How to display an Easter egg cursor in Blogspot

Ever wondered how to add a nice Easter themed cursor (or any other type of cursor) to your Blogspot blog? Actually, is quite easy, especially, if you have some basic notions of HTML. I've been playing on my blog lately, testing cursors and graphics, and now I can write a short tutorial about how to add an Easter egg cursor to Blogspot.

Traditionally, in Romania, on Wednesday and Tuesday during the Holy Week of the Orthodox Easter, people use to dye and decorate Easter eggs. World evolves, traditions change and adapt, so, like everyone else, I "echoed" the "offline" tradition into the online medium. Sort to speak, I deciced to decorate my blog.

Easter egg cursor

So, here I am, after long deliberations, I choose a nice pink Easter egg model as shown in the picture at left. If you want your cursor to look the same, here is what you should do.

First of all I have to recommend Cursors4U.com, a website containing lots of free cursors, ready to be used on your site or blog. Go to the Easter Cursors section on Cursors-4U.com, and choose the desired cursor. Like I said, I go with the pink Easter egg cursor, which can be found at this link. See the image below.

Choosing the desired Easter cursor

Then, we can see the cursor page and also we can see the chosen cursor "at work" - your cursor takes its shape, so that you can test it before you actually use it on your own blog.

Once landed on the page, click on the "Blogger/Blogspot" tab, like shown in the image bellow.

Click on the "Blogger/Blogspot" tab

And then, go to "New Blogger/Blogspot Interface" and copy the codes.

Copy the codes of the Easter cursor

Then, log into your Blogspot account, go to your blogs and choose the blog you want to show the new cursor. Bellow is a screenshot from my own account.

Then, go to the left side of the screen, look for "Template" and click on it.

  Then go to "Edit HTML" and click on it.

Note: Before you do this, you'd better backup your template, just in case.

Click on Edit HTML

Now slide down until the bottom, and look for the last line of codes, just where is written  </html>. Positionate the cursor just before the  <  symbol.

Put cursor before </html> 

And then paste the code that will allow the cursor to be shown. After that, click "Save".

Paste the code and save

Now you're done. Type in browser your blog address to see the results.  You should see on your Blogspot blog a nice Easter egg cursor like mine. Well, congratulations! You've just "dyed" your cursor!

Update on 18 April 2015

After getting some feedback from my friends, I have found out that some people can't see the cursor. I must admit that I am a bit surprised by this because it didn't happen in my case. Anyway, I've tried to figure out the possible issue and a way to fix it.

Although, in theory, if you follow the above mentioned steps, you should see your nice cursor "hovering" your blog, it seems that in some cases, this doesn't always happen. In that case, it would be a good idea to update your browser or browsers. And, in case that you are a blog owner and you can't see your new cursor, then you should verify the codes, maybe you've made a mistake.

Anyway, although I don't intend to keep this cursor forever, I wont to assure you that in my case, it does work. I've checked it using all the browsers that are installed on my OS.

Here is the configuration:
Zorin OS v.6 Core (Ubuntu 12.04 LTS)
Midori v.0.4.3
Firefox v.37.0.1
Google Chrome Version 42.0.2311.90 (64-bit)
Chromium Version 37.0.2062.120 Ubuntu 12.04 (281580) (64-bit)

How to undo all this 

- How to manage an "I want my cursor back!" kind of situation -

Once the Easter period gone, you'll wont to change your cursor back to default. Well, in order to do that, log into your Blogspot account, go to your blog template, click on "Edi HTML" button, and look for your cursor code (you should see something containing "cursors4u" blah blah in it. 

I've selected it (grey highlight) in the screenshot below. Click to enlarge.

 After selecting it, like in the image above, delete it, and then save the HTML. Now the cursor should be back to normal.

- Last update: 21 April 2015 -

A Romanian legend about Virgin Mary Theotokos

Icon XIX century, museum. Link: http://www.epr.ro/muzeu-icoane

 Many mundane problems have kept me from writing on this blog in this last month.

But today, I resume my activity here by sharing an old and interesting Romanian legend that I have read about recently. It is a legend about Virgin Mary which Romanians call her "Fecioara Maria", but, most often "Maica Domnului" meaning literally Mother of Lord/God. In the title I use the Greek term "Theotokos" which I see is much more known and used online than the Romanian one and it also means Mother of Lord.

The following legend was discovered about a century ago by Simion Florea-Marian, (Ro link) one of the greatest Romanian Ethnologists and Folklorists. He gathered several legends from the Romanian inhabitants of Bucovina region (which nowadays is no longer bordered by our frontiers - long political story, hardly related to the subject of this post).

To put things in context, I must mention that a few days ago, more exactly, on 25 March, the Orthodox Christians and the Greek-Catholics from Romania celebrated the Good Annunciation, followed a day after by a celebration dedicated to Archangel Gabriel. I'm not going to insist now on the events celebrated with this occasion. They are well known and, anyway, they can be easily found out from the link I gave.

