Tag: tech

Moving to Pure Blog. Or Not.

This is something I put down at the beginning of February, and forgot to post. So for posterity:

I read about Kev Quirk’s new blogging platform, Pure Blog, thanks to a boosted post on Mastodon from Jack Baty. While I’ve been on WordPress for quite a while, and had no real plans to leave, this certainly sounded interesting, and so I read through Kev’s post introducing the new platform. What I read there intrigued me enough to go to the project site.

This part especially caught my eye:

It reflects the lessons I’ve learned from every platform I’ve touched over the years:

– WordPress gave me power, but too much complexity.
– Jekyll gave me simplicity, but not enough flexibility.
– Ghost has a fantastic editing experience, but leans hard into audience-building, which I don’t need.
– Kirby is brilliant, but getting the panel exactly right takes a lot of effort.
– Bear Blog is lovely, but its editor is a bit too minimal for my taste.

Pure Blog sits somewhere in the middle of all of those experiences. It’s intentionally small, intentionally simple, and built to solve the exact problems I’ve run into as a long-time blogger.

I mostly agree with Kev’s sentiment about WordPress. I flirted with Jekyll, but felt like it was too technical for me, and I haven’t looked at it in years. Ghost is the new hotness, but for a personal blog, seems like overkill. I spun up a Ghost instance on DigitalOcean a couple of years ago and played around with it, but ultimately killed it and stuck with WordPress. I’ve never looked at Kirby seriously. I have poked around with Bear Blog, and until today, if I was looking to move from WordPress, that would probably be where I would go.

The video on the main page convinced me to give it a shot. I jumped over to GitHub and downloaded the software. But as a relative neophyte, I wasn’t sure where to go from here.

Enter Claude.

Local web server

First thing to do, get the local Apache web server up and running on my Mac. For this, I turned to the MAMP project. Downloaded, installed, started up the web server. Copied Pure Blog’s contents in to the /htdocs folder. After some starts and stops, and help from Claude as I told it what errors I was encountering, I got everything sorted (neophyte, remember?) Entered http://localhost:8000/setup.php in my browser, and boom, we’re on our way.

https://pureblog.org/assets/images/getting-started/setup-screen.webp

I set up the site in Pure Blog’s settings as shown above, and then tested it out. Wow, look at that. With a little LLM AI help, this neophyte had it sorted out. Now all I needed was some content.

WordPress export

Sure, I could start from scratch, but I knew that if this was to take off, I would want to move all my WordPress content over. But all of that is in a database used by the WordPress installation, and Pure Blog uses plain text Markdown files. So how do I go about doing that, Claude?

The answer was a WordPress -> Markdown Node.js tool: npx wordpress-export-to-markdown.

  1. From the WordPress installation, go to Tools -> Export -> All content
  2. Move the XML file that results to a local folder where you can point the Node.js tool to.
  3. Fire up a Terminal window, input the above command, and follow the prompts:
    a. Point the command to the XML file
    b. Answer the questions on file name formats, images, etc. These are all very straightforward, the command’s programming guides you effortlessly through each one
    c. Once the last question is answered, the exporting begins!

Now with over 20 years worth of posts, I figured this was going to take a while. The Node.js tool has to parse each individual post from the XML file, and place it in the appropriate /YEAR/MONTH folder, then go out and grab the accompanying images (if any).

It took about 45 minutes, and there were 105 failures when it came to locating images. My guess is that those were from the Tumblr posts I’d imported years ago, reblogs where the original post no longer existed. I have some detective work ahead of me. All told, I had just over 2 GB of data.

Here, kids, I will take a moment to remind you to read through all of the documents for a blogging platform before you start working on it.

I ended up re-doing the WordPress -> Markdown conversion. Originally, I had selected to download posts in to year and month folders. However, Pure Blog doesn’t work along those lines. It’s looking for a date in the filename, such as 2026-02-06-test-blog.md. This is how it sorts and displays posts in its simple system. The Node.js tool has an option for this, and so it was easier to run the conversion a second time with that option, rather than edit each file individually. (Remember, over 20 years worth of posts.)

What Might Be Missing

While the second conversion was under way, I had a sudden thought: Does Pure Blog support title-less posts?

A few years back, when I was using Micro.blog, I started publishing posts without titles. These were mainly my social media (viz: Twitter/X) posts, only posted to my blog. When I moved to WordPress full time, those title-less posts were categorized as “Micro.” Posts with titles were categorized as “Main.” These are the only two categories I use; otherwise, all posts have tags.

WordPress handled the issue of URL for title-less posts by using the published date, so long as you’re publishing the date on your site for each post. With my chosen theme, it looks and works rather elegantly.

A quick test of uploading a title-less Markdown file showed me that yes, the Pure Blog engine will publish it, but (a) there is no way to display a public link for it on the site (at least with the default configuration), and (b) there is no way to edit it within Pure Blog’s Dashboard. The Dashboard uses the post’s title as the means to open the post for editing.

