Recorded a new episode of Timetable this morning to give an update on a few things. Not sure why it has been so hard for me to give time for this podcast... It is so easy to record and edit. 8 minutes!
2022-10-10
Big improvements to ActivityPub on Micro.blog
Can’t believe it, but it has been nearly 4 years since we added ActivityPub support to Micro.blog. In that time, we’ve made some tweaks and bug fixes to it, but it has remained largely unchanged until today. If you were using a custom domain name for your blog, anyone on Mastodon could follow you, and you could follow anyone on other Mastodon servers.
Back then I blogged about why using custom domain names was important:
Sometimes in the Mastodon world your identity can get fragmented across multiple instances. You might start on mastodon.social but then move to another instance, effectively breaking the link between your readers and your posts each time you move, with no way to migrate posts between instances. By supporting Mastodon and ActivityPub in Micro.blog, you can consolidate your identity and posts back to your own blog at your own domain name.
There is a downside to this approach, though, and it has become more clear over the years. Because not everyone on Micro.blog has ActivityPub enabled, following users and replying often felt incomplete. To fix this, we are moving to enable ActivityPub by default for new Micro.blog users, and allowing it even if you aren’t using your own custom domain. We’re also improving conversations so they aren’t so disjointed, with Micro.blog now pulling in additional replies from Mastodon if needed.
If there’s no custom domain, what does the Mastodon-compatible username look like? @username@micro.blog of course! In this way, Micro.blog looks a lot more like another Mastodon instance, but an instance that also has a full suite of blogging features, IndieWeb protocols, and everything else we’ve been building for years.
It’s now easier to reset your Mastodon-compatible username too, for example when changing your domain name, or when moving from @username@micro.blog to @username@yourdomain.com. Mastodon itself has also added features to ease migration, and that's something we'll be looking at supporting.
In the future, we may do more to encourage everyone to enable ActivityPub on their Micro.blog account. For now, if you’d like to enable it, just head over to the Account page and click the “Set Mastodon-compatible Username” button.
2022-10-10
Today we published a new Extra Intuition, our special podcast for Core Intuition members. This one is about road trips to pizza places and the ocean. 🍕🌊
2022-10-10
Spurs hold practice in Uvalde:
The Spurs then literally lifted the community, raising toddlers on their shoulders to bring them closer to the rim for a basket.
Working through some bugs from the improved ActivityPub rollout yesterday... There are always edge cases I didn't test enough. Lots of different systems trying to play nicely together. 🐘
2022-10-11
Love seeing a new post from Doug Bowman pop up in my feed reader after... 8 years! My feed reader has been quietly checking the RSS feed, waiting for this day. Polling tech is going to be with us for a while and that's probably a good thing for compatibility.
2022-10-11
Making some careless mistakes today. Wrapping up another bug fix and then going to step away from the Ruby code for a while, until I can better focus.
2022-10-11
From this morning, coffee at Stinson’s. Looking at this photo, the text almost looks like a digital overlay. But no, the obnoxious TM is there in real life. ☕️
Continuing to fine-tune our Mastodon integration, but should be running more smoothly. My biggest fear with all the pieces — feeds, ActivityPub, Webmention, cross-posting from M.b to Mastodon to wherever! — is that I will create a posting infinite loop and destroy everything.
2022-10-12
U2 will probably always remain my favorite band... Old favorites stick with us forever. But until yesterday had no idea that Bono was touring for his new book and that the band might play in Vegas next year. Excited for both.
2022-10-12
Looking forward to tomorrow's 24-hour photo challenge. As a community we last did this 2 years ago and I couldn't remember what photo I had posted... Looked it up on my blog: we were traveling back from a couple days away, kayaks bundled up on the car.
2022-10-12
Nice update to Mimi Uploader for Micro.blog:
You can now write alt text for any image in Recent Uploads. Tap on an image. Write the text. Hit Save. This is attached to the export snippet at the time of export.
2022-10-12
Finished reading: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Incredible. 📚
2022-10-12
SendGrid SMS verification codes make me laugh. Everyone uses 6 digits, but they use 7 for some reason. Actually a usability problem because your brain is so used to 6-digit codes.
2022-10-13
Final prep for the 24-hour photo challenge. Starts at noon central time today. Easy to participate... Just need to post one photo! We'll have a special pin and Discover section.
2022-10-13
Some of the Micro.blog pins are special and only appear when they've been unlocked. Here's what the new pin will look like if you participate in A Day in the Life 2022:
Watched some of the final January 6th committee hearing at lunch and then got bogged down catching up on other news. We got a lot right in this country but there's so much work still to do. 🇺🇸
2022-10-13
Our Nest thermostat thinks it's sooo much smarter than me. Didn't expect to lose control to the robots this soon.
2022-10-13
Posted a new Core Intuition with thoughts on finishing up my book and @danielpunkass's new features in the upcoming MarsEdit release.
2022-10-13
I believe Beto can win. Will he? No idea. As always it’s about turnout. For the first time, all of my kids are old enough to vote, and no matter what happens that makes me happy.
2022-10-13
Out of the house this morning for errands, a break for a little while at Epoch Coffee on Anderson Lane. A Day in the Life in Austin, 8:15am. ☕️
Browsing photos on Micro.blog is one of my favorite things. Crazy to think that the first beta of Micro.blog years ago couldn't even host photos! Terrible. (Although I guess the first version of Twitter couldn't host photos either.)
2022-10-14
Spent the afternoon finishing a rough print layout pass for the book and submitting it to IngramSpark. I'm afraid it's too long, but don't want to do any more edits until I can hold a test printing in my hands.
2022-10-14
Being against the death penalty means we have to be okay with even a mass murderer getting life in person. Hurts for the parents in ways I can't imagine, but the kids had the right call to action. For some crimes there can be no suitable justice except preventing the next one.
2022-10-15
Another really nice theme for Micro.blog from @amit: Anatole.
2022-10-15
Going to be traveling a lot in the next few weeks. Think I need to plot out what I'm going to prioritize for work so that I can continue to get things done without biting off too much. Need quick wins.
2022-10-16
I created a little Micro.blog plug-in called simply Meta tags to make it easier to put random <meta> tags in your blog's HTML without needing to make a custom theme.
2022-10-16
Interesting to read that a web version of Day One is progressing. What will happen sooner: Day One becomes a great web publishing tool, or Micro.blog becomes a great private journal? (Only half joking... I know how I want this to work but have to resist until we're ready.)
2022-10-17
