It seems I’m on a mnml theme development roll this weekend.
I don’t know why it didn’t dawn on me to do this yesterday, but I just added an option to easily set the Fediverse Creator meta tag in mnml – if you’d like to be able to do that sort of thing.
The version 2.0.6 update is available in your Micro.blog plugins area. This will probably be all the changes I make for a while. Well, maybe…
Enjoy! ✌🏻❤️
I made the switch to my own hosted Mastodon instance via Masto.host today. The process was super-simple. I’ve wanted my own instance for a long time and see it worth the $6 a month to have control.
Speaking of mnml, I’ve just added styles for Micro.blog’s new photo collections feature. Keep an eye out for that update (v2.0.3) in your plugins area.
A quick test of the new Photo Collections Micro.blog feature.
If you’re a Micro.blog user who uses my mnml theme, I made a few updates I’ve been ruminating on for a while that makes it a little more customizable.
Once you’ve updated from your Micro.blog plugins page, you’ll see a new settings option to manage the customizations.
Each of these settings are outlined below…
Many Micro.blog themes are coded to use your main account profile photo for the header image. If you run multiple blogs on the Premium plan and want to use the same theme for each of them, your sites aren’t easily distinguishable.
If you do want to distinguish one site from the other, this setting is how you do it with mnml. It also saves you from having to use some weird image for your Micro.blog account in order to brand your site the way you want.
All you have to do is add the complete URL to any image, and it will display instead of your profile photo. I recommend a simple image no larger than 256 pixels square for this, but feel free to experiment.
If you leave the URL field empty, mnml uses your Micro.blog account profile photo instead.
Easy-peasy.
Some people have asked how they can show their blog’s categories on the Archives page, while others have told me how much they like the fact mnml doesn’t do that.
Being the people pleaser I am, I came up with a way to make everyone happy. If you want to show categories, toggle the setting on and like magic, they’ll show up just like in the screenshot above. If you don’t want to display them, leave the setting off.
Lastly, I’ve added a credit line to the footer of mnml to drive people to Micro.blog, the theme’s Github page, or my own site.
Some of you may not mind having something like this at the bottom of your site pages, and I’m grateful to those who leave it on. But some of you may hate it, so you have the option to turn it off completely. I won’t be hurt if you do.
Finally, if you’re someone who likes and/or uses mnml, consider supporting my development efforts. Just a buck a month from a handful of people makes all the difference in the world towards enhancements like these.
Enjoy!
Let me know questions or if you think of an enhancement I might not have.
📷 Bombs away!
Seems my monitor woes may not be the Sequoia update after all. Rather, it looks like it’s the monitor itself. It exhibited the same behavior with a machine running Sonoma that previously worked fine. Bummer. I really liked that monitor…
This may sound whiny, so feel free to ignore it if you like… Today is one of those days I have to be “on” personality-wise for work (vendor meetings, holiday party, etc.), but I’m just not feeling it. The only option is to put on the happy mask and just get it done. 🤗
Hmm… After updating to macOS Sequoia 15.2 last night, my laptop seems to randomly decide it doesn’t want to see my external monitor.
Since these are making the rounds again… I made more changes to my app defaults in the last year than I first realized.
| Category | Application |
|---|---|
| Mail Client | Apple Mail |
| Mail Server | iCloud Mail with custom email domains |
| Notes | |
| To-Do | Things |
| Photo Shooting | Apple Camera |
| Photo Management | Apple Photos |
| Photo Editing | Pixelmator Pro |
| Calendar | |
| Cloud File Storage | iCloud & OneDrive |
| RSS | |
| Contacts | Apple Contacts |
| Browser | |
| Chat | Apple Messages |
| Bookmarks | |
| Read It Later | |
| Word Processing | Microsoft Word |
| Spreadsheets | Microsoft Excel |
| Presentations | Microsoft Powerpoint |
| Shopping Lists | |
| Budgeting and Personal Finance | Microsoft Excel/Bank Mobile App |
| News | |
| Music | Apple Music |
| Podcasts | Overcast |
| Mastodon | Mona (and sometimes Ivory) |
| Password Management | 1Password |
| Code Editor | |
| App Launcher |
The Walmart VIZIO acquisition closed today. So… That now officially makes me an Associate (employee) of the largest company in the world when measured by both revenue and FTE head count. 🤔
Well… Day one back from a week off and I do believe I’m ready for another week away already.
Giving Zen Browser a try today. So far, I really like what I see. The fact that it’s built on Firefox is a huge plus.
My wife and I discussing regrets this morning… If you can look back on a mistake, learn something from it, and apply it to your life now, there is no such thing as a regret to me. It was simply a learning moment. That’s why I have no regrets in my life. Every dumb choice brought me to right now.
