Hey this is a bit weird but I tried to start blogging this year with limited success. Today I decided to revive my really crappy blogging habit after a 6m hiatus. If you’re wondering why I’m...
Hey this is a bit weird but I tried to start blogging this year with limited success. Today I decided to revive my really crappy blogging habit after a 6m hiatus.
If you’re wondering why I’m posting here, I guess my post is about the tech challenges and talks a little about the stack and tools I use for my shitty blog.
For me the blog was as much about engineering as writing.
Hey! I also wrote one of these posts a little while back. It's been a bit since I've had time for a blog post, but I have a couple that I've been meaning to write. Hopefully I'll be able to get...
Hey! I also wrote one of these posts a little while back. It's been a bit since I've had time for a blog post, but I have a couple that I've been meaning to write. Hopefully I'll be able to get one out soon!
Just subscribed via RSS, looking forward to more posts! I found the engineering side of me getting in the way between me and blogging many times. Heck, I've rebuilt my site so many times over the...
Just subscribed via RSS, looking forward to more posts!
I found the engineering side of me getting in the way between me and blogging many times. Heck, I've rebuilt my site so many times over the years!
I (think) I've finally found a system that works really well for me though, it's just barely one step above plain HTML and lets me focus on writing.
I use 11ty, which is amazing in my opinion. You can use any language (HTML, Nunjucks, Markdown, etc) and add front matter to anything (including HTML). This makes defining layouts, meta data and feeds super easy. I wrote a simple bash script to publish (runs a 11ty build and pushes up to xmit). I started using BBEdit to write because the clippings feature lets me automate adding the front matter header to articles.
I also just recently (like...minutes before posting this reply) added what I call a "mumble" page. Basically my own version of tweets, short thoughts that don't deserve an article. Wrote a bash script to easily add and publish a mumble.
I don't use my phone much, so not being able to write from it isn't a issue for me.
But anyways, all that to say, keep up the writing!
Hey love the mumble thing and I read your last blog post too. I also use net news wire ha. A lot resonates, particularly about stack paralysis and why making a mobile app is easier though I’ve...
Hey love the mumble thing and I read your last blog post too. I also use net news wire ha. A lot resonates, particularly about stack paralysis and why making a mobile app is easier though I’ve never really delved into iOS dev. I have done a little front end though.
There’s something a little more tangible and gratifying when doing front end stuff, a button is an actual button whereas in backend, you have to extrapolate and constantly figure out “what is a button, why does it click” which can be a bit exhausting.
I have a selfhosted blog using Jekyll and a simple script that generates the site as HTML and copy everything to a VPS with rsync over SSH. It works, but my personal blog I use Bear Blog as it has...
I have a selfhosted blog using Jekyll and a simple script that generates the site as HTML and copy everything to a VPS with rsync over SSH. It works, but my personal blog I use Bear Blog as it has a good balance of allowing technical customization and make it simpler to just write and publish. Which make me write on that blog more. I admit that tinkering with various static site generators is half the fun, but I tend to lose interest in actual writing once I got everything working.
Oh thanks, I didn’t know about bear blog (or actually I came across it a few years back and then repressed the memory for some reason). I might have a go at using this instead of mkdocs !
Oh thanks, I didn’t know about bear blog (or actually I came across it a few years back and then repressed the memory for some reason). I might have a go at using this instead of mkdocs !
I like the style of you blog, it's nice and clean. One thing that I'm missing is a date for the posts, things tend to move quite fast so being able to tell when the post was made can give a lot of...
I like the style of you blog, it's nice and clean. One thing that I'm missing is a date for the posts, things tend to move quite fast so being able to tell when the post was made can give a lot of context.
I just finished migrating my old pure HTML/CSS blog to directly generate it using markdown with Hugo.
I can relate to the feelings on your post; not having things to say or write about. Or having tens of half-baked posts and stubs which I guess I'll never finish. Personally, I try not to worry about it. I like writing and will (probably) return to it from time to time.
I really like how you've set up your blog! Love the collapsible side menu. I didn't build mine from scratch which is very admirable, but I started blogging on Bear very recently. I'm very new to...
