Another trip to the doctor this morning. Last month's chest infection is back, although I'm not sure I ever shook if off completely. More antibiotics to pick up a little later. | Continue reading

I've been using Reason Lite for the past few years, initially only for recording hardware but increasingly as an actual DAW. Consequently, I'm starting to feel the limitations of only having 8 tracks to work with. I installed Reaper a little while ago to evaluate it but am not ov … | Continue reading

I spent three weeks agonising over the last track but knocked this latest one out in an afternoon. I guess that means I need to get everything ready for uploading to BandCamp. | Continue reading

Going old school... File: insanity.mp3 | Continue reading

I might have just finished the track I've been struggling with for the past few weeks. I was contemplating a full re-record but, instead, think I found the bits it was missing. I'll sit with it for a while and see if it feels right. If so, that means one more track before I relea … | Continue reading

Seeing Paul Frazee's post about why they use rich text facets on Bluesky reminded me that I need to integrate this into my cross-posting function. I have a test page where I successfully trialled converting a Markdown link to a link facet but haven't integrated the code yet. Upda … | Continue reading

This is an RSS Club only post! Please do not share.I was wondering what to do with the Bluesky invite codes I have and where it made sense to include them on the site – or if I should at all. @millions.neocities.org suggested putting them in an RSS only post and I think that's a … | Continue reading

Word of the day: pablum noun, bland or insipid intellectual matter, entertainment, etc. (Via Platformer) | Continue reading

In other news, I decided to return to 'internet style' paragraph formatting rather than 'printed style' indented ones. It was annoying managing so many edge cases (after blockquotes, code blocks, etc.) that I just decided to revert. | Continue reading

I have a few invite codes for Bluesky so was wondering whether to list them somewhere on the site and let folks grab one. I'm not sure where would make sense. Alternatively, I could just let people reach out if they want one. At least that way I'll immediately know which ones are … | Continue reading

Misu commented on writing every day, initially concerned he would be able to keep it up but then "it got easier." As I always say, we are our own inspiration. He quotes Casey Neistat, a vlogger who mentions "having the clarity of purpose of doing something everyday" — such a good … | Continue reading

The One UI 6 (Android 14) update is now downloading on my Galaxy Tab. This makes me happy as I'll be able to use my new writing workflow there rather than just on the phone. | Continue reading

It's frustrating that I've got a track 90% done and I can hear the last 10% in my head but can't seem to replicate it in life. It also doesn't help that being ill means I haven't touched it in over a week. Maybe that enforced break will mean I go back to it with fresh ears and ma … | Continue reading

A few days ago, my wife talked me into resubbing to World of Warcraft. I wasn't planning on it until next year and the new expansion The War Within but, with the resurgence of my mental health problems, she figured it might help to take my mind off things and that we could play a … | Continue reading

If supported by the browser, the following should hide the on-screen keyboard on a mobile device: if ('virtualKeyboard' in navigator) { navigator.virtualKeyboard.hide(); } The if statements returns true on my phone but the hide() method just doesn't dismiss the keyboard. Instea … | Continue reading

What's crazy is that the handwriting UX with the Samsung keyboard is nowhere near as good despite being the built-in, default method. It is so clunky by comparison to Gboard. | Continue reading

Writing a blog post. Literally! Can't see the video? Click here to watch... I have just discovered that you can write in text fields, including textareas, using Gboard's handwriting recognition. How awesome is that? I have wanted to cultivate a handwriting practice again so had a … | Continue reading

This is an RSS Club only post! Please do not share.Well hello there and welcome to 2024. I just realised I only wrote three RSS Club posts during 2023 so want to do a lot better this year. As I see these as a sort of newsletter delivered via RSS that's not a very good return. I a … | Continue reading

With our symptoms matching most of those for the JN.1 covid variant: cough shortness of breath fatigue muscle or body aches headache new loss of taste or smell sore throat congestion or runny nose my wife and I decided we should do a test. They both came back negative, which is g … | Continue reading

Like : everything, all the time | reverie v. reality... This is such a beautiful image: the thought of those events is starting to stack up little twigs of joy inside of me. All I need is a good spark to light everything up again | Continue reading

