All posts by Robin

I'm a woman in my early thirties living in North Carolina, USA, and I have a lot of varied interests; I love creative writing, music composition, web design, surfing the Internet, thinking out loud, and gaming. And yes, my glasses are crooked. :)
Thursday in the Zone

5 Logical Reasons to Save City of Heroes

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Many who are outside the recent City of Heroes hoopla may not understand why some players are kicking up such a fuss. After all, it’s just a game, right? And nobody really plays it anymore since Champions Online came out, right? And it’s just like WoW except with superheroes, right?

Wrong, times three. Today, I will prove why City of Heroes deserves to stay around, with five logical reasons that I think even Spock would be proud of.

It Has a Growing Loyal (And Paying) Playerbase

Many people are under the impression that City of Heroes transformed into a completely “free-to-play” game within the last year. That is simply not true. While there is a free-to-play option within the game, it does not allow for the complete game experience–you must be VIP, or paying about $15 a month, to experience the full game.

That said, most people who were VIP members before Free-To-Play released have maintained their VIP membership, and many who started as Free-To-Play players ended up buying VIP subscriptions, so City of Heroes was still pulling in money when NCSoft announced the November 30th closure date unexpectedly on August 31st. I don’t know exactly how much money, but I do know City of Heroes was earning more than NCSoft’s other games (Lineage II, Aion, and Guild Wars).

If the current “Save CoH” Change.org petition with over 20,000 signatures represents all currently paying players, that could potentially mean an income of over $3,600,000 per year. That may not be big chunks of change to a large company, but it’s definitely something! And with the Free-to-Play system tempting more and more customers into the game, that could mean potentially even more customers who will want to buy full game access.

It’s Unlike Any MMO Out There Today

And yes, this reasoning does count Champions Online and DC Online. City of Heroes, despite these other two MMOs named, is still the only superhero MMO to have its own specific series of comic books, with rich backstory lore, a highly-detailed and much-lauded costume creator, and yet fairly simple game mechanics (as I’ll refer to in my next reason).

Its main competitor, Champions Online, was created by the people who originally spearheaded City of Heroes in the first place, and is linked to the Champions paper RPG game. DC Online, as the name might imply, is based on the DC Comics universe.

Champions Online Differences

  • Not as good a costume creator
  • Less flexible archetypes/harder to customize
  • Based more on a Dungeons & Dragons-esque stat system (more stats, more calculations, etc.)

DC Online Differences

  • Generally have to play along the lines of an established DC hero/villain
  • DCO has no “in-between” alignments like Vigilante and Rogue–only Hero and Villain
  • Can only make 16 characters per server, as opposed to CoH’s unlimited unlockable character slots

In addition, City of Heroes is the only MMO, to my knowledge, which allows players to create their own playable content within the game engine itself. Not only is CoH a haven of original heroes, but it encourages creativity in its players!

There are many players out there who have tried Champions Online and DC Online in place of City of Heroes, and most if not all have returned to City of Heroes, often citing the very reasons stated above. I believe that speaks for itself, and establishes City of Heroes’ credibility and originality within the sphere of available MMOs.

It’s Easier to Learn

From personal experience observing other MMO playstyles versus City of Heroes’ style, I can definitively say that City of Heroes is much easier to learn, and thus quicker to enjoy. There are simply less bars and graphs and things to monitor on screen; it feels like a game rather than hard work to try to play successfully. Not only that, but the customization and amount of creativity allowed makes it more personal, more of a platform for one’s own imagination rather than just playing within a strict “mold” of “what wins PvP battles.”

Many of my fellow gamers have noted this as well, saying that playing CoH is more relaxing and therefore more fun to continue playing. After all, if a game is not fun, who wants to pay to play it month after month? Even former WoW players have noticed the positive difference, and have enjoyed it.

It’s Already a Well-Established, Well-Loved Game

Many people who do not play City of Heroes currently have said that it’s well past time for City of Heroes to be put out to pasture, since the game began “way back” in 2004.

It’s interesting to note that the people who are saying this have no idea of the updates and new features that have been added. If they have any experience with the game at all, their information is several years old at best–they quit playing and have not kept up with all the amazing changes (especially recent changes). In fact, a new issue (ironically titled “Resurgence”) was going to be released in early September, fixing many bugs and introducing more new content–or, at least, it was going to be released until the unexpected closure announcement.

