I know that some of our bloggers want to try out new themes or switch to another design.
Here’s a new feature that should make this easier for you: “Theme Test Drive”. It lets you set a new theme that you (the blog admin) can preview, but the public won’t see the changes until you set the theme for the public under the Presentation->Themes page. In other words, it lets you “test drive” different themes without subjecting your users to the same experiment.
At the same time, I’ve added a new theme called “Tech Blue”.
The 1.5 version of WordPress , which powers PersonalLog, will be released not long from now.
When it comes, we will — of course — be upgrading, which will provide users with a very nicely-styled admin backend. There will also be additional functionality. For more information, read posts tagged “WordPress” on Geekie.org.
I’ve recently added two themes: Transparentia and Dirtylicious. These are excellent themes, and Transparentia has been set (through a bit of coding) as the default theme for new blogs.
Tired of the restrictions on YouTube? Want to upload a video longer than 10 minutes or larger than 100 MB? Want better video quality for things like screencasts or game footage?
You might be one of those people that should use blip.tv. Amber MacArthur (a Canadian media personality) runs a video podcast called CommandN which is distributed using LibSyn and blip.tv. (Visit their blip.tv show page.)
I actually discovered blip.tv while listening to another podcast, net@night, featuring Leo Laporte and (you guessed it) Amber MacArthur. Leo Laporte himself has used it, but recently he is fooling around with Viddler, which lets you record yourself using a webcam.
Anyhow, if you use blip.tv, you can let others download the original video file (.avi, .mov, and so on) in the full, uncompressed form that you uploaded it, right from blip.tv without eating up your own site’s bandwidth. Additionally, your original video file could be huge (like 300 MB) and blip.tv still handles it well.
When blip.tv converts your file into the Adobe Flash video (.flv) format, it is still pretty good quality. That’s why I use it for my recent screen recordings. The quality is good enough that one can read the text on a screen recording.
If you have large multimedia files that you want to upload and share, maintaining a high quality, you’ve got to try blip.tv. YouTube simply can’t handle 1024×768 screen recordings, or HD video. (Well, they are going to support HD, but it’ll be a long time before you see truly high quality video.) Just a reminder: multimedia formats like .mp3, .mov, .avi, and so on cannot be uploaded to your storage space on PersonalLog. (This is for copyright, bandwidth, and content propriety concerns.)
We make it easy for you to use videos you’ve uploaded to blip.tv. Simply follow the instructions for blip.tv at http://www.daburna.de/dokuwiki/doku.php/instruction. NOTE: the video embedded by this method will not show your Show Player, which is a brandable, customizable interface.
Several things to note: we use cookies, we collect information about you from your user profile and your blog posts, but we are limited in how we can use that information.
What does “PersonalLog” really mean? Better yet, where did the inspiration for the name come from?
“PersonalLog” can be seen to mean “personal” + “blog” except without the b. This is a correct interpretation of the meaning of “PersonalLog”. We intend our service for individuals who have little or no ability to get hosting, set up databases, download source code, upload that code and install their WordPress blogs. That’s why the Terms of Service are restrictions on the way that one may express one’s own opinions — particularly those extremist views that some of you know you have. Our service wasn’t meant for business-oriented blogs, or even subject-matter-focused blogs (even though that has worked well on our service), but rather originally for personal blogs.
But where did this phrase come from? Here are some clues:
“Personal log, Stardate 3013.1. I find it hard to believe the events of the past 24 hours or the plea of Mr. Spock standing general court martial…Why? Why does Spock want to take to that forbidden world his former captain, mutilated by a recent space disaster, now a shell of a man unable to speak or move? The only answer Spock would give was on the hearing room screen. How Spock could do this, he refused to explain, but there before our eyes actual images from thirteen years ago… of Captain Pike as he was when he commanded this vessel, of Spock in those days and of how the Enterprise had become the first and only starship to visit Talos IV. They had received a distress signal from that planet and discovered there still alive after many years, the survivors of a missing vessel only to find it was all an illusion. No survivors, no encampment, it was all a trap set by a race of being who could make a man believe he was seeing anything they wished him to see. And Captain Pike was gone, a prisoner for some unknown purpose.”
“Captain’s personal log, Stardate 4309.2. We have established that the thing which destroyed the USS Intrepid and the Gamma 7A system is an incredibly huge but simple cellular being whose energies are totally destructive to all known life. Both Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy have volunteered to go in a specially equipped shuttlecraft to penetrate the cell, find a way to destroy it, and free the ship. Dr. McCoy has the medical, biological knowledge. Mr. Spock… is better-suited physically and emotionally to stand the stress. Both are right, both are capable… and which of my friends do I condemn to death?”
“Personal log, Commander Spock, USS Enterprise. I have noted the passage of the Enterprise… on its way to whatever awaits it. If this record should survive me, I wish it known that I bequeath my highest commendation and testimonial to the captain, officers, and crew of the Enterprise… the finest starship in the fleet.”
Evident enough?
Yes, the name “PersonalLog” did come from Star Trek. It comes from the tradition of main characters keeping — what are essentially — journals. And those journal entries are the sort of blog posts that one might see on a personal blog… though not about spacecraft and huge cellular organisms.
So blog to your heart’s content. You’re not limited to one blog; while signed in, click on the registration link in the right sidebar on this site to get another blog.
I previously posted a Video Tutorial of uploading images to ImageShack. Now, why might you want to upload your pictures and graphics to ImageShack rather than, say, your storage space?
Recall that your storage space is limited to 25 MB by default, even though it can be upgraded to 1 GB.
There is no such limit on files on ImageShack, even though ONE image can only be up to 1.53 MB. But that’s larger than most web graphics; only if you were uploading some seriously large photos would you exceed 1.53 MB.
What’s nice about ImageShack is that you can hotlink directly to the image file. Thus, you won’t be penalized for eating up ImageShack’s bandwidth… and they won’t modify your original image file. This means that you can essentially upload animated GIF’s, PNG’s with alpha transparency, and so on… without losing that stuff, or the optimization that you might have done in ImageReady. ImageShack also doesn’t apply any logos or watermarks to your pictures.
Here are some screenshots of ImageShack integration on PersonalLog: (and the photos are hosted on Flickr)
This is a video that walks you through the process of uploading images to ImageShack from within the Write Post tab on a PersonalLog blog. You can view the resulting post at the Demo Blog.
