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Help I'm trapped inside the Tumblr API

Tuesday, June 09, 2009 by Dave Winer.

There's something I'm not getting here. Permalink to this paragraph

A few weeks ago I tried to get a very simple script working with the Tumblr API. I kept getting a return value that said the API was down. I waited and waited for it to come back up before finally throwing my hands up in frustration. I tried everything I could think of. Turns out this was an error in the proxy server, the API was still up. Tried some more still couldn't get it to work. Permalink to this paragraph

Today I started fresh. Got the same result. Here's the URL that I'm POSTing to. (The password is xxx'd out.) Permalink to this paragraph

Here's the response I get. Permalink to this paragraph

I really would like to get past this, so if anyone has working code could you check to see what I'm doing wrong. TIA. Permalink to this paragraph

Update: Finally got it working. The params had to be in the body of the HTTP request, and I had the wrong content type on the request. Their messages could use improvement, they sent me down the wrong path, and a page with some examples would also have saved time and embarassment (I don't mind the embarassment, but I do mind losing all that time.) Permalink to this paragraph




  
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A picture named dave.jpgDave Winer, 54, pioneered the development of weblogs, syndication (RSS), podcasting, outlining, and web content management software; former contributing editor at Wired Magazine, research fellow at Harvard Law School, entrepreneur, and investor in web media companies. A native New Yorker, he received a Master's in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a Bachelor's in Mathematics from Tulane University and currently lives in Berkeley, California.

"The protoblogger." - NY Times.

"The father of modern-day content distribution." - PC World.

One of BusinessWeek's 25 Most Influential People on the Web.

"Helped popularize blogging, podcasting and RSS." - Time.

"The father of blogging and RSS." - BBC.

"RSS was born in 1997 out of the confluence of Dave Winer's 'Really Simple Syndication' technology, used to push out blog updates, and Netscape's 'Rich Site Summary', which allowed users to create custom Netscape home pages with regularly updated data flows." - Tim O'Reilly.

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