navigation built into Blogger templates (from Fernandoo of Randomness)
• A (purely comical value) instant coffee machine! Thanks to La Blogueria for that one, which really made me smile :D

Your feature suggestion need not be unique! Through this project we are trying to encourage the Blogger team to develop the features which we would find most useful. Writing about these suggestions and promoting through this community project is more likely to make Blogger take notice of our needs and work towards developing these features which can only benefit the community as a whole.

My hope is that the prizes offered through this competition will offer you all more incentive to join in!

How the winners will be chosen

As explained on the main competition page, entrants should write a post on their own blogs about the feature they would most like to use in Blogger. To verify their entry, a comment including the link to their blog post should be made on the competition page.

The competition closes on Friday the 4th of July at 10pm, GMT. Winners will be drawn at random soon after the competition closes using Research Randomizer, with one draw to determine the overall winner and a separate draw for the five runners up.

Winners will first be contacted about their prize and announced later in a follow-up post.

Please be sure to read the full details (including the competition rules) on the main competition page. Entries should be submitted on the competition page only to ensure your entries are verified and included in the draws. Please do not add your entry URL on this page as your entry will not be counted!

Best of luck to you all!

Just to confirm some of the questions asked by readers:

• Your entry can be in any language, and will be accepted so long as it follows the rules of entry!
• You must provide a link to your entry post by leaving this in a comment on the main competition page!

Don't forget, this competition closes on Friday the 4th of July at 10pm GMT so be sure to validate your entries before this time!

I wish you all the best of luck for this competition, and look forward to reading more entry posts!

To receive further updates about this competition, and also helpful articles about using Blogger, please subscribe to the Blogger Buster feed.

There are features which I'm sure we'd all like to use in Blogger, such as:

• A comment form beneath blog posts
• A built in method for summarizing posts

Or simply...

• A better selection of templates for us to use!

The Blogger Team are constantly developing new features for us to use. While we could make use of the Blogger wishlist to vote for the features we'd most like to use, there is much to be said for the value of raising awareness through our blogs!

What better incentive to post about the features we most desire from Blogger than the chance to win the ultimate blogging package..?

The Project

Many readers have commented or contacted me about features they would like to be able to use in Blogger. While I can create tutorials and widgets which serve many of these needs, there are some features which we would benefit from if these were available within the Blogger platform.

For some time, I have wondered how we could encourage the Blogger team to work on the features we would most like to use. Then I realized the answer is simple: Ask!

One person's request may not hold much weight, but if we can work as a community, Blogger will be much more likely to take note.

What you could win

There will be six prizes in total: one "grand prize" for the overall winner, and five runner-up prizes:

The winners will be chosen at random from a list of all successful entrants using Research Randomizer.

One Ultimate Blogging Package (for the overall winner)

For the first prize, I have hand picked (and coded!) a truly useful package of blogging tools, including:

• A unique, pre-made Blogger XML template (which will not be available for anyone else to use!)
• A complete blog tune up (including optimizing for search engines and page loading time).
• A one year domain name, basic hosting and email package from GoDaddy
• A copy of the Problogger book
• A one month 125px advertising slot here at Blogger Buster (a $30 value)
• A set of MiniCards from Moo to help you promote your blog offline.

Note: to prevent this post becoming too long, I'll write a separate post to explain all about these prizes (and relevant terms) in full detail.

5 Runner Up Prizes

In addition, five runners up will each receive 500 Entrecard credits and one month's advertising with the new 30px square banners (these will appear in the sidebar later this evening).

How to enter

This competition is open to anyone who actively uses the Blogger platform to publish their blog, whether you have had your blog for a week or several years.

The competition will run for two weeks, and all entries should be received before Friday the 4th of July at 10pm GMT.

It is very easy to enter this competition! Here is what you should do:

Write a post in your own blog explaining which feature (or features) you would most like to be able to use in Blogger, and why you would like to use it.

This post should include a link to Blogger.com or (preferably) the Blogger Wishlist page, which I will explain shortly.

Once you have published your post, come back to this page and leave a comment to verify your entry. This comment should include a brief explanation of the Blogger feature you would like, and a link to the URL of your blog post.

How the winners will be chosen

To decide the winners of this competition, I will place each entry into a numbered list in the order the entrants comment was received.

Using Research Randomizer, I will first select one random entry according to their number who will win the grand prize. Then a second random selection comprising of five entries will be selected in the same manner; these entrants will each receive a runner-up prize.

