Blogger In Draft - Try Some Cool Features Before Your Blogger Buddies

Blogger in Draft allows bloggers to try out new Blogger features before they're available on regular Blogger. You can add a You Tube video bar which allows you to pick videos to display on your sidebar based on any topic or keyword you choose. The newsreel feature allows the same kind of customization. And for those of you who know about widgets and gadgets, Blogger in Draft allows you to add any of the thousands of available Google widgets to your Blogger sidebar. I've chosen two other new features:

The Google search bar I added allows you to search any term on this blog as well as any term on any of the other blogs I link to on my blogosphere sidebar. So if you're searching for an article but you're not sure if you read it here or on one of the other blogs, you can easily find it. The Google search bar can also be set to search an entire site or the entire web.

And if you use a reader to keep up with your favorite blogs whenever a new post is added, I've added a feature that allows you to add this blog to any one of five different readers, Google, Bloglines, Atom Feed, Netvibe, Newsgator, & MyYahoo.

Since these features are beta versions currently being tested, understand that Blogger in Draft features can be changed or pulled at any time.

Note: I've decided to delete the reader feature from Blogger and replace it with something else. The reader feature was making the site load too slowly. I found a fantastic alternative. What is it? I'll let you know in my next post. Be patient my dears.

Adding A Map Function To Outlook

Live Search Maps for Outlook allows you to view and print maps directly from Outlook. If you use Outlook for your daily scheduling, this add on is incredible convenient and can save you time. After you've added an appointment on your Outlook calendar, click on the location tab (the address carries over from the location bar). In the "start location" box, enter your home address and save it (you won't have to enter it in the future). Select "get directions," and Outlook pulls up directions, a map, and estimated drive time. You can print directly from Outlook (it's an abbreviated map and sometimes a little difficult to read) or choose "Explore this location in Live Search Maps." This immediately jumps you to Live Search Maps, with all the information already added and mapped out. A history of prior addresses is saved in Outlook, so if your route changes or you need to map from one appointment to the next, just use the drop down button to pull up prior entries.