Brad Enslen

Sun, 10 Mar 2019 07:56:10 -0500

Currently reading: Fool Moon (Dresden Files Book 2) by Jim Butcher 📚

Sun, 10 Mar 2019 05:20:31 -0500

I hate time changes.

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 09:51:48 -0500

Things I Learned Today: There is such a thing as Womens Rugby which I think is cool. Mainly because I think we need more rugby as a sport here in the USA but also because it’s another opportunity for women.

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 17:32:04 -0500

Currently reading: Storm Front (Dresden Files) by Jim Butcher 📚

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 09:45:32 -0500

“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Fountain Pens

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 07:38:33 -0500

A few years ago I got into fountain pens and experimented with them for awhile, then cleaned them up and stored them away. I don’t even remember what I have and which ones I liked. I should have kept notes.

Flashback

I think when I was in my tweens, fountain pens became popular in school. At the time you could buy a cheap Scheaffer cartridge fountain pen anywhere they sold school supplies. I used one quite a lot. I found it was better than a ballpoint for compositions because I could not write as fast with a fountain pen. This allowed me to think more about what I wanted to write.

In High School I reverted back to ballpoints, and somewhere over the years the cheap Scheaffer fountain pens disappeared from the school supply shelves at the local drug stores and super markets.

Now-ish:

Of course the Internet changed everything and niche products like fountain pens got a new, wider, life. They were available again.

I Buy a New Fountain Pen

I decided to rethink this fountain pen thing and try to define what worked for me the last time and what didn’t work. Why had I set them aside? I think I got caught up in experimenting and trying different pens and bottled ink too much. Generally for daily things that I use, the KISS model works the best.

So on this reboot: pick one pen and really use it, cartridge pen, medium nib, reasonable quality, forgiving for beginners. I bought a simple Pilot Metropolitan medium. Still made in Japan. Preliminary tests: it writes well, very smooth - it glides, even on cheap paper. The black ink is very black, dries quickly and does not bleed through too much. It writes well on index cards.

Cartridge ink is more expensive, but a lot less fuss and mess - which is probably a better choice for me. KISS.

Now I have to retrain myself how to write with a fountain pen. Again.

I’m going to use this Pilot as my exclusive fountain pen and if I stick with it, I’ll see what other cartridge fountain pens I already have that I can use, because it would be handy to have a second.

Fri, 08 Mar 2019 05:54:38 -0500

When a major company like Automattic sends you to Github to update to the next version of Simplenote for Linux you know you are screwed. Github is for coders, NOT the general public. True to my prediction, it didn’t go well.

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 19:15:42 -0500

I don’t have cable at home and rarely watch TV anyway. I had to be in a place that had Fox News on for a couple of hours. It sounded more like brain washing to me than anything.

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 18:56:54 -0500

Oatmeal, it’s for supper too.

Micro.blog Migration Adjustments

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 09:34:55 -0500

Moving back, full time to Micro.blog hosted blog from self hosted Wordpress, went far smoother than expected. For the most part the experience has been interesting.

It’s interesting to try and replicate some of the features of Wordpress on MB without having the crutch of a massive library of Wordpress plugins available, which means that for some things, like Related Posts and outside Comments one must find a third party provider and do some theme editing on MB.

Tools effect behavior and I’ve noticed some effects on me with the differences between WP and MB. Some of these are good, bad or neutral, but all are something I notice.