I will contact each of the winners about their prize as soon as the draws are completed and will announce the winners on this blog soon after (so please provide a means of personal contact on your blog if possible!).

Rules of entry

To make this competition as fair as possible, there are some rules which you should follow:

• Your entry should be at least 100 words long (or two short paragraphs), though of course you can write far more if you prefer! Entry posts which are only one or two sentences long will be excluded from the prize draw.
• You must post about a feature which is not currently available for us to use in Blogger.
• Only one entry is allowed for each person. Of course, you can write about your own Blogger wish list as many times as you like, but only one post will count as your entry requirement. If you post to more than one blog, write your post for the one where it would be most appropriate.
• You must confirm your entry by leaving a comment with the URL of your post. A backlink to Blogger Buster is not a requirement for entry, so this will be the only way I can be sure you have entered the competition!
• Entry must be confirmed by leaving a comment before Friday the 4th of July at 10pm GMT. This will be confirmed by the timestamp of comments left on this post. Entries received after this time will not be included in the draw, so be sure to enter before the deadline!

How this competition will benefit the Blogger community as a whole

The main reason I devised this project and competition is to raise awareness of the features we would most like to use in Blogger.

By entering the competition, you are taking part in this community project. By writing about the features you would like to use, and linking to Blogger, you can help encourage the Blogger team to work on developing the features and services which are most important to us!

Once the competition deadline has passed, I will collaborate the details of the most requested features and post the results here on Blogger Buster as my own contribution to this project.

Help generate awareness for this project and competition

As I mentioned earlier, a link to Blogger Buster is not a requirement for entry. But if you think this project is worthwhile and would like to help generate awareness, I would be very grateful for your help!

There are different ways you could help promote this project and competition, for example:

• Tell your blogging friends, family and colleagues
• Link to this post and explain what the competition is about (optional)
• Stumble, Digg or add this post to your Del.icio.us bookmarks.

If you prefer, you can grab the banner from the top of this post, or add this banner code to your blog:

Good luck!

The competition is now officially open! I'm looking forward to seeing how successful this project will be, and wish you all the best of luck for your entries!

For this week, I'm going to take a break from the regular tutorials to provide you with some celebratory content, including:

• Highlights of the past year
• The most popular posts from a year of Blogger Buster
• What to look forward to in the year to come
And...


• 100 (or so) tips for using Blogger more effectively

Then on Friday, I'll be posting details of the first ever Blogger Buster competition :)

There will be some great prizes on offer for the lucky winners. Entry will not only be easy, it will be an interesting experience too...

I'm not going to post too many details just yet, but what I will say is that simply entering this competition will be useful for you, even if you are not an overall winner!

Be sure to subscribe to Blogger Buster to read these posts and receive more news about the competition!

You can also suggest (or vote for) particular articles you would like to read by using the Skribit widget in the sidebar.

I appreciate all feedback you can offer about the general content of the site, so please feel free to let me know what you think and help me make Blogger Buster a better blog for you!

As before, these eBooks will be focused on the needs of those using Google Blogger to publish their blogs, and will be available for free download through this blog:

Choosing and Using a New Blogger Template

One of the most requested article suggestions for Blogger Buster is -

A step by step tutorial to change your Blogger template without screwing everything up! (via the Skribit widget)

So instead, I'm going to release this tutorial as a short eBook, with a few added bonuses which you won't find elsewhere.

I hope to have completed finished writing this within a week or two, and will distribute this directly from the site.

"The Blogger Book"

Okay, I admit I haven't conjured up a definitive title for this eBook yet, so any suggestions would be most welcome!

This eBook will be "the biggie": a compilation of useful information, tutorials and insight to help you build a better blog with Blogger.

I hope "the Blogger book" will appeal to Blogger users with all levels of experience, from those just beginning to use Blogger to those who have been blogging for some time! It will be about using Blogger in general (rather than focusing exclusively on one aspect of Blogger), with useful sections and tutorials that you won't find anywhere else online.

As you can imagine, this eBook will take significantly longer to write. So far, I'd guess this will be well over 100 pages long (perhaps closer to 200) and although I will be giving this ebook away for free, most likely this will be offered only to subscribers (as an incentive to subscribe to Blogger Buster).

What do you think about this? Would you still be interested in "the Blogger book" if I offer it only to subscribers?

Your suggestions are warmly welcomed!

