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Markdown Editors Shootout: Support for Tables, Footnotes, Strikethrough

We use Markdown everywhere at Foliovision as our main project management software Teamwork offers excellent Markdown support. For some of our internal documents we desperately need tables. This was preventing us from switching everything to Markdown. I'd heard there was decent support for tables in Markdown but trying to edit Markdown tables long hand was not fun at all. This is what Markdown tables look like as plain text:

| Application - Markdown Support | Active | Preview | Price     | Non-app store version | Writing Experience | Footnotes | Strikethrough | | ------------------------------ | :----: | :-----: | --------: | :-------------------: | :----------------: | --------- | ------------- | | Typora                         | Superb |   Yes   | Free Beta |          Yes          |        ++++        | Weak      | Two Tildes    | | TableIt                        |  Yes   |   Yes   |       $19 |          Yes          |        N/A         | N/A       | N/A           | | Marked 2                       |   No   |   Yes   |       $10 |          Yes          |        N/A         | Yes       | Yes, GFM      | | BBEdit/TextWrangler            |  Yes   |   No    |  $50/free |          Yes          |         ++         | No        | No            |

So I went looking for a Markdown editor which supported tables well for my team. In the process I discovered a lot about Markdown and even editing. I invite you to join me on my journey. As I use OS X and most of our team does as well (we have some Linux and a few Windows users: we have fewer people using Windows than Linux at this point), this article focuses on OS X Markdown editors. Our overall winner is a cross-platform application (OS X , Windows, Linux) built on HTML5 technology and we do cover other Windows Markdown editors at the end of the article.

Keep reading Markdown Editors Shootout: Support for Tables, Footnotes, Strikethrough

Youth

Spring.

That time of the year when you're walking through sunlit streets, the birds are singing and you don't need a scarf anymore. But there's so much more to spring than just the warmer weather. Spring feels like a new chapter, where everything starts waking up - the trees, the animals, but also your will to be more creative and more loving.

And in this recent week, we started to feel it. We think the spring is finally here.

Keep reading Youth

ExoClick Ads Now Supported by FV Player

ExoClick is one of the largest and fastest growing online advertising networks. Based in sunny Barcelona, ExoClick provides ads for 2.4% of the web, making it the 4th largest for websites in the world (according to W3Techs). Our clients have asked for an easy way of using ExoClick with WordPress, so we have delivered a smooth, Flowplayer based solution. From now on, all the owners of the Pro license can use ads from this network in their videos. 

ExoClick offers advertisers and publishers over 20 ad formats and detailed statistical data with several options to customize the tracking of their performance. Creating a Publisher profile (the one you need to serve ads with your videos) is free and you don't have to fill in any payment data until the point when you want to be paid.

Keep reading ExoClick Ads Now Supported by FV Player

Stop Hitting Yourself, Twitter

Twitter has 99 problems and UX is one of them. The roles of Advanced Search, Analytics and Moments in its ecosystem are uncertain. Therefore, using them is complicated and confusing. In this blog post I am looking at each feature, its malfunctions and how they can be improved. Feel free to join the discussion.

I am not sure whether it is worth anything to complain about Twitter. At this point, it seems like talking to a brick wall (not that wall). The company's financial results are as disappointing as is the average engagement. Yet, little has been done to overturn this.

Jan Rezab, the founder of Socialbakers, suggests pre-filtered feeds for sports, news, etc (this is something Facebook has been contemplating over the last year under the name 'Trending Topics'). He is also against the notion the company should sell - because there's so much room for improvement. And indeed, there is.

Keep reading Stop Hitting Yourself, Twitter

Irocku.com & Chuck Leavell are changing the way music is taught

Give Twinkle, twinkle little star a rest. Learn Honky Tonk women instead.

If you want to learn how to do something, you want to learn from the best. And who better to learn how to play the piano from than the man himself - Chuck Leavell. Chuck doesn't need an introduction, but it would be a sin not to mention his rich music career.

There aren't that many musicians out there who can say that they've played with The Rolling Stones, The Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Chuck Berry, Train, John Mayer. And now you can have that musician teach you how to play rock piano.

Chuck Leavell joined the legendary Allman Brothers Band in the early 70's. In 1973 they released the ultimate classic Brothers and Sisters album featuring what's one of the rock instrumental masterpieces - Jessica. The solo on Jessica was what launched Chuck Leavell into rock'n'roll stardom.

