Cornell Finch

Photo Blogging With Lifeblog.

Lorelle’s latest blogging challenge is to:

write a WordPress Tip. It doesn’t have to be complicated, and it doesn’t have to be programming-code-from-hell technical, but it could if you are into such things.

As I have just started using it and there was a question about it in the wordpress.com forum this morning I thought I might share my tips for photo blogging using Nokia’s Lifeblog software.

Originally intended for use only with their Partners (such as Typepad), Nokia developed the software for use on their Symbian Series mobile phones. I use the Nokia N70 which has a 2mb pixel camera built in. Whilst not as good as the 5mp Canon camera I also tend to carry around, it is useful for snapping shots that I want to send, either to Flickr, my blog or another mobile phone. The photo of Chester (left) was taken using the N70, and as you can see, it’s not too bad!

While full instructions for using the software can be found at the Nokia website, this post is intended to get you uploading specifically to Flickr and then to your blog.

Setting up Flickr for Blogging

If you don’t already have an account with Flickr then you’ll need to sign up for one. It’s not difficult, takes a couple of minutes and just requires you to use a valid email address. Once you have your account, you’ll need to sign in. Do that now and then go to You (Menu) -> Your Account.

Scroll the list of links and you’ll see “Blogging” on the left hand side. Click “Your Blogs”. There will be an option on the next page to add a blog. Follow the simple instructions, noting a few settings:

Blog Type/Service:

Wordpress in all cases for WP users.

Endpoint:

If you are on wordpress.com: HTTP://xxx.wordpress.com/xmlrpc.php (where xxx.is your blog’s normal URL.
If you are self-hosted: HTTP://yourdomain.tld/wordpressfolder/xmlrpc.php (eg http://www.example2.com/wordpress/xmlrpc.php)

Your Username: Note: This is the account name for your blog, not Flickr!

I just use the main account for my weblog but you could just as easily set up a specific user called “flickr” for example. This account MUST have rights to create new posts on your blog.

Your Password

Make sure you use the correct password for the account name or it’s never gonna work!

Blog URL

Betcha can’t guess what that is! Mine for example is http://www.cornellfinch.com. Don’t forget the http:// and if you’re on wordpress.com don’t forget that there’s no www. in your URL!

Blog Label:

This is just a friendly name for your blog and can be anything you want it to be. The wizard will take the name of your blog straight from your site but you can edit it later if you want.

One of the great things about Flickr is that you can configure it however you want, using any CSS (bear in mind it will be stripped on wp.com) and alignment to get the blog post looking how you want it. To make it easy, Flickr has given five premade layouts which you can select by clicking “Layout” when you are at the main blogs page. The image on the left shows the 5 layout styles you will see.

Configuring Lifeblog for Flickr

Flickr gives you a nice little page with useful information to put into Lifeblog for sending your images to Flickr. You must be signed in (or sign in when requested) to view the page as it gives usernames and passwords for you to use. Obviously, I have blanked them from the screen shot on the left. I wouldn’t want you posting all your naughty photos to my blog now eh! I don’t know though… ;)

The first URL that you see (note the username and password is the same for both options) is to just post your photos to Flickr from Lifeblog. If you want to use the blogging facility, you need to use the settings listed under “Upload to Flickr and your blog”.

These settings go into the Weblog Settings in Lifeblog. Enter them, make sure you have an access point set up in Lifeblog and go take some pictures!

My Thoughts
It might take you a little while to get entirely used to using Lifeblog, but it’s not hard if you have more than no common sense and it’s a handy little gadget for photo blogging.

It’s a shame that Nokia has only partnered with Typepad right now. I would love to be able to blog straight from my mobile phone to my blog. I believe that some developers in the wordpress.org forum were trying but I don’t think it got anywhere.

There is an application called Kablog that suggests it will allow direct blogging to Wordpress, but I haven’t managed to try it yet.

Please let me know if there’s any glaring errors or ommissions in this post and I will do my best to correct/update them

BTW – Lorelle – you need to change the URL for your blog challenge link in the last paragraph of your text. you missed /tag/ out of the URL. ;)