weblogs

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Giving “Wumbler” A Test Drive

After my post entitled WordPress Needs More Tumblr Style Templates, I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I kept returning to the themes I listed over-and-over. Each time picturing what my site would look like once the theme was activated. None of them had 100% of what I wanted, but as you can no doubt tell from the site, I went with Wumblr from Themify.me

Wumblr

My First Impressions

Actually, I’m very impressed! After un-zipping the file, I looked high and low for a .readme file, or something providing the instructions of all the plugins I’d need, custom fields, and whatever other errata in order for the theme to work properly. In actuality, all I had to do was simply upload the theme like I would any other theme.

Once uploaded, customizing the theme was a breeze. Most of the settings were in the custom sidebar and all the necessary widgets were already installed. It took me all of 5 minutes to completely customize the site. It seriously could not have been easier.

95% There

Now that the new theme is in place, I’d say I’m a about 95% there. I’m not wild about the headers for each entry and the body type. It’s not horrible, but I’d like to punch it up a bit. Of course that’s easy enough to do through CSS, it’s the other 95% that’s hard and thanks to Themify, that part is already done. :-)

In the meantime, I’ll keep playing around with the new “Post Type” feature in WP and how I can customize MarsEdit to take advantage of some of Wumblr’s additional features.

What Do You Think?

Overall, I was looking for something clean and minimal, but with a nice overall design ascetic. Other than wanting to make a couple of tweaks, I think the new theme is a nice improvement. What do you think?

377 days ago • weblogs • Tags: , , ,

2

WordPress Needs More Tumblr Style Templates

I’ve been thrilled beyond belief since switching to WordPress back in 2008 and I continue to be amazed with nearly every update. WordPress is truly fantastic software and it forms the base of any web project that I’m involved in because I can manage just about any type of content I need to. That being said, Tumblr keeps tempting me with it’s themes and it seems my eye isn’t the only one it’s captured.

V​i​n​t​a​g​e​ ​S​c​r​a​p​b​o​o​k

Tumblr’s built-in themes are great on their own, but then you have designers knocking it out of the park on free templates like Sean Farrell’s new theme Leatherbound, or premium themes like Vintage Scrapbook by Pixel Union and I have to admit to a bit of blog envy.

Tumblr is a simplified tool for blogging, so perhaps I’m drawn to the simplicity of the designs, but I’m having a hard time finding themes on par for WordPress. It’s not that WordPress is lacking in the themes department. ThemeForest recently announced that they now have over 1000 WordPress themes. Sifting through those 1000 designs, I see that many of the premium themes out there are focused on taking your weblog beyond the basic blog. Magazine styles and portfolio styles abound, but none of those fit my needs.

I have a simple weblog and I need a simple, but elegant template. This may explain why designers are drawn to doing Tumblr templates. The format is standardized and simple in nature and doesn’t require that you design with a framework in mind, or with the expectation that — through custom plugins and custom fields — a user will expand your work beyond the basic blog and thereby “break” your design.

Could that be it? Tumblr is easier to design for and that’s why so many designers are trying their hand at it? To test this theory and end my frustrations with my earlier searches, I Googled for “Tumblr WordPress Themes” and was surprised to find a couple of good links with decent resources.

22 Tumblr Style WordPress Themes and Microblog in WordPress with these 15+ Tumblr Style WordPress Themes both yielded some nice designs that were definitely in line with what I’ve run into for Tumblr. Below are a few my favorites:

With thousands of themes out there both in free and premium models, roughly 25 are in a “Tumblr Style”. That’s not a lot. Maybe I’m an edge case, but Tumblr is clearly capturing mindshare and I have to think that some of it is due to it’s simplicity and great looking themes.

381 days ago • weblogs • Tags: , ,

0

How I Blog

This is my third article today and I was contemplating why I was posting so much this afternoon and the answer surprised me — because it’s fun! I have created a toolbox of software that makes publishing to my blog quick and easy.

I thought it might be helpful to explain the tools behind mashby.com, so below are the four tools that make up my blogging toolbox.

WordPress

wordpress-logo-1.pngAt the heart of my tool set is the Content Management System (CMS) that I use to manage all the content on this blog. The software I use is called WordPress.

I’ve written before about how wonderful WordPress is in an article entitle Alchemy In Action, so there’s no need to to repeat myself. However, I will add that since I wrote that over a year ago, WordPress has just gotten better-and-better. It’s an amazing blogging platform and it’s what allows all the other tools I use to really shine.


MarsEdit

Mars Edit LogoAs great as WordPress is, I find that I prefer to create my articles in an off-line editor versus creating the posts through a web browser. My tool of choice is MarsEdit by Red Sweater software.

Do I have to use an offline editor? Of course not, but there’s something special about being able to save drafts of posts, or easily format images in software written specifically for the Mac. There are a bevy of features, such as a robust WYSIWYG editor and the ability to have a perfect preview of your article before you publish, but the following are the key features for me:

  • Ability to save drafts — I tend to write in fits and starts due mostly to interruptions. With MarsEdit I can save an article I’m working on and then finish it later.
  • Easy Image Posting — Posting images is as easy as dragging and dropping directly into the article. The image will upload when the article is published, but I can position it and see what it looks like in preview prior to publishing. Brilliantly easy and this feature alone is worth the price of the software.
  • External Editors — I’ll go into detail on this one in the next section, but when I really need to focus, this one little trick is worth it’s weight in gold.
  • Support For Multiple Blogs — I actually use MarsEdit for multiple sites, so having one tool to publish from is a big help.

Write Room

WriteRoom — Distraction free writing software for Mac & iPhone.pngSometimes I need to drown out some of the distractions on my desktop. E-mail, instant messengers, not to mention Twitter can make my desktop a bit of a minefield. So when I need to focus just on the text of what I’m writing, I turn to WriteRoom, by Hogsbay Software.