Fixed something that's been bugging me since I switched comments to a side panel. They should now auto-scroll to the right one if specified in the URL. This one, for example: https://colinwalker.blog/blog/?date=2024/01/06&c=3:1965 That's the third post of the day and comment with … | Continue reading

While it's not something I think I'd ever use, I like the way Jason Velasquez specifies an assumed audience for each post — this one for example. The link in the top right takes you to the relevant place in the post's metadata. Very elegant. And he's right, it's not that websites … | Continue reading

I've been saying for years that IndieWeb technology needs to be simpler to implement. That's IndieWeb - one word. A number of people have linked to a post by Giles Turnbull saying Let's make the indie web easier. That's indie web — two words. There is overlap and the same princip … | Continue reading

December was probably the wrong month to start. Even while work may ease off for some, it's always a busy time of year with the holidays. A couple of good threads were started but life got in the way and there is so much more to explore with these folks that I hope we can continu … | Continue reading

Matt Birchler asked an interesting question recently: when do I stop blogging? My immediate reaction was why stop at all? He says he can envisage writing less as life changes happen but as for stopping completely? "I don't think so." A comment that struck me was: Some of the long … | Continue reading

Reply to: [Note] Rant of the moment:... From what I recall the WordPress webmention plugin uses a fake reply page (which redirects to the actual comment) so that an endpoint can correctly pull out the right info, otherwise things get confused and the right h-card etc. don't get p … | Continue reading

Like : Thoughts on Obsidian | Alan Ralph... No amount of tech can overcome a lack of understanding of what the problem is that you’re trying to solve. Ain't that the truth! How many times do we see the expression "a solution looking for a problem" – it's the wrong approach. | Continue reading

How time flies! Today is the third anniversary of switching to my custom CMS (b)log-In. I'm still so proud of it and glad that I made the move away from WordPress. I've learnt so much in the last three years, forgotten some of it, but know there's still a long way to go. As ever, … | Continue reading

Things have been pretty quiet round here recently, not least because I've started the year as I finished the last — ill. My wife and I have developed bad head colds 1 meaning putting fingers to screen hasn't been something I've particularly felt like doing. I was still recovering … | Continue reading

True to the tradition that I only remember my dreams when they are 'weird' I had a strange one last night. All I can remember is that I was trapped (I think) in some kind of run down building, empty but for some rubble, with plain concrete walls and floors. On just about every ve … | Continue reading

Like : The Year For Blogging To Pump Up The Volume – Bix Dot Blog... There’s been a lot of pontificating lately that the web is ripe for a blogging renaissance, wishing for it to be true. Much of it from people who don’t seem to notice that’s it’s already begun. Maybe they don’t … | Continue reading

New year's day tradition: take down the Christmas tree while watching the Vienna Philharmonic New Year concert. | Continue reading

Just messing about with something new: File: lost_test.mp3 | Continue reading

Wishing everyone a very happy and healthy New Year. Let's make 2024 a good one! | Continue reading

The next track is done! Things are progressing quicker than expected. The thing I was working on went awry so I decided to go in a completely different direction and good things happened. 2024 is going to be fun... File: acid_uncarnate_sample.mp3 | Continue reading

In an email thread, Dave Winer asked me about dearth of decent third party editor apps for WordPress. That got me thinking about those I could think of and those I've used: MarsEdit Ulysses iA Writer Byword Drafts (if that counts) I've had a brief look at MarsEdit in the past but … | Continue reading

The new track is finished! I left it largely as it was, making just a couple of tweaks — most of the work on it was EQ, levels, and mastering. The Edge is very underused but it served as a base and inspiration which is just as good. You can get a really thumping kick drum out of … | Continue reading

On the third day of Christmas my true love cooked for me... a leftover meats curry. | Continue reading

Spent a couple of hours working on a track using the Behringer Edge in a minor capacity — just starting to get the feel of it. I was originally just mucking about but a couple of #acid lines took shape and, before you know it, a full track emerged. It need some further tweaks and … | Continue reading

Merry Christmas, Xmas, Santa Day, Festivus, or just Monday. | Continue reading