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I had built a pretty good habit of writing and using the blog as my primary source of commentary, but a glitch (I think, which this post is partly to debug said issue) slowed me down using micropub, the holy grail of being able to post first here and syndicate to social media. Coupled with the easy trap of using Twitter, and here I am.

This is my personal reminder the work I put into this site is about owning my voice and words, and to find the time to reduce the friction to do so. Also, to share that experience so that others can do the same.

In a longer discussion about the recent pitch by Medium to content creators to move to their platform and options for new companies to build a site on, this nugget on whether Jekyll is an option:

Only usable by developers. About as accessible as improv Klingon slam poetry to anybody else.

– Baldur Bjarnason

In my ever revolving attempt to reboot my blog, one thing that has always slowed me down was my concern with being too esoteric in my topics. I want to talk about food, technology and everything in between.

However, if I want to build any readership (isn’t that a part of blogging, sharing your thoughts with others?) I can’t be mixing in posts about forays into Python with posts about cooking vegetables sous-vide. Sure, there might be a readership that is interested in both topics as I am, but not enough to say “screw it.” So as I continue to work towards a true indieweb, I’m pivoting a bit in my approach and will use this as domain, now 11 years old, as my base identifier and central clearing house. I’ve acquired several domains, 2 of which will be good to split the topics. Those too will be static Jekyll built sites, with links from this site to new posts.

Certainly this is more me thinking out loud and putting it out there, as I intend for this domain to be, but my goal is to continue to do such here, rather than bottle up my thoughts in my head.

In my never ending quest to make this site all things “miklb”, one of the goals of the IndieWeb is to POSSE, that is, Publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere. Breaking the habit of using Twitter without posting first on my site is going to be a hard one, but it’s a goal. While debates rage about extending character counts to 10,000 words, if we only were to use our blog for long form thoughts and link back to Twitter, this wouldn’t be an issue. Consider this an exercise in

I have been researching and thinking seriously about moving away from database driven blog engines to static file blogging for quite awhile. My extensive research has me convinced for my ideal workflow, Jekyll will be the answer—except for my goal to somewhat easily blog from my phone. All of the front matter could be handled by TextExpander snippets or custom keyboard shortcuts in Drafts or Editorial. The issue has been that with an iOS device, you are basically confined to using Dropbox or iCloud for the text/markdown files. Wanting to keep everything in a Git repo under version control, I hadn’t found a way to automagically push a Dropbox file to a Git repo without having an always on machine at home using some listening app like Hazel to do this. While that isn’t out of the question, I want something straight from the device.

Extensive Googling finally led me to Zappier. Similar to IFTTT, they have a Github/Dropbox workflow that allows you to send a pull request to Github when a new file is added to a directory in Dropbox. And while if I was simply using Github pages to host a Jekyll site, that would be the end to a simple solution.

However, I still want to host my own data on my own VPS (more on that later). Enter Jekyll Hook, which, while not seemingly for the faint of heart, allows one to run their own “Github Pages” on their own server.

So, while all untested at this point, on paper it seems I can have a dedicated Dropbox folder synced with an iOS editor that when a markdown file is saved to it, Zapier will attempt to send a pull request and merge it to a Github hosted repo of my blog [footnote, possibly need to have iOS app to approve pull request but option is in the recipe for the workflow. I assume it will work save for any previous files by same name causing a merge conflict]. From that, the Jekyll Hook script/solution will fire and rebuild the the site, all without leaving the convenience of my iOS device.

Potential magic I tell you.

My work life has prevented me from doing anything much related to online life, or writing much in general. That however doesn’t mean that during the hundreds of miles a day I’ve been driving that I don’t think about it. While catching up on my RSS feeds, this post from the Pastry Box, You don’t have time for perfection sums up a lot of why I didn’t use it more when I actually did web development.

I’ve had enough of maybe-later, of I’m too busy right now, of after I’m done with this. I’ll be publishing anything I think others will benefit from. Ten non-perfect pieces are better than zero wannabe-perfect ones.