I really like how you've set up your blog! Love the collapsible side menu. I didn't build mine from scratch which is very admirable, but I started blogging on Bear very recently. I'm very new to blogging. I've used WordPress before, haven't used Git, use Markdown in Obsidian. It's where I write my posts before I copy-paste them into Bear which supports Markdown.
I've posted almost every other day for the past month, which is more consistent than any other publishing I've done outside of any writing done for work. I write pretty much daily, but it was still difficult to pick what to blog about until I decided that I should stop limiting myself to a single topic. Most of the posts are what I'd send really long messages to a friend about, but now they're public-facing instead. I don't think of it as a habit, that word creates expectations for me that I don't live up to. I think of it as an experiment with a variable posting schedule, and the only thing I track is whether I'm enjoying the process.
The editor is actually pretty nice but I haven’t used it extensively. Mostly inspecting stuff and modifying the odd word. I’ve often searched for a good code editor on iOS but my favourite so far...
The editor is actually pretty nice but I haven’t used it extensively. Mostly inspecting stuff and modifying the odd word.
I’ve often searched for a good code editor on iOS but my favourite so far is Pythonista (but it’s a little opinionated about what you’re developing as the name suggests).
I rarely blog now. I think Facebook's editor make it easy to write wall of text, compared to my self hosted WordPress blog where I need to upgrade it to latest version and syndicate posts. I'm not...
I rarely blog now. I think Facebook's editor make it easy to write wall of text, compared to my self hosted WordPress blog where I need to upgrade it to latest version and syndicate posts. I'm not sure about the engagement on Facebook vs. my blog because some people had told me they read my blog-like Facebook post but didn't drop a like so I don't have the engagement metrics.
The other thing Facebook does well is I could more casually write about in-progress project, rather than summarizing my experience with a project.
My Facebook posts are friends only. I had to do that almost a decade ago where a few "tech influencers" were ridiculed by the Thai tech community as they write bad contents like optimizing an SQL project to make it way faster (by removing correctness!), bad crypto advice and now performance review by ChatGPT. Now when I blog every other paragraphs probably has a link as I had to fact check a lot of things in the blog - just in case it become viral and people start correcting me.
I'm planning that I might revamp the blog soon, but personal projects are very low on my hobby list nowadays as I don't like maintaining software. The current idea is that I add a public folder to my Obsidian vault. A software regenerate public facing pages from the folder. It could also be both blog-like or wiki-like where there's a listing of blog pages but the blog pages can link to other unindexed pages. My previous idea was to rebuild the blog in Gemini (the protocol) and have the web version be a Gemini client. I built a Gemini protocol server, but that's where I lose interest.
Hey this is a bit weird but I tried to start blogging this year with limited success. Today I decided to revive my really crappy blogging habit after a 6m hiatus.
If you’re wondering why I’m posting here, I guess my post is about the tech challenges and talks a little about the stack and tools I use for my shitty blog.
For me the blog was as much about engineering as writing.
Does anyone here blog ?
Any tips/tricks and stack discussion welcomed.
Cheers,
R
Hey! I also wrote one of these posts a little while back. It's been a bit since I've had time for a blog post, but I have a couple that I've been meaning to write. Hopefully I'll be able to get one out soon!
Just subscribed via RSS, looking forward to more posts!
I found the engineering side of me getting in the way between me and blogging many times. Heck, I've rebuilt my site so many times over the years!
I (think) I've finally found a system that works really well for me though, it's just barely one step above plain HTML and lets me focus on writing.
I use 11ty, which is amazing in my opinion. You can use any language (HTML, Nunjucks, Markdown, etc) and add front matter to anything (including HTML). This makes defining layouts, meta data and feeds super easy. I wrote a simple bash script to publish (runs a 11ty build and pushes up to xmit). I started using BBEdit to write because the clippings feature lets me automate adding the front matter header to articles.
I also just recently (like...minutes before posting this reply) added what I call a "mumble" page. Basically my own version of tweets, short thoughts that don't deserve an article. Wrote a bash script to easily add and publish a mumble.
