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I have always been torn between creating text-only quotes and image-based quotes. Text-only quotes are easier to resurface and index, while image-based quotes are more visually appealing. You’re preference?
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I made a little update to my reading workflow, especially the part for newsletter. Look in the table on this page and sort by date to locate the most recent update.
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Eternal Debate for Online Creators
While searching for blog posts on numericcitizen.me, I discovered a few duplicates and some that were no longer relevant. I removed the duplicates, likely caused by previous migration processes, and decided to unpublish the outdated posts. There seems to be a debate about whether we should delete past publications. Some argue that all blog posts, regardless of relevance, reflect our identity and showcase what we once considered important. Others believe that removing irrelevant posts, which they refer to as noise, helps the remaining content stand out. As I agree to both arguments, I’m allowing myself to do some cleanup, from time to time, and it’s ok.
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When I read about vibe coding to quickly create app mockups or even shipping an app to the App Store, I wonder if I could use genAI to vibe code a theme plugin for Micro.blog. That would allow me to use a unique visual theme inspired by my visual branding.
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Now on Chillidog Hosting
The Who Is Numeric Citizen? website has moved from Cloudflare’s Workers app to Chillidog Hosting. This change was necessary to support PHP, which is required for Elements CMS. Additionally, the publishing workflow is now more straightforward since I no longer need to use a GitHub repository, which was necessary for hosting a static website on Cloudflare. It is rare to simplify a workflow while adding more features, in this case, PHP to implement a CMS component on the News page.
The migration process was relatively simple, thanks to Chillidog support, which was fantastic BTW. The process involved republishing my website using a new configuration publishing setup, which pointed to Chillidog. The setup was straightforward because Chillidog is familiar with Elements, which allows you to download a configuration settings file directly into Elements for setting up the FTP connection. Once republished, I made a DNS change at CloudFlare to replace a CNAME record with an A record to one of Chillidog’s servers. After 15 minutes, it was a done deal.
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Getting Ready for Elements CMS
I’m getting ready to use the upcoming Elements CMS feature when it becomes stable enough for production use. Today, I pushed out a big update to “Who Is Numeric Citizen?” website where I decided to split the Highlights section into four as I’m expecting them to grow over time. As for the CMS feature, it will require a change of my hosting solution. The website is currently hosted on Cloudflare as a worker-based app. I’ll first move the content to Chillidog hosting first, then I’ll start adding the CMS feature in those areas: site news, redo the best articles section and add a tech wish list as CMS entries.
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Now on Ghost 6!
My main website, numericcitizen.me, is now officially using Ghost 6 which was released today. It was a short and painless process to upgrade. While Ghost.org will grandfather current plans, I discovered a price increase for my subscription tier (Creator), going from $25/month to $29/month. It seems that under my current plan, I can get all the juiced up analytics, which is nice. Yet, Ghost.org is a pricey service for a blogger like me.
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My Official Response To Those Sketchy Offers
Because I’m getting email inquiries many times a week for SEO improvement offers, link insertion, ads, etc. I decided to create my official response for these sketchy offers. I hope they understand the message, provided that they read it, of course, which I highly doubt. It’s probably a lost cause.
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Because Diagrams for Mac seems to fall in the category of abandonware, if the latest blog post date is any indication, I decided to drop if from my tool set. The app wasn’t updated since macOS Monterey in 2022. Too bad, it was a rather promising diagramming tool.
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Generative AI Applied to Website Analytics - Cool
I’m trying out the new generative AI-based analytics from Tinylytics, and I’m very impressed. Here’s an example for my main website. To my knowledge, that’s a first for website analytics and I hope that Plausible will take a look at this because it’s really useful. Plus, Tinylytics allows you to create your own prompt and see a different take than the one generated by default.
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An Update About My Journey with Realmac Software Elements
I’ve been quiet lately because I’ve been dedicating more time to learning Realmac Software Elements. I plan to create a few websites for fun. The first will be a new landing page to replace the current one shared with Craft Docs (look here). The second will be my professional website, which I’ll use when I transition to a freelance career. Ironically, the third will be a rework of my current employer’s corporate website, which I find quite unattractive.
So far, it’s a rather exciting journey. Elements is an excellent Mac app, and the team behind it offers a stellar presence on their support forums. This adds to the excitement of being part of a small club trying to build a new app. Elements is still in beta and should launch this year. You should see this video on YouTube showing the app’s user interface.
