The bmannconsulting.com website
bmann.ca
1---
2tags:
3 - BMC
4---
5## October 2024
6
7Turned off publishing to [[Fission]]. Just plain old Github Pages now.
8## January 2024
9
10The site is still powered by [[Digital Garden Jekyll Template]]. Using [[Obsidian]] to edit on desktop and mobile, with git for syncing. Obsidian wikilinks are compatible with the Jekyll template processing. The only manual thing is that image links need to be relative Markdown links rather than wikilinks.
11
12[[notes|Notes]] are slowly building. Links marked with `[[` wikilinks still point to the old [[LogSeq]] notes site, which is slowly being imported.
13
14Added in a [[Journal]] section and a journal post type.
15
16Made a journal feed linked at [[feeds]]. As of January 15th, 2024, am using [[Fedica]]'s RSS cross-posting features to post those feeds.
17
18To Do: [[BMC]]
19
20### Archive of 2023
21
22Removed blog posts going back to 2012 and pre-2012 archive. They are available via a snapshot at [2023.bmannconsulting.com](https://2023.bmannconsulting.com).
23
24Published via [[Fission]] Github Action, and then grabbed the [[IPFS]] hash `bafybeidfdwz5tak24oukds2hrf3xahl5rp5by4a6idwv2ucsmo6uaafgoa` and used [[Cloudflare]] IPFS Gateway to keep it around.
25
26## July 2023
27
28Trimmed blog & archive posts out of [[LogSeq]] and moved them into [[Digital Garden Jekyll Template]]. Notes, running [[LogSeq]], have moved to <a href="{{ site.notes_url }}">{{ site.notes_url }}</a>. Wikilinks that don't have local links link out to the Notes site. Sidebar tags for blog posts also link out to the Notes site.
29
30The most recent 5 blog posts appear on the home page. The [blog index](/blog/) goes back to the 2012 migration, with previous posts in the [archive](/archive/).
31
32[[Seeds]] is a page that provides an entry way into my Notes site.
33
34There is a [Backlog](https://notes.bmannconsulting.com/#/page/bmc%2Fbacklog) of things in progress.
35
36This site is published to [[IPFS]] using [[Fission]] Github Actions.
37
38## Time Passes
39
40End of December 2022, poured the whole site into [[LogSeq]]. There is an archived [snapshot of 2022 Simply Jekyll](https://2022.bmannconsulting.com).
41
42## September 2020 Simply Jekyll
43
44[[Simply Jekyll]] theme for Jekyll. If you want to run it yourself, I've got some public work around this with the [[Simply Jekyll Template]].
45
46Using [[VSCode]] on my desktop to edit.
47
48Hosting on [[Fission]]. [[Cloudflare]] is powering the DNS and using [[Cloudflare IPFS Gateway]].
49
50Source code is public on Github at [bmann/bmcgarden](https://github.com/bmann/bmcgarden). [[Connecting to the Agora]] as of jan 24th, 2021.
51
52Changed fission app from `ancient-aquamarine-metalic-princess.fission.app` to `bmcgarden.fission.app` and updating Cloudflare.
53
54Switched over Notes and Links pages to use `modified`. Added Git Links to the Links page. Disabled the jekyll last_modified plugin, which never seemed to work in any case.
55
56## July 2020 Archive Import
57
58The long(er) form content from the (original) `blog.bmannconsulting.com` has all been imported here as an [archive](../archive/).
59
60I swapped that blog domain to Micro.blog and that's where I post photos and short content, and sort of more non tech bloggy content. Yes, there is a [colophon there too](https://blog.bmannconsulting.com/colophon).
61
62## May 2020
63
64This blog is currently powered by [Jekyll 4](http://jekyllrb.com) hosted on [Netlify](http://netlify.com). Netlify builds the site from a private git repo on Github.
65
66I write short [social posts](https://blog.bmannconsulting.com/archives/social/) on my phone via [micropub](https://blog.bmannconsulting.com/tags/micropub/). There are a variety of [micropub clients](https://indieweb.org/micropub-clients) you can browse on the IndieWeb site. The [Indigenous native app for iOS](https://indieweb.org/Indigenous_for_iOS) works most reliably.
67
68I also use [Quill](https://quill.p3k.io/docs) as a <abbr title="Progressive Web App">PWA</abbr> on my phone. It also works great for all kinds of posts on desktop browsers too, including a first draft of long posts.
69
70Long posts are most often finalized in [VS Code](https://code.visualstudio.com/) and published via git.
71
72Full size images are uploaded and stored in git. Various thumbnail sizes are generated on the fly via [images.weserv.nl](https://images.weserv.nl/).