The annual Thanksgiving bike ride along the beach. It never disappoints.
I’m up early this morning. My plan was to get up at 4:00 am, put the turkey in brine and then go back to bed for a few hours. But as my mind is prone to do, I began pondering all the things in my life I’m thankful for.
So I thought I’d share some of them.
The greatest thing that ever happened in my life is my spouse and life partner.
Our meeting was totally by chance thanks to circumstances that aligned perfectly and a single photograph. Had one of them been just a little bit different, we would have never crossed paths.
We married after a nine-month courtship–and not for the reason you may be thinking. We were young and foolish and rushed into the permanence of marriage. A lot of people said we wouldn’t make it past three years, and there were challenges that took hard work, but after more than 31 years, I can’t imagine having spent them with anyone else.
She’s the rock that keeps me grounded and my inspiration to keep moving forward.
I’m grateful for my kids and the impact they’ve had in my life.
When my wife and I met, she had two young children from a prior marriage. I took them on as my own since their father chose not to be part of the picture. Then we had a child of our own together.
Raising children humbles a man–especially when raising step-children.
I won’t lie; there were hard times and challenges with them over the last three decades, but all three turned out to be level-headed moral adults.
I’m proud of the individual each of them have become and am humbled to see a tiny reflection of me in them.
I’m thankful I was given a chance to recover my health.
This year was a wake up call. It’s been nearly ten months since “the episode” and it still rattles me that it could have been the end of it all.
I see life differently now and am grateful for every morning I open my eyes, even when I don’t seem like it.
I appreciate that someone who is now a very close friend took the time to mentor me in my darkest hour and when my outlook of the future was grim.
He listened to me bitch about a lot of stupid stuff for almost ten years, but always challenged me to look at it from a different angle. I’m a completely different person thanks to his wisdom.
I’ll forever be in his debt for the change he made in me.
I’m glad for my job and the career path I landed in totally by mistake.
I may gripe about the grind of it sometimes, but I love that I’m challenged by the work. It allows me to be creative and bring something to life that makes the lives of others a little better.
I’m blessed to enjoy doing what I do for a living.
Then, I’m thankful for the little things.
Life is magical when you take the time to step back and look at it. Every moment in your life, good or bad, has lead to this moment, whether it’s good or bad. This good or bad moment will lead to other good and bad moments.
It’s a godsend to be able to look back and see how it’s unfolded over a lifetime.
I’m truly a very lucky man.
Of course, I’m thankful for you and the fact you took the time to read what I’ve just written.
I’m fortunate to have connected with some awesome people online. Though you and I may never meet IRL, I’m glad you share the insight into your life by what you write, and that you care enough about my own life to engage back with me.
Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate…
If you’ve been on the fence about grabbing a Micro.blog t-shirt or phone case of your own, this weekend is the time to get yours! Shipping on all Cotton Bureau merchandise is free using the coupon code EXTRAGRAVY at checkout. The coupon is only good through Monday, so act fast! @manton @vincent
I added a Now page to my site today. Nothing special, but it’s to serve as more of a reminder to myself about the things I need to keep in focus right now.
I took some time off work during the Thanksgiving holiday after grinding on a work project for a really long time. I’ve found myself at a point over the last six months where I just don’t feel effective and needed to figure out why.
During my quiet time this morning, I picked up "Hell Yeah or No" by Derek Sivers again. I bought the physical book a couple months ago with a plan to finish it quickly. But, as I tend to do, I read about 10 pages and then set it aside, telling myself I’ll get back to it eventually.
As I was powering through the book’s anecdotes, one jumped off the page and grabbed my attention.
“Hell yeah or no” is a filter you can use to decide what’s worth doing. But this is simpler and more serious. This is a decision to stop deciding. It’s one decision, in advance, that the answer to all future distractions is “no” until you finish what you started. It’s saying yes to one thing, and no to absolutely everything else.
I struck me that I’ve been saying yes far too often again. I’ll get a great idea for a project and dive head first into it, while having a half-dozen similar projects already in the works.
There are also commitments to others I’ve said yes to that I don’t want to show up for anymore. I have a bad habit of volunteering for something without thinking it through and it eventually becomes a drain on my energy.
What I need to do is focus on the “one big thing for now,” and only that thing until it’s finished. Everything else new is a hard no. There are still those commitments I have to show up for, but I don’t have to put 100% effort into them until the one big thing is done.
The challenge now is to figure out what that one big thing is.
I took a mini-vacation this week with it being Thanksgiving and all, so I made a little time this morning to finally update my WordPress plugins with some fixes & updates they needed.