Keep reading Irocku.com & Chuck Leavell are changing the way music is taught

Pretty Far North

Swedish filmmaker Michael Johansson creates videos with his production company Pictionary Productions. Working for clients like Volvo or Ikea, more than 150 million people worldwide has seen their colourful and inspiring images. 

Keep reading Pretty Far North

How to create video subtitles using Youtube

If content is the king, video is the queen. Although, it seems that the queen has some serious aspirations to take the king’s place. Video became everything everyone wants these days.

According to CISCO, video will account for 75 per cent of all consumer internet traffic in 2017 and that number will only continue to rise into the year 2020. 

Let’s take Facebook for example. If you publish a written update or a link to your blog post on your Facebook page, you will be unpleasantly surprised by how many people have actually seen your update. But if you turn your post into an image or you go even further and create a video out of it, you will most definitely increase the reach of the message.

Keep reading How to create video subtitles using Youtube

FV Player Pro’s Update: All Beta Features Now Available for Everyone

We always listen to our users when it comes to improving our player. Many great features now available to everyone were made that way. However, adding a new feature as fast as possible has it's downside - it might not be stable. Therefore, a few months back we allowed FV Player Pro users to switch to Beta version, which gave them the option to use the stable release, while allowing the early adopters to get their hands on some exciting new technology.

In the recent few months we have implemented a couple of amazing features to our player, but they were only available in the Beta mode. Until now! After a lots of testing, the FV Player Pro 0.8 update will incorporate all of the features into the core Release version for everyone to enjoy. Below is the list of the awesome new features you can look forward to!

Keep reading FV Player Pro's Update: All Beta Features Now Available for Everyone

Lil Buck at Fondation Louis Vuitton

Andrew Margetson is an award winning director from London. His work is recognized for its unique style combining movement and choreography with photographic excellence.

Last year, Andy made a short film commissioned by Nowness with Memphis-born jookin’ dancer Lil Buck. We at Foliovision believe that dance speaks louder than words and it can really move you - physically and emotionally! That’s why when we saw Lil Buck effortlessly moving through the halls of the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, we were sold. 

Keep reading Lil Buck at Fondation Louis Vuitton

The best Pandora client for OS X: Hermes

As some may remember, my favourite music service is Pandora (Deezer used to be a close second until they removed the "Hear This" feature). I listen to a lot of new music and discovery is important to me. That doesn't mean I want to explore a lot of genres I hate. There's a lot of good music in the world (in the sense of appealing to me) and I'd like to spend as much of my life as possible discovering those artists who will change my life for the better.

Pandora gets you there faster than anyone else. I'm currently listening to Carla Bruni radio. I only like Ms. Bruni's music about a 7 out of 10 but Pandora offers a mainly French female singer diet (way too much Ella Fitzgerald at first), leading me to discover four or five artists I didn't know. Pandora is also low-maintenance (it keeps playing without requiring adjusting playlists) and lets you tune your channels to your own tastes (no more Ella Fitzgerald much less Bossa Nova, lots more Indila, Andrea Lindsay, Thievery Corporation and Coeur de Pirate).

Keep reading The best Pandora client for OS X: Hermes

Lars Schneider

Lars Schneider is an outdoor photographer and videographer. Coming from Hamburg, Germany, he has been traveling, exploring and working all around the world for more than ten years.

This week, we have chosen Lars because his work presents a great variety of outdoor sports from backpacking to kayaking, freeriding, skitouring and snowshoeing, to mountainbiking, yoga, trail running and bike touring. With an eye for beauty, he is wild at heart and strives for authenticity in life. 

Keep reading Lars Schneider

What GitHub brings to open source development

Recently we struggled with a difficult issue in WordPress Multisite. We take care of a network of sports weblogs. Each is for a different sport and not all the domain names sound the same.

We have a master install at say worldrecords.org (sample name, not our client's site). Logins only are SSL and all take place at worldrecords.org. An account at any site gets you access to all the sites. Hence login and password takes place at the master domain. Most visitors are not even aware of the domain switch during login.

When people would lose their password, the password reset email would not come from skatinggolds.org or lugegolds.org but from worldrecords.org. Many people would not recognise the domain and would delete the email without clicking and finishing the password reset. Worse yet the email might be considered spam by spam filters.

Keep reading What GitHub brings to open source development

Building a better WordPress Post Editor

There's been a lot of talk and writing about radically revamping WordPress edit experience since the New Year. It's great that the conversation has been started and many strong ideas have been shared. Matt Mullenweg kicked off the discussion on 4 January with a Coleridgian description of a new editor. Like Kubla Khan's "stately pleasure-dome", the new editor should be a "miracle of rare device".