Perhaps from where I’m sitting, it won’t always be what I think others might benefit from, rather a benefit to me. Be it saving a snippet of code for posterity (which could benefit others), reflecting on a moment or just sharing thoughts about a band. Anything to have it centralized and outside the walls of Facebook, Twitter and the like. …you’ve heard this before. I’m going to try to use this damn blog more. I’ve been tweaking it behind the scenes in my rare spare time the last couple of months, and I think I’ve gotten enough of what I want to be able to use this little corner of the web as it was intended–my digital hub. While i have found myself using Facebook more and more due to keeping tabs on IRL friends, I’ve used Twitter less and less due to a busy schedule and finding it difficult to follow conversations. I’d love to find an interface that made it easy to see all of the accounts I follow and put them into lists (does that exist on twitter.com?), in the mean time, I simply want to start collecting everything back here and sharing it to social media as I see fit.
I’ll have a lot more to say in the coming days, but suffice to say once again things are wonky/broken around here. I am sporting a nice new look that I completely fell in love with, compliments of Mark Otto. I’m porting his theme to Habari and will write more about that soon too.

Here’s to kicking 2014 off on the right foot.

I have been lamenting on whether or not I wanted to bring back my old content or start completely from scratch. I’d been leaning towards starting over, but today in Habari IRC channel, someone linked to their blog on the Wayback Machine, which led me to checking this blog. My earliest records are sans any theme. I’m not sure what determined what got cached visually, but the earliest version of this site that includes design got me feeling nostalgic about having had this site active off and on for almost 8 years. Between that old theme and this one I think I will work out bringing back the old content.

For reference, I’ve been running on Habari since September 2008, never looking back.

I have had this draft sitting around for awhile, but in the last two days I’ve seen the word “blog” used incorrectly several times, and decided to dust this off and publish it.

You have a blog. When writing for this web log, you are blogging, “I think I’m going to blog about the movie we saw last night”, I blogged about how I built the best mouse trap. You can call yourself a blogger. A blog however is not each individual entry or post you write. Please do not tell me you wrote 3 blogs last night. You can tell me you blogged 3 articles, or you wrote 3 entries for your blog, but you did not write 3 blogs. Do not tweet “my new blog” and link to an entry. When I see “new blog” I’m expecting a completely new site from the one you already have.

Now, I don’t claim to be a grammar nazi or even have the best grammar. But this is less about grammar and more about semantics and something that simply gets my goat. Feel free to contradict or refute my position. I’m all ears. Also, I came across a great blog post sometime back, on the history of weblogs you may find interesting.

Update: The plot thickens. Sean Coates pointed out on Twitter this morning that the Twitter API announcement has been pulled, with no obvious response. Most of the mailing list message is still available in an article in the Guardian.

First, I’m not a developer of software. I make websites. I use Twitter. A lot sometimes. I have found the reaction to Twitter’s curious announcement in the change in their terms of service interesting. Granted, most reactions I have read are from developer types, so it may be biased. The sentiment could be summed up in a tweet I saw today, “Twitter: from #dickbar to #dickmove”. That basically Twitter added a new “feature” in their most recent mobile app that absolutely no one liked and users were abuzz with suggestions for other clients. Rather than listen to these users (granted, they did release a minor update that apparently mitigates to a degree the trending bar, coined by Gruber the dickbar) they simply decided to post to a mailing list telling developers to not plan on being able to create alternate clients. Poor timing? Possibly. They very well could have been planning this announcement for some time. Still seems odd.

But what if they had challenged themselves internally? “We are going to make such a kick ass experience for the desktop, mobile and web, users won’t bother with these imitators.” They could have looked at who was doing great things with the iPhone and the desktop and simply hired them to make their product better. Listened to their users to see what features these other clients were offering and make them better. Isn’t that what free-market competition should be all about? Not, “hey, thanks for helping build up our user base, now go screw yourselves.”

Ultimately, Twitter really reminded me that I don’t pay for it, so I can’t really bitch about it, and should remember my goal of Less Twitter, more me.. 

The first blog post I read about moving away from Twitter & microblogging began my thinking of how I might do the same. I came into the “blogging culture” late in the game, so I didn’t have as much an identity as some.

However, lately I’ve been feeling more and more my microblogging platform of choice, Twitter, was becoming increasingly ephemeral. I was conditioning myself to minimize my thoughts due to some arbitrary constraint. Not to mention, I didn’t have my own reference point. Sure, I use
Instapaper & Pinboard, but I did not have a chronological reference to what I was thinking and feeling. Not to mention a real reference point of meaningful information I felt important to file away for posterity.

