Alex-Is

Mia Yawning

I propped Mia up on one of Farrah’s pillows while she was in the shower. I managed to get a few good photos of her. This photo was taken on August 29, 2010.

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Everytime I launch my iPhone, I see this photo of Mia. I can’t help but smile.

What’s this? It’s a list of links I’ve read this week, which I hope you’d find interesting as well. I usually get interesting links sent to me by friends, posted on Facebook, or run across them in my casual browsing of the Internet. Often, I don’t have the time or patience to read the link when I see it. What I do then is place the link in the great Instapaper.

Instapaper saves the content of the link, or at the least the link, so I can read it later. Instapaper has an iPhone and iPad app which allows me to catch up when I have downtime, usually at day’s end. They also have their website to view the articles you saved.

So for you, a reader of this blog, I’m sharing a few links I found interesting this week. I hope to share links weekly if possible.

• When Bad is Good Top 10 vices that are actually good for you. I know Farrah and I would like to take more advantage of #1 – Getting your zzz’s. But sometimes that’s not possible. (via Tage and CNN)
• There’s an Apple event on September 1! If the rumor of a new iPod touch pans out, I might consider carrying that instead of an iPhone. (I said I might).
• “I Thought It Would Be Funny“, so says the British woman who put a cat in a trash can. Did you see that story? I’m surprised she didn’t think she’d get caught, considering the abundance of monitoring in the UK.
• How to Bully-Proof Young Girls. Bottom line: cliques start early. Oh, and in the long run, girls are meaner than boys.
• The rise and fall of American Apparel. All I’ve ever known of American Apparel is their risque ads (NSFW). But then again I’m not über hip. Dov Charney, the mastermind behind American Apparel, is an interesting sleazeball, at least from reading this article.
• Batman, Inc. “It’s really weird. Batman can take anything. You can do comedy Batman, you can do gay Batman…it all works. It something intrinsic to the character. It’s so strange and amazing.” — Grant Morrison

Vampires on television are successful (e.g. Vampire Diaries, True Blood). So why not try Zombies? Zombies are getting their shot on AMC’s The Walking Dead. The trailer looks good. It reminds me a bit of 28 Days Later. AMC now has some interesting shows. I just wish they were offered in HD. But I’ll watch this show to see if it should be added to the DVR lineup.

I tried. I really tried. But Tumblr just didn’t meet my blogging needs.

Tumblr was supposed to make my life easier by allowing me to post content quickly. I also wouldn’t have to worry about upgrading any server software, something I worry about with a WordPress self install. Best of all Tumblr is free.

Where Tumblr failed me

But Tumblr failed me in the simple action of posting when I want to post. I post a photo at least once a week (see GPOMW). This is often a “scheduled post”, meaning it posts at a specific day and time. Also, I often “queue” items which I set to post 3 hours apart. Unfortunatley, Tumblr has failed me on both these types of posts. In fact it’s happened sseveral times the past few weeks. Once, Tumblr decided to publish all my posts in queue. This is, in turn, slammed my Facebook feed. Nobody wants to see 10+ items posted by the same user on their Facebook feed, all within a matter of minutes. Also, at times, I couldn’t do a simple post on demand.

At times, my Tumblr Dashboard takes forever to load. I don’t think it’s my Internet connection, as I am able to get other sites quickly. P I did a traceroute to Tumblr’s servers and, well, let’s just say I wasn’t receiving good results at the time.

Perhaps they’re going through a growth-spurt issue, acquiring a lot of users using up so many resources. If that’s the case, they need to correct these issues soon. If it’s just a problem with me, then I guess I just need to live with the fact that Tumblr is not for me – for my blog that is.

I have to say this though: getting my content off of Tumblr and back onto WordPress wasn’t easy. I ended up using the simply elegant Posterous to import my Tumblr account, then I imported from there back to WordPress.com. Oh, then from there to my WordPress self install. A lot of work. And you know what? Many of my Tumblr posts don’t have titles, which WordPress doesn’t particularly like. Luckily, I only had to correct fifty posts.

For now it’s goodbye Tumblr as my main blogging solution. Sometimes free isn’t the best solution. I may continue to micro-blog, but I won’t devote full blog posts there until things get sorted out.