If you have any suggestions for the content (or format) of either of these ebooks, I would really like to hear from you! Please feel free to write your comments below, I'd love to know your opinions and will be sure to consider any suggestions you may have.

You don't need to register or login to Skribit to make or vote for a suggestion, and you can vote for an article more than once.

Registering with Skribit enables you to track the progress of your votes on any site which uses a Skribit widget, and also to create a widget of your own to feature in your own blog sidebar.

I'm sure many of you would like to suggest future posts or have questions about using Blogger, so please jump in and offer your ideas!

As suggestions posted in the widget are answered in my posts, I will link to the post from within Skribit (though I'm not sure this will appear in the actual widget).

Also, I will soon be posting a full article about adding and using Skribit in Blogger which will answer the default question: "Why are you using Scribit".

As always, you comments are appreciated so please feel free to leave your own below. And be sure to post any ideas for posts you may have in mind! Reader interaction is something I really love about this site, and a feature I would like to foster in regard to future posts.

The Header Section

Many of you will recognize the overall layout of the header section from the Blogger Template Design tutorial, The Easy Way to Create a Great Blog Header.

I hope my design shows how the space in the header section can be put to good use!

The New Logo

The old BB logo didn't feature any indication of what this site is all about, so this was the first thing I redesigned!

Now it's instantly recognizable, though it still features the original red "B" which is part of the Blogger Buster "brand"!

The new font used for "Blogger Buster" is 321 Impact which you can download for free from DaFont (a great site for free fonts!)

Twitter Updates

I've recently discovered the benefits of using Twitter: not only can i keep you updated about the site, I'll be using tweets as "mini posts" to let you know of other interesting things too!

If you like, you can follow my updates on Twitter, or simply check back here to see what else I may have twittered.

Search and Navigation

The customized Blogger search box and the iconic navigation list are two features I've already posted about in the Blogger Template Design Series. Using these methods, I made these features match the overall color scheme of the site, and draw attention to important links.

Note: the "links" link is currently inactive because I haven't yet finished writing the page where this is going to lead. But it will be online and available soon. This page will be worth the wait, believe me!

The Main Posts Area

As in the previous template, the main content area has a paper style background with the page curl. But on the home page, you've probably noticed a vast difference in the overall design layout!

This is the area where I focused on creating a "magazine style" for the blog. The main thing I love about magazine styling in other (Wordpress powered) templates is the ability to have recent posts from various categories listed on the front page in grid/box areas.

I was able to recreate this in Blogger using label feeds of the main categories, which are highlighted with the sideways category titles. The "recent posts by category" section only appears on the home page (using conditional tags), along with an excerpt of the most recent post, which was achieved using the selective post summaries hack.

I would have preferred to show a different icon or small image relating to each post, though this has proven quite difficult so far. Instead I'm working on a different idea, which of course I will share if it works!

A Better Post Options Box on Item Pages

While I still use the 'post options' box on each post page, I decided it was better to add social bookmarking links here instead of the unused "Email this Post" and "Contact the Author" boxes.

New Sidebar(s)

The old style sidebar was getting too long, and the available space certainly wasn't being put to good use. So after a long time thinking about what I needed here, I decided to split the sidebar into two, while maintaining a wider section across the top which includes the most prominent features.

The "Featured Posts" Slideshow

Of all the new features I've introduced int he redesign, this is the one I love the most!

I first saw this used in Justin Tadlock's latest Wordpress theme and was instantly inspired. This "slideshow" is powered with JavaScript, rather than Flash, which ensures it's friendly to search engines. It did need a few tweaks to display properly in IE6, but it's not as difficult to use as you may think ;)

As it stands, this "widget" is coded into my actual template. It doesn't work when placed into an HTML/JavaScript widget for some reason, though by the time I come to write up the tutorial for this, I hope to have made it a little more user friendly for you all!

Do You Like The New Blogroll?

On my home page, you can now see my "blogroll": a list of the sites I read daily in regards to blogging/designing. All of these links have a recognizable icon to the left, and the links are well optimized for search engines: my way of generating a little 'link love' for these inspiring and well-written sites!

The Labels List

As part of the redesign, I have filed all the posts under a better labellings system, which should help you find posts of interest more easily. Furthermore, I've optimized these links for search engines by adding titles to the links, and styled each list item in a different way to other lists in the sidebar. You can read about the SEO for links in Blogger templates in the article I wrote for BloggingTips.com.