This game is already well-established with players as a familiar and welcome respite from other MMOs. It’s not World of Warcraft or League of Legends, nor is it trying to be. It’s got its own little niche, and most of the players who are on now have been playing a long time and plan to be playing as long as the game exists. This is not a game you beat one time and sell back; it’s a long-term experience, with hundreds of hours of effort put in, and just as many hours of enjoyment received.

And as for the “it’s an old game, it needs to end” argument, let me give an apt comparison: would any gamer want to see his or her collection of old console video games burned, just because they’re considered “old games?” That is essentially what the City of Heroes community is being threatened with–the total annihilation of painstakingly-created characters, and permanent loss of access to a rich gaming world.

It Has Tons of Features AND Room to Grow, Too

Building on my previous points, I will conclude with this reasoning: the game is already a well-rendered world with hundreds of stories to play through and dozens of ways to diversify characters. Yet it still has much detail that can be explored through future game expansions, not least the post-level 50 content which is still in its infancy.

This “city of heroes” has room to expand, room to build new areas and construct new stories. It even has the ability for players to create their own playable stories, as I referenced earlier. There’s plenty of opportunity and plenty of future in City of Heroes; why must it be razed to the ground?

That is our point, as City of Heroes players: it does not need to be.

Join the “Save CoH” Effort

Even though NCSoft doesn’t want us to write letters anymore (according to yesterday’s press release, anyway), there are still things we can do to make noise about this.

  • Communicate with any game company you can think of who might even remotely be interested in buying CoH, or starting up a game that uses the same character files so we don’t all lose our hard work
  • Sign the Change.org petition
  • Email local news stations, internet news channels, and anyone else who might be able to further publicize the need to save this game

Stay Updated on “Save CoH” News

Wednesday in the Word

How the Christian Life Can Sometimes Feel

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Job 31:35
35 Oh, that I had someone to hear me! I sign now my defense–let the Almighty answer me; let my accuser put his indictment in writing.

Here, Job, who feels he has suffered unjust accusations either from his three human friends or even God Himself, cries out his desire for God to hear his claim of innocence, and free him from further suffering. He has lost everything he ever worked for, everything else he ever cherished, and now it seems he stands to lose his connection to God as well. He feels as punished as if God has set down intentional judgments on him for sins as yet unknown.

Living a Christian life does not mean a life free of troubles. In fact, sometimes it seems that the life of a Christian is especially beset by trials; Job’s case is an extreme example of this. Loss of livelihood and/or health, financial or emotional disasters, family and relationship strife, stress from work–all these and many other sources of sorrow can beleaguer us, and seem to be all the more painful to endure because we feel we have been faithful to God. Sometimes, in the most trying of circumstances, we can even begin to wonder what all the worship and devotion was for, if God is allowing such awful things to happen to us.

The important thing to remember when facing trials is that God is right there with you, in the thick of it, and He will never abandon you. Just as God never abandoned Job, and eventually restored his life to rights (see chapter 42 in the Book of Job), He will also do the same for us.

Why did God restore Job? Because he continued to pray to God and speak to God honestly, never doubting that God was there and never doubting that God would answer his need. As long as we keep trusting in God and praying, our trials too will pass and be replaced with joy, even if it’s long in coming.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 5: Nitty, Gritty, and Dirty

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This post about didn’t happen–but determination (and frustration/anger) won the day. 😀

Despite feeling generally awful all week (again, I was not about to let this project down in the middle. I’m a little bit infamous for that around the house–I get all gung-ho about a project, only to quit in the middle of it because I begin to lack the energy, support, and time to keep moving on it.

So, having conquered one shelf in the closet last week, I resolved to strike at the next shelf down, which you’ll see pictured below from left to right.



…Yeah. THAT’S what I had to tackle yesterday. I thought, “Well, okay, this will probably be a little more involved than last week’s effort, because there’s more stuff on this shelf, but I can still manage it.”

The (Gross) Discovery Lurking in the Closet

Well, I thought I could manage it easily, until I took the first big bin off the shelf. Below the big bin, which I thought contained everything on that part of the shelf, was a layer of junk. And not just any junk. Mouse-poo-covered junk.

I wanted to laugh, and then I wanted to cry. I used to love mice…now I wish I’d let my indoor cat run wild in my room and kill all the little critters so they wouldn’t poop all over everything. I really wasn’t prepared for the sheer amount of mouse poo, either. (I know this is disgusting to read–it was even more disgusting to confront!)