The legend I'm going to tell is quite long and I intend to save my... I've almost said my breath... well, I wont to save my... finger tips for it. The legend presents the event in a quite different version from the biblical one. I could say, the people have made Virgin Mary one of their own kin.

I try to follow in the most accurate way the original text of the legend, which was published in the book called "The Legends of Theotokos", original title being "Legendele Maicii Domnului". I will also keep the Romanian form of the names of the characters. I don't think they need to be translated. It is very easy to guess, as there are similarities in spelling with their English forms.

So, let the story begin...

 "It is said that once upon a time, in the old times, dwelt two old fellows named Ioachim and Ana. This couple did not had children. And they prayid to God every morning and every night so that He would give them a child. And they've made a promise that if they would have a child then he will be sent to the church to be dedicated to God and will serve Him.

And God, as He is entirely good and merciful, listening to their long prayers gave them a daughter which they called Maria.

And now, to fulfil their promise, they dressed the girls like a little doll and took her to a monastery of nuns. Once there, they entered in the church, put the child on the table inside and then they left for home.

Soon after their leaving, the monastic women rived to the church to say their prayers and thus they found little Maria and took her in their rooms. They gave her a room of her own and an old woman as her nanny.

Under her nanny's guidance and good care, Maria grew up well. She became smarter and wiser as days passed by.

But after she grew up a little more, entering to her adolescence, the Holy Spirit descended from heavens and blew with a divine breath upon her and from that moment she became mid-bearne (see here for the expression) with our Lord Jesus Christ.

The old nanny noticed Maria's new delicate condition, but, unknowing the reason she did not knew what to think. She was very frightened and upset. In the end, gathering all her courage, she went to the abbess nun and told her the situation.

The abbess nun did'nt belived the old woman, she slapped her face and threw her out of the room, saying this can't be true. Then, after she calmed down, she went into Maria's room to see with her own eyes and verify if there is truth in what she just heard.

 And after seeing for sure that the old woman was telling the truth, and unknowingly also that Maria was expecting a child being under the divine shadow, the nun brutaly took her our from her room, bemocked and banished her.

 Maria, seeing that she is treated in such a shameful way and knowing herself to be innocent, started to cry heavily and entered the church to pray to God for her innocence.

When she set her foot inside the church, God's angels started singing. And Maria, with her eyes still in tears, started bowing and prostrating in front of the holy icons.

The nuns and their abbess, seeing the church's door open and knowing that none of them opened it, hurried into the church to see what is going on. There, they saw Maria crying and praying in her knees, and the angels around her singing. The nuns, frightened by this, felt on their knees, asking Maria for forgiveness, and also asking her to get back to live with them in the monastery.

But Maria did not wonted to get back, so she left the church to live in the village of her parents."

Well, here is where the legend ends. I'm not sure if it was told/translated in English before. Anyway, I have tried my best in order to share it to the world...

My 3rd poem with dedication...

Fortunately, the muse visited me in the last few days. Here is another poem I wrote yesterday, 15 February 2014.

Like the previous one, it is written in Romanian language. And it is with special dedication...

Although I don't translate it yet, I can translate the title: "De-a fost răul" meaning, in a raw translation "If the source of evil was..." or "If the evil was from...".
  

De-a fost răul

                   by Cristiana Nicolae

De-a fost răul de la mine

Chiar acum mă îmbrac în sac.

De-a fost răul de la tine,

Eu în bine îl prefac.

De-a fost răul de la lume,

Multă-i vorba de vorbit!

De-a fost răul de la demon,

Am în cruce un cuțit.

De-a fost răul de oriunde,

Din tăcere, din cuvânt,

Nu-i puterea lui mai mare

Decât dorul pe pământ!

Update on 19 February 2014

I have also published this poem on my Weebly personal site, on my Poezie.ro page
and on my Negru pe Alb page (on Ning). Once again, the Ning-based website offered me feedback very quickly.

Another of my poems - "Our morning"

I continue today my poetic moment with another of my poems. Like the one from yesterday, this one is written in Romanian language. Apologies to my English speaking readers.

This poem is called "Our morning', original title "Dimineața noastră", and it is in the memory to a very special moment in my life and to an extraordinary person. I end the intro here.


Here is the poem...

Dimineața noastră

        by Cristiana Nicolae

Acum zece revoluții

Aurora ne zâmbea

Într-o pură dimineață -

Dimineața mea și-a ta.

„Este dimineața noastră!”

Îmi spuneai atunci zâmbind

„Și pe marea mea albastră

În sfârșit, te văd sosind!”

Și mi-ai spus atunci mai multe

Despre cer, despre pământ

Iar în inima-nsorită

Ardea tainic legământ.

Zece pași făcut-a Cronos

Pași prelungi, plini de-ncercări.

Soarta în rostogolire

Ne-azvârli pe-alte cărări.

Însă chiar de-ar fi potopul,

Noi deloc nu vom uita

Acea pură dimineață,

Dimineața mea și-a ta...

