2024
Huh… the web site field in my MB profile got changed without my input or notice; /activitypub/SimonWoods was added to the URL somehow.
Firefox now supports creating and using passkeys stored in the iCloud Keychain on macOS.
WIP post: “Why Micro.blog does more than you think, with less than you remember, whilst maintaining credibility against the established destructive trend of online publishing.”
It’s not a snappy title, I’ll admit.
Maybe I’m just an old man but I find announcements for exclusive software to be much less interesting than I had in the past.
Reminders has been dog-shit for me lately, so: Reminders -> Due for my non-shared tasks. Instantly better.
Terrible performance from Reminders might be because I’m using a less-powerful device, however if the tiny indie who makes Due can get it right then what are the excuses people have for Apple.
Not only do I want to build a Micro.blog browser extension; I want it to include whatever that function is in which you can use third-party features when right-clicking a page.
I especially want to highlight text and have the “Quote on Micro.blog” option to be immediately available near the cursor.
Per the awesome new feature for MB, I am immediately using this for TIL. Will be included in the next Orchid update along with another recent addition to the platform.
I love it when an idea I am going to implement becomes much easier thanks to improvements made by Manton and co.
The brand new One Page feature for Micro.blog is pretty fucking sweet.
Added an OPML export option for who you’re following, under Posts → “…” → Export. Finally! This is slightly incomplete because Micro.blog attempts to exclude feeds that look semi-private. We’ll continue to improve this. There is also a fediverse CSV export under Account → View Fediverse Details.
🙌
I’ll soon be checking the different platforms for their export capabilities, as part of research for TIL. It’ll be interesting to see which platform, if any, has a comprehensive offering of this feature.
I’ve been on the web for over twenty years and my brain still struggles to think of bread as “a biscuit”.
I continue to struggle with the limit-less nature of the MB timeline. Moving through paragraphs of text intermingled with columns of photographs isn’t my preferred scrolling experience.
However; “Read more” links and side-scrolling widgets often feel… fragile? So idk. A tough nut to crack.
Replies vs Conversation on Micro.blog
A new feature on Micro.blog inspired a discussion over what I think of as the ongoing friction caused by the dual nature of the platform as a paid blogging host, with free(ish) social network attached.
My reply got longer than I like to see in my own timeline so here we go…
The reason I would prefer to use a different label is that it helps me maintain a sense of place, to be aware of the context. To me:
- Conversation = timeline
- Replies = blog
(Edit: actually, this makes sense now that I’ve written it out. Conversation works because that’s where the link goes. My question now is: why is there a link to the timeline mixed in with my blog posts?
Maybe this would be easier to understand if Conversation.js was better equipped as a commenting system.)
This tripped me up because it appears to be an ongoing issue; I regularly see lots of people struggle with these ideas and there is no apparent proof of intent from the design side of things — what’s the idea, why was it done that way, will it change over time, how much does feedback matter in these decisions, etc —and I wonder if these choices add to the uncertainty and difficulty? I’m probably over-thinking it.
I went to one MB meet-up about analogue tools and now I’m wondering if I could fit a writing desk into this house.