I realized I’ve missed a few notifications for Micro.blog posts recently because I didn’t get the iOS notification. I guess it’s time to set a reminder to check the mentions tab every day.

Recently I’ve found myself more willing to ask people questions online or via email. I believe this change can be attributed to my active presence online on Micro.blog and my wiki. The more I interact, the less shy I become, which has led to some genuinely great interactions. I’m so glad to have met all these great people here on Micro.blog.

Just started a @blot site for a test to see if I should move over from a Micro.blog hosted account and my goodness is it fast to propogate. I’m amazed at how quickily it updates, over the next week I’ll be doing some tests and might end up moving over.

How can I just write?

– Why I Made Today I Learned by @simonwoods

Micro.blog was the first blogging platform that I found which gave no friction to get words onto my blog; it answered this same question for me perfectly. My previous attempts at blogging never held, in part because of the hassle of getting words into it. I have multiple archives of blogs, usually 2-3 months of posts each. Micro.blog is the only one I’ve stuck with, coming up on a year in February.

It’s interesting to look back at my posts and see the similarities of my Twitter habits follow to Micro.blog, but after a few months, I broke free. On Twitter, I watched and barely interacted except for likes and retweets. On Micro.blog if I like a post, I’ll reply to the post stating so, or quote the line (such as this post) and reply in the form of a post.

In ten months of being a part of Micro.blog, I’ve been writing more, became less afraid to get involved in conversations as I see them, and genuinely enjoy coming to Micro.blog to interact with others. I cannot say thank you to @manton enough for bringing Micro.blog into the world, and @macgenie for helping foster and develop a community worth being part of.

I’m looking forward to what 2019 brings for Micro.blog.

I think about switching to Blot or another self hosted blog but find that I like the ease of using Micro.blog for hosting and not having to worry about anything other than getting the words or photos on the screen.

True Post Preview on Micro.blog

Recently I’ve been posting a lot more. Unfortunately, this has lead to the discovery of a few issues with the preview option in the new post screen on MB. Naturally, I then tried to figure out how to get a real preview of my post and found one. When logged into Micro.blog on the web go to Posts > Pages > New Page, title the new page, be prepared to type it in when navigating to this page. Now the important part, at the bottom of the text box UNCHECK “Include this page in your blog navigation” this gives you a page you can access by navigating to it, but a typical user wouldn’t be able to find.

I have been using this for the last couple days, and it has been great to see what the post will look like on my custom Marfa theme. Once I’m ready to post the draft, I clear out the text from this page and update to make sure I’m prepared for the next post.

In November I read about @ron using Dropbox Paper to keep track of threads on Micro.blog and borrowed the idea. For a while I was using a file in Notebooks to do this, but switched to TheBrain 10 due to the BrainBox being introduced. I’m loving the ability to keep track of who brought the thread to my attention as well as the original post.

I’ve compiled a list of CSS changes that were necessary to make the transition from the modified Marfa theme I was using to a Dark themed Marfa.

Navigation

Change Background in Navigation to Match Site Background

nav.main-nav {
	background: #3d3c3e;
}

Change Underline and Text Color in Navigation, Footer Navigation, and URLs in Posts

This change depends on your Text Color and Underline Color set by default. If you use the default, you will most likely need to change these to new colors.

nav.main-nav a, #footer a, #post-nav a, p a{
   box-shadow: inset 0 -2px 0 rgba(71, 145, 192, 0.99);
   color: #29ff28
}

Change Author Name Color at the Bottom of a Post Page

#post-meta span.p-author.h-card.dark{
    color: #FFFFFF;
}

Body, Post Page, and Post List Changes

Body

Changes background of site and changes Font Color to White

body {
 color: #FFFFFF;
 background: #3d3c3e;
}

Dates

Underlines and Changes Color of Date

.dates {
  text-decoration: underline;
  color: #FFFFFF;
}

Changes Date Color When Hovered Over

.dates:hover {
    color: #29ff28
}

Headers

Change Header Colors

h1, h2, h3 {
	color: rgba(71, 145, 192, 0.99) !important;
}

Change Header Color on Archive Page

b, strong {
    font-weight: bold !important;
    color: #45b75d !important;
}

Link Colors

Changes Link Text Colors

a {
	text-decoration: none;
	color: #45b75d;
}

Changes the Post Heading Color in the Post List

Source: A big thanks to Simon Woods for the inspiration

#post-list h2 a {
  color: #45b75d;
  text-decoration: underline;
}

Change the color of the post heading in the post list when hovering over.

Source: Again Thanks to Simon Woods this time for making me realize !important was necessary to change the color.

#post-list h2 a:hover {
  color: #29ff28 !important;
  box-shadow: none;
  text-decoration: underline #29ff28;
}

Change the header color on the Post Page

h1.p-name {
    color: #29ff28 !important;
}

Archive Page

Bolds Header in Archive Page

b, strong {
    font-weight: bold !important;
    color: #45b75d !important;
}

Really starting to dig into CSS on Micro.blog, just today I’ve changed my theme twice and then created entirely different custom CSS based on that theme. It’s finally starting to look like what I want it to, although there is still work to be done.

Finally started playing around with CSS on Micro.blog and so far I like the changes. Hope to learn more to make it a bit more customized.

Finding myself turning to Micro.blog instead of Twitter for leisure time, I guess it’s almost time to cut out Twitter completely.