The Art Of Not Asking Why

I’m a bit behind on my web reading, but I still have a few (more) things to say about blogging and owning your own blog (or domain if you’re more of a techie and want to be technically correct). It’s based on what Kevin wrote about Substack & Blogging, which is based on Manu’s original piece about the same topic.

While both argue that Substack is bad for the soul, which I very much agree with (I close any link that opens to a Substack blog without giving it a second thought, even if it’s linked from a good source), that’s not the point I want to bring up again here. Instead, I want to make the case that if you don’t have a domain, you should get one today, and if you’re not planning on blogging, just create an about page and leave it up on the web until you want to write more.

In a world where everyone can broadcast their opinion by downloading an app on their phone and connecting to their existing online account (Google, Apple, or whatever), everyone should have a basic understanding of what a domain is and how to own one.

Really. It’s not that hard. Creating a web page can be as simple as writing something in Word, converting it to HTML, and saving it on your domain as yournameatyourdomain.com/index.html. Most places you’d buy a domain from would have an integrated graphical tool that will let you do just that. Just own the thing and pay for it. Don’t worry about creating a blog and programming and the fact that you’re not a computer person. Just be an internet citizen who has a domain, that’s all.

Of course, the problem is that everything on the web looks so polished and professional compared to what a single person without experience or knowledge can create. Well, that’s because “polished” and “professional” are concepts that big social media places blast you with until you accept them as the truth. I’ll save you from the “back in my day” speeches; just take a quick look instead.

There are places on the internet that are not free because free is mostly bad on the internet today (yes, I know it’s an oversimplification; sit this one down please Linux and FOSS folks, will ya?), but also don’t cost an arm and a leg that will work with you to get you a blog. You’re much better off paying $5 or $10 a month for a place that is yours than a free crapshoot that belongs to a corporation that will sell everything you give them in a heartbeat.

As for the how and where, both Manu and Kevin said you can ask them for help. I’m afraid I’m a bit more thorough, so I’d end up writing a guide, which I can’t commit to right now. Maybe I will if there are enough folks out there who need it.

After months (actually, I’ve been thinking of it for a couple of years), I finally spent a sum forbidden in the past and got myself a System76 Mira Custom with a couple of tweaks close to maxed out. It will be here in about a week.

Finished reading: All Systems Red by Martha Wells 📚 - Immediately got the second book in the series.

Easy read, fun, yet with a lot of humorous points that make you nods and consider what it means to be a social human.

Jeff Jarvis writes:

UK considers doing the right thing regarding AI and the right to read and learn and, of course, American mass media’s lobbyists object. US media groups warn UK over AI content-scraping rules

This article is a good example of why, while I understand the concerns and worries of creators when it comes to AI-scarping, I was always against the idea of using copyright laws as the main argument. Now we have the Copyright Aliance (which is made up from organizations such as Disney, Fox, Paramount, Universal Music and Getty etc.) championing anti-plagiarism for us:

The group urged the UK government to “continue its long-standing leadership role and stand with the United States as a champion of the creative community and the copyright laws on which it relies”.

This is not coming from the creators. This is coming from greedy CEOs who want to lock everything down, and AI scarping is just another “concern” they have.

I probably grumped about this a hundred times:

Living in the NYC means (usually) that you rent an apartment. Renting an apartment is good as long as things work. When things break, your hands are tied. You can’t fix, you can’t call a repair man, you can’t order a new one. It sucks.

That is all.

When I work, I have my Mac docked and connected to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. I use my Sony headset in meetings for its built-in microphone and built-out ambulance sirens and other NYC distractions.

My iPhone’s phone app is connected to my Mac for better texting in Messages and if I click on a phone number on a website to call.

If I’m in a meeting using Teams or Zoom, the phone call takes priority and immediately hijacks my audio from the meeting. I would be mid-sentence, and suddenly, the food delivery guy (who has to use our annoying call-in intercom door that uses a phone number to get in the building) would be listening to me explaining the pricing of our remote management software instead of the 5 folks I was talking to. I then have to mime to everyone in the meeting to hang one while I take the phone or decline it, and then switch back manually to my headphones as a microphone and speaker choice.

