Category: Blogging

Tumblr has told Mashable that its mobile applications for iPhone and Android have received an update that overhauls their Dashboard functionality. The updated apps are set to go live today in the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. The mobile apps now have the complete functionality of the Web-based Tumblr Dashboard built in. The new Dashboard seamlessly presents users with photos, ...

In the words of MotoDiary's creator, a blog is not a journal. Sometimes you need a secure, quiet location to jot down your notes. MotoDiary is an attempt to provide you with just such a place. It's HTML5-powered, but it feels very minimalistic – even austere. Your notes are encrypted locally using your browser's power (even if you're writing from a mobile device), and then uploaded to the ...

It's been a while since any new writers have joined the crew here at Download Squad, but we've signed on two fellows who we think will be an excellent fit. First reader to guess their names wins a cake! (inb4 the cake is a lie!) But seriously... Welcome to the team, Sam and Vlad! ...

Letters of Note is a fantastic personal project by Shaun Usher. It's a clean looking blog with some extraordinary content: historical letters by people like Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury, Jochen Rindt (the only posthumous Formula One World Champion), and other celebrities. It's not all celebrities, though. The letter in the screenshot, for instance, was written by a bank manager from Hiroshima on May ...

Microsoft has just announced that it's teaming up with WordPress on Live Spaces blogs. According to Microsoft, Windows Live Spaces has 30 million active users -- so this is a significant boost for the WordPress.com platform. Some of the highlights of the migration: Microsoft will redirect all Spaces URLs to WordPress.com, so users won't lose any visitors. Spaces is going to be shut down in ...

Remember that leaked image of the Internet Explorer 9 interface we saw last month? As it turns out, that's pretty much exactly what the beta looks like. As you can see in Ed Bott's screenshot, Microsoft has gone with a more subdued, minimal look for IE9. Tabs are positioned to the right of the address bar, and home, favorites, and settings buttons appear at the far right. Also like Chrome, ...

If you've been using the Vox blogging service, you've got until September 30 to figure out what to do with your blog. Vox is closing its doors so that Six Apart can focus on its other blogging platforms, Moveable Type and TypePad. They're at least trying to soften the landing for Vox users, though: you can easily move your Vox blog to TypePad, and export your Vox photos to Flickr. Posterous, ...

NewsBlur is a very beautiful feed reader that's laden with tons of JavaScript, but it utterly lacks any form of documentation. It's an open source project by the talented Samuel Clay, who has been working on it for 15 months now. He's currently working on an iPhone version, but the regular version is very impressive in itself. The sources are hosted over on GitHub, and the project uses the Django ...

Despite being posted by someone with a thoroughly unbelievable name ('Joy Victory'? Really?), I can confirm that WordPress.com users now have access to Zemanta's rather sexy functionality. Zemanta, if you've not heard of it before, is best explained as a blogging buddy. It doesn't write your blogs for you, but it can help your posts along. As you write your posts (and update your title), ...

Thxthxthx was brought to my attention by commenter Vitor when I wrote about Dear Meat. There are distinct similarities, but these are two different beasts. While Dear Meat is an open (if curated) forum, thxthxthx is one woman's quest to express her gratitude for one thing per day. That woman is Leah Dietrich, an LA-based creative director/writer. The project seems to have a bit of a history; it's ...

I had actually intended to try out TweetDeck for Android today, but it turns out it only works on smartphones sporting Android 2.0 or newer. Thus, with my weak, little Android 1.6 phone I've been left out in the cold, tweetless and lonely. But hey, it ain't all bad: I've been playing with the official WordPress app instead, and damn it's good! First things first, though: you'd have to be an ...

It's that day again, Download Squad readers! That day where all those clients you support finally read and follow your acceptable use guidelines, respect your busy schedule, and leave thank-you treats on your desk. Yes, it's the 11th annual SysAdmin day! Just in case the people you're busy supporting somehow forgot this most important of days, know that all of us here at Download Squad ...

Last week, Jay and I were chatting and he mentioned stumbling across something cool in one of our favorite Google Chrome extensions: Speed Dial. You may have seen it posted last year, but it's come a long way since then -- adding new features and growing its user base to more than 150,000. Jay caught something I hadn't noticed (it's been ages since I changed anything on my Speed Dial page): ...

Posterous, continuing its 15-ways-to-switch-in-15-days tirade, has today enabled its Blogger importer. Posterous's vice president of marketing, while talking to Spanish tech blog Genbeta [translated], says that this importer in specific is one of the big ones: "This launch is very important to us because Blogger has been one of the most requested services by our users, especially outside the ...

We first covered Glass back at SXSW, with a video interview. Glass is a very aesthetic and tight combo of website plus Firefox add-on; it allows you to place notes ("Post-it" style) over any website, and then share those notes in a Tumblr-like stream so that your friends can see them (and comment). Glass is very social; you can send a note to your friends, and you have a "feed" that shows ...