You know it’s a strong front when the aircraft radar looks like this. Note lack of planes on left and long line of planes headed north around the storm.
Not a meteorologist, but that sure seems like a remarkable boundary across the whole front currently heading my way.
Today I got to help my 9 year old with geometry homework and my 14 year old with a loan analysis in Excel. Yep, it’s been a great day. 🤓
I documented the Wordpress plugins I adopted in January when I started shooting for IndieWeb adoption and started my microblogging journey. It seems to work pretty well but give this post a read if you want to see what I did or are willing to educate me on what to change.
My IndieWeb-ish Wordpress Setup
I’ve seen a fair amount of discussion about using Wordpress in a IndieWeb fashion[footnote title=“…”]Much of the below will probably sound like gibberish if you are unfamiliar with IndieWeb[/footnote]. I set up my self-hosted Wordpress site in January and for my own benefit I thought I’d document the Plugins I’m using. I’d also be interested in feedback on how I could improve it. I really had no idea what I was doing when I set this up.
Plugins I Set up Specifically for IndieWeb
- Activate Update Services
- This plugin carries a warning that it has not been tested with the past 3 major Wordpress versions. My blog is hosted on my multisite Wordpress installation which for some unknown reason removes the ability to configure a host to ping. See this for reference.
- Disable Emojis
- Probably bad form to start the list with one that is arguably not IndieWeb oriented but totally required. In spite of the name what this plugin does is enable real emojis in Wordpress posts (otherwise Wordpress replaces emojis with crappy images that look like they were created 20 years ago or so)
- IndieAuth
- I installed this so I have the option of posting from Quill. It turns my Wordpress into an IndieAuth authorization endpoint. I recently listened to a podcast from David Shanske about this.
- IndieWeb
- Helps you establish your IndieWeb identity by extending the user profile to provide rel-me and h-card fields and optionally adding widgets to display these. It also links to a number of other useful plugins (you can choose if you want any of those or not).
- JetPack
- Another plugin that is arguably not IndieWeb related but properly processing markdown syntax is mandatory IMO and this does it well. It has a ton of other features that I don’t use.
- Micropub
- I installed this to enable Quill. It implements the open API standard that is used to create posts on one’s own domain using third-party clients.
- Semantic-Linkbacks
- Does just what the name implies: it provides semantic linkbacks for WebMentions, Trackbacks and Pingbacks
- WebMention
- Another plugin that does what it says adding WebMention support to Wordpress
- WebSub/PubSubHubbub
- An implementation of the WebHub spec for letting the world know when my blog is updated.
- XML-RPC OC (I got directly from Colin Walker)
- Without this plugin posts sent to my blog via XML-RPC can’t be commented on. The OC stands for “Open Comments” which is exactly what it does
Other Plugins I’m Using
- Aksimet Anti-spam (pretty standard)
- Broken Link Checker
- I installed this when I imported posts from one of my old Wordpress sites and wanted to try to clean up or remove broken links in those posts[footnote title=“…”]there were a lot[/footnote]. I’ve left it running. I may disable it soon because it generates false alerts.
- Inline Footnotes
- I use this to include asides, snide comments, or additional detail on longer blog posts without cluttering up the main flow of the text. There are a couple in this post.
- Ultimate Category Excluder
- This plugin allows me to identify certain post types that should not be published outside my blog. E.g. a post with an excluded category won’t be sent to Micro.blog or Twitter. For my longer posts[footnote title=“…”]like this one[/footnote] I prefer to hand-craft and post a separate short/micro-blog entry letting folks know.
- UpdraftPlus - Backup/Restore (free version)
- Backs up my Wordpress files to the Cloud
- Wordfence Security (free version)
- Provides a level of protection for the site as well as notifications of suspicious activity.
Thank heavens for this. Nokia completely screwed up the associated applications and never managed to fix them. Yet another example of a big company taking over a small one and promptly ruining it.
