Favicons Part 2

In my previous post, I described how you can design your own favicon using the pattern block virtual manipulative from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) from Utah State University. Not only was I unhappy with my resulting favicon, I decided not to install it on my blogs.

Tonight I decided to continue playing with my pattern blocks and I cleaned up the favicon: I used the rhombuses to make a different style of the letter M (for meeyauw). I placed it in the top left corner of a square. Again, I used Skitch to grab my design from NLVM and then imported it into Photoshop Elements. I erased the black boundaries but not the black outline. I used yellow around the graphic to make it stand out.

I had been unhappy with favicon.ico because it required me to change the file type of my image after favicon.ico had created the favicon. I also would have had to host the favicon on ImageShack and alter the code of my blog myself. I'm too tired to do all that.

I then went to myfavatar.com and learned more about the site. It was somewhat confusing but I played and learned. You register your blog on myfavatar just as you register on mybloglog. You upload your favicon image and myfavatar creates and hosts your new favicon png file. It then delivers the code for you to install on your blog (for blogger, you simply copy the code and paste it directly after the HEAD code in your template). I also deleted the code for my old favicon that I had created ages ago with favicon.ico. I previewed the blog before I saved any changes. My new favicon was there! I saved the changes and followed the same steps for my Barton Daily Photo blog and for meeyauw's recipes blog.

According to wikipedia.org, a favatar is a "favicon file on a server controlled by the represented user as an avatar."

Myfavator.com offers other services that I want to learn about. I am very happy with the fast loading of the favicon (which didn't always happen when ImageShack hosted it). The process is much simpler then the old sequence of steps I detailed above.

I am happier with my new favicon. But I'm not finished designing it. And this is the greatest advantage to myfavatar: if you change your favicon, you simply upload it to your myfavatar account. You never need to change your blog's template code again. The code that you first installed links your blog directly to whatever image you currently claim as your favicon. Change your favicon, upload it, and all of your favicons in your blogs are updated. That gives me a lot of freedom to change the image as much as I like until it is perfect.

Myfavatar.com is on of those great finds for bloggers. It's easy, fast and fun. (No, myfavatar did not pay me for this endorsement, unfortunately.) All of my blogs now carry this new favicon. You can see it as an M, a bird flying to the northwest, or a flower whose petals open to the southeast. I used a slide tessellation (of unknown degrees) to create it. You can be sure I will continue to work on it in the future.

Technorati tags: myfavatar.com favicons NLVM National+Library+of+Virtual+Manipulatives Skitch
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