Changing default Blogger icon...

The solution is quite simple.

1) Login to dashboard.

2) Go to Design -> Edit html (please backup your template before you make any changes).

3) Search for </head> tag.

4) Paste the code below on top of </head> tag.

    <link href='your icon url' rel='shortcut icon' type='image/x-icon'/>

5) Save Template.

It'll be great if you could find a good hosting for your icon. Picasa Web won't allow us to upload .ico file. ImageBoo does provide free hosting for icon however it's been blocked by proxy at my office (plus I've read some negative feedback somewhere about the service, then decided to use other alternative). Icon generated by IconJ was kind of ugly (probably to encourage people opting for the premium service).

Alternatively you could use .png image as your icon (which can be hosted on Picasa). However, it'll only work with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. No luck for IE.

Update (02/05/2011)
Icon file can be hosted at Google Sites.

WordPress: default blogging platform for Windows Live...

Microsoft and WordPress.com announced Monday that WordPress will be the default blogging platform for Windows Live.

The partnership will allow Windows Live Spaces customers to upgrade to WordPress.com, let WordPress users notify friends about blog posts via Messenger, and let Windows Live users easily create new blogs on WordPress.com.

"WordPress powers over 8.5 percent of the web, is used on over 26 million sites, and WordPress.com is seen by over 250 million people every month," Microsoft said in a blog post. "So rather than having Windows Live invest in a competing blogging service, we decided the best thing we could do for our customers was to give them a great blogging solution through WordPress.com."

Microsoft currently has 30 million people using its Windows Live Spaces blogging platform. Those users can port their blog posts, comments, and photos to WordPress, and redirect their old Spaces URLs to the new blog, Microsoft said.

More info at pcmag.com.