Nokia is selling its Health business back to the former owner
I had forgotten High Sierra’s APFS brought file system snapshots with it (they’re pretty invisible in usage). Today’s Carbon Copy Cloner release adds support for them + visibility.
N.B: if your disaster recovery process doesn’t include CCC you might be doing it wrong.
@Sergio_101 @macgenie loved Monday’s episode. Fascinating people here.
I really wish I could go to my page of folks I follow and then click on one to include in a message I post. Some handles are a bit tough to remember.
Could this be of any use with Sunlit?
Printed, framed and hung a couple of the free NASA posters in my study today. Really like these designs.
I joined Micro.blog in January. A lot has changed for the better since then. At first I was running into issues in both the apps and with the backend pretty frequently. More recently I’m finding both to be very solid. I think @manton has really done a great job in a short time.
A speculative piece but interesting. I tend to think any update this year will be minor (up to and including a revised keyboard).
The MacBook Pro we’ve all been waiting for might not launch this year – BGR
When are new MacBook Pros expected? From what I’ve read, not at WWDC (only a cheaper one there). I’m planning to upgrade mine this year but want to hold off until the next gen comes out.
Waiting in the Middle School cafeteria while our 9 year old goes through advanced testing. It’s as quiet as a library in here.
iPod Family Portrait (-1)
[gallery ids=“1368,1369,” type=“rectangular”]
On the left is the disk-based 20GB model, on the right is the memory-based 30GB model. My iPod Shuffle (USB stick) isn’t pictured. The Music folder on my MBP is only 1.5GB (it has copies of my faves, but I do stream a fair amount as well). In terms of capacity these are still viable.
In which I discuss Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Micro.blog options: My social media conversion
My social media conversion status
- I no longer use the web UI or Tweetbot
- My profile now only contains a link to my site's About page
- I've unfollowed most people/companies here and instead have the ones I most care about hooked into Feedbin.
- I think I'll stop cross-posting soon and stopped posting directly several weeks ago
- I've asked several companies to make their important tweets available via RSS feeds. We'll see.
- I no longer post anything to FB
- I left most groups including the Mac Power User's Podcast group. If they ever switch to a more traditional forum system I'd be interested.
- ...but I still have to check the app periodically since the schools and HOA communicate over FB and a few family members post news as well
- I've stopped posting here
- If there was an ability to cross post out of the box I might do that selectively but I am not willing to put any effort into it
- I've un-followed many accounts but still check in periodically
Flickr
- I used to be a heavy user. If they restore it as a viable social media option with a photography slant I'd be interested.
Last but not least Micro.blog
- I'm on the cross-posting plan as some of the limitations of their hosting and apps remain a significant issue for me - I'm hosting my own Wordpress site
- That said, I'm quite happy with the community. I'll lose contact with a number of folks as part of the transition from the other platforms but I'm focusing here for social type interactions. It's worth it.
- Very happy that Manton no longer sees the world as flat (i.e. square photos bias)
I had forgotten how good Torchy’s Tacos breakfast tacos are. Hard to beat price too at $4 including coffee. If there is one near you I recommend trying it out. (TX, OK, CO locations). Ours opens at 7am.
Being lazy now: watching Real Madrid vs Bayern and the rain falling outside. ⚽️ 📺 ☔️
We have many comfy chairs & sofas in our house. But my son loves to nestle on the floor between the sofa, Fishman guitar amp, Keter toolbox of electronic parts and the desk in my study. I vaguely recall thinking laying on the floor was comfortable.
@macgenie @RosemaryOrchard @kitt Just had a chance to catch up on the two Micro Monday casts. The format is great and I enjoyed learning about you.
I thought this could be of interest to fellow Micro.blog’ers.
Seems inevitable that a nation-state will take out a chunk of the Internet at a time that suits them. There probably isn’t even a “launch” protocol for that switch, unlike ICBMs. A rogue could trigger it.
Suspicious event hijacks Amazon traffic for 2 hours, steals cryptocurrency
XCode project status: Source Control->Discard All Changes 🙃