While the pace has definitely slowed, this blog is rolling into its 11th year. That’s a long time running Wordpress. Around 1,250 posts. I revisit this as Wordpress 5 is about to ship, along with the new Gutenberg editor. The…
It wasn’t that long ago that I reminded you of how much I admire Lightningbase. Here’s just one more reason why these guys rock. Lightningbase has recently made it very easy to deploy SSL for WordPress sites by integrating Let’s Encrypt.
Lightningbase founder Chris Piepho announced the effort in a blog post. Since I’ve wanted to use SSL for a while, but not had the time to work through the details, I took the new offer as a sign that I should go ahead with the implementation.
I must say that I was floored by how easy this was! The entire process of getting this domain running on SSL took me less than 15 minutes.
As mentioned yesterday, I have long enjoyed using Windows Live Writer as my offline blogging tool. I appreciate its simplicity. It’s purity of purpose. It’s lightweight, just enough tool to get things done.
It’s not perfect, but it has some great features. It’s simplicity has allowed its functionality to be extended by the user community. For example, there’s a nice trick that uses DropBox to sync WLW drafts between systems. This has proven very productive as I move between desktop & laptop.
I also appreciate the way that it will automatically insert web links to a library of phrases. This kind of auto-linking, previously done server-side using a WordPress plug-in, was a constant source of problems in the past.
Sadly, Microsoft has largely ignored Windows Live Writer in recent years. It wasn’t even included in the Windows 10 RTM. There was a trick initially required to get it installed on Windows 10.
Today saw the launch of WordPress 4.4. For me this is significant as most of my writing for publication online ends up in WordPress.
Some time ago I documented my initial experience with the platform and hosting services. Since then I’ve grown to admire the WordPress team for delivering utterly seamless upgrades, and Lightningbase as a wonderful hosting company. This site is just passing three years live at Lightningbase.
While I spend a lot of time in WordPress, the actual writing most typically happens in Windows Live Writer. I like the program for it’s simple functionality. I’ll have more on that in a post to follow tomorrow.
Recent changes in WordPress have included new back-end functionality that’s designed to facilitate more evolved front-end applications. The WordPress mobile apps (Android, iOS) have been around for a while. I’ve had one loaded to my Nexus 7 tablet for a long while, but never actually written anything substantial that way. I’ve tried a few times, but ultimately found the experience lackluster.
This is the fourth installment in the long-running tale (parts one, two & three) of my search for the most appropriate host for this site.
The very fact that you’re reading this means that the site is now live on a server operated by Lightning Base. In the past I’ve used a shared host and couple of different VPS providers. In point of fact the site was at UnmeteredVPS.net for over two years.
I have nothing but nice things to say about UnmeteredVPS.net. That service is excellent, but it wasn’t exactly a perfect fit. It was an unmanaged VPS, which meant that I was responsible for everything.
Every few weeks I would need to update some aspect of the OS or supporting software. Some updates were trivial. Some, like major Apache or MySQL updates, were a bit scary. Despite five years running this site I’m no Linux guru.
Not long ago I read a post by a blogger who had made the effort to give up his laptop for the day. While attending a conference he left his laptop in his hotel room intent upon using only his Nexus 7
The tale of his day highlighted a few worthy accessories for the Nexus 7 tablet. He pointed to a premium stylus and a Bluetooth wireless keyboard as key to his productivity. I was impressed by his logic and the tale of his experience that day. So much so that I ordered those same items so that I might try them for myself.
At this very moment I’m typing on the Logitech Keyboard for Android