My experience with Elements reminds me of Apple’s iWeb website editor, which was part of the initial MobileMe rollout. However, Elements is much more powerful and geared toward a different crowd. The learning curve is much steeper, but it is reasonable for a guy like me. Elements is built around Tailwind CSS. I don’t know CSS or Tailwind CSS, but Elements hides its complexity.
Tailwind CSS is a utility-first CSS framework created by Adam Wathan and the team at Tailwind Labs in 2017. Designed to streamline web development, it provides a comprehensive set of low-level utility classes that allow developers to style elements directly in their HTML without writing custom CSS. This approach enables rapid prototyping and highly customizable designs, making Tailwind CSS a popular choice for developers seeking efficiency and flexibility in building modern web interfaces.
As soon as my first project matures enough, I’ll share more about it.
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An Update On My Craft to Micro.blog Migration
I finally completed the replication of content from the Craft-hosted website to Micro.blog-hosted website. I initiated this migration to reduce my dependency on Craft to host such content. Numeric Citizen I/O still points to Craft-hosted website (https://world.numericcitizen.io/meta), but 95% of the content is now available on Micro.blog via meta.numericcitizen.me.
Am I leaving Craft behind, not anytime soon, but I’m certainly continuing to consolidate my online presence under more open platforms.
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I’m an Open Blogger
In the blogging space, “open” can mean different things depending on who you ask. There are open-source tools and services. Opening up yourself while blogging is another example. Giving a behind-the-scenes look at your workflows is another. Furthermore, being an open blogger also means a desire to write about writing and blogging.
Open blogging, a new movement (my creation 😃), also means creating, maintaining and sharing a digital garden. It contains many things like a list of upcoming blog posts, work-in-progress articles, never-published articles and other digital artifacts that you can find just by following links within the digital garden. You can even peek at my website’s analytics, too, thanks to Plausible. It’s all there. Just be curious.
Being an open blogger also means using open-source tools and services as much as possible. Such services include Ghost, GitHub, Plausible, Micro.blog and WordPress. I believe basic and foundational tools and platforms aren’t well served if big corporations own them.
Supporting open-source initiatives like Plausible, Commento and Ghost is an act of support for web openness. I subscribe or did subscribe to all those services because it’s like defending a principle (and because the services are of great value, too!).
On a more personal note, I easily and openly expose my anxieties about the challenges of being a blogger, writer and content creator. Isn’t the website hosting this article, its mission after all? If you’re someone who reads all my content, on all the platforms I use, you can build a pretty good picture of who I am, what’s my values, my interests, my challenges. Each website fills a specific niche but, taken together, forms a web of content reflecting my interests in life.
I like writing about my experiences. Did you know that between 2009 and 2013 I was developing iPhone applications? While doing so, I attempted to maintain a blog about it. I wrote and published articles about my experience my learnings of the iPhone intricacies. Today, I like to write about blogging, to share my experience with applications and services I’m using for that purpose. I like doing this so much that I created this website about it: Numeric Citizen I/O. I maintain a meta-blog that exposes the behind-the-scenes of my workflow. Different context, same objectives. It’s my small contribution to this complicated world.
Thanks for reading.
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The Future of Writing? Testing ChatGPT Canvas for a Specific Use Case
In October 2024, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Canvas, designed to enhance the writing experience. Before ChatGPT Canvas, one writing approach using ChatGPT involved compiling these references into a ChatGPT project, then starting the writing process by using a first prompt, followed by another, and so forth. With ChatGPT Canvas, the approach promised to be more user-friendly, more interactive, more natural.
I wondered which writing project I could use to test this new conversational experience. For a long time, I’ve wanted to write about the data protection and privacy features offered by Apple’s ecosystem for iPhone and Mac users. I had already started gathering references from Apple’s support website and elsewhere on the internet. It was the perfect use case for this experiment.
ChatGPT Canvas starts off with a prompt, as usual, but now you include the term “canvas” in the request. The rest of the experience unfolds in an interface split into two sections: on the left side is the writing conversation, and on the right is the evolving draft. ChatGPT Canvas lets you interactively edit sections of text by selecting them first before requesting modifications. It’s highly interactive; somewhat like working with an editor in real-time. It’s very stimulating.
With “Protecting Your Digital Life: Privacy and Security Measures for Apple Users”, I had the opportunity to fully test this experience with my previously mentioned article project. ChatGPT was central to this writing project, but I also revised certain parts by removing or adding some content and by adding details that ChatGPT didn’t consider important enough to include. The result isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely better than what I would have written from scratch. I hope you enjoy reading it, and that you find the article informative. PS, the diagram is mine, not ChatGPT’s.