Feedburner Subscriber Count Widget

Here's another feature which I'm rather happy about: the widget which displays my subscriber count in the bottom of the left sidebar. The count updates daily (usually a few hours after Feedburner's update on my stats) and is generated using PHP and Javascript with a background image. It's a fairly simple widget to use, though I will warn you all in advance that you must be able to host PHP and Java scripts for this to work in your own templates.

The MyBlogLog Recent Readers Widget

Now while the new MyBlogLog widgets are lovely and shiny, they just didn't fit well with my overall theme! Using a little CSS magic, I was able to customize the original widget to better suit this site. This trick is really easy to do, and will probably be one of the first tutorials I write up (unless you have some burning questions about the other features which you'd like me to post about first?)

Known Issues

There are still a few things to finish or fix, including:

• The "Links" link in the header navigation is currently inactive (I haven't finished writing the page for this yet!)
• Both the Templates and Tutorials links in the header will soon lead to seperate resource pages, where all tools and templates will be listed on a single page.
• In Netscape 6, the footer sections may slip beneath the sidebar, which shall be solved as soon as I can figure out the problem (thanks to Kit for pointing this out!)

I'll solve these issues as soon as I can. In the meantime, if you notice any other problems with the site, please let me know about them!

So What's Next?

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting about all of the features above as part of the Blogger Template Design series so be sure to subscribe to the feed if you're interested in using these techniques in your own Blogger templates!

Should I create a Magazine Style Blogger template for download?

This is something I've been mulling over for a while now. I'd love to offer a free magazine style theme for Blogger, but like all Wordpress themes of this type, anyone downloading and using such a theme would need to do a huge amount of customization for themselves. It's simply not possible to create one which will work right out of the box!

So let me know what YOU think! Are there many who would be willing to go into the template code, change certain settings and (perhaps) learn how to write their posts a little differently for the sake of a magazine style theme? If enough people ask me for this, I will be sure to create one, though this may well take me a couple of weeks to write up!

I hope you've enjoyed reading how I've created this new template. If there's anything I haven't covered here, or a particular feature you'd like me to write about first, be sure to let me know by leaving your comments below.

Not only will this blog feature a newly designed appearance, there will also be some major changes to how this site works. So before I release this brand new Blogger template, I feel I ought to provide you all with an explanation of this redesign, and a little information about the changes you should expect from the site.

Why I have decided to redesign Blogger Buster

While researching Blogger templates, and blog design in general, I couldn't help but be inspired by beautiful, functional web designs, and began to consider just how much I could push the boundaries of Blogger template design.

There seems to be a general "consensus" of what can be achieved with Blogger, especially by those who use Wordpress. So many times, I've read phrases like "No, this can't be done in Blogger", or "Choose Wordpress instead: it's a much more powerful platform".

I want to prove these people wrong!

I'll be honest with you: I've used Wordpress for a different blog for some time now. I understand how Wordpress operates almost as much as I understand Blogger templates. By now, I feel I can safely tell you this:

There is very VERY little which can be achieved in Wordpress powered blogs which cannot somehow be duplicated in Blogger blogs. Albeit with a little compromize, externally hosted scripts and a LOT of patience.

In the next few days, you'll see exactly what I mean...

Keeping all my content on the site!

In it's present state, Blogger Buster actually operates across three domains:

1. www.bloggerbuster.com: the main site (here) where the main blog content is stored.
2. designs.bloggerbuster.com: the "templates" section, where you can search for and download Blogger templates which I have designed.
3. tools.bloggerbuster.com: the "tools" section, where you can find and use blogging tools, such as the web color calculator and PageRank display.

Sure, it works. The transition is almost seamless to most readers and up until now this method has served me well.

But unfortunately there are many drawbacks to this method. The templates and tools I provide barely attract any attention from the major search engines and are difficult to search for. Also, in "diluting" my content across these sub-domains, I am also losing out on traffic, backlinks and overall rank.

One of my main concerns in creating this set-up was that the tools I provide are based on PHP scripts which cannot be used, or hosted, in Blogger blogs. Luckily, I have discovered a method which can bring the tools into this site! Yes, you can now use my Email Scrambler, PageRank display and even the Web Color Calculator here on the main blog!

Now that I have figured out this solution, I can concentrate more fully on developing only this part of the Blogger Buster site.

Search Engine Optimization and Accessibility Issues

I was unpleasantly surprised to discover just how low this site ranks for various keywords in Google searches, despite my best attempts to provide a useful and reliable site.

So after much research into the possibilities of optimizing the site, I've come to discover some useful tactics of template design which I hope will serve this site much better.

