Jeremy Cherfas

A space for mostly short form stuff and responses to things I see elsewhere.

Oh rats. I thought I could use Omnibear to post a photo, but it doesn't seem to do that.

So many fascinating bits of data in Apple's Podcast Analytics beta, but no easy way to extract it for further processing, as far as I can tell.

Anyone using OwnYourGram with the latest master of @WithKnown? Since updating, my photos no longer come back to my site. Everything else is improved, but no actual image. I have no idea why this is happening, and would welcome clues.

2018-05-27

1 min read

@phoneboy kindly shared a screenshot of the "webmention" spam he said he had received.

As I suspected, it looks to me like common or garden spam, hence the scare quotes. Of course, I can't be absolutely certain without digging further into the actual URLs, which I'm not about to do, but everything about these comments screams pingbacks or trackbacks. And the solution is obviously Akismet which, to be honest, I am suprised Phoneboy has not already installed and activated.

The day may come when webmention spam is a thing, and #indieweb people have been thinking about a protocol called Vouch for that eventuality.

Quick reminder. Virtual Homebrew Website Club to talk about anything IndieWeb-related will start in about 40 minutes, using Mumble. Details at https://indieweb.org/events/2018-05-23-homebrew-website-club

People of Europe's timezones!

There will be a [virtual Homebrew Website Club meeting](https://indieweb.org/events/2018-05-23-homebrew-website-club) this evening.

Feel free to drop in and discuss anything IndieWeb.

TFW you realise your human-powered cron job hasn't been human powered for too long.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 21 May 2018

0 stars 3 comments

@jeremycherfas isn’t the point of a cron job to make something not human powered?

matigo, May 21 2018 on micro.blog

@matigo It is. For now, though, I am supposed to do something every day. And some days, I forget. Waiting to iron out all the bugs, of which there are plenty.

jeremycherfas, May 21 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas the nice thing about bugs is that, after a couple of decades of work, they eventually all go away 😉

matigo, May 21 2018 on micro.blog

2018-05-21

1 min read

A couple of days ago, @phoneboy mentioned the fun he had deleting the spam webmentions he had received on WordPress.

I asked him to document them .

Now Phoneboy replies:

Once I figure out the right settings, I’ll let you know.

And I’m not sure what that means. What right settings? Doesn’t WordPress keep a copy of all comments it receives? It would be really useful to see the contents of those “spam webmentions,” where they came from, what they contained, who sent them, simply because, as I said before, so few of these imagined evils have so far been spotted in the open. Not sure what settings that requires.

Also, the irony of this question has not escaped me:

Also, where did you post this comment? Didn’t see it in micro.blog.

I posted it here. Where else would I post it?

#indieweb

Test post from Omnibear in Firefox.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 17 May 2018

0 stars 1 comment

Firefox is one of the fastest browsers for the browsing on the internet and light weight for searching and downloading. We can also testing the Omni bear on the Firefox and it is also reliable for the user of the internet.

https://www.plurk.com/JackDaniels786, Jul 13 2018 on stream.jeremycherfas.net

2018-05-17-02

1 min read

If you're looking for a really good introduction to the #IndieWeb and insights into how it all works, you could do a lot worse than listen to Jeena's podcast with Martijn. They do a tip-top job of explaining for people less knowledgeable than they are, and the audio quality is very acceptable.

2018-05-17

1 min read

Strangely, perhaps, given my love of tinkering with shiny, I've never been tempted by Ghost. But reading the latest birthday review surfaced this bit of wisdom.

Decentralised platforms fundamentally cannot compete on ease of setup. Nothing beats the UX of signing up for a centralised application.
But
Centralised platforms fundamentally cannot compete on power and flexibility. In the long run, nothing beats owning your technology and controlling your destiny.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 17 May 2018

0 stars 11 comments

@jeremycherfas they raise an excellent point. The barrier to entry can only be lowered so much. At some point people will need to handle some unfamiliar aspect of website management, be it domains, DNS, or whatever. It would be interesting to tackle this area and teach Alexa or Google Assistant how to respond to something like:

Ok, Google; I need a website. Set one up for me and help me with a web address.

Pie in the sky?

matigo, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@matigo And then you get what Google gives you... Whilst I still like the ease of 10C it has been veey educational to play with my WordPress setup. You can't have exactly what you want unless you pay a designer for a bespoke solution, or learn Stuff. // @jeremycherfas

vanessa, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@matigo Probably is Pie in the Sky, because Google has very little interest in helping you do that sort of thing. Just use G+

jeremycherfas, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@vanessa Learning Stuff is absolutely key to a contented life.

jeremycherfas, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas I was thinking more about teaching the assistants via API enhancements that a person can apply. Alexa's API can be extended to do everything from turn on the sprinklers outside your home to ordering pizza. No reason why a properly-written add-on couldn't auto-acquire hosting, install a CMS, configure the thing and all of its dependencies, and apply a domain name. I could get a Ghost installation set up for the very first time on the very first try earlier this week on an EC2 instance by following steps that could be completely scripted out for an automation API ...

matigo, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@matigo Ah. Now, that's different, and makes a lot of sense. You can tell I have paid no attention to these "assistants”.

jeremycherfas, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas I don't have one, nor do I want one in the house unless everything is processed locally. I do see the value, but there needn't be a corporate entity behind it ...

matigo, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Just signed up and set up a site on Ghost. I've always liked them for their ease of use and customer service

sumudu, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@sumudu Well done. You must have at least a dozen sites by now.

jeremycherfas, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Almost as much of a tinkerer as you are. 😀 Mind you, I do occasionally look to see if there's any further guides on the Known section on Dreamhost. I think 10C & WordPress is probably enough for now, though. @sumudu

vanessa, May 17 2018 on micro.blog

I have ordered my iPhone App Development in the US for my own business.

ios developer, Nov 07 2018 on stream.jeremycherfas.net

2018-05-07

1 min read

I think I just need to remind myself and others of the natural progresion of things.