The editor will endeavour to create a new page and post building experience that makes writing rich posts effortless, and has “blocks” to make it easy what today might take shortcodes, custom HTML, or “mystery meat” embed discovery.

Any "post building experience" which aspires to make "writing rich posts effortless" has my full attention. What should this experience look like in practical terms?

Keep reading Building a better WordPress Post Editor

Symphony of the Night

“Moonlight disappears down the hills, mountains vanish into fog and I vanish into poetry.” - Sanober Khan

Slovak filmmaker Vladimír Šifra is remembering his roots and captures beauty of our beloved mountains, Tatras, for the whole world to see. 

Keep reading Symphony of the Night

Stealing videos: can publishers stop video download theft? Honestly no. But neither can Netflix nor Google.

Many of our clients ask us: "How can I protect my videos from people downloading or stealing them?" The answer is unfortunately very short: you can't. No matter how strong of an encryption you use for streaming, or how many other layers of protection you use, if anyone can play your videos, your videos can be stolen. In most cases, users can just download them. Google's Widevine DRM was a breakthrough in this area and is widely used, most famously by Netflix. Widevine works in recent Chrome, Opera and Firefox.

But just stopping people from downloading your videos isn't enough. A user can just record and recompress your vide, a.k.a. screen capture or screen recording.. It's a bit more work, but modern tools and powerful computers make video encoding and re-encoding easier. The free ffmpeg libraries are available to all open source projects. Or, you can just use a screen capturing software. 

But there are ways to protect my videos from screen capturing, aren't they?

Keep reading Stealing videos: can publishers stop video download theft? Honestly no. But neither can Netflix nor Google.

Milanote: Alternative to Evernote

Evernote caused an earthquake last year with changes to their beloved freemium model. Many users were forced to pay if they wanted to keep using the app on more than two devices and enjoy storage space larger than 60MB/per month. I was one of those who accepted the changes (with a bitter face), but not long after the company raised the pricing again. By then, Microsoft OneNote was promoting its free product and Evernote migration tool. I was convinced, but never very happy about the OneNote's organization, and UI/UX. 

I stumbled upon Milanote earlier today. It is not officially released yet, but after signing up for e-mail notification once it is out I was given the option to get on beta testing. All I had to do was tell them how I plan to use the app, and what similar app I can think of in a Typeform. Done and I was in (love).

Keep reading Milanote: Alternative to Evernote

Parfaittitude

“Through synergy of intellect, artistry and grace came into existence the blessing of a dancer.”

Bringing different materials to life, Slovak designer Marcel Holubec W. makes you feel through fashion. Putting his heart and soul in every piece, you are going to want this deposition of him in your wardrobe.

Keep reading Parfaittitude

How FV Player Helped Devin Shawn Launch His Video Platform

Devin Shawn studied accounting and was doing other people's taxes for years. After realizing that he really wasn’t happy working behind a computer and looking at spreadsheets all day, he decided that he won’t be the next Public accounting superstar. But coming across WordPress and the FV player, Devin thought that he could give that whole superstar thing another shot.

At that time he was already playing the guitar for about 18 years. He started with classic rock and blues guitar riffs on an old Stratocaster and it wasn’t long before he discovered his passion for playing country music:

When I first got into country music, one of my favorite artists was Brad Paisley. I just remember hearing his guitar solos and being blown away by his creativity and speed on the guitar.

Keep reading How FV Player Helped Devin Shawn Launch His Video Platform

3 New Tricks For Tracking Videos with Google Analytics

There's no such thing as a free lunch. But if you don't mind to giving up your commercial data in exchange for free services, Google Analytics is the closest thing to free lunch. This kind of granular tracking used to cost $500/website per month before Google acquired Urchin and gradually rolled out its free analytics based on Urchin's technology.

Google Analytics doesn't just work for html content. It's possible to build hooks into video technology which allows Analytics to report back in depth on who is watching how much of your video. We have described how to do it with FV Player in our guide Using Google Analytics with FV Player some time ago. Now it has been updated with a couple of neat new tricks, that will make your life a lot easier.

1. Tracking errors

It's now easy to track errors. This allows you to quickly correct any issues. You will know if someone tried to watch a video two days ago and it failed to load on his or her iPad.

Keep reading 3 New Tricks For Tracking Videos with Google Analytics

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