Adding Ads to Tumblr (Cargo Theme)

I started a picture blog using Tumblr.com to post random images taken from my Nokia E72 (I know this is an old phone but it still works great). Tumblr is a great tool – it so easy – just shoot, email and there it is on my photoblog. In order to keep things simple, Tumblr does not have plugins like WordPress to help with customisation, which is totally understandable.

Tumblr does, however, allow its user to edit the HTML. But for people like me who have no knowledge of HTML, it’s a challenge. But a challenge I will accept.

I wanted to add and advertisement on my photoblog (who knows – maybe my pictures are so good that people will visit my photoblog and …. and ….. ok I think I better stop dreaming now). Anyway, I got the codes from the ad website (similar to how Google’s AdSense generates codes). The next step was placing the ad, which requires placing the codes at the correct line within the HTML.

I tried to google ‘adding adsense to tumblr’ – it gave me some ideas on how it works. Some sites suggested that you find the location on your website where you want your add to be, for example, if you want to place it below the ‘About’ section, look for the ‘About’ word in the HTML and place the codes right below it.

It was good advice but with the many themes available in Tumblr, it was difficult to fit the advice with the theme I was using (I am using the Cargo Theme by Jarred Bishop).

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.”  Elbert Hubbard

But I wanted to try anyway and this is what I did:-

1. Create Backup

First I made a backup of the existing HTML – I just copied the whole page under ‘Customize Appearance > Edit HTML’ and pasted it in a Notepad file. Just in case I mess up the whole page, I can revert back to this backup.

2. Find The Location And Paste Away

I wanted to place the codes under ‘Display as list’ on the Cargo theme. I looked for anything on the HTML which showed ‘Display as list’.

I didn’t find it and so I tried looking for ‘About’ – there was a few of them. I just tried pasting the ad codes near the ‘About’ word. The ad did appear but it wasn’t below the ‘Display as list’ where I wanted it to be.

Then I came to the <div id=”nav_list”> section in the HTML. The words ‘About’, ‘Search’ and ‘Archive’ appearing on the website was here. Cut and pasted around this section and finally got it exactly where I wanted it – amazing! Screenshot below – grey highlights are the codes I added.

3. Some Minor Adjustments

It was awesome to see it work. But I am sort of a perfectionist and didn’t like that the ad was immediately below the ‘Display as list’. I wanted to add a space in between. I goolged again – this time for “add a blank line in HTML” and found the answer the here. I added ‘<BR>&nbsp;<BR>’ just above the ad codes and there space appeared!

And that’s how I got the ad on my photoblog. I’m not sure it this is the best way to do this – but it worked for me and I’m happy with that :).

Caution: Please be careful when editing the HTML and make back-ups before you do – edit at your own risk.

To HP – Keep WebOS!

Dear HP,

It disturbs me to see how things are moving in HP these days.  I found it quite haphazard that you decided to kill Touchpad in August and now mull over the fate of WebOS.

You acquired Palm for $1.2 billion and later acquired Autonomy for $11.7, which leads me to believe that you want to go deeper into the software business. I can understand this since IT business is moving more and more towards software.

But why dispose WebOS, if software is what you want to get into? You may argue that the market for tablets (or smartphones) has a lot to do with the ecosystem surrounding it and WebOS is lagging behind IOS and Android.

Instead of selling WebOS, why not spend some money to help with the creation of the ecosystem? Maybe set up a competition or something to get developers interested in WebOS. Maybe $1 millions dollar for the creator of the best app? Crazy you think? Isn’t it crazier to buy something for $1.2 billion and sell it for a few hundred million?

Or maybe hire someone who has expertise in building the ecosystem? Someone from Apple or Google perhaps? I’m sure there are tonnes of ways to tackle the issue about ecosystem. Please lock your strategic marketing team in a room and don’t let them come out until they have some solid ideas.

You have a good customer base (with all the TouchPads sold to-date), good hardware capability and mostly importantly you have the HP brand. Build on it that and start thinking about TouchPad 2 (bring it to market soonest).  I see this as an excellent opportunity for you to execute your software strategy.

Nowadays when I see the HP logo – one word comes to mind – confused. Please get your acts together and do the right thing for the company and your customers. I hope you will make the right decision here – keep WebOS!

Yours truly.

Cluttered Inbox?

I have tonnes of emails in my Yahoo inbox. I used to create folders and filters to organize it but after a while, I became lazy. The number of email grew by the day and looking at it now, I’d rather just leave it as it is. Unless someone else wants to help me organise?

I stumbled upon a cool tool in under Applications in my Yahoo Mail – Automatic Organiser created by OtherInbox – the idea is that it will scan you inbox and segregate emails from similar senders to specific folders.

So I gave it a try.

Once I added the application to my mailbox, I clicked ‘Get Organizer Now’ and it brought me to a separate tab to request permission to my Yahoo.

Once I clicked ‘Agree’, it started scanning my inbox. But I had a problem here – the scanning stopped after going through a couple hundred emails, when in actual fact I had more than 3000 emails (I’ll come back to this later).

Once the scanning was complete, it created folders like OIB Shopping, OIB Social Networking, OIB Finance and OIB Groups, and moved the relevant emails to these folders. E.g. all emails (from the few hundred that it scanned) ending with @linkedin.com was moved to OIB Social Networking folder. I was impressed – it was a great tool.

I could also create my own folder, e.g. OIB Jimmy and put in one email from Jimmy. The tool will automatically recognize the email and all future emails from Jimmy will go into the folder directly. Also, on a daily basis, it sent me a summary of emails that it organised.

About the ‘not scanning all emails’ issue, I wrote to OtherInbox. After a few emails exchange, they finally said the following – “The reason for those messages not being organized is because they are too old. Organizer does not go that far back to sort out those messages.”

Then it dawned on me that this tool wasn’t much different from the filter function available in Yahoo. What made it different was its ability to scan my current emails and organise it accordingly. I was a bit dissapointed – it was a great idea but unfortunately it had limitations.

I hope the people at OtherInbox will rectify this problem because I see the value of this tool. And I hope they add the ability to re-scan the inbox for circumstances where you want to organise emails from a new sender. For now though, I have removed the application from my Yahoo Mail.