73
74[All the Best Recipes](https://allthebest.recipes) are where the long form food / cooking posts go, although I often share them via links and images posted as social posts here.
75
76My [@bmann Instagram](https://instagram.com/bmann) I manually post to, either a variant of a social post I've already made here, or on the All the Best Recipes site. I cross post to Facebook from Instagram. My "rule" is no posting pictures to Instagram until they've been put somewhere permanent under my control. There is also an [@allthebestrecipes Instagram](https://instagram.com/allthebestrecipes), because really I need more places to post about food.
77
78I'm now running [paulrobertlloyd's IndieKit](https://paulrobertlloyd.github.io/indiekit/) micropub server, and tweaking the display, feeds, and cross-posting to [Micro.blog](https://micro.blog/boris), which in turn posts to [my @bmann Twitter account](https://twitter.com/bmann).
79
80You can visit [my micropub server](https://bmann-indiekit.herokuapp.com) to learn more about it. The post types that I have special display and treatment for are:
81
82* Article -- long form posts in the Blog category by default
83* Note -- the vast majority of short posts, often with images attached
84* Bookmark -- so I can keep my bookmarks local
85* Reply -- because I wanted to support it for leaving comments on other people's posts. This is also the RSVP type, which I've just added extra support for
86
87The others work, I just haven't coded special treatment for them, so they likely don't display correctly.
88
89Turned off `jekyll-feed` plugin to have Jekyll generate a custom [RSS feed](/feed.xml), because of the way I customize different kinds of micropub posts.
90
91<hr />
92
93## Previous Editions
94
95### Jekyll 3 on Netlify (Minimal Mistakes)
96August 2018 - May 2020
97
98I write on my phone or my Chromebook. On the Chromebook, [Caret](http://thomaswilburn.net/caret/) is a text / coding editor I use. The [Netlify CMS](https://www.netlifycms.org) lets me edit in a browser.
99
100Short form links get sent to Twitter and/or shared on the [Frontier Community](https://community.frontierfoundry.co)[^deprecatedff]. My [Tumblr](http://tumblr.bmannconsulting.com) is rarely used. Tweets are archived at [tweets.bmannconsulting.com](http://tweets.bmannconsulting.com).
101
102[^deprecatedff]: The Frontier Community Discourse site got turned into [All the Best Recipes](https://allthebest.recipes). I might re-use it for comments again in the future, for now have Webmentions turned on.
103
104tldr; the Netlify CMS doesn't support drafts on Gitlab, so put things back on Github.
105
106Also moved to [Michael Rose's Minimal Mistakes theme](https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/). Fighting with nokogiri on the Chromebook means no emoji. This meant posts have a slightly different default layout again: ```sed -i 's/layout: posts/layout: single/' *.md```.
107
108Netlify CMS is technically still installed, but rarely used.
109
110**In September 2018**, I [added a bunch of IndieWeb and Micropub interfaces](https://blog.bmannconsulting.com/micro-blog-jekyll-micro-pub-and-indie-web/) and created social posts and bookmarks.
111
112While [OwnYouGram](https://ownyourgram.com/) was working, I posted to [my @bmann Instagram](https://instagram.com/bmann), and those posts would automatically be republished on this site.
113
114Somewhere around this time frame, JSON feeds were added at [micro.json](/micro.json), [micro-bookmarks.json](/micro-bookmarks.json), and [feed.json](/feed.json), and syndicated to [Micro.blog](https://micro.blog/boris), which I pay to re-publish on other networks. Briefly they went to LinkedIn, now mainly get sent over to Twitter.
115
116**In May of 2019**, I [added a Webmentions server](https://blog.bmannconsulting.com/run-your-own-web-mentions/).
117
118### Jekyll 3 on Netlify
119June 2018 - August 2018
120
121Most writing happened on Medium after November 2014 across various company publications, with the [medium.bmannconsulting.com](http://medium.bmannconsulting.com) subdomain being the one where permanent posts end up. I should probably get around to getting a Medium download so I have them.
122
123To upgrade, I did some yak shaving.
124
125I created a new Gitlab [borismann](http://gitlab.com/borismann) and imported from Bitbucket. I connected Netlify to it, but it failed to build. Digging in, I created a new branch <code>2018-reboot</code> and deleted the <code>Gemfile.lock</code>, and edited <code>Gemfile</code> to use Jekyll 3, a newer Ruby, and nuked the rack stuff. <code>bundle install</code> got things going.
126
127There is some nonsense with the file watching not working, so <code>bundle exec jekyll serve --no-watch</code> was needed.
128
129The default post type is now "posts", which meant replacing across all files [using sed](https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/112023/how-can-i-replace-a-string-in-a-files/112024#112024): <code>sed -i 's/layout post/layout: posts/' *.md</code>.