It may seem like a simple tool, which it is, but it can make a big impact on helping you to focus. Everything drops away behind a solid background and all that remains is the simple text and cursor. The only thing I can focus on is typing. In the immortal words of Stimpy, “Joy!”

Thankfully MarsEdit supports external editors, so I simply select “File \ Edit in WriteRoom” and I’m now in typing bliss. When I’m done, or ready to do some fine tuning with links and images, I simply hit escape, and save and close WriteRoom and everything imports back into MarsEdit.

The process is actually so smooth, you’d think that the two programs were written by the same developer.

Skitch

skitch-1.pngLast but certainly not least in my toolbox of blogging must-haves is Skitch.

Skitch is a unique imaging tool that lives directly in your title bar. When you need to grab an image, you simply take a quick screenshot and drop it into MarsEdit. It literally couldn’t be easier.

If you need to do some editing, you can resize, crop, add text, or graphics and of course name the file. It’s intuitive and easy to use and best of all — it’s free!

I use Skitch all the time, not just for blogging and I really wish these guys would ask for money. I would happily pay for it and I want to ensure that the program stays around. It’s not a replacement for Photoshop, but for 99% of us image editing mortals, it’s more than enough for what you need.

Conclusion

So there you have it. My complete arsenal of tools and how I use them. Hopefully some of what I shared may be of use to you and may assist you in finding an easier way to manage, edit and publish to your blog.

To show you how all of these tools work together, I threw together a quick screencast so you can see each tool in action. Enjoy.

696 days ago • weblogs • Tags: , ,

6

Mashby Version 3.0

This weekend I updated the template that I use on my blog. As I’m wont to do, freshening up the site turned my thoughts back to the the origins and history of my blog. Oh what a humble little blog we were back in 2003. Anyway, I decided to do a recap and share my little trip down memory lane.

Version 1.0

After dabbling a little bit with Blogger, I decided to take the plunge and install MovableType on my own server at the end of 2002. After playing with the software and learning how to blog, I officially launched mashby.com on March 1, 2003.

mashby.com v1

mashby.com v1

The template I ended up using was a Blogger template called Autumn Hues by Martijn ten Napel. I liked that it was a clean design and that it used this new thing called Cascading Style Sheets.

Version 1.1 & 1.2

Over the years, I opted to change the color scheme a little bit to brighten things up a bit.

mashby.com v1.1

mashby.com v1.1

Interesting Trivia
I was not the first person to own the domain mashby.com. Seems Marilyn Ashby registered the domain for her real estate business from 2001 – 2002. I picked up the domain in 2003.

I didn’t know this fact until I used the Wayback Machine to find some old screenshots

mashby.com v1.2

mashby.com v1.2

Version 2.0

On September 13, 2008, I switched from MovableType to WordPress and switched the design of site while I was at it. I ended up choosing the theme Amazing Grace by Vladimir Prelovac.

mashby.com v2

mashby.com v2

Besides the fact that it was such a departure from my previous design, what I loved about the Amazing Grace theme was how modern it looked. The design was elegant with lots of color and images. It was such an improvement over the previous version of the site.

Version 3.0

Which brings us to the current version. Although I had been a huge fan of the “Amazing Grace” theme, after all my tinkering and futzing about, I felt it was a little too busy. I was looking for something cleaner and more focused on the text of the entry.

Here’s a list of the themes that caught my eye:

Now that I’ve done this retrospective, it’s kind of funny to see that I my initial motivation was to move back to a typography based design. Forgetting that this is how the blog was originally designed.

Ultimately, I ended up choosing the theme OneRoom by Jeremie Tisseau. What drew me to this theme was the coloring and the clean lines. The copy takes center stage and then the left and right columns support the articles without pulling too much focus.

mashby.com v3

mashby.com v3

While I implementing the new template, I decided to simplify the extra bits that I had in the sidebars and take away as much as I could. Hopefully I’ve reached my goal and implemented a tight, clean, focused layout and design that makes reading these little missive’s a little bit easier.

1014 days ago • weblogs • Tags: , , , ,

0

WordPress iPhone Application

Following a link from Matt’s Twitter feed, I discovered that WordPress has an iPhone app and I just HAD to test it out.

It has a ton of cool features, such as: support for multiple blogs, posting photos, and moderatation of comments just to name a few.

I’m just getting into it, but I have to say I am very impressed. And this is my first post from the WordPress for iPhone app. :-)

1029 days ago • weblogs • Tags: ,

0

Little Bits Of Brilliance

Dan sent me a link in IM this afternoon that turned out to be quite the find. He said he was searching for the domain gumbydammit.com to see if it was available and surprised to find that it redirected to a blog entitled Ensuite at www.neodorks.com.

The blog is comprised of very short entries that almost come off as jokes from a FOO stand up routine, if it weren’t for their somewhat elitist tone. Being somewhat elitist myself, I found nearly every entry a riot, but a few were real standouts.

Ready?

We flew in to San Francisco as we’ve done a dozen times over these past few months.

Our tiny jet is more a floating foyer than a formal jetliner and, at 40,000 feet, the rules and conventions of commercial air travel simply do not apply.

“I’ll bet I could get that door opened before you could kill me,” she said in a voice that she would likely have described as playful.

I finished my scotch, turned my seat toward hers, and unbuckled my restraint.

“Ready?” I asked.

I’ll bet we never speak of this again.

It appears that several people write for the blog and it’s full of little tidbits of clever conversations. Conversations where the writer has the perfect comeback that most people think of 10 minutes later. Check it out, it’s worth the read.

1105 days ago • weblogs • Tags: ,

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