Update on 19 February 2014

I've published this poem also on my Weebly personal website, on my Poezie.ro page and on my Negru pe Alb page (a cultural website based on Ning platform). On this last one, I have received instant useful feedback and I have corrected my poem accordingly. (I did noticed that this last website seems more "alive" than the old and well established Poezie.ro).

A poem I wrote today, 14 February 2014...

 I'm not very much into Valentine's Day, as it is a borrowed celebration, not a local one (by "local" in this case I mean genuine Romanian).

Still, I, somehow, hold this date as being an important one, for some personal reasons which don't make the subject of this post.

Anyway, maybe due to this reason, or maybe due to the divine will, this morning I woke up with these verses in my ears. I did not get the chance to entirely refresh myself, and the first 8 verses were already written in my mind. The next four one came soon after, in the same smooth manner.

I must admit that this kind of high level of poetic inspiration did not paid me visits since long time, maybe due to my long, deep, and frequent depressions. In these circumstances, when the muse enters our door she should be treated respectfully. And I also think that it is not just a coincidence the fact that I received these verses today without having to do much effort. So, I wont to write it here, and maybe, in the future, I'll write other poems that I wrote or I will write.

Unfortunately, for my English speaking readers and visitors, this poem is written in Romanian, my own native language. For now, I don't have any English translation/version of it, although I think it would be a good idea. But, as we all know, translating a poem is not that easy, and, as far I'm concerned, I'm not sure yet that I can do it properly. But I keep that in mind for the future.

Till that time, I apologise to my English readers asking them to use the so-hated Google Translate or any other translating tool they like.

The poem is called "Cel-ascuns..." meaning "The-hidden-one...".
 

Cel-ascuns...

              by Cristiana Nicolae

Cuvintele îmi pier,

Trăirile îmi seacă

De când auzul tău

Spre mine nu se-apleacă.

Rostește doar o vorbă,

Și gândul va înflori,

Și râul de lumină

Din suflet va țâșni!

Ascultă și vorbește-mi!

Atâta mi-e de ajuns

Ca să ajung la tine,

La tine-cel-ascuns...

I have given his poem as an offering...

Update on 19 February 2014

I have also published this poetry here, on the Ning Web called Însemne Culturale, and I did a small correction of the text according the advice I have received on that website. Very useful feedback I got on those Ning Websites!

Aside of that I have also published the poem on the following sites (the more one uses, the more chances to get usefull feedback) : here on Negru pe Alb (a Ning website), here on Amprente Literare (a Ning website), here on Poezie.ro and and here on my Weebly personal website.
I changed the title of the post on this blog.

Last update: Monday 10 March 2014
Poem published here on Rețeaua Literară (a Ning website called Literary Net).
I have forgot to mention last time that, the poem was, also published on my blog from Însemne Culturale (another Ning-based cultural website).

1rst December - The National Day of Romania or The Great Union Day

The map of Romania with the colours of the national flag

The National Day of Romania is 48 h long! No, is not a typo... not exactly! It's one of my jokes, but is based on interesting and quite serious facts.

Well, today, on 1rst December is celebrated The National Day of Romania also called Great Union Day (Marea Unire). This marks the day when Romanian territories were united in one big country and the scaterred Romanians became one big nation. I don't intend to get into much details here today. Those interested can find several interesting links at the end of this post.

On the other hand, yesterday, 30 November all the Romanians, but mostly the Orthodox Christians have celebrated Saint Andrew, who is considered to be the protector of Romania. Both celebrations are National holidays.

Saint Andrew or Sfântul Andrei, how is locally called is one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus, and he is the one who brought the Christian Gospels to the people living on the actual Romanian territory. Again, I am not going to enter in details today, the subject being too complex for a simple casual blog post.

But I am going to tell one interesting thing that I have observed to be a characteristic of the Romanian nation and culture. Apart from other people who have developed a sense of togetherness and of appartenance to a certain nation based on their common history and cultural values, the Romanians did their Great Union because of their unity of religion, but, most of all, the unity of language.

Other people from other countries speak two-three languages and the same boundaries host multiple dialects. This is not the case with Romania and the Romanians. Yes, it is true that there are a lot of minorities of different ethnics, each of them speaking their own mother tongue, but the Romanian ethnics  speak only one language - Romanian. The language sounds identical all across the country because there are no real dialects, only some sorts of sub-dialects (or grai for singular, graiuri for plural - sorry, I don't know the exact English word for that).

And one last idea. Being the National Days of Romanians, I must mention our brothers from the Moldavian Republic who area also ethnic Romanians and speak Romanian language. Sadly, they live too close to the former Russian Soviet Union, so, for political reasons, the official language in the Moldavian Republic is called as being Moldavian, while, in fact, it is truly and deeply and completely Romanian.

Hey, you, officials from the Moldavian Government! Repeat after me: we speak Romanian! Romanian, is that clear? Moldavian language exists only in your imagination...

***
Usefull links about the National Great Union Day:

What do Romanians celebrate on their December 1st National Day?

December 1st - Romania National Day

Great Union Day (Wikipedia article)