Favicons

Searching for the right term
Favicon. I didn't even know that that is what it's called-- the icon beside the web address on my browser (Firefox). To get the correct term I searched Yahoo Answers. This website is like a huge different form of forum where all kinds of "laypeople" can get answers from all kinds of "laypeople" like themselves. I know, why take advice from the non-expert? Well sometimes their answers are really short so you'll get the drift in a jiffy. And hey, I just want to search using "everyday" words when I don't have any inkling what the technical term is.

The keywords I searched for are: icon, beside, web, address. Bull's eye! The answer I wanted was third on the list of search result. To bolster my point that the people in Y!Answers are just every day people like me, the best answer went to this answer:

I'm totally lost with this question. In Internet Explorer's Address bar, there is no image except the Explorer logo before the URL. There is no thought balloon. Are you sure you mean the Address bar? Are you using a different browser?

Whadayaknow, the best answer went to the answerer who's just as confused as the asker. Looks like his contender is more reliable because she made the effort of citing a source which is in wikipedia. Here's a bit of her answer:

That's a favicon.

You need to use something like this in the site you want it to appear:

"HTML codes" (Sorry don't know yet how not to make the codes disappear-Gigi)

Check here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon

Yay! That's the term I was looking for. Favicons. Woohoo! I did go to her source but some experts say that wiki is not totally reliable all the time, so I googled my newly discovered term: favicon.

The first result is on www.htmlkit.com. I have encountered this site before and tried it's htmlkit software. I think it's helpful and user-friendly so I went ahead and tried its favicon.ico generator. I didn't have to download this software. I only have to upload the image file I want to see beside my own web address in the address bar, tab or bookmark. Voila-- I now have right image size and the right kind of file name that I can use as favicon.

What's the code again?
The next thing I want to discover now is how to make my favicon.ico file appear everytime anyone opens my website. So, I googled: how to add favicon googlepages. The first result was kinda helpful in some sense, but the code that he wanted his readers to add in their html would just make a mess.

First instead of "http://yourUserName.googlepages.com/myicon.ico" he should have indicated "http://yourownwebsitename.googlepages.com/myicon.ico" because my Username is totally different from my website's name. Aaargg! This kind of instructions, if you follow blindly, are confusing, disappointing and most especially time-consuming because you have to backtrack what you did to know what you've done wrong. Second, there is a much simpler code you can use that wouldn't show unwanted words on your web's title. I know, because the error I got just led me to more backtracking and researching on what went wrong. I later found out that the instruction for blogger was the right code.

Eventually, I did get the right code. I got the idea from a combination of codes from this sites and this site. When I finally posted the right HTML code with the right words--voila! There it is! A cute version of a logo I had appearing every time I open my site. Wow! What a rush from such a small feat!

My actual discovery: Can't really work with HTML codes without a dash of patience and perseverance.