Now, given these are Markdown files, you don’t need the Dashboard to edit them; any text editor will do. However, when displaying them publicly, it’s only good web manners to have a link to the post available to others. So, a quick email to Kev:

Kev,

Any chance of support for title-less posts?

Thanks,

Chris

The response a few hours later, was not heartening:

Hey Chris,

It’s something I may add in the future if I decide to go down the route of adding microblog type features to my site, but it’s not something that’s immediately on the list.

Thanks,

Kev

And thus for now, on the 7th of February, 2026, my experiment with moving away from WordPress to something simpler ended.

Addendum, 12 April 2026: Kev has been quite busy since my above experimentation, constantly updating the Pure Blog software, including two full re-writes of how it handles updating the software itself. He’s added shortcodes, page cache, some more themes, numerous other small additions and bug fixes, and even a full x.0 version update.

Alas, with version 2.2.0 as of two weeks ago, Kev considers Pure Blog feature complete. And it still doesn’t have the one feature I was hoping for, the aforementioned title-less posts.

At the end of the day, Pure Blog is scratching an itch for Kev, first and foremost. The fact that enough people are using it for their own blogging that he has continued development, accepting contributions from other developers, is testament to his being on to something that isn’t found with any other blogging platform.

So why do I stay with WordPress? Familiarity, plain and simple. I’ve been with it long enough, it doesn’t cost me a lot in terms of tech- or thought-debt. Though it is and can be complex, for my particular needs, it does the job. It has staying power, and stability, thanks to the organization and company behind it. It will run pretty much anywhere I’d want or need it to. And I’m not subject to a service, like with Micro.blog, Pika, or Pagecord.

Examining and experimenting with other platforms like Pure Blog is worth engaging in, as it tests the limits of what you’re currently using, as well as testing your limits and needs. Would I be better suited with something like PureBlog for a personal blog? Most likely. Do I feel it’s a good fit for me at this time? No, I don’t. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking at for someone else, or revisiting in the future as it gets more mature.

On the one hand, AppleTV’s tvOS informing me that Stars-Flyers has gone to overtime WHILE I’M WATCHING THE GAME is kind of annoying.

On the other hand, at least tvOS isn’t as “smart” or privacy-invading to know I’m already watching it.

Courtesy of Kevin Kelly’s Recomendo newsletter (it’s free), here’s a neat iPhone ring hack for those of us who keep the ringer silenced:

Like many people I keep my phone ringer on vibrate, but I don’t usually carry my phone on me – I may leave it on a desk – so I often miss calls. I’ve greatly reduced missed calls by setting the phone to flash its flashlight and flash its screen while it vibrates. That flashing light is enough to notice from a distance. It is easy to program on the iPhone. Go Settings > Accessibility > Audio Visual > Flash for Alerts. For Android: Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Screen Text > Flash Notifications. — KK

Tahoe update, begone!

Like many Mac users, I ignored macOS 26 when it was released because Liquid Glass is…not good. And there are numerous other graphical inconsistencies as a result of the new coat of paint. I’m not going to document those. You can head over to my friend Michael’s blog where there are numerous posts you can search for that lay out all the issues.

I’m quite happy with macOS 15 Sequoia on my PowerBook M4 Max. (Again, doesn’t that flow so much better than MacBook Pro M4 Max?) So I ignored the update and things were all right in Mudville.

But Apple has decided it really wants users to upgrade, the irritations of which Michael has ably herded together, along with a nerdy solution courtesy of Rob Griffiths. And yes, quite frankly, I was tired of looking at and seeing the notifications pop up constantly, so I went to read Rob’s piece.

First thing I noted was that it applied to macOS 15.7.3; it was written back in January of this year, and I had already updated to 15.7.4. So I read through the comments to see if anyone had actually addressed this issue of Rob’s solution working or not with the latter version. No one had, but Jeff Hirsch had left a comment that had me running off to System Settings to give it a whirl:

Go into Software Update, switch your Beta Updates to the macOS Sequoia Public Beta channel and enjoy your nag free Sequoia experience. Done and done.

No profiles, no expiration. Just a quick and painless removal of those persistent Tahoe upgrade nags.

Yes! This is the kind of thing I was looking for: something simple, easily undoable when the time comes, and I don’t have to worry about a lot of copying and pasting in Terminal.

And what before my wondering eyes should appear?

Screenshot of maOS 15 Software Update window showing 15.7.5 update available

Not only did the macOS 26 nag disappear, an update to macOS 15.7.5, heretofore unavailable, appeared. Not cool, Tim. Not cool at all.

Ran all updates, and now, once again, all was right in Mudville, for mighty Casey had hit a bases-clearing dinger.

Screenshot of macOS 15 Software Update window showing up to date with 15.7.5

Thanks, Jeff!

December of this year marks the 35th anniversary of the first PowerBooks shipping to customers. If only Apple would take the opportunity to bring back that classic brand name.

