Blogging Update and Ideas

If you’re still taking the time to check out my blog or are new here, thanks for stopping by. I know that content has been sparse since my move to Reno, Nevada — I’m still adjusting to life here and haven’t even fully set up my living space here. I’m attempting to create more long-form content and interesting reviews for this blog, but I’m also looking at transitioning my art and writing.

All said, it’s been more challenging to do this than anticipated. Perhaps that’s due in part to life here being substantially better than it was in Oakland, California.

But because I’ve caught a cold or something major (seems to happen every year around this time) from Stephanie — whom caught it from a two year old she babysits — I have more idle time at home than usual and will endeavor to use this to catch up on design, illustration and writing.

I’m also looking at migrating to Squarespace 7, since the UI is finally usable. SS6 was a mess; many will likely disagree with that assessment, but I couldn’t get anyone I know to switch to it.

Because Squarespace 6 was such an unintuitive design and Squarespace 5 support became, at best, an afterthought, I began looking at alternatives last year. I tried Silvrback (which looks great now, and the price is fantastic), Posthaven, Medium, Roon (recently acquired by Ghost) and Ghost(acquired Roon.io; Roon shutting down this month)… and a few others that aren’t really worth mentioning.

I’m adding a new post about Apple shortly. Additionally, I’ve been writing about Video Poker, and that entry should appear within the next few days. I’ll update the Instagram, Facebook and Twitter when it’s live.

Several Exciting Things in Blogging

iPad Paper sketch, MadeWithPaper FiftyThree

Turns out, trying to rebuild a website in Squarespace v6 with almost no spare time and not enough sleep is pretty hard. 

But I’m working on it. I’m just working on so many other things, too. I’m almost done with several reviews for some really cool products, and I’m really looking forward to updating SaysBrad with new visuals and features. 

If you’re thinking about creating or updating a website, I think Squarespace is a great option. And no, they aren’t paying me to say that — though I wish they were!

However, if you just want a simple blog, I’d recommend Posthaven. I’ve been experimenting with their service for about one month and it’s excellent, especially for mobile users (iOS, anyway — I’m not able to test Android). Priced at $5/month, the guys behind Posthaven promise to keep your content online forever after one year of paid service. I believe that they mean it, but only time will tell whether or not this promise holds up. Posthaven isn’t a huge company with massive, private resources. 

If you like trying new things and experimenting with code, maybe try Ghost. 

My experimental site, Bradtastica, is a Ghost blog hosted by the awesome guys at Ghostify. As is, Ghost is somewhat lacking and I think that there are too many bugs and uncertainties for business use, but the platform is new and full of potential. Within one or two years, Ghost will be a top contender and solid choice for blogging. Right now, it’s more… just kinda cool.

One more thing! 

Over the past several months (during my illness, mainly), I’ve tried several new capacitive touch styluses and have received offers to try a few more. I’m looking forward to posting some comprehensive reviews with sketches and photos. I’d wanted to get Says Brad moved to SS6 first, but with everything going on right now (disability, illness, moving, etc…), I’m not sure when that would be. (I’m also having major problems with the building that I’m in. Will probably have to write/share some scathing comments about PBT sometime.) I really want to separate the technology, political and personal content — just really lacking time and energy. So I’m formatting my reviews for this blog! I’m particularly looking forward to sharing my thoughts on Pencil, the stylus for Paper by FiftyThree. Have had a lot of fun with that. 

As usual, if you have questions or comments, you can reach me via my SaysBrad contact form (email), or through Twitter or Facebook. It’s nice to hear from everyone!

I hope you have a great week!

Ghost Writing — and Blogging

More thoughts at my Ghostify blog, Bradtastica!

I’m really looking forward to the release of version 0.5 — but until then, it’s fun playing around with something simple, clean and brand-new. If you’re a handlebars.js expert, maybe you can point me in the right direction; I’d like to create my own theme someday, but right now I’m just trying to change the way the basic theme, Casper, displays excerpts.

Looking forward to again having the time and energy to create great iOS-related content.

Moving from Squarespace 5 to Squarespace V6

So I finally found a theme that I kinda like at Squarespace 6.