130
131<code>layout: none</code> used for the feed and sitemap is now <code>layout: null</code>.
132
133Yay! It builds. Edit CNAME to point at Netlify. Enable HTTPS.
134
135While I was at it, I also migrated the [bmannconsulting main archive](https://www.bmannconsulting.com) to Netlify as well.
136
137### Jekyll 2 on Heroku
138August 2014 - November 2014
139
140This blog is powered by [Jekyll 2](http://jekyllrb.com) hosted on [Heroku](http://heroku.com). I'm using [Andy Croll's RackJekyll instructions and buildpack](http://andycroll.com/2014/01/19/serving-a-jekyll-blog-using-heroku/) so that the site is generated on the server.
141
142I'm increasingly a fan of static site generators for content-focused publishing projects. I've written both a [presentation on static site generators](/ssg-lightning-talk) and an overview of [node.js-based generators](/node-static-site-generators).
143
144The design is [GPLv2 licensed, So Simple by Michael Rose](http://mademistakes.com/articles/so-simple-jekyll-theme/).
145
146The comments are powered by [Disqus](http://disqus.com). All comments are welcome, although I reserve the right to tell you to go post your thoughts in your own space somewhere.
147
148Tweets to new stories are scheduled using [Buffer](https://bufferapp.com/) and published on my [@bmann](http://twitter.com/bmann) account.
149
150The domain _bmannconsulting.com_ is over a decade old. [NameCheap](http://namecheap.com) is the domain registrar and DNS host, and is still my recommendation for new domain registrations.
151
152Posts are typically written in Markdown with [Byword](http://bit.ly/bywordapp-bmann) on a Macbook Air or iPad Mini. Code for the site is edited with [Atom](https://atom.io/).
153
154My writing here tends to be long form (1000+ words) original pieces, aside from aggregation-plus-commentary of embedded [Storify](http://storify.com) content. For example, this piece on [the Microsoft Surface launch](/reactions-microsoft-surface). The content is also rarely personal, mainly focusing on tech-related subjects.
155
156Short form link blog content is at [links.bmannconsulting.com](http://links.bmannconsulting.com), and is powered by [Postachio](http://postach.io), an Evernote-powered blogging platform. I wrote about [link blogging with Postachio](/postachio-link-blogging).
157
158
159### HarpJS on Harp Platform
160April 2013 - August 2014
161
162This blog is running on the [Harp Platform](http://harp.io), a lightweight web server with pre-processing built in, with files uploaded via my own Dropbox account. Also check out the [HarpJS](http://harpjs.com) open source project.
163
164The design is a [CC-BY licensed HTML5 template called Striped](http://html5up.net/striped/), which uses the [skel.js](http://skeljs.org/) front end framework to make the site responsive.
165
166Tweets to new stories are hand-posted using [Tweetbot](http://tapbots.com/software/tweetbot/), although the RSS feed is also syndicated using [dlvr.it](http://dlvr.it) to various places, including [@horse_eboris](http://twitter.com/horse_eboris).
167
168Code for the site is edited with [Sublime Text](http://www.sublimetext.com/).
169
170### Octopress on Heroku
171April 2012 - August 2013
172
173I archived my main site to Octopress-generated flat files on Amazon S3, and moved this site to Octopress on Heroku. I wrote up the details of the [migration from Drupal 6 to Octopress and Amazon S3](http://www.bmannconsulting.com/archive/migration/).
174
175For both sites, the entire source was / is in my own Dropbox account, so that I could create drafts and edits on any machine. This site was also in a private git repo on Bitbucket. I still needed to have the entire Ruby / Octopress build chain available on some machine to create new entries.
176
177### Posterous
178January 2010 - April 2012
179
180I split off my blog into it's own subdomain. I selected Posterous because I liked built-in comments, and in general it felt more suited to long form writing than Tumblr did. Being able to cross-post back to my main Drupal site so that I would have a copy of the content was also great.
181
182### Drupal (various versions 3.x - 6.x)
183November 2002 - April 2012
184
185For the last period, the site was hosted on [Omega8](http://omega8.cc), which specializes in managed Drupal hosting on top of the Aegir mass hosting system. The actual database / content stretched back many versions of Drupal, through a variety of content re-organization and hosting changes.
186
187Comments from this period are currently offline.
188
189### HTML, Pmachine, & Early Experiments
190December 2001 - 2003
191
192Bits and pieces of static HTML and various PHP scripts, including [Pmachine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EllisLab) as a personal blog that ran concurrrently with installs of PHPNuke and later my Drupal site.
193