I post less on MB. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. On WP I had bookmarklets and browser extensions that made sharing URL’s and snippets of interesting articles to Wordpress very easy. MB has none of that so there is more friction to sharing. I find myself using the Pinboard bookmarklet much more and saving as a bookmark to Pinboard instead of sharing. That’s kinda not good.
Markdown - I had harbored thoughts of making long posts on MB in HTML. But, having learned a bit of Markdown, I use Markdown. Not good or bad, just different.
Draft Posts - I really miss being able to save half finished posts as drafts to work on later. I’m using Simplenote as my work around. I compose most everything on Simplenote and then paste to MB.
No spell check in the Web UI on MB. It’s a real pain in the rump. It is also a part of posting less in point #1 above. (If they have it, please don’t tell me that the Mac and iOS apps have spell check. That was never irritating to me until I became totally dependent on MB. Now it grates. Deeply.)
Comments from the Indieweb - one of the things I truly loved on WP and miss deeply on MB was receiving Comments and mentions from both other Indieweb equipped blogs and Twitter and the Micro.blog timeline and having them all displayed on the proper post page (after moderation.) Hopefully MB will grow into that. Soon.
No more Scud Hunts - the bad thing about WP was - WP is such a mess. Things would constantly break, which would lead to my wasting a lot of time trying to find the source of the WP breakage in a Scud Hunt. On MB all that stuff is managed and support is excellent and that is no small thing. I spend a lot less time fixing things and worrying about things on MB.
I’m still getting used to Themes Without Sidebars (one column themes).
I added a third party comment host to MB. To my surprise, it’s been used much more than I ever thought it would by three groups: a. Micro.bloggers that want to comment but don’t want the comment to appear on the MB timeline, b. Indieweb people who realize they can no longer contact me from their own blogs, c. total strangers. I added commenting, because I was leaving Facebook and some very dear friends behind and I wanted to give them a chance to comment on the off chance that they might be reading my blog blatherings. I never expected this much use, so I’m doubly glad I added comments.
Syndication: On WP I was using JetPack to syndicate to Twitter and it worked. But I think MB does a better formatting job on syndication to Twitter.
Built-in Social network: Never underestimate the value of having a really good social network intertwined with your blog. This is where Micro.blog blows away the competition. A lot of old time bloggers, back in the 00’s quit blogging not because of Twitter and Facebook, but because they got tired of having no feedback other than spam. We blog, publicly, partly for interaction and when you don’t get that occasionally it’s hard to keep talking to yourself.
Micro.blog is great for posting photographs and is easier than WP. I say this not that I think I’ve found the cure for my sideways photo syndrome. For awhile there I wasn’t sure if it was me, Android or an Essential phone problem. I think I fixed this.
Even though I’m getting used to single column themes on MB, I have to say the stock theme selection on MB is, IMHO, quite good. Limited, but quite good.
The third party “Related Posts” service I used isn’t very good at figuring out which posts are “related” to the current posts. I renamed it to “Recommended Posts” in the interest of truthiness. But, when positioned directly beneath the content, they do get used. So a few people are exploring deeper into the blog because of this.
I still have not added a third party email contact form to my MB blog because I don’t have a compelling need for it other than my conviction that it should be a standard option. But I can see that people using a Micro.blog hosted blog for business or authors, freelancers, journalists etc. blogging on MB would really want a contact form. I did put a email address up, but its encrypted so that most spambots cannot read it. Not as good as having a form though.
Markdown does not appear to have nofollow or open in new tab or window type links.
I really like the Indiepaper, read later service bookmarklet and it’s integration with Micro.blog.
I also like using Indiebookclub which Micro.blog gives me access too.

Thu, 07 Mar 2019 09:04:13 -0500

Lots of news about Amazon getting deeper into the bricks and mortar grocery business. I have not seen any mention about how this would give Amazon a new outlet for their housebrand products: paper towels, facial tissues, cleaning produacts, etc. Those are not groceries, but every supermarket carries them.

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 15:38:08 -0500

If there was a web based version of Pile of Index Cards personal database it would be a great system. Doing it manually with paper, not so much. If I sat at a desk all day it woould work better but, I mostly work from the Ultimate Command Recliner with a laptop so shifting stuff around to alternate between online and writing or typing file cards is a pain. Some sort of journal or notebook would be easier.

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 13:16:05 -0500

Acquired: Olympia SM-3 Refurbished. 1950’s

Changed Theme

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 09:15:35 -0500

Kewl. I was getting bored so I just switched my Micro.blog hosted theme from Marfa to Typewriter, which somehow seemed appropriate. Both my Related Posts and Intense Debate comments moved to the new theme. Yay. I added a DuckDuckGo site search to the Footer. That’s enough High Level Coding excitement for me today.

Eventually, I want to add a site search form somewhere in the header space but I need to figure out where and then try to find the template it should go in and where on that template it should go, so it needs some study.

Tue, 05 Mar 2019 09:01:57 -0500

Does anyone have recommendations on where to get business cards online?