Protocol 7 » assorted musings on life, interaction, design, and beer

Wakalixes Makes It Go!

– October 20th, 2008

I swear, I’m going to corner the market for wakalixes. Anyways, now that I have an iPhone I’ve been wanting a place to aggregate visual impressions of my days as they pass by. I love the lo-fi quality of the camera and with CameraBag on board it’s like I have a magic-pocket full of toy cameras. I thought Tumblr might be something to try, with easy uploads from the iPhone and a simple interface. The one problem[1] was that I didn’t like any of the free themes currently available, so I went ahead and made one.

wakalixes screen shot

Wakalixes is a simple, elegant theme with completely customizable colors. Seriously. Give it a whirl and see for yourself.

{ fin }

  1. Actually, there are two problems, the bigger one being data lock-in. Currently, there is no way to export your data from Tumblr, which might cause me to drop it in the future if they don’t address this issue. For the time being, the photos are dumped to my drive just in case. [↩]
  1. Joel Helin says:
    October 23, 2008 at 10:37 am

    I’ve actually fown tired of WordPress and been looking around for some alternatives. Might be checking out Tumblr cause that looks amazing. Was it hard to make? More difficult than WP themes?

    By the way, I changed my current layout (again), but this one, I’ll stick to. So, in that case I might just translate it to another CMS. Shouldn’t be that hard?

    Reply
  2. pnts says:
    October 23, 2008 at 10:51 am

    Hey Joel,

    I really like your new layout, and great fonts! I might have to steal your font-stack for a project or two! I’ve been leaning a lot more towards serifs recently, and am questioning the sans here on Protocol 7.

    Tumblr is extremely fast and easy to work with compared to WordPress, mostly because it isn’t as flexible or deep. The back-end resides entirely on Tumblr’s servers, so all you are really doing is tweaking the front-end with a few of their tags thrown in. It took me a day to make Wakalixes, which speaks to the simplicity of the system. I think you’d find Tumblr restrictive, but it is fun to play around with for smaller projects or life-streaming. If you are tired of WordPress, you could give Expression Engine or TextPattern a whirl.

    I’m curious to hear more about the why and what that’s caused you to grow tired of WordPress, I’ve heard similar rumblings around the ‘net from a number of WPers.

    Reply
  3. Joel Helin says:
    October 23, 2008 at 9:05 pm

    Thanks!

    Be my guest, they’re really beautiful so it wouldn’t hurt to see them on more sites. :-)

    The main reason I’m considering leaving WP is that it’s powerful in ways that I’m not using. I want a service that can post like tumblr do, links, quotes and so on. So, I’ve been looking into Textpattern, since I’m not likely to use MovableType (not free).

    I’d also like a little change. I’ve been using WP for a long time and just feel like it’s time for something new. Maybe textpatter is what I’m looking for?

    Reply
  4. izzy says:
    November 5, 2008 at 2:25 pm

    I have to say that your Tumblr design is great, but it pales in comparison to your Wordpress theme. This site is beautiful. Just thought I ought to let you know.

    Reply
  5. pnts says:
    November 5, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Izzy, thank you! Both with regards to Tumblr and this site – it’s great to get feedback, especially so positive. Much appreciated.

    Reply

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