I don't use my phone much, so not being able to write from it isn't a issue for me.
But anyways, all that to say, keep up the writing!
Hey love the mumble thing and I read your last blog post too. I also use net news wire ha. A lot resonates, particularly about stack paralysis and why making a mobile app is easier though I’ve never really delved into iOS dev. I have done a little front end though.
There’s something a little more tangible and gratifying when doing front end stuff, a button is an actual button whereas in backend, you have to extrapolate and constantly figure out “what is a button, why does it click” which can be a bit exhausting.
Thanks for checking the site out!
Completely agree, it's always felt like being one step closer to the user for me.
I have a selfhosted blog using Jekyll and a simple script that generates the site as HTML and copy everything to a VPS with rsync over SSH. It works, but my personal blog I use Bear Blog as it has a good balance of allowing technical customization and make it simpler to just write and publish. Which make me write on that blog more. I admit that tinkering with various static site generators is half the fun, but I tend to lose interest in actual writing once I got everything working.
Oh thanks, I didn’t know about bear blog (or actually I came across it a few years back and then repressed the memory for some reason). I might have a go at using this instead of mkdocs !
I like the style of you blog, it's nice and clean. One thing that I'm missing is a date for the posts, things tend to move quite fast so being able to tell when the post was made can give a lot of context.
I just finished migrating my old pure HTML/CSS blog to directly generate it using markdown with Hugo.
I can relate to the feelings on your post; not having things to say or write about. Or having tens of half-baked posts and stubs which I guess I'll never finish. Personally, I try not to worry about it. I like writing and will (probably) return to it from time to time.
I really like how you've set up your blog! Love the collapsible side menu. I didn't build mine from scratch which is very admirable, but I started blogging on Bear very recently. I'm very new to blogging. I've used WordPress before, haven't used Git, use Markdown in Obsidian. It's where I write my posts before I copy-paste them into Bear which supports Markdown.
I've posted almost every other day for the past month, which is more consistent than any other publishing I've done outside of any writing done for work. I write pretty much daily, but it was still difficult to pick what to blog about until I decided that I should stop limiting myself to a single topic. Most of the posts are what I'd send really long messages to a friend about, but now they're public-facing instead. I don't think of it as a habit, that word creates expectations for me that I don't live up to. I think of it as an experiment with a variable posting schedule, and the only thing I track is whether I'm enjoying the process.
It looks like Working Copy is an iOS app for GitHub with a built-in text editor. How do you like the editor?
The editor is actually pretty nice but I haven’t used it extensively. Mostly inspecting stuff and modifying the odd word.
I’ve often searched for a good code editor on iOS but my favourite so far is Pythonista (but it’s a little opinionated about what you’re developing as the name suggests).
Mostly code editing on iOS is a nightmare.
I rarely blog now. I think Facebook's editor make it easy to write wall of text, compared to my self hosted WordPress blog where I need to upgrade it to latest version and syndicate posts. I'm not sure about the engagement on Facebook vs. my blog because some people had told me they read my blog-like Facebook post but didn't drop a like so I don't have the engagement metrics.
The other thing Facebook does well is I could more casually write about in-progress project, rather than summarizing my experience with a project.
My Facebook posts are friends only. I had to do that almost a decade ago where a few "tech influencers" were ridiculed by the Thai tech community as they write bad contents like optimizing an SQL project to make it way faster (by removing correctness!), bad crypto advice and now performance review by ChatGPT. Now when I blog every other paragraphs probably has a link as I had to fact check a lot of things in the blog - just in case it become viral and people start correcting me.
I'm planning that I might revamp the blog soon, but personal projects are very low on my hobby list nowadays as I don't like maintaining software. The current idea is that I add a public folder to my Obsidian vault. A software regenerate public facing pages from the folder. It could also be both blog-like or wiki-like where there's a listing of blog pages but the blog pages can link to other unindexed pages. My previous idea was to rebuild the blog in Gemini (the protocol) and have the web version be a Gemini client. I built a Gemini protocol server, but that's where I lose interest.