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A Mandatory Update to my Content Creation Ecosystem
Some cleanup: Readwise is gone. Supporting services are now grouped at the bottom. Corrected a few typos. I made some visual adjustments to make things a little bit cleaner and easier to visualize, especially for website miniatures. I renamed the diagram to reflect the notion of an ecosystem instead of a workflow.
Many additions: each enhanced service with generative AI features is marked as such with a little brain icon. That’s the case for Inoreader, Craft and Grammarly. All my Micro.blog-hosted websites are now indicated. Since adhering to POSSE principles, I added the Fediverse and Bluesky icons and drew the cross-posting arrow lines to them.
A high-resolution version of this diagram is available here.
What is POSSE
The POSSE principle stands for “Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere.” It is a content distribution strategy often recommended for writers, bloggers, and publishers. The primary idea is to first publish your content on a platform you control, such as your personal website or blog, and then syndicate or share that content on other platforms like social media, Medium, or different online communities.
Here are some key points about the POSSE principle:
- Ownership and Control: By publishing on your own site first, you maintain control over your content and ensure it exists in a space you own. This helps protect your work from the risks of platform changes or shutdowns.
- Centralized Content: Your website becomes the central hub where all your content is stored and can be accessed by your audience.
- Traffic and SEO: By driving traffic to your own site, you can improve your website’s SEO, increase your audience, and potentially monetize traffic through ads, affiliate links, or direct sales.
- Syndication: After publishing on your own site, you can share your content with a wider audience by syndicating it to other platforms. This strategy helps reach readers who might not visit your site directly.
- Preservation: Content publishing on third-party platforms may be subject to their rules and policies. Publishing first on your own site ensures your content is preserved and remains unchanged regardless of policy changes elsewhere.
The POSSE principle is popular among creators who value long-term control over their work and want to build a sustainable and direct relationship with their audience.
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Blogging about Blogging — Eight Questions Answered
This blog post idea was triggered by a similar post on from HeyDingus blog. Consider this a complement to my written interview on People & Blogs.
Why did you start blogging in the first place?
It was back in 2009 when I decided to share my journey of learning to develop applications for the iPhone and the App Store. I wanted to write about this because it has been instrumental in aiding me in retaining information and organizing my thoughts in my mind. Moreover, writing has proven to be an effective tool for problem-solving.
What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?
The first blogging platform was iWeb but it was more for sharing personal news with my family members, it was before Facebook and the like. More seriously, it was in Blogger, now part of Google. What a terrible writing platform it was. I eventually migrated my content to WordPress.
Have you blogged on other platforms before?
Following Blogger, it was Squarespace for a little while then I moved my stuff on WordPress and now on Ghost and Micro.blog. Oh, and I almost forgot Scribble.pages. I know, that’s a lot, but each of them serve its own purpose.
How do you write your posts? For example, in a local editing tool, or in a panel/dashboard that’s part of your blog?
I’m 99% of the time writing locally and hit publish after a dozen of iterations and some serious proofreading (manual, with Grammarly and ChatGPT).
When do you feel most inspired to write?
In the mornings, my mind feels unusually quiet and peaceful.
Do you publish immediately after writing, or do you let it simmer a bit as a draft?
I let things simmer for quite a while for long pieces. Otherwise it’s a rather short-cycle process, mostly for short-form writing.
What’s your favourite post on your blog?
Too hard to tell.
Any future plans for your blog? Maybe a redesign, a move to another platform, or adding a new feature?
I’m super happy with my setup as it is now. I have all the things in place and I want to focus on that for 2025. There is always room for some tweaks and enhancements but overall, I’m settled for a while.
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My Content Creator Workflow & Digital Tools — Edition 2024-12
It’s been quite a long time since my previous content creator workflow update, more than a year actually, back in November 2023. With 2024 coming to an end, it’s time for a detailed update. First, consider the following overall diagram, then continue reading.
Outlining purposes: Zavala, a free open-source outliner, is nearly perfect for outlining YouTube video production. I don’t do detailed scripting before recording videos, but I like to create the outline. I was using Zavala until the release of Mindnote Next, but this might change. Mindnote is a superbly designed mind-mapping application that also supports the creation of outlines, which are more beautiful than those created in Zavala. One of Zavala’s strengths is that it is free but also easily exports a document into Craft via a simple drag-and-drop. I will see how it goes in 2025.
Presentation purposes: iA Presenter offers a unique approach to presentation creation. I rarely use presentation software outside of my day job, but when I do, it supports me while recording a YouTube video. A recent update to iA Presenter introduced an online presentation sharing feature that works really well and is beautifully implemented. For 2025, I’ll try to take advantage of this. iA Presenter is such a unique take on a very old software category I must keep trying to find a use for it.