This is very annoying, to say the least.

Is there any way I could give Teams and Zoom priority over phone calls so that phone calls would still go through but perhaps be muted, at least until I pick up? Maybe I can remove the iPhone from the Mac completely, at least while I’m in work focus?

Kagi search is very good, but some of its usefulness is not easily discoverable. The following are my notes on Kagi’s Bangs (and Snaps) after I dug in this morning for research.

While Kagi has a YouTube channel, it’s mostly reserved for flashy marketing clips. They have a few old how to videos which can still be helpful. The way to learn is their docs.

The main page is at https://help.kagi.com. From there, scroll down to User Guide on the left pane to read the documentation.

Bangs

First make sure Bangs are enabled within the Search options in Kagi:

1. Go to https://kagi.com/settings?p=search
2. Scroll down to Search Bangs

Use Bangs like this: !w search engine. This will open Wikipedia on the “search engine” page result directly (same as if you went to wikipedia.com and searched for “search engine”)

But Bangs are more useful than just for opening Wikipedia articles directly.

The Kagi community built a search for bangs: https://kbe.smaertness.net/. Searching this engine for “maps” taught me that !gmaps (as in !gmaps empire state building) will open Google Maps directly, !maps opens up Kagi Maps (I just learned this is actually a thing), etc.

Another interesting example is !news, which also has a Kagi flavor (https://kagi.com/news) when you search for a topic. With news, upvoting and downvoting a site (personalizing search results) is very useful.

By the way, as mike notes: “the bang library is an open source repo that you can contribute to.” So if you know how and want to contribute, you can add your own Bangs. The community already shares a large number of user-created additions.

Custom Bangs

Creating custom Bangs is possible from the Advanced Settings menu under Search in the Setting page.

1. Select the Add Bang and go to that page
2. fill in the following:
   1. Search engine name: the name of your Bang
   2. URL: this is the URL with the search query. Usually ends with q=%s.
   3. Bang Shortcut: the trigger to activate the bang, for example, !w
   4. Domain for Snaps: in short, the website the search should be limited to.

How to get the URL for a custom bang:

To get the correct URL for a custom bang follow these steps. In this example, I am using Google as the search I want to create a Bang for.

1. Go to the search you want to use for the Bang (https://www.google.com)
2. Search for a term (pizza)
3. Copy the URL into a text editor (https://www.google.com/search?q=pizza)
4. Remove the search term, and add %s after the query (https://www.google.com/search?q=%s)

Some sites' searches are not as straightforward, and the URL might be harder to find, but most follow this simple pattern.

About Snaps:

Snaps are related to Bangs. They are activated by @ and its trigger, similar to Bangs.

For example, a search for @w pizza will run a search for pizza in Wikipedia. The difference between a Snap and a Bang will be apparent in this example: while a Bang will forward you into Wikipedia to view results for pizza, a Snap will use Kagi to run the search, pulling results only from Wikipedia into the search index.

This allows you to use Kagi’s search features on a website, for example, summarizing a specific page on the site with Kagi’s AI, or navigating using Kagi’s keyboard shortcuts.

Just got All Systems Red by Martha Wells 📚 and I’m already 25% in. A good combination of goofy Sci Fi with neurodivergent elements I know all to well.

Had a busy but good day. There was positive feedback for the work I’ve been doing, which I needed because many of these things are new to me. Good stuff. 👍

Anti-insomnia skill I’m getting better at: not letting my analytical brain start processing. Instead, letting random thoughts float without any connection or order, the stuff that make dreams. This way I can fall asleep again.

Had fun this morning looking into my old journal notes. Found something to add to the blog. Blogging from the past is a thing 🤓

(Check out the On this day section)

I like my Wired subscription so far. Overall, they have good stories, and I missed some reading material on my Android now that I stopped reading the news.

On the phone:

And the paper magazine looks good as well:

Matt shared this from Hank Green:

bsky.app/profile/b…

I like Hank’s content, he always has an interesting fact to share. Very happy to see him on Bluesky, along with Swift on Security and other geeky celebs.