So today launches a new direction for Michael B, one where I do not question if I can get my point across in a finite set of characters, if my use of UTF-8 character encoding will translate to other platforms. Where I can come back a year later and the data will be mine, easily reached, in a database of my own management. No worries if I post a picture if someone will sell it, if my words will be broadcast to ears to which I’ll never know.

I don’t mean to say I will not be verbose (which I am) or that I’ve mastered some modern day Strunk & White, rather I will not feel confined. And to which I will feel free.

Also, I will genuinely get back to the root of why I fell in love with publishing on the web, and hopefully make some, albeit small, mark on the face of web publishing.

This is just but the first iteration of the new site. I hope to integrate some of the third-party services that I previously shared on this domain, and still feel an important way of expressing fully who I am, but I needed to make the move now, and fill in the important pieces as I move forward once again.

I’m quite happy this is (not valid due to old content) HTML 5 with generous dashes of CSS 3. I hope to expand on both and as I learned my first go around with self-publishing on the web – learning is doing. (Update: I was going to switch the videos to the experimental Youtube HTML5 embed code, however unfortunately the videos had been taken down. I also found additional typos in the same post. The home page is now currently valid HTML5) 


Interestingly enough, Owen writes about his blogging style; I was remarking the other night that no wonder no one reads my blog, the posts are too long.

I’ve been trying to blog more, but tend to write these long diatribes, which smack against the conventions of online writing that I’ve read. I used to tell myself that I blogged for my own benefit, and that I didn’t care if anyone read it, but I’m fooling myself. Every time I write something, I find myself checking stats and looking for comments, so obviously I do care. To that end I am also looking to tailor my blogging style to cater to easier digestion, regular readership and the potential for a discussion to ensue.

I have a few references (actually, Bleacher Report has quite a bit of good reference, be it sports related or not), but am looking for more. Do you have any quality references for online writing?

Update – I’ve found a few links that have some good information.

I’ll update this list as I find additional resources. 


After roughly 3 months, the new developer release of Habari is now available for download. I just saw the 0.2 release was downloaded nearly 11,000 times, which I personally think is great, I’d hope to see double that for the .3 release.

This release has many bug fixes and features added, for both the coder and user. Personally, I contributed a fair amount of work on documentation, including my continued work on the manual, as well as getting my coding hands dirty a bit working on the first steps to overhaul the admin interface.

Participating in this community has been one of the few bright spots in my otherwise gloomy year, and I’d like to personally thank all of those who participate. I’ve also expanded my “tech” knowledge, specifically in relation to using more of the CLI and subversion. I actually managed to move a repository the other night from my local machine to a new repository on my Media Temple server that they provide. I’ve now even ventured into using macports to set up my old laptop to be a better mobile development environment, as MAMP for Panther doesn’t support PHP 5.2 (but that’s for a future post).

Suffice to say, I’m looking forward to the Habari community growing, and great things to come. Even if you aren’t ready to switch blog platforms, I’d highly suggest downloading and checking it out, and by all means, keep abreast of development. It’s a fun and inviting community, with a lot of excitement for what it’s future holds.

Also stay tuned for a soon to be updated version of Mzingimy Habari theme framework, to leverage some of the new features available to themes.

I’ve been quite lazy in posting to my blog(s), and am testing out ScribeFire. I spend so much time of my day in Firefox, it only seems logical to find a solution that would allow me to manage drafts and posts from within the browser.  Particularly for asides and tidbits.  We’ll see how this works out, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually blog, and not just work on them


