#storyware

Goals and bucket lists clutter the bottom drawers of our dressers, hidden due to our busy lifestyles and routines that don’t allow for adventures or excursions off the busy path. Harrison Brown broke free of his monotonous, multiple minimal wage jobs and working lifestyle deciding to conquer his lifelong dream of biking across the country. Constructing his route from Alaska to Florida based on attending music festivals and shows and visiting friends and family, he spent eight months on the road.

The 8778 mile long journey started in Alaska and ended in Key West. After biking through Alaska, Brown said he was confident that he was strong enough for the rest of the trip. Although strenuous, Alaska happened to be his favorite state due to its beauty, the people he met and how it pulled him out of his comfort zone. Ending in Key West, he said he had mixed feeling; it was amazing to finish but Key West wasn’t the destination, the journey itself was.

Talking about expectations, he said he thought it would be an amazing experience - and it was, but more difficult than expected at times. Seeing a little bit of every season, he had nights where warmth was a concern, and days where water shortage was on the top of his mind. Each and every experience along the way made it amazing, but something that he never could have expected.

When asked about his future adventures Brown remarked: “One thing I learned about myself, is that my needs are like a swinging pendulum, sometimes I need to live a very nomadic lifestyle and be constantly on the move and then at times I need to swing to the other side which is the need for a very static domesticated lifestyle.” Aside from planning more adventures, he has a few cool ideas and projects about his 8 month biking trip that he plans to do.

When leaving for his biking journey, Brown chose Tumblr as a means to share his adventures with people, crediting its’ integration of every social media as a motivating factor. The layout to the Ballard theme was a plus so he chose it noting that the feature post option as a great way to control the first content people perusing his website saw.

Harrison Brown’s website and journey can be seen at http://www.bikingintotheworld.com/

Tumblr recently changed its user interface and in doing so, changed how we get to the customization section. Never fear! Storyware’s video tutorial is here!

TRESemmé

Jessica Miller

Jessica Miller is in a love affair with craft beer. A woman with a not-so-girly beer blog, Jessica has established herself in the Tumblr world as a talented photographer, chef and writer. Mixing all of these skills together, Jessica has created her very own guide to navigating the up and coming craft beer phenomenon. Introduced to home brewing by a friend, Jessica and her husband tapped in to the idea and were hooked right off the bat. A nanonbrewery opened up in their town just 10 minutes from their house and the rest is pretty much history. Jessica and her husband fell hard and fell fast for the home brewing fad and now can confidentially call themselves a part of the movement. New to Georgia, Jessica has used writing about craft beer as a way to explore areas of the cities she is curious about and connect with people in her community who share the same love of craft-made things. Jessica has found Georgia to be the perfect hub for her poetic eye. With a background in creative writing, poetry and fiction, Jessica uses her surroundings to her advantage as a base for the stories on her blog. Building off of her background skills and all Georgia has to offer, Jessica then connects the dots and links anything and everything back to local craft beer. Tapping into a predominantly male market made Jessica's story that much more interesting. It was the sincere fact that men were interested in talking to a woman interested in beer that Jessica was able to learn as much as she does today. Being somewhat anomalous worked to her advantage- a woman interested in beer, you say? Men, interestingly enough, seemed to be some of Jessica's biggest supporters in her attempt to tackle the world of craft beer. Arguing that she isn't a very girly or traditionally feminine, Jessica strives to create a gender-neutral approach to topics she discusses. And so far, it's working out pretty well. Jessica has gained a significant local presence and is looking to gain an ever wider audience through her use of Tumblr. Jessica decided to use our Mallow theme because of the simple lay out and the user-friendly features. The "about" section allows her to put all her other networks together in one place so visitors can easily get a sense of what the blog is about at a glance without being overwhelmed. From a design perspective, Jessica argues that Tumblr is simply "where it's at". 

Setting up a Custom Subdomain URL for Tumblr Blog

Tumblr is arguably the easiest blogging platform. Most Tumblr users find it easier to update on the go and on the desktop vs. using Wordpress posts. By using Tumblr for your blog, you gain the social media aspect of Tumblr with followers, likes, reblogs, etc.

Goal: Set up permalink for blog only. The rest of the site may live on WordPress or another content management system. 

Example: blog.URL.com set as Tumblr in its own directory. Your posts will be, blog.URL.com/blog/post/title-of-post vs. username.tumblr.com/blog/post/title-of-post. 

Create Tumblr Account

Follow the steps to create a Tumblr Account, http://www.tumblr.com/new/blog

Create Subdomain

Sign into your domain name registrar: Hostmonster, GoDaddy, etc. 

For majority of hosting providers, you will access the cPanel (domain management) to create your subdomain

After creating your subdomain, blog.URL.com, you will need to point the CNAME (Canonical Name) record to "domains.tumblr.com"

CNAME: For specific instructions on how to point your CNAME for your domain based on your hosting provider, Google “Creating a CNAME in X hosting provider name X.” The following bullet points are for Hostmonster

Under A (Host) Records delete any blog or www.blog records

Add DNS record as…Host Record: blog, (leave TTL as is), Type: CNAME, Points To: domains.tumblr.com 

Once submitted, it will take about 1 - 4 hours to propagate

If you get stuck feel free to call technical support for your domain provider and ask how to add a CNAME for your specified subdomain name 

Learn more on DNS Record Definitions.

Set Up & Test In Tumblr

Once logged into Tumblr, click on settings (gear icon) 

Scroll down to "Username" and click the pencil edit icon

Enter your new URL and test, blog.URL.com

If everything checks out, save it and do a victory dance.