I was disgusted with myself for having let the closet get this way, and disgusted that I had to deal with this RIGHT NOW…ugh. I stood there thinking, “Really? I have to get into THIS and make sense of it? I have to TOUCH all this?”

Anger Takes the Place of Determination

After a few moments of mental whining and cringing, I finally just started pulling stuff off the shelves in a mad scramble for cleanliness–the things I was mumbling under my breath aren’t fit to be written here (LOL). The disgust and shock of what I had found had resolved itself into anger.


In the process of going all RAWR at the closet, this small avalanche of junk happened. In that angry state, I was just tearing toys and junk off the shelves, shaking off the dust and debris as best I could, so inevitably some of the stuff began to free itself of its own accord. I kept working, picking up the fallen stuff off the floor as well, until finally…


…I was left with these random little items. I didn’t really have a good place to store them all, but there they were–obstacles to wiping down the shelf and really getting it clean again.


*heroic music* But never fear! A random shoebox is here!

During one of my earlier episodes of Slaying the Clutter Dragon, I had found and kept a lot of small boxes like this one, knowing that I’d probably need them for organization and storage purposes. I thanked myself for this, now that I’d found myself in need of a tidy way to store these little knick-knacks.

A Tip for Fellow De-Clutterers

As you de-clutter, keep any sturdy empty boxes just for situations like this; you’re probably going to run across tons of little itty-bitty stuff that needs to be moved and sorted later. This way, you can store the small things neatly until you have time to sort them all out. Trust me, you’ll thank yourself later, just like I did!


And this is what the bed looked like, after only half of the shelf was cleared. SIGH…junky, dusty bed, yet again… :c

Half The Shelf Conquered–The Other Half Remains!


With the aid of a couple of paper towels (one damp with cleaner and one dry), I finally had half the shelf dusted and wiped down of all the mouse poo. Now for the next part of the shelf, which consisted of two old closet storage system units. (Forgive the blurriness of this pic–didn’t realize it was this bad till I uploaded it from my phone. :/)


After moving one of the units, look what I found–two random, tiny laundry detergent boxes stuck behind it. *shrugs* Who knows? This is just more evidence that the mess in my room randomly gobbles stuff up and spits it out in the most unexpected of places. LOL


Once I moved the other (surprisingly heavy) storage unit, I finally had a fully clean shelf to work with (once I had wiped it down, of course).

Using the Newfound Space

Now that I had yet another empty shelf in the closet to work with, I was temporarily at a loss as to what to put on it.



As you can see, that temporary uncertainty was quite temporary, indeed! LOL!

For this shelf, I chose to store some miscellaneous items that keep getting lost in the piles of junk in my room. This shelf’s contents, like the rest of the closet in general, will likely change as I work with the other shelves and areas in my room, but for now these items are up and out of harm’s way.

Last Step: Dealing with the Bed


As always, the bed held all the junk I’d removed from the closet. But I learned my lesson from last week–this pile of junk was going downstairs to the basement immediately, so that it would not stand in my way of doing the next shelf.

About 10 minutes of hauling boxloads and armloads of junk downstairs ensued, in which I sweated about as much as I do at Zumba classes (LOL). But at last, the bed was clear, and the floor was clear. The stage was now set for my next challenge in the Closet of Horrors:


…Um, yeah. There’s a reason I’ve waited to tackle this until now. xD But I have less fear of it now. After all, if I get this closet floor cleared, I can actually close the closet doors for the first time in 20 years! GASP! :O


And all this closet clearage IS having an effect–the piles of junk are slowly getting smaller. Soon, all that junk will either be donated, thrown away, or stored in the closet. Oh, what a day that will be when my carpet I shall see! 😀

Monday in the HTMLab

How Webdesigning is Like Writing and Music

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Since I both write music and literature outside of doing webdesign, I’ve found that the three activities are more similar than one might think otherwise. After all, they all activate my creativity, just in different ways; I play and design with pixels just like I do with notes and words.

So, here’s a little tongue-in-cheek webdesign philosophy for your Monday morning:

How is Webdesigning Like Writing?

  • Choosing just the right word for a description is like aligning each image pixel-perfectly on the screen.
  • In both writing and webdesign, the creator believes he or she has complete control over the final product, especially if working independently.
  • Both writers and webdesigners have the tendency to obsess over little details that nobody will actually notice.
  • Finding a missed typo in your writing is like finding a missed ending tag in your code–very annoying!

