Favi ... what?

Favicon

According to Wikipedia, that's short for "favorite icon."  or "also known as a shortcut icon, Web site icon, URL icon, or bookmark icon, is a file containing one or more small icons, most commonly 16×16 pixels, associated with a particular Web site or Web page."

So I noticed that my niece Sarah's blog no longer sported the Favicon that is standard with all Blogger blogs.  At first I figured they had created their very own personal webpage and had their own really neat icon that reflected exactly who they are and what their blog was all about (family tree).  But then I saw that they were still in a Blogger blog. 

How did they do that?  I wondered.  So last night I did some exploring and found out.  And now I have my own little mini icon for my blog.  Did you notice it?

Not hard to do.  Just go to Design and then click on layout.  Up in the upper left corner (at least it was in mine) is a box with the word Favicon in it.  All you have to do is upload your own Icon into it and just that quick you can have it.  Just like that!

Well, probably not just like that.  First of all, the icon has to be a perfect square and under 100 k.   But most photo editing software will let you crop to a square and most will also allow you to reimage it or resize it to under 100.  You just have to do that and save your finished image in a file where you can find it again to post it.   I used a butterfly from my copyright logo which worked great for my blog.  This was one I designed myself in Corel Draw and that program allows you to export an image for the web.   Very low resolution, these things are.  But they work well as a personal favicon.

Now, next time you're in the middle of a trivia game or Pictionary, and Favicon comes up, you'll know!  (I know - everyone else knows about this, I'm just slow catching up.)