Ashley Belanger:

The law requires the divestment “to end any ‘operational relationship’ between ByteDance and TikTok in the United States,” critics told the NYT. That could be a problem, since TikTok’s release makes it clear that ByteDance will maintain some control over the TikTok US app’s operations.

Is anyone truly concerned with the national security implications of TikTok surprised that ByteDance is, well, dancing around the particulars to maintain some form of access and control?

The Chinese Communist Party is not going to willingly give up access to American users or the influence it can exert on those users by way of controlling the algorithm of what they see.

If we were really serious about TikTok, we would have cut off its access entirely to the nation, but then the powers that be in this country haven’t been serious about national security in decades.

[Wave of the phin to Michael Tsai for linking to the Ars piece.]

Back at the end of 1997, I bought in to a local Mac consulting business. My partner and mentor, Damion, had created mousepad-style coasters as a means of free advertising/client reminders. We each carried a little bucket of these in our cars so we could grab a handful when needed to leave with clients/potential clients.

I arrived at my parents’ house last night, they still have three of them. ❤️

The whole device authorization fiasco for one’s Apple Music (viz: iTunes) account, where one cannot actually see anywhere a list of devices authorized, is totally unacceptable.

Instead you have to deauthorize all devices, then re-authorize them one by one. Beyond ridiculous.

And in 2025, why is there even a limit on the number of devices?

My work laptop was updated overnight to Windows 11, and I am more excited about its new theming in my work life than I am about the prospect of Apple’s Liquid Glass in my personal life.

First Impressions, Royal Kludge F68

So I was taken by the idea of a foldable mechanical keyboard, when I first learned of the Royal Kludge F86, that I could use with my iPhone as a portable writing setup. I’m not sure where I first learned of the F86, so if it happened to be anyone reading this, linking to it once upon a time, my thanks.

Photo of Royal Kludge F68 mechanical keyboard unfolded and powered on

Granted, being a mechanical keyboard, even when folded, it’s not going to be as compact as other foldable keyboards, given it only folds the one way, and using mechanical switches, is thick. So if you’re looking for ultra-portability, this likely isn’t the keyboard for you.

I bought the black version on Amazon, where it was cheaper than direct from RK thanks to a 10% off coupon. Key text is white, with Functions in gray.

There is software available for it, but looks to be Windows-only (.exe). However, for remapping keys for use between Windows or macOS/iOS, this is handled on the keyboard itself. Fn+S gets you Mac layout; Fn+A is Windows. So in Mac mode, the Alt key becomes Command, Win key becomes Option. Ctrl remains Ctrl.

It uses “Low Profile Tactile Brown Switches,” to try and minimize key height. Sound seems to be typical for Brown switches. This has been a work-from-home week, so I’ll have to see next week when we’re in office if it’s too loud for some of my coworkers.

Photo of F68 keyboard with iPhone in device arms

As for how it feels: not as good as my NuPhy Air75, but better than my older Keychron K2, which also has brown switches. I’m no mechanical keyboard aficionado, after all; this is just the fourth one I’ve ever owned. For what I want to do, it does the job with the tactile feedback.

You can connect three different devices to the keyboard. Currently I have my iPhone and my PowerBook M4 Pro (Yes, I am committed to this bit). I will likely connect my work laptop when in the office next week. Switching is pretty seamless:

  • Device 1 – Fn+Q
  • Device 2 – Fn+W
  • Device 3 – Fn+E

When it’s flat on the desk, it feels like a typical mechanical keyboard. If you pick it up, there is a little inward flex from the two halves. I haven’t tried it on my lap, but given it’s a 60% size keyboard, I probably wouldn’t ever do that anyway. But if I did, I’m sure there’s going to be both inward and outward flex from the keyboard’s halves on such an uneven surface.

Keyboard is backlit, which is nice. Using Fn+\ you can cycle through the backlight settings, of which are three: on, slow pulse, and off. Fn+up or down arrows will adjust backlight intensity. There’s only about 4-5 settings. When you hit the max on Fn+Up arrow, the backlight flashes at you, as if to say, “I can’t go any higher!” If you Fn+Down arrow enough, the backlight will turn off.

It has two arms that fold flat against the top of the case to support your smartphone. Haven’t tried it as of yet with my iPad Air. The arms each have a dimple near the end, and that slots in to a notch on the casing, so they stay in place when folded.

Photo of F68 keyboard with device arms deployed

Photo of F68 keyboard with device arms stowed

The F68 charges via USB-C. It has a physical On/Off switch, which is rather stiff.

There is no carrying case for the keyboard, just a sleeve you slide the folded F68 in to. So there is minimal protection from being scratched or scuffed while in your bag, but that’s it. It’s a snug fit, but the sleeve does close all the way.

Photo of F68 keyboard folded with its carrying sleeve

Photo of F68 keyboard in sleeve with opening cinched closed

All in all, considering I’ve only had this a few days, I’m liking it. It does what I want it to do. Took it to Kid3’s lacrosse practice this past Thursday at the indoor facility, where they have tables and chairs, and used it there, so it’s fulfilling its purpose.

Time will tell if it sticks!