How is Webdesigning Like Music?

  • Little mistakes, whether in a browser or in performance, are rarely noticed by the audience.
  • Every musical performance is different, just like every Web browser renders a webpage a little differently.
  • What a listener gets out of a piece of music depends on his or her perspective and outlook on life; what a user gets out of a webpage depends on what browser and screen resolution he or she is using.
  • In both music and webdesign, no matter how many parts/harmony lines go into making it, it all renders as one beautiful whole to the audience.

Can you think of other ways that webdesign is like these art forms? What about other art forms (dance, visual art, etc.)? Leave me your thoughts in the comments! 😀

Saturday with the Spark

Spontaneous Creativity: Art Timewasters

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Sometimes creative thought just won’t come, or seems sluggish and slow–it’s like your creative juices have been frozen and won’t thaw enough to move.

When you get stuck like that, some say to keep pushing ahead, to keep trying to do what has become so difficult. I, however, have found that switching to a different artistic task entirely can revive the ol’ creativity machine in your head. By the same token, I’ve found that doing something randomly creative rather than purposely creative can help the Muse start to work again.

For that reason, I’ve gathered some of my favorite artistic timewaster games, which have served me well as “icebreakers” for my Muse. Check them out and try them–you might find a new idea bubbling to the surface even as you play!

I actually made this fairly-human-looking face using Ultimate Flash Face–surprising and pleasing, considering that most of the faces I try to draw on my own look like alien faces. XD This is a great artistic program–helpful for both art newbs (like me) and veterans alike!




These are three examples of the kinds of swirling art you can create with Flame Painter–so many settings, opacities, saturations, and colors to play with! Great for anybody who loves just playing with color.



Drawing with TypeDrawing is very different–instead of plain lines, you’re drawing with words strung together in a never-ending string. (Thus, my simple landscape done with just the words “tree” and “landscape,” and my attempt at a city skyline done with the word “city.”) There is a data limit–you can only draw in so much detail–but what you CAN make with words will surprise you!

A selection of drawings made with the Scribbler Toy, which takes a simple line drawing done by the user and transforms it with subtle shading lines of all sorts. You can play with the basic settings (as I’ve done in the far right drawing) to change how much scribble it adds, what color/opacity they are, etc.).



From smooth veils of color to waving lines, from fairly orderly to completely chaotic, Bomomo helps you make all sorts of random visual awesomeness. You can’t choose colors, but you can choose from a variety of lovely automatic brushes which follow the directions of your mouse (with surprisingly pretty results!).



And, last but not least, you can unleash your inner preschooler with JacksonPollock.org‘s art simulator. You start out with black paint, and you can click anywhere within the window to change the color to another random selection. Fill your entire browser window with virtual paint–who cares what it looks like, just have fun! :

Friday around the Web

30 Books Before 30, Correct Computer Posture, Time-Lapse Kitty, and Chocolate Mousse Recipe

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30 Books I’m Glad I Read before 30
Read any of these? Check out this list and see what you might need to catch up on (or go back and reread)!

How to Sit Correctly at a Computer
…annnnnnd how NOT to. LOL at second picture…”close enough,” indeed. xD

I Used to Be This Big…but Now I’m THIS Big!
Almost but not quite time-lapse photography, of a little kitten and the big kitty it became. So cute, with the itty-bitty teddy bear for size reference… 🙂

Make Your Own Heavenly Chocolate Mousse
*sigh* OH WELL, 600 pounds, here I come. XD

Thursday in the Zone

The City of Heroes “New Character Checklist”

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Since I am still hopeful that we CoH players can save our beloved game, I thought I’d do a post this week full of similar hope for the future–and what’s more hopeful than creating a new character?

If you’re addicted to making new characters, as I am, the process is likely a familiar one, but can be a little disconcerting. Like getting anything new, you have to break it in, have to conform it to your particular tastes, and it can be a little difficult to remember all your settings from more established characters.