Linked to this is the subject of "accessibility". As a web designer, I understand the importance of website accessibility for visually impaired and disabled readers, though by default Blogger templates are barely accessible at all.

Accessibility and search engine optimization are intrinsically linked: if visually impaired visitors are still able to easily understand our blogs with all the images disabled, so can search engine spiders. So far, I think I have done a pretty decent job of ensuring the redesign is accessible, and hope you will all think so too.

What you can expect from the "new look" Blogger Buster site

Some changes to the labels/categories

I will be merging some of the labels currently used into more descriptive categories, and also adding a few new ones which will help you find the posts you need more quickly.

Three new "Main Categories, plus contents pages for each

Since I am changing the way this whole site works by merging the three "domains" into one, I also feel it necessary to create three main categories and a contents page for each. This will assist in navigating around the site and will also offer a much cleaner appearance.

"Tools" pages will be added shortly.

As mentioned earlier, I am drawing all of the available tools from the current tools sub-domain into this main site. So if you notice a few strange new posts appearing in your feed-reader, this will be the reason why:)

The New Design...

I have retained a few aspects of this original design for the new template, though at first glance, you will notice some major changes in the overall appearance!

A "Magazine Style Layout"

I've been much inspired by the recent trend in magazine style layouts which are now a common feature of new Wordpress themes. Such designs feature a site overview on the main index page which assists readers to find the information they need about the site. Many also feature dynamic sidebars, a feature I have implemented into this site which I think will help you navigate more easily, and also draw attention to the more important areas of the site.

Two new features which are available to Blogger users!

I've discovered two great new features of template design which I'd previously considered inaccessible to Blogger users. While these are not major features, I feel they add to the overall style of my new template, and was really happy to discover that they can be made to work in Blogger powered blogs.

I don't want to give too much away as I think it may spoil the surprise, but I'm sure you'll like them to. And of course I will post details of how these could be implemented in your own blogs in the near future.

Style, accessibility and far fewer errors!

Perhaps the style of the new design will not be to everyone's tastes, though I feel confident that the majority of you will appreciate this. I wanted to showcase the capabilities of Blogger, combined with the style of web design which I personally enjoy. So I have worked through every aspect of the new design to ensure that all elements complement each other, with a little twist of personality in there too!

I've designed a striking new logo for Blogger Buster, which still retains the overall "brand" that many have come to recognize. The header section has now been put to much better use, with easily accessible navigation and a more prominent search box to help you navigate more easily.

After much deliberation, I decided on a 2/3 column layout, rather than the current wide two column design. This has enabled me to feature important content of the sidebar in a more prominent place, and also include some of the magazine style features into the home page.

With regard to accessibility, you can now be sure that all links will tell you where they will lead, and all images will describe what they depict.

Furthermore, there will be few (if any) errors between different browsers. I know that the navigation tabs in this design cause problems in Internet Explorer, and also that some of the current scripts bring up error messages too. I hope that I've managed to resolve these problems, and the few invalidation errors which remain are due to the way Blogger publishes our blogs, rather than any mistakes I may have made in the design!

So when will the new design be ready..?

I did initially hope to have the redesign ready to release early this week, but as many designers will understand, there are always problems when tweaking a design, ensuring that every element works the way it should.

Rather than release the site in beta while I iron out the discrepancies, I would prefer to get everything right from the start.

There are still a number of pages I need to write, a few minor tweaks and tests to perform. If possible, I hope to release the new theme next Monday, providing that everything goes to plan!

Will the new template be available for download?

Without wanting to disappointed you all, I'm going to have to say "no".

I've worked incredibly hard on this new design, and would prefer this design to be something unique to this blog. Furthermore, the implementation of the new template is integral to the content: the magazine style layout, sidebar features and aspects of the header section will be unique to this site. It would take a great deal of time and effort for others to implement the same features on their own sites, and due to my commitments to various projects, I'm simply unable to offer support for this.

But there is some good news!

Firstly, I promise to offer tutorials about the major aspects of this redesign, which you could use to implement similar changes in your own sites, one step at a time.

Secondly, I will soon offer this current template as a prize for the lucky winner of a competition, including full installation.

I'll publish the details of this competition in full once I've decided on the method and format.

I do hope you will all enjoy the new design and format of the Blogger Buster blog! Please do tell me your thoughts about the redesign, including any suggestions you may have of how this site could be improved.

If you'd like to be updated when the new d