Website site analytics: Tinylytics joins Plausible in my toolset. I was happy with Plausible until this year, but the developer of Tinylytics is also the developer of Scribble.pages, a blog hosting service I really like. I decided to subscribe to Tinylytics as a support gesture for all his hard work building simple yet valuable web services.
Web bookmark management: I’m happy to introduce Anybox. Sure, it’s not raindrop.io, but it’s a great native Mac app, also available on the iPad and the iPhone. That’s all I need. My collection has less than four hundred bookmarks, all organized using folders and tags. It’s nothing fancy but practical.
RSS feeds publishing: FeedPress is a simple yet effective way for adding a unified feed in front of all my different websites (Ghost, Micro.blog, Scribbles, Medium). Also, I offer an RSS megafeed that encompasses all my other individual RSS feeds, which can be found here: https://feeds.numericcitizen.me. The added value of using FeedPress is to enable RSS feed analytics, which other publishing platforms like Micro.blog, for example, won’t provide.
Podcasting purposes: Micro.blog is now my podcast hosting service of choice. The feature is built-in and very simple to configure and use. There are two ways for me to share a podcast episode: either use the narrated post feature of Micro.blog or use a traditional workflow, build an audio file using Screenflow, post-process it in Adobe Podcast, and convert it from WAV to MP3 using Permute before uploading the audio file to Micro.blog.
Files-hosting and cloud storage service: Dropshare will upload a file to Backblaze cloud storage, and Short.io will shorten the resulting URL. All my files are shared under the following domain name: https://go.numericcitizen.me, using my custom branding. Here is an example: https://go.numericcitizen.me/PLx2st2Y. This workflow was implemented in 2024 and works well. The only thing is that I don’t use it often enough, and it can compete with CleanShot Cloud, which I use more often when sharing screenshots or short video clips. Those media files are using the following URL: cloud.numericcitizen.me.
Specialized blog hosting: Micro.blog. I created a metablog on Micro.blog using one of the five blogs in my Micro.blog subscription. As you can conclude, I’m increasing my foothold on Micro.blog because it is cheap, effective and unique on the market.
Read-later service: I removed Omnivore because the service is no longer being developed, and I decided to focus on Inoreader instead. It’s not a perfect solution, but it is a cheaper one. I still depend on Readwise to sync text highlights from Inoreader.
Another blog hosting service, Scribbles, was. I’m using it to host short-form posts called Blips or longer ones using the /Now spirit under the following URL: https://blips.numericctizen.me.
One-page website hosting: Numeric Citizen Hub on Micro.blog has replaced my Linktr.ee page. I’m again focusing on Micro.blog for many of my online publishing needs while saving some money along the way. This one-page website is for hosting my visitor card, sort of. Micro.blog offers support for one-page websites, so I’m taking advantage of this.
When saving bookmarks on Miicro.blog, I take advantage of text highlights while reading the article that Micro.blog is keeping from the bookmark. Text highlights are synced to Readwise, too.
Website for my supporters: For prople who wants to show their support for my work, I have built a Ko-fi page that can be reached here: https://ko-fi.com/numericcitizen. It was created for the one dollars a month club initiative from Manuel Moreale. I’m one of his supporter.
Document writing and editing needs: Craft & Ulysses. Both apps are still at the center of my publishing needs. More than ever, I depend on Craft to gather my thoughts and notes, research, and write. Ultimately, content is exported into Ulysses for publishing to either Ghost, Micro.blog or, more recently, Medium.
Behind-the-scenes newcomers: Apple Freeform plays a more prominent role in helping me create diagrams. Freeform is joining Mindnote and Keynote for creating visual content when needed.
These are gone: All my domain name registrations are now entirely moved to Cloudflare, and gone is GoDaddy. Omnivore is being phased out by its developers; it’s gone, too.
Until next time
The continuous evolution of toolsets reflects the dynamic nature of technology and the diverse needs of users. No toolset is flawless, and each comes with its own set of strengths and weaknesses. This notion is evident in your evolving content creator workflow, where you adapt and integrate new tools, illustrating digital tools’ perpetual state of change. For 2025, I don’t expect too much change in my workflows. Don’t forget to visit my complete content creator toolset if you are curious about the individual tools that I’m using.
This document is also available as a Craft shared document.
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I spent some time this morning to visit my documented tool set on my metablog to make some updates.
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This morning, I added a guestbook to my blog. Please, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while or if you just came by, take a moment to sign it! 🙏🏻