In the true spirit of blog design, I’m doing it live on the site, vs working offline. Not that anyone really ventures to this domain yet anyway. If you have stumbled in, thanks, and hopefully things will be functioning normal by the end of the weekend.
OK. I’m officially going to start blogging here at bloggingmeta, to what ever degree that means. It may just be a few things web related, and setting up a lifestream, but I will relegate my personal domain for just that, personal blogging, be it political or what not, but all things internet/blogging/web related will go here. I’m really excited about using Habari, and have wanted to start using this domain for some time. Now that the DB is somewhat stable, and not as many chances of having to dump the db, I think I’ll be fine. Here’s to the rest of my life while I’m at it.
Blog Maverick
Mark Cuban, blogger and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, is blogging the NBA finals. I have to say, his blogging has made it infectious to be a Mav’s fan for the finals. I’m not really a basketball fan, but have a few friends who’ve been watching the playoffs, so I’ve followed along. I also came across Mark Cuban’s blog while checking out some feeds while investigating over at Share Your OPML as the playoffs started. So I’ve been following his blogs while keeping an eye to the playoffs. It’s fun to see things transpire as they have.
9rules Network has announced 111 new sites for the network. 111!? Before I go any further, let me say, that I’m not some bitter blogger that was part of the 589 bloggers that were rejected. I would never consider this blog something for a network. I don’t have a niche, I don’t post enough, I simply rant out loud, and a few people actually read it. Period.
But as someone who reads a lot of sites, I once took a site’s acceptance into 9rules as some sort of validation, that perhaps before reading a post, there was a strong chance that the author was going to know what they were talking about, or that the information would indeed be valid. But to water down the network, IMO, with that many blogs in one fell swoop, I can’t help but believe it was a publicity stunt for a group that had recently fallen off the radar, so to speak.
I mean, what better way to get the blogosphere to chatter about you than to “accept” 111 sites into the network. How much traffic directly from those sites is generated alone? Plus those, (I guess I’m buying into the hype by posting this) who comment on the recent events. I must say, I really have a hard time buying any of this, and will now take the 9rules logo on a site with a grain of salt, and that is an injustice to those who have been longer termed members of the network.
I’d like to say I haven’t looked at all 111 sites, and I’m sure they are all fine bloggers in their own right. I simply have a hard time understanding how that many are brought in at once.
I think I might create a snazzy little logo and start my own network. I’m sure at least 100 of those 589 that were not admitted are as good in their own right as the 111 picked. It could be called the Odd Man Out Network. Wonder how much ad revenue that would generate? Anyone interested in joining?
I’m sure I’ve touched on this topic before, but after the reboot, I’ve found myself wanting to simply “blog” more. I still have my cooking site, and mentally beat myself up for not using it more, and wonder if simply marrying it with this site is the best idea. I wouldn’t feel so compelled to produce content for two different sites, as well as keep up with WordPress Station. I could simply write about food, and food topics interspersed with my political rants, web finds, and occasional fishing stories. (Those have been few and far between for sure).
I read more and more blogs these days, and that’s exactly what I’m finding, that the sites are not just specific to one topic, that they truly are extensions of the author. So in a given week, a story about a loved one, web standards, a sporting event, and dinner out can all be intertwined into one site. As I type this, I feel that is where my direction will go, it just seems to make “sense”. Less focus on having to blog about a certain topic, and more on wanting to. Because, in the end, isn’t that what it’s all about?

is open to anyone, though they have a caveat that if server load gets too high, they’ll shut down registration again. I hadn’t really paid attention to it, though I’ve seen it mentioned, but the concept is sound. How often do you leave comments on a blog, and then forget where, and wonder if there was a follow up? Happens to me all the time. I keep tabs on several RSS feeds that a general in nature, and will drop a comment on a strangers blog often, only to fade from my memory. Not anymore, if CoComments works as advertised. You are given a simple bookmarklet to use before you formally submit a comment. You then can keep track of the comments via their site, or better yet, your RSS feed. In addition, you’ll see a box in my sidebar, so visitors can see where I’m visiting and commenting. Another way of building community, in my oh, so humble opinion. Though, I’ve yet to see it in action, I’ve seen it on another’s blog. And I doubt it will take long before I put it in action. So go register if interested, ‘cause it could be like Google Analytics, and close with no notice.

Official Google Blog: Here comes Measure MapBefore it even makes it out of Alpha. Curious to see what’s added, and how it affects Analytics being opened back up.
So while doing a design for someone, I came across this site – Linkblox. Among some other flash type widgets, this one presents your links in a compact widget, especially if you have them categorized. What’s nifty about this free widget, is that is uses OPML. While not that familiar with it, a quick poke around the forums, I discovered that the links manager built into WordPress already outputs your links in an OPML file. It’s found in your root WP folder at wp-links-opml.php. The linkblox site simply asks for you to point to a OPML file, your URL, and then outputs a script for you to place in your header and sidebar. One for the header, one for the place you want your widget. So what’s nice, is you can continue to use your “link this” bookmarklet, and keep your blogroll/links in your DB, so if the “linkblox” site disappears, or you decide to stop using it, you still have all your blogroll safely at your site. The advanced customization for the widget gives you quite a bit of color customization, and the site promises this is a work in progress, which is why they are hosting the script, so that can make upgrades seamlessly behind the scenes.