Here’s an easy way to quickly set up your new character, from the first moment you exit the Character Creation studio:

Upon First Arriving in Atlas Park/Mercy Island

  • Arrange the various modules on your screen to your preference. For instance, I prefer my Chatbox on the bottom left of my screen, while my boyfriend prefers his on the bottom right.
  • Drag and drop your powers on your power tray in your preferred order. For me, I like to have my most-used powers on the first 5 numbers; you may have a different system.
  • If you have a supergroup you’d like to be invited to, message one of the admins and ask them to add you to the group.
  • Go into Options > Keymapping, and make sure all your keyboard shortcuts and mouse settings are to your preference. For instance, I like my Tab key to target the “Nearest” enemy towards me instead of the “Next” enemy, so I change that every time. I also set up my Inspirations to trigger using the YUIOP keys instead of F1 through F5.
  • Go to the nearest Hospital to stock up on Inspirations (the Nurse in the Hospital lobby sells them). Since you only have a few Inspiration slots at level 1, you
  • Talk to your first contacts (look under “Contacts” in your Navigation Console, top center of the screen), and begin to run all the missions you can. When one contact runs out of missions, ask to “Be introduced to another contact” so you can keep the XP going.

When You’re Level 2-5

  • As you level up and receive new powers, don’t forget to add other supportive powers like Rest, Sprint, Mission Teleporter, Mystic Fortune, etc. Go to your Powers menu (linked on the Chatbox module) and scroll down till you get to the “Inherent Powers” box (on the right-most side of the Powers menu). Click the icon for each power that you want to add to your power tray.
  • Use the global email system to transfer a little bit of influence (10-20,000 should suffice) from your other characters. This way, you can buy Training Enhancements for your powers as you level up.
  • If you get Training Enhancements you can’t use, sell them off to Vendors so that you can buy the Enhancements you need.
  • Explore the available Power Pools before you level up, so you can see what kind of powers you might like to pull off those as you level up. (You can choose your first power from any pool at level 4.)

Interested in Saving City of Heroes?

I generally keep up with all the latest #SaveCoH news on Twitter through my City of Heroes Twitter, @skiesoveratlas. Follow and join the fight!

Wednesday in the Word

Even if We’re 99% Good Enough, Jesus Provides the 1% We Need

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Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Paul makes it clear, in this letter to the Ephesians, that God’s grace (provided through Jesus’ suffering and death by crucifixion) is what saves us as Christians, even today. God loves each one of us enough to want to reconnect with us through our faith, and if we accept by faith Jesus’ suffering and death as payment for our own sins, God welcomes us home.

And yet, there are some Christians today who do not truly believe that. Oh, they go to church, they do all the right things and say all the right words, but they don’t truly believe they’ve been saved by grace. They, instead, believe that they were saved by their own good works, which made them “good enough” to go to Heaven when they die. I’m sure this description puts you in mind of a few people you know, just as it does for me.

Being saved by works is a fallacy; much as it might sound good to the Christian ear to “work for salvation,” it is not needed, and indeed can even hinder salvation by causing boasting and ill feeling between Christians. (And if we can be “good enough” for God to save us on our own merits, then why did Jesus suffer and die, anyway?)

The Ephesians, too, were having trouble with this concept of being “saved by grace,” so Paul spells it out to them in this verse. Salvation is wrought by God and not by our own works; we don’t have to worry about working for God’s approval, because He already loved us enough to send His Son to pay our sin price.

We may lead an almost completely pure life, and we may spend almost every waking moment in service to God, but we still need that grace to be saved. No one is exempt, and no one can boast of anything else, as Paul says.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Slaying the Clutter Dragon, part 4: Blundering in the Dark

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(This installment of the Clutter Dragon Saga brought to you by: sheer stubbornness and willpower.)

Illness, exhaustion, and my old friend procrastination teamed up on me this week, to keep me from sallying forth to strike at a single closet shelf. But by yesterday afternoon, I knew I could not wait any longer without disappointing myself and losing the rhythm of my accomplishments thus far.

So, around 4:30 yesterday afternoon, though I still felt under the weather, I began my clutter counterstrike, stumbling forward into a darkness of storage, which has held onto my girlhood much longer than I have.


Due to some freak fit of gravity, this little avalanche out of the closet had occurred at some point during the week. I got this out of the floor first, but put it aside carefully, since it had some items that actually needed to be back in the closet when I had room.

The REAL Work Begins: Clearing the Shelf


This first bit of shelf was cleared pretty easily, since it was only a couple of small boxes and a book or two. But I uncovered some evidence of mice (to put it as non-grossly as I can) lying about on the shelf, so I had to stop and disinfect the surface as well as I could before moving on.

