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Tag: blogging

  • Reply to Blogging for traffic not design

    Andy Hawthorne criticised a new website owner for not using a popular CMS, arguing that this would necessarily impact their SEO and so invalidate the point of their website (that point being, Andy presupposes, to attract views). I dispute... almost every single part of that argument.

    Read more - about 4 minutes (948 words)

    • Reply
    • 1 comment
    • posted 19 February, 2025
  • An arrow points from a WordPress logo to a ClassicPress logo, with the stylised/sliced 'Q' that is the icon of DanQ.me sitting atop the arrow.

    WordPress to ClassicPress

    A few weeks ago I switched this blog to ClassicPress, a fork of WordPress. Here's a deep dive into how (and why) I did it, as well as a look into what my experience so-far has been with this (mostly-)cut-down version of the world's most popular CMS.

    Read more - about 10 minutes (2205 words)

    • Article
    • 5 comments
    • posted 18 February, 2025
  • Reply to Ed Catmull on Change

    Matt talked about change, and mentioned the history of WordPress. I weighed-in, talking about my (positive) experience of open source in an environment of change, and contrasting it to fighting with Squiz CMS at the Bodleian!

    Read more (349 words)

    • Reply
    • posted 13 February, 2025
  • Wide diagram consisting of 2,062 vertical lines in a variety of different colours, each representing a different blog post.

    The Continuum

    Inspired by Geneveive Raine's "The Continuum", I turned all of my blog post's featured images into a stripy picture.

    Read more (237 words)

    • Article
    • posted 10 February, 2025
  • Screenshot showing this blog post, viewed in Firefox.

    Blog Questions Challenge

    I must be the last blogger on Earth left to do Ava/Kev's 'Blog Questions Challenge'. Let's get to it.

    Read more - about 8 minutes (1859 words)

    • Article
    • 5 comments
    • posted 7 February, 2025
  • Cloud-shaped wordcloud of tags used on DanQ.me, sized by frequency. The words "geocaching" and "cache log" dominate the centre of the picture, with terms like "fun", "funny", "geeky", "news", "video games", "technology", "video", and "review" a close second.

    Can AI retroactively fix WordPress tags?

    My blog's tagging is a mess. With posts going back 27 years, an inconsistent taxonomy, and changes in focus, that's pretty-much inevitable. Perhaps an AI can help: reading through old under-tagged posts and suggesting tags that could be added? Let's try it...

    Read more - about 12 minutes (2750 words)

    • Article
    • 1 comment
    • posted 30 January, 2025
  • I'm pretty impressed with running WordPress on Caddy so far.

    It took a little jiggerypokery to configure it with an equivalent of the Nginx configuration I use for DanQ.me. But off the back of it I get the capability for HTTP/3, 103 Early Hints, and built-in "batteries included" infrastructure for things like certificate renewal and log rotation.

    Full image of Browser network debugger showing danq.me being served over protocol 'h3' (HTTP/3) and an 'Early Hints Headers' section loading a WOFF2 font and a JavaScript file.
    Alt

    Browser network debugger showing danq.me being served over protocol 'h3' (HTTP/3) and an 'Early Hints Headers' section loading a WOFF2 font and a JavaScript file.

    (why yes, I am celebrating my birthday by doing selfhosting server configuration, why do you ask? 😅)

    • Note
    • 2 comments
    • posted 8 January, 2025
  • Calendar showing Sunday 25 August through Sunday 1 December inclusive, with a coloured "spot" on each day with a size corresponding to the number of posts made on that day, broken into a pie chart showing the proportion of different post kinds.

    99 Days of Blogging

    I've blogged a total of 219 posts spanning 99 consecutive days of blogging, a personal best by a long stretch.

    Read more - about 3 minutes (478 words)

    • Article
    • posted 1 December, 2024
  • I've just enumerated my personal domain names. There's a lot fewer of them than there used to be!1

    Anyway: here's the list -

    • danq.me and a variety of aliases (danq.uk, danq.dev, danq.link, danq.blog, scatmania.org); there's also like a billion subdomains in use of course, like things.danq.me and find.danq.me
    • freedeedpoll.org.uk, which I really ought to update at some point but which still clearly helps many people
    • dndle.app, a D&D-inspired Wordle-clone which I still get bug reports and pull requests for so clearly somebody's using it
    • geohashing.site, the central hub of Geohashing activity worldwide
    • egxchange.org, which hosts the most environmentally-friendly cryptocurrency wallet you'll ever see
    • abnib.co.uk, a community of friends (also with about a billion subdomains)
    • q-t-a.uk, my family website, which exists mostly to facilitate addressing for a stack of internal/selfhosted services
    • rockmonkey.org.uk, which doesn't do much nowadays
    • fleeblewidget.co.uk, my partner's blog, but I look after the domain registration
    • textplain.blog, my plain-text blog
    • levellers.blog, the blog of my D&D group
    • theimprobable.blog, which I look after on behalf of my partner's brother after using it to GPS-track his adventures

    I think that's all of them, but it's hard to be sure...

    Footnotes

    1 Maybe I've finally shaken off my habit of buying a domain name for everything. Or maybe it's just that I've embraced subdomains for more stuff. Probably the latter.

