What do you say?
Wait a minute: Tumblr in fact supports Markdown Extra1?
If you use Markdown to compose your Tumblr posts, you might be forgiven for thinking that the system uses Markdown too … Tumblr actually uses Markdown Extra.
Markdown Extra supports much more than the original Markdown. Footnotes, for example… ↩
When I first hear of a new service, I immediately feel whether I am positive or negative about it. Hotmail? Negative. Gmail? Positive. Flickr? Positive. Facebook? Negative. Google+? Positive. MobileMe? Negative. iCloud? Positive.
Looking at postings all around, it seems as if a lot of people are rather positive about what iCloud will offer. The limited scope of applications iCloud supports will make the service more competitive and more reliable. As with tumblr, the concept of “less is more” comes to live here.
Let me explain what I mean. I am a really satisfied user of Gmail. I was among the first to have a Gmail-address, and ever since I have collected some several thousand (it is a six digits-number) e-mails, which I can search and find superfast. I love Gmail’s slick interface, and I never ever had trouble with the service. However, I never really used one of Google’s other online apps like Docs aside of a note here or there.
With Apple not pushing online services like software, but including them in a whole experience of interaction, synchronization, and sharing, I think they will beat Google in the online application market. Why do I think that? Because I have the feeling that I will switch to a me.com-email, I have the feeling that finally things will synchronize without any synchronization errors, I have the feeling that I will like what iCloud will have to offer. I know that if my emails are not being surrounded by advertisements, I will feel better.
As stupid as this might sound for now, think about it! If you are not positive towards a service, you will never—even if (logical) arguments tell you so much to use it—happily use it. As I am curious and I am willing to even switch my primary email address, this means something. Hopefully, Apple will not disappoint me/us.
Another aspect of Apple’s iCloud-service will be photos. I am fed up with Flickr, where thousands of images from my past are stored. The community is practically no longer existent as most active users went on to Facebook or Google+. Comments on one’s photographs are of the same quality as that ominous like-button, and you no longer learn anything from the interactions that are still left on Flickr. So, I am going to drop it. I even though of using tumblr to present the top ten images I shot on a specific day for hosting my images - in this case, however, I have to find a way to make this look good, although tumblr’s new photosets are tempting. With iCloud, on the other hand, I have a secure, interconnected online space, where all of my family (and the friends worth it) can easily access, view, and comment my photos. Nothing special about it. And this is what iCloud wants and has to be.
With the way tumblr now presents photosets my “large format”-tag seems to have been rendered irrelevant. In the next few weeks I am going to see how I can manage to make the new photoset-feature work with the three.one-theme and I will post an updated once this is achieved.
The new display of photosets, especially the gorgeous lightbox tumblr is using to show high resolution versions of images, is really, really nice. Still my goal is to—unlike, for example, the hasaportfolio-theme (which I love!)—support all media types, especially texts with three.one.
Hopes for the future: More than ten photos in one photoset. Bulk uploading.
People get frustrated. I am, by the way, too.
Tumblr has become terribly unstable. My theme just changed format for no reason whatsoever, my posts are showing up multiple times, posts are getting lost after I send them.
One thing I notice on tumblr: for every 1 content creator there is on the service, there’s like 30 rebloggers. That’s all they do! Crazy.
The three.one-theme is currently completely rewritten. You can download the last version here.
Tumblr is a great service for creating, maintaining and publishing a tumblelog. Not everyone, however, is interested in just posting quotations, chats, and other bits, some still prefer to use tumblr for their full-featured blog. (And I most definitely think that tumblr is the better WordPress.)
If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask!