At least it’s the best that I’ve seen so far. Like WordPress, Squarespace is really in the CMS/full website building business and is moving away from blogs. With that in mind, I was hesitant to make the switch.

There’s that, and Squarespace won’t let third party apps like Blogsy work with version 6.

I have no idea why this is. I’ve asked, heard nothing. fomola (Blogsy dev) has asked numerous times… nothing.

Seems stubborn.

But after spending some time looking at the UI and figuring out what does what, I’ve figured out something really, pretty important. SIX is damned powerful. It absolutely blows FIVE away. Tons of little things that I’ve wanted to do here, things that I’ve wanted to add that requires custom code, are just built-in options with SIX.

Now I just need to figure out the best way to move my content and move over to SIX.

There are still a lot of things that I don’t care for with SIX, but I think I can tweak most of it. Basically, it’s just not that readable and usable. I don’t like the typography. It still feels more like flash and style than substance. Also, I can’t seem to get autocorrect, text replacement and substitutions to work in the SSV6 editor.

But I guess people like that. I like this theme that I’ve been playing with. It’s a lot of work trying to get the new, old site up; meanwhile, I’m trying to plan out the rest of my writing. I’m going to add an entertainment section to talk about video games and anime. My personal stuff will be elsewhere, entirely (at the moment, it’s called “Bradtastica”), as well as politics. I don’t think I want to deal with all of those insipid comments insults.

By the way, is it just me, or is this Spacecraft website builder look a lot like… Squarespace 6?

Starting the Process

Starting the process of streamlining this site and getting my other writing officially online and organized.

It’s quite a stressful process really, because I was having some issues with Squarespace — speed, connectivity, etc. The company itself is pretty great; some of the best customer service (by email only, though), ever.

I’ve shut down the sparse personal section here, since most of that content will find its home at my disability blog — which will really be more of a personal blog to share thoughts on things not tech-related.

Although I’m very cogniscent of Andrew Keen’s Cult of the Amateur and don’t want to contribute to it, I have to believe that it mightn’t apply here. Perhaps that’s just ego. But being a professional writer isn’t really what people think. There’s only one JK Rowling. Authors, like painters, seem to renowned only after they’re dead. There are a handful of exceptions, but aside from major media and tabloid journalists, most writers have some kind of day job or other thing on the side that they do to just to cover the basic things, like electricity, an internet connection, and sometimes luxuries like food, heat and running water.

Why pay for something that’s offered up for free?

It’s really tough, and in many ways blogging makes it tougher, because it has the potential side-effect of devaluing writing and creative content.

On the flipside, it can open up new avenues of expression and exploration, bridge the gaps of age, race and physical distance, raise awareness of important issues, bring popularity to a topic or author, and can become (sort of)-on-the-job training. I think blogging can be used to help a writer find his or her voice and develop a personal style, as well as procedurally train him (me) in an oft-idiosyncratic creative process.

So.

I am dealing with domain issues. Once those are straightened out and I can reliably say go to (this-here-great) dot com and read away, I will share it with you. I’m still not good at just getting the content out there; I keep thinking, edit this, change that. I really hope that this gets easier.

Ghost 0.3 Blogging

I received an email today notifying me that Ghost was now offering their hosted service, complete with a risk-free (no CC required) 30-day trial.

So I set one up, natch.

If you want to see it, it's at good.ghost.io. I'm probably just going to post review thoughts there, like notes, since it's very basic. I'm thinking about again publishing thoughts on disability and pain management (and personal ponderings) like I did at my bespoke domain, and something clean — a pure blog — would work well for that. The basic plan would certainly suffice as I can't imagine that I'd get much traffic. I need to read more about stability and potential security risks, first — there isn't a whole lot about Ghost 0.3 online. Do you know anything about it? I'd like to know what you guys think.

I was also considering it for my political site — though my first instinct is to use Squarespace 6, since it has so many built-in features and I already have it. Ghost has some quirks that bug me, but I suppose that minor annoyances are unavoidable.

Maybe the guys at Ghost would sponsor my disability blog? :-) That would be really super!