    • Note
    • 2 comments
    • posted 11 November, 2024
  • Adam's blog post "Content of the Week #7: 200 Creators" viewed in FreshRSS.

    XPath Scraping AdamKoszary.co.uk

    My old colleague Adam's started blogging again, but his blog doesn't have an RSS feed. Which means it's time for some more XPath Scraping in FreshRSS, and an excuse for me to explain the testing and debugging process I use when making XPath Scraping rulesets!

    Read more - about 6 minutes (1222 words)

    • Article
    • posted 8 November, 2024
  • What the heck is going on with WordPress?

    My colleague Paolo Belcastro invites you to play a little game: one of these phrases that begins "wp" is not like the others...

    Read more (153 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 2 October, 2024
  • Screenshot showing this blog post.

    Digital Dustbusting

    I've been doing a bit of tidying-up of the mess that is my personal Internet hosting. I've made a lot of progress, but the rest is probably going to have to wait until later in the year.

    Read more - about 5 minutes (1091 words)

    • Article
    • posted 2 October, 2024
  • Can you climb the leaderboards and become the most illustrious viscount of paper towels in the realm?

    How to Monetize a Blog

    Tyler's written about How To Monetize A Blog, and it's excellent reading for anybody w̵͓͒h̶̤̉o̵̩͘ ̸̮̀h̷̗̓a̴̫͆s̶̢̓ ̷͔̏ȩ̴͛v̷͍̐ĕ̵̟r̷̤̈́ ̷͖̎c̴̟̓o̵͉̚ñ̴̮s̸͈̊i̴̞͆d̵̳̀ẹ̸̀r̷͉̃e̷̫͛d̶̘̈́ t̷̖͇̭̭̠͙̭̙̓̇̾̒̂͝ḩ̴̨̱͙͇͉̫̘̻̎̔į̴̛̲̪̜͈̜̻͉͖̲̰̥̘̩͕͒̈͑͂̔̆̆̍̊̕͜r̵̼͇̲͎̰̓̅͂͛̅͗͜d̷̞̃̀͊͜͝-̴̛̖̱̬̣͍͙̠̰̽̂͌̈̉̆͊̈́͘͝p̷̲̅̀̑̈́̕͝a̵̢̙͉̱͈̬͈̝̲̪͈͉̺̣̤̎̓͑͊͂͝r̸̹̳͇̦̫̿̽̈́̑͗̀͒̎̚͘͝t̵̢̖͈̺̺̻̳͔̹̩̀̐̀̿͛͛͒͂̂̌͝y̶̨̹̗̹̐͗̍͊̐̏̏̾͂̀͆͋̇̀͊ ̷̡̺̩̫̣̦̤̹͓̺̬̑͜ã̵̺͔̬̟̭̻͉̺̘̖͉̜̹̳͎̲̌͋̂͆͋̄͝d̸̢̨̢̳̗̭͍̞̣̗̯̖͚͇͔͊̉͒̓͂s̸̡̨̛̰̘̠̘̣̦̘̼͇̫͔̹͇͛̾͊͘͝͝ ̴̥̗͙̣̈́̐́̐͛̓͗͛̈́͋̇̊̐̕͘a̴̲̼͎͍̮̪͑̂̀̇̿̿͛͝ ̸̨̘̼̤̭̱̩̱̞͋̿̓̕͘g̷͉͇̰̰̰̰̻͖̫̠̹͖̅ơ̴̻̩̹̹͂̂́̇̈́̏͒́́̃̓͗͝͝͝͠ó̷̤̝͔̞͙̽̍̌͐́̈͘͠ͅd̵̼̂̀̃͒͂͐̏͌̅̈̈̒̈́ ̵̡̢͎̬̠̭̪̭̪̼̭̠̰͍̠̜̓̈́̓̀͑̍͒̏̌͂̀͂̀i̴̡̜͕͇͖̤̬̜̼̹̟͇̤̞̝̪͐́͑̋͠d̷̟̬͛͛̉̀̇̐͊̈͒͒̈́̅̽͝ę̸̛̛̹̦͇̰̱͚̮͎̟̞͇̙͖̎̐̂̌̅͊͑̐͛̈́͝ȁ̷̠̳͙̊̈̌͋͂̎́̌̌̐͝.̷͖͓͉̠͍̝̭̘́̋̈͛͒̔̂͝͝ͅ.

    Read more (173 words)

    • Repost
    • of this original
    • posted 11 September, 2024
  • If the most useful thing I achieve this Bank Holiday Monday will have been to make it easier to post short geotagged notes from my mobile to my blog (and Mastodon), it will have been a success.

    Full image of Dan sits on the grass in a garden, with his French Bulldog.
    Alt

    Dan sits on the grass in a garden, with his French Bulldog.

    This has been a test post. Feel free to ignore it.

    • Note
    • posted 26 August, 2024
  • OMG VaultPress Jetpack Backup to the rescue.

    One of the best Internet people drew me a picture and when I replied to it, it got scrambled. 😱

    But even though I had to modify core WordPress columns to store drawings, the backup respected that and I was able to restore it.

    I used to pay for VaultPress. Nowadays I get it for free as one of the many awesome perks of my job. But I'd probably still pay for it because it's a lifesaver.

    • Note
    • posted 25 August, 2024

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