2026-03-31 08:00:00
# There I was, bemoaning constant tweaks to the site, and I made some more. 😆 I've enhanced swipe to navigate.
2026-03-30 08:00:00
# On this day ten years ago, I returned to the blog after a two-and-a-half-year break and set myself on the path that would ultimately lead to where I am today.
It was a true landmark moment.
I hadn't been happy with what I was doing, so stepped away to explore other things.
A year with the #write365 project on Google+ left me burnt out and it took another year to feel ready to return, but on new terms. It was a fresh start with a minimal theme 1 and all older posts moved to an archive.
I slipped back into some old (bad) habits. It took another year for me to really adjust, allow myself to be more casual and imperfect.
Stumbling (in the dark) across the Kickstarter for micro.blog was like a lightbulb turning on, showing me where I could take things. Ironically, it looked a lot like when I started back in 2003.
It just goes to show that change doesn't always equal progress.
That theme was constantly tweaked and twisted, given indieweb integration, and finally became the basis for the look on (b)log-In. It has continued to grow from there. ↩
# Today I learned that swiping on a touchscreen does not count as "page activation". Certain browser APIs are gated behind this, vibrate() being one of them.
I had wanted to add haptics to swipe navigation but it only works if you tap the screen first. 😞
# Kev Quirk writes that, as of now with v2.2.0, Pure Blog is feature complete and he will likely refuse all new feature requests.
It does everything I want it to do, so it's time to actually use it.
There I so many times I've said this to myself, then I see something someone else has done, or have an idea, and want to implement it.
Even with something that's 'feature complete' there are bound to be instances when change makes sense. The web itself is a fluid platform and wider integration becomes a moving target.
Still, all too often, I've said that tweaking the site has been a substitute for actually using it, so I fully support Kev on his decision.
2026-03-29 08:00:00
# Colin Devroe pointed out that a detail in his kanban app Signboard:
as you drag a card it begins to slightly tilt in the direction that you’re dragging
This is exactly the kind of minutiae I love and get lost in.
I recently added CSS to fade, blur, resize, and tilt elements as they scroll on/off the screen, which gives me a similar sense of pleasure.
And, of course, I've had the ability to swipe left & right on a touchscreen to go forward and back through the days on the blog.
Inspired by Mr Devroe, I thought this could be taken further. Introducing staggered horizontal scroll of post elements to give visual indication of the scroll:
The element directly under the point of touch scrolls in the direction of the swipe, then the adjacent items scroll less to cause a sort of rubbery/ripple effect.
Like the other Colin, this makes me happy. 😊
It's disabled if the reader has reduced motion set on their device.
# Okay, so I may have accidentally overwritten the blog file and had to revert to an older version.
2026-03-28 08:00:00
# Don't you just hate it when things suddenly stop working, seemingly for no reason, with no changes being made?
When I switched from the live feed to the daily feed, it wasn't using RSSCloud to push updates. I added the required elements but it wasn't working.
I jumped into Codex to see if it could shed any insight. A few changes were suggested but it still wasn't working.
When the feed is built, it sends a ping to the rsscloud server which should then send a notification to anyone subscribed. The logs were showing that the initial ping was received and it thought the notification was being sent.
Alas, no.
I was using get_headers() to validate that the notification endpoint was valid, but it appears this stopped working and was returning 403 errors. Server change? Behaviour change with an updated version of PHP?
Note sure, but it's been fixed and is now working.
# As with so many things in life, the biggest issue I have with music is getting deep in my own head.
Second-guessing every decision, wanting perfection, always wanting more.
It's as though I've forgotten how to feel; how to run on instinct. Forgotten how to have fun with it.
After uploading an old track from 2022 to YouTube (a 'one and done' recording as I called it) I said that I wanted to get back to that way of producing.
Tonight, I allowed myself to do exactly that. And it was fun! 1 A full track from start to finish in less than two hours.
There is definitely a place for slicker, more polished production, but, with acid house in particular, it all boils down to how it feels — maybe more so than how it sounds.
okay, so I might need to rerecord it because I wasn't paying attention to levels — I'll see what I can do in post ↩
2026-03-27 08:00:00
# I made a small change so that short posts don't get a full link card when sent to Bluesky, only a simple link. The card was overkill if the full text was included.