Note to Fellow De-Clutterers

If you encounter such evidence of mice, which is unfortunately quite common when you’re cleaning up stuff that’s been sitting in the same spot for a while, BE CAREFUL how you handle it–it can make you sick! Use rubber gloves if possible, and make sure to use disinfectants in a well-ventilated space so you don’t get sick from fumes.


The second bit of shelf was much more difficult; not only was there more evidence of mice, but several toys from the shelf above attacked me as I removed items from the working shelf. (Guess they were defending their fellow toys from being removed from the closet? LOL!) Not to mention that when I tried to shift the largest box of toys, it began to vomit Lego pieces everywhere. xD

Disinfecting the shelf, defending my head from falling items, and picking up about a thousand Lego pieces slowed me down, but eventually, I did get that bit of shelf clean, too, as seen in the picture above. Small victories in the name of cleanliness!


The third part of the shelf was almost too easy after the near-disaster I’d had a few minutes before. There was only one box of toys left, and it was mainly big, soft stuffed animals. Once that was out of the closet, I disinfected the remaining surface, and was rewarded with this sight–one completely clear shelf in my overstuffed closet!

A Little Reward: Using the Newfound Storage Space


I had already planned what I wanted to store on this newly-cleaned shelf, so I had everything already picked out, stacked, and ready to be sorted.

From left: my Hawk & Dove comics collection; an old makeup box I used for Clix storage, which will be repurposed soon; computer doodads, install discs, and other techie paraphernalia, all in various gift and shoeboxes.


I was also able to store many small travel bags I’ve picked up over the years on this shelf. It’s a bit messy at the moment, but eventually I’m going to repurpose one of the small totes I recovered from the closet to store these properly.


This is where all the travel bags used to live–piled up beside the dresser, in a stack almost 3 1/2 feet high. Now you can nearly see the floor beside the dresser. It’s a tiny victory, but a victory nonetheless!


The three bins seen here (which I’ve been using for organization in the last couple of “Slaying the Clutter Dragon” installments) will stay in the closet, though their contents will likely change a lot between now and when I finally finish the closet reorganization. They fit well on the shelves and are easy to take down when I need them, thanks to the handles. (In fact, I’ll probably be getting a few more of them for other shelves, too!)

Work, Interrupted


As always, the bed ended up holding all the detritus from the cleared shelf–it’s literally a bed full of my childhood in this picture. LOL

In the beginning, I had planned to start sorting out which toys I wanted to keep for my own children vs. which toys I wanted to donate. Sadly, at this point my body sharply reminded me that I had been sick all week, and that if I didn’t want to be horribly sick/dizzy again in a few minutes, I should lie down as quickly as possible.

Thus…this had to happen:


Sigh. I worked so hard to clear that space in front of the closet, and now it just looks like my childhood puked all over the floor. xD Ah well, it was for a good cause. And actually, I can more easily pick up the work of sorting any time between now and the next installment of “Slaying the Clutter Dragon.”


(I even had to use some of the other bits of floorspace I’ve so painstakingly cleaned earlier in the series. Grr and grumble.)

But this is an important lesson of cleaning/straightening: you have to work with the space (and the physical energy) you’ve got, and you can’t expect every clean section of a room to stay clean while you work with other sections, especially if other sections are as cluttered as my closet.

The room isn’t absolutely finished till all sections are clean and straight–till then, it’s allowed to look like a work in progress. I can’t be mad at myself for making two giant steps forward, even if it looks like I’ve taken a giant step back. You fellow de-clutterers out there keep that in mind for your own clutter projects!

Next Week: Another Shelf, Another Pile of Childhood

Now that I have braved the horrors of dust, mice, and attacking toys, what else can possibly await me in the closet of horrors? Tune in next week to find out! 😀

Monday in the HTMLab

Tumblr: A Different Blogging Style

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Have you always wanted to blog, but never known what to blog about? Have you put aside the whole idea because of not knowing how to design or code webpages? If these apply to you, let me tell you about Tumblr.

What Is Tumblr?


Tumblr is a relatively new kind of blogging platform, revolving around the concept of “reblogging.”

Reblog, verb: “to repost an item of interest from another blog to your own, with proper sources and credits already applied for you by the blogging platform.”

In short, reblogging on Tumblr is like retweeting on Twitter, or repinning on Pinterest–you only need to click a button, add comments if you wish, and voila, the reposted content is viewable to your followers (people who receive updates from your blog), with links to the source already included. This is not plagiarism; indeed, it is meant to help original content have a much wider reach and audience. If you like something enough, you can reblog it, and Tumblr will automatically give credit back to the person who originally posted it through Tumblr’s platform.

