The Kyle File

Markdown Test

Well, I saw a post from Tumblr that said I can use markdown in an email post by using the !m code placed anywhere in the subject or body of my email. Just testing if it works. So now I can definitely use Posterous for my audio files, since they have a download link Posterous died and took some of my audio files with it and Tumblr for everything else. This rocks!

Tumblr Suggestion

Please give me the ability to show download links for my audio files. Then I can post them to Tumblr as well. At this time, it is impossible for people who use screen readers to listen to mp3 files that I make and post on Tumblr.

Update

Markdown works great! Thanks @Tumblr for letting me use it in email posts. Now for the audio download link.

Update

I can continue to use Posterous to post audio files and just drop in their link here along with the copy of the file, but I definitely prefer to use Tumblr alone. It just works so much better for me. I have sent a message to Tumblr support asking them to include a download link for audio files and explaining how impossible it is for screen reader users to listen to my files. I hope anyone who reads this will do the same. Just click the word message above and send your email to the support team. Thanks.

Update

Just hours after my email to the support team, I got a response. Pretty quick, but it was a rather terse response that simply apologized that the feature I requested isn’t supported at this time. There was no indication that Tumblr plans to implement audio download links at any time in the future. I would recommend persistence in sending messages requesting this feature for screen reader users. For now, though, it seems as though their now deceased competitor Posterous already does implement this feature along with some very nice autopost features as well. The only problems I’ve had with Posterous so far are the fact that I can’t post javascript code for a poll that I want to post because the code is ignored, and their current lack of support for markdown which just saves a lot of typing, since I have to use html tags to create links. But for me, these are very minor problems compared with the problem I am facing here. I will continue to update this post if anything new happens, and I will continue to post my experiences both with Tumblr and Posterous. Meanwhile, I have imported most of my other posts into my own Posterous, now gone with the wind, and most of my posts there will also show up here thanks to their autopost feature.