I’m creating this test post using the new open source Flock browser. I was listening to an offshoot podcast of Leo Laporte’s This Week in Tech, titled Inside the Net. Episode 6 featured Chris Messina, one of Flock’s founders.
Flock seems to be the browser targeted towards online guys and gals who enjoy online publishing – blogs, photo uploading, and creating RSS favorites and bookmarks via del.icio.us.
So I downloaded the bugger and decided to give it a try. There’s not much I see from face value that could attribute to the death of Firefox. In fact, Flock seems to be nothing more than a Firefox mod.
Right now, I’m just having fun with the blogging tool – I was able to upload my WP blog settings into Flock and I can easily post stuff using a Blog This function similar to what we see in Blogspot. I am able to add tags to my post as well as Categories (which are miraculously synched from my categories page in WordPress).
The top bar of the blogging tool allows me to search for a user from Flickr, view his or her photos and link them to my post. In this case, I’ve chosen my photos and used one of them above. Coolness!
In the next few weeks, devs and third party dudes will be uploading more and more plugins. I’ve barely had time to experiement with this thing that I might have overlooked a WP plugin for uploading pictures.
Hope you guys could download it and give it a shot.
technorati tags: flock
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My semi-new look with facial hair. This is our Hed Kandi treatment with Eva in a photoshoot at Mezze. We shot Denise for a fashionably geek spread for the magazine.
Pictures to follow soon.
I’m posting this link from Problogger. It’s an interesting piece on how to decide how many columns your blog should have. We’re actually in the process (actually, barely starting) of redesigning the m|ph weblog together with Gary. The primary consideration of the re-layout is to accomodate more ad space – so its more utilitary than anything. Because as it is now, the site works fine.
Design elements should take into account the following:
In a similar way that measuring clothes is important when designing a wardrobe, perhaps a good exercise for bloggers is to measure the size and space needed for the elements you want to show on your blog. Of course you’ll want to include content and a title – but here’s the start of a checklist for things that you might want to include (this is not a definitive list):
* Contact Details
* ‘About’ or Bio Details/Photo
* Advertising (contextual, CPM, text links, Blog Ads etc) – with these try to think about the sized ads you ideally want to include.
* Affiliate programs (image links and text links)
* Archives by Categories
* Archives by Date
* Polls
* Logo
* RSS Feed Details/Subscription Buttons
* Newsletter Signup
* Search Feature
* Blog Roll
* Stats Buttons
* Copyright statement
* Disclaimers
* Links to Webrings and other services
* Acknowledgments to designer/blog platform etc
* Recent Comments List
* Recent Posts List
* Links to older Key Posts
* ‘Now Listening to’ or ‘Currently Reading’ lists
* Amazon Wishlist
* Paypal/Donation/Tip Jar button
* Links to your other Blogs
* Flickr photos
* Links to other services or products you have to sell
* Link to Your Shop
Read the full thing here