Now we need to get them on micro.blog 😜

Over at Micro.blog, where my blog is hosted, there’s another new awesome feature.

Comments from Mastodon and Bluesky are now integrated into one feed inside Micro.blog’s Mentions section. Now I can see comments to posts I wrote from Mastodon, Bluesky or Microblog itself all in one place and reply back. Awesome!

If you’re all shaken up by WordPress downfall and looking for a new home, consider Micro.blog (not a sponsor! 😅), it’s awesome.

I looked at my menu items on my Mac and thought I’d write a post explaining what tools I use daily. Here they are, from right to left:

Focus:

“Focus” was introduced in macOS Monterey back in 2021. It basically restricts certain apps from sending notifications during certain times. These work across devices: if I have my work Focus on my Mac, it will also work on my iPhone. For me, apps like WhatsApp are silenced when I work, while Microsoft Outlook and Teams are silenced on my iPhone when I’m with friends. Focuses has more features, especially now that Apple Intelligence has been introduced.

Time Machine:

Time Machine is a built-in backup solution for MacOS, and if you have a Mac, you should use it. I have mine set up on my Synology for encrypted backups, but you can also store those on an external drive, which you can buy on Amazon or Best Buy, etc. On a practical level, it helped me many times when I deleted an important document or a photo and realized my mistake even months later: I just go back in time, find it, and restore it back to the present. Simple and effective.

Mullvad VPN:

A paid VPN service is a good start for some online privacy. I like Mullvad because it works on Linux and Windows, comes in with many options to tweak if you’re more into that (like split tunneling, for example, or command prompt options), and also allows you to pay in several semi-anonymous ways. Lately, I noticed more sites block me when I use it, which usually means the service’s VPN servers are becoming too popular, and I might need to look for someone else soon, which is unfortunate.

Shifty

As the app’s website says, “A macOS menu bar app that gives you more control over Night Shift.” Night Shift is MacOS’s built-in solution to filter blue light and turn on the black theme during nighttime. I use Shifty to keep my warm colors past sunrise if I need to during the winter or turn it off automatically if I edit Photos in Lightroom or watch a movie.

PopClip

I had a loving relationship with PopClip in the past, and I was happy when Lou reintroduced me to it. It’s a multi-tool menu of your most needed functions that pops up (hence the name) whenever you double-click or highlight a line of text. You know how when you copy-paste something into an email, your font changes along with the colors of your letters and their size, and it drives you bananas? Not with this guy. Double-click (or double-tap), and a menu will appear, and you have the option to paste without formatting. I also use it to quickly look up words in the dictionary or past something into Grammarly (coming up) if needed.

Snaggit

Snaggit is probably Techsmith’s most popular app. It’s a professional screen-capturing tool I needed for my job, but I see myself still paying for personal use. While macOS’s built-in screen capture tool is good, Snaggit allows me more complex edits that you often see on my blog, including the option to capture quick videos.

Velja

Velja allows you to automatically open certain URLs on different browsers installed on your Mac. It comes with the ability to use complex options, but I mostly use it for one thing: open links from Microsoft Teams and Outlook in Microsoft Edge since that’s the browser I use for work-related functions. Otherwise, if I click on a link a co-worker sends me in Teams, it will open in Safari, where I’m not signed into my various work-related platforms.

OneDrive

I get 1TB of storage on OneDrive from work, and I use it to sync and share my Microsoft Office documents so they are available for me and my co-workers on whatever other workstation I use at work. For personal stuff, I use Syncthing, which doesn’t have a menu icon to show here and covered enough in the past.

Outlook

The Outlook icon doesn’t offer anything I need, so I just removed it as I was writing this post.

Grammarly

I’ve used Grammarly for free for years, and now I get the paid version through my employer. To be honest, I don’t like the heavy AI marketing, and some of their functions can get in the way of writing. With Apple Intelligence, I might no longer need it as much. For now, I use it for everything. For example, the post you read now will be proofread by this tool when I paste it into Micro.blog’s text box. They used to have an API that kind-of-sorta worked with Emacs, which I use for everything I write, but they killed that.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 🦃😁