Taken with iPhone
I thought I'd try the Posterous flickr function, where you can just add a URL to your post and it will auto embed a flickr set as a slide show ...
richard mackney |
my photoblog and scrapbook |
I thought I'd try the Posterous flickr function, where you can just add a URL to your post and it will auto embed a flickr set as a slide show ...
Sometimes working with Posterous is a little bit like working on Blogger in 1999. OK, maybe it's not that bad, but what I mean is that Posterous has some amazing features not found anywhere else, but it still limits functions which you would readily find on most blogging platforms today.
This is actually refreshing as it presents a challenge. I have no doubt that Posterous will be releasing features left, right and centre, but for now it's hack time.
"Most Popular Posts"
With the linear function of Posterous, sometimes interesting posts or most visited posts may get lost in the time line. So I have used the autopost function to Delicious to create a list of popular posts for me.
The output makes an easy (but not automated) way of grabbing a list of posts with introductions, if required:
Most Popular:
In the Posterous settings you have the ability to autopost to a growing list of 'other sites' and once you enable them they will show up as a list of icons. However, adding any of these sites means that they will get autoposted to whenever you send an email to post@posterous.com so if you don't want this to happen, the best way (for now) is to add them to your advanced theme manually.
You just need to add your own custom html code directly after this bit of code:
<h5>My Other Sites</h5>
{ProfileExternalLinks}
And If you view the source code of this post you can grab the code I have created to create your own 'other sites' icons. Just remember to link to your own profiles and not mine!
When I post to this Posterous blog, it's usually done with the iPhone. I've found that it's really easy to take a pic or a video and type a short paragraph of text and send it on it's way using either mobile data or WiFi. This is generally spur of the moment and means I'm not restrained to downloading photos from my SLR and having to find a desktop or a laptop to make a post.
Posterous has made photoblogging, lifestreaming and moblogging very easy for anyone who doesn't have the tech knowledge to use or constantly update a self hosted blog, and with a few choice autoposts it can be backed up or shared instantly with other communities.
Here is a selection of the 'live' autoposts that made it onto my flickr account, which I try and keep to the more interesting or images with a better quality ....
I currently use the flickr API to pull in sets or tags and display the results as html, from there the html is used in Posterous. The photo's can even load into a popup lightbox pulling the large image straight from flickr.
Let me know what you think ...
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Most users of Posterous will have already optimised the tools and settings provided and performed all of the usual tasks when setting up a new Posterous ...
If you haven't then here is my list of things that I need to remember when setting up a new Posterous ...
And here are a few operational things for using Posterous ...
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Posterous is getting new features all the time and I'm sure they already have a massive 'wish list' from their users, so instead of adding to that list I've made a few tweaks to the default dark theme while I wait for the features to appear :)
Firstly, I'd like my own "favicon" or "shortcut icon" and the easiest way to do this is to download the one I use on tumblr, host the image myself and add the following code to the head of the advanced theme option:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://mackney.com/richard/profile/img/avatar_16.png">
Secondly, I like viewing my Posterous on my iPhone, so I've set the zoom (initial scale) to show the main content on the left and enlarged:
<meta content='width=device-width; initial-scale=0.4; maximum-scale=1.0;' name='viewport'/>
and, made a link to the icon I would like to appear on the iPhone homepage if adding my site as a bookmark:
<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="http://files.posterous.com/user_profile_pics/225657/twitter-avatar-small.png" />
The next thing I wanted was a sitemap. I'm sure this will be coming soon, but I wanted stuff to be found without having to use the tags as I don't always tag my content. I've added the RSS feedburner feed into webmaster tools to ensure all new posts get indexed by Google, but for historic posts I've created a simple static sitemap as a post which will have to be updated manually.
I've inserted this into the TAGS list by adding:<li style="font-size:0;">Sitemap</li>
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Here is a marker ....
After testing Posterous for a while, I've decided to simplify stuff ....
http://richard.mackney.com and http://blog.mackney.com now point here. One place for all my crap.If you don't get it, Just forget it.
I do really like the PicPosterous iPhone app as I will usually always be adding an image or a video. It's nice to be able to upload multiple images in one post to create a gallery. It's a bit quirky in the way that you have to name 'albums' to get the title of the post.
Hopefully in a updated release they may allow for just adding text? The functionality is obviously here (as I'm writing this on the iPhone).
It would also be nice to be able to select which services to autopost to, as currently it's all or none. I know this can be done by selecting which email address to send it to, but email and SMTP just pee's me off.
I'd also like to upload at different resolutions by selecting from a list when uploading.
Not much then ... ;)
There are loads of sites on the net that offer badges and widgets. Some offer them for their own services and some offer aggregation of multiple services. I've placed a few that I use below - if nothing else it's handy as a reference point for me to easily find the scripts for my own widget codes.
Now that I am using Posterous, things are slightly limited and we have to go back to old skool methods of embeding widgets, either as images or using an iframe as Posterous does not support Javascript. Scroll down as this page may get longer and longer each time I find an interesting widget. View the source code to grab any iframe links.
You can use these in Posterous posts, but you can also design them into your Posterous advanced theme.
As you can see from above, this is a tweetmeme widget that uses an iframe. This can be added manually to the Posterous post (if you feel your post is re-tweetable!) or you can design it into your custom theme and have it appear on all posts by using the Posterous code: {Permalink} as can be seen on my test Posterous.
This is a nice one by Feedburner that uses a rotating .gif
This FriendFeed banner will display content from all the services added
Here is a Facebook static image, that updates status.
FriendFeed badge
And here is a LifeStream image from FriendFeed
12seconds.tv widget (flash in iframe) ...
Mobypicture (flash embed)
Tweetmeme Chicklet
Facebook page badge (using a Facebook hosted iframe)
These are Facebook page embeds - but you need to host them
This is a self designed 'TwitterTicker'
This is another self designed 'TwitterTicker'
This is a self designed recent post list that uses the Posterous RSS feed
This is a self hosted twitter search
This is a self hosted twitter widget
This is a self designed most interesting images from flickr iframe, using the flickr API
Stay tuned for more as I find them / use them :)
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Since 1996 I’ve made a living from creative internet technologies, it’s my job to be connected and my goal to stay ahead of the curve ... About Me