Of course, you can also create content of your own and post it through Tumblr as well; in fact, many small fansites are now run through Tumblr because of the ease of posting original content. It is an easily accessible platform to blog on–you just sign up, select a username for your Tumblr, and in mere moments, you’ll have a “yourusername.tumblr.com” address for your own blog!

More than a Blogging Platform–a Community

But reblogging is not the only thing that sets Tumblr apart from other platforms. More than on any other blogging platform I’ve tried, there is a strong sense of community between bloggers.

Much like Twitter and Pinterest, Tumblr uses the concept of “followers;” also like them, Tumblr has a sort of “news feed” of all the recent posts from blogs you follow, called a “dashboard” for short. What the Dashboard does differently is to allow commentary between bloggers that has no maximum character limit–very different from Twitter and Pinterest.

Not only that, but you can very easily find other bloggers who share your interests, and build a community with them through reblogging and messaging. I’ve only been on Tumblr since mid-July, and usually just get on at night due to dialup access, yet I’ve already experienced some of that supportive, open community. It just seems so much easier to reach out to other Tumblr users than it was to connect with other Livejournal users or other WordPress.com users.

Using Tumblr: A Crash Course


The Tumblr Dashboard, partly seen here, appears once you have logged in. It allows you to see recent posts from the blogs you follow, as well as post content yourself. The seven different-colored icons stretched across the page are your “content-posting” icons, and below them will appear a feed of the latest posts from the blogs you follow.


Each post you see on your Dashboard will have a top line that reads something like this. Usernames are quoted as “so-and-so reblogged so-and-so” or “so-and-so posted this,” as you see in the image. The number 9.054 on this image stands for the number of Tumblr users who have either liked or reblogged this particular post; the double-arrow symbol to the right is what you click to reblog, and the heart is what you click to like the post.


In this image, you can see that the heart is now red, signaling that I chose to “like” this post. The number 9,054 is now 9,055 in accordance with that.


Tumblr also provides you a quick way to see individual blogs from within the Dashboard. Hovering over the top right corner of any post on the Dash will “fold” the corner; you can then click that corner and Tumblr will open a new window with just that blog visible.


If you choose to reblog a post, this is an example of what you’ll see–content at top left, a place to comment on said content at bottom left, and places to schedule and add tags to your post. At the bottom, you can click to reblog, preview the post, or cancel if you so choose.


To look for posts about a favorite topic of yours, just type in the topic in the “Search Tags” box, and Tumblr will pull up a reverse-chronological list of posts with that tag. (This is also a great way to find new blogs to follow based on that topic choice!

Here, you can see my personal sidebar, off to the right of the posts on my Tumblr Dash. Yours will look a little different, but the basics are here–mostly links to help you run your blog more efficiently. Through the sidebar, you can view all the posts you’ve personally made, a list of all the blogs you follow (and all who follow you), what posts you’ve Liked, etc.

The section I’ve marked in red on this image shows my “tracked” tags. If you want to be notified every time someone on Tumblr posts something with a specific tag, all you have to do is search for that tag, then click the listing for that tag as it sits on your sidebar. Then, every time you log in, you can click that listing again to look at all recent posts with that tag. (Tracking tags is a good way to keep tabs on whatever topic you happen to be a fan of at the moment, as you can see from my personal list. LOL)

Finding Community on Tumblr

The most tried-and-true way to build community on Tumblr is to search for various content through the Tag system, as described above. If you browse through various tags and find that you like the posts by a particular Tumblr author, then all you need to do is click their username, go to their blog, and click “Follow” in the top right corner. This is pretty much how I started following most of the blogs I follow!

From there, building community with other users can be as simple as reblogging what they’ve made and messaging them if you wish. Tumblr, like Twitter and Pinterest, lets users know when others have reblogged their content, and from there they can choose to follow you back if they want to.

You do have to be fairly active and social to find that community for yourself, but I’ve found that Tumblr is a much easier community to involve yourself in–it doesn’t feel quite so insular as other blogging platforms have felt to me. Actually, I feel freer to speak my mind than I do anywhere else online, because Tumblr seems to attract free spirits like myself. 😀

Try Tumblr for Yourself!

It’s as easy as visiting Tumblr.com and clicking “Sign Up!” 🙂