Everything not forbidden is permitted.
Everything not permitted is forbidden.
Everything not forbidden is compulsory

That is all. #indieweb

Replied to a post on ascraeus.org :

Data Peddling Scum is the name of my new Grunge tribute band.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 07 May 2018

0 stars 3 comments

@jeremycherfas Scum for short?

Ron, May 07 2018 on micro.blog

@Ron Only to our very best friends.

jeremycherfas, May 07 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Yes, of course. But it's hard to know what the most rabid of fans might do or like, especially as they get more and more addicted to your sound. I can easily imagine them deciding that your sound is not just for or from Data Peddling Scum, in fact, that it is not like any other Scum anywhere else thus elevating it to a position of being in their fanatical distorted minds the One and Only Scum, the absolute ultimate of Scum, therefore soon shortened to The Scum, for which there is plenty of precedent; for example, The Stones and The Dead. Once this happens, there's no fighting it or stopping it. You'd just have to accept that you've become The Scum. It's at this stage when mothers start considering interventions to rescue their young children from the grasps of this obviously dangerous obsession.

Ron, May 07 2018 on micro.blog

We're live now on Virtual HWC https://indieweb.org/events/2018-05-02-homebrew-website-club#Virtual_European_Time - Why not join us?

If you would like to know more about the IndieWeb beyond micro.blog and WP, why not join us for the [virtual Homebrew WebsiteClub](https://indieweb.org/events/2018-05-02-homebrew-website-club#Virtual_European_Time) this evening at 17:30 CEST?

Huge congratulations to @nprDanCharles, @mgodoyh and everyone else at The Salt for their well-deserved #jbfa

2018-04-27

1 min read

Like Tom MacWright, I too have almost no need for Google these days, with one exception: Chat. I have a couple of friends with whom I enjoy messaging, and they aren't about to go anywhere else. I already use YakYak. Is there any way I could message their GTalk without having a Google account myself?

I really do not understand the nofilter tag on Instagram. Is it really that meaningful to point out that you just snapped a shot and didn't mess with it later?

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 25 April 2018

0 stars 5 comments

@jeremycherfas tagging for the sake of tagging?

cn, Apr 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas It's never crossed my mind to use it. Not sure I even pay attention to it either. Mind you, I also rarely use any of the filters. I try to avoid any tweaking of my photos, as I prefer to have taken a good shot in the first place.

vanessa, Apr 25 2018 on micro.blog

I think the point is often times vibrant photos are because they put some sort of color distorting filter on. So when people snapped real 100% accurate vibrant colored photos, they started using that hashtag to point that out. I’m haven’t followed its use recently though.

Eddie Hinkle, Apr 25 2018 on eddiehinkle.com

@jeremycherfas now that I have an iPhone 8 Plus, I've never been more unimpressed with #nofilter because every photo looks amazing & worse with a filter.

Seslor, Apr 25 2018 on micro.blog

@Seslor Good point. I’m happy with my 6+. No idea how it could be surpassed, but I guess it can be.

jeremycherfas, Apr 26 2018 on micro.blog

Replied to a post on miklb.com :

Me neither! Came up yesterday in a MOOC I am studying. It's the little things ...

Replied to a post on twitter.com :

You could do worse than look at @WithKnown for a reasonably simple solution. It isn't quite as easy to use, but it isn't that difficult either.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 18 April 2018

1 star 2 comments

Stacey DePolo 🌻 liked this post

Apr 19 2018 on twitter.com

Thanks! This is definitely in the realm of what I'm looking for ☺️

Andrew Shopland, Apr 19 2018 on twitter.com

There are many online games to play but the kids loves to play the mathematics based game cool math just visit here and play the cool math games online with all unlocked level without any pay and download.

cool maths games, Oct 23 2018 on stream.jeremycherfas.net

Also on: @EatPodcast

Managed about an hour of "gardening" before the drizzle began. So that's good.

@rosemaryorchard Have you looked at the hibbitts design open publishing space for Gerav and Git?

Replied to a post on islandinthenet.com :

Absolutely correct. The people are eager and willing to help, and I would not have got anywhere without them. Which is why I am careful to say that I see no deliberate effort to exclude anyone. But as you say, it isn't ready for everyone either. Nor will it be, I don't think.

#indieweb

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 16 April 2018

0 stars 2 comments

@jeremycherfas and ... ? :o

matigo, Apr 16 2018 on micro.blog

@matigo And nothing. That's it. For now.

jeremycherfas, Apr 16 2018 on micro.blog

2018-04-11

1 min read

Digging into how withknown creates RSS feeds, I can see two things.

One is that for a status post, which has no title, `<title>` is a truncated version of the post content, although the level of truncation seems to vary. Not sure why.

The other is that even status posts, with a truncated `<title>`, have a full `<description>` that includes `p-name` and `e-content` and even `entry-content`.

But micro.blog does not seem to read `<description>` at least not when it is coming from my withknown RSS feed.

Puzzling.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 11 April 2018

0 stars 4 comments

@jeremycherfas Be your own parser.

jeremycherfas, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Can you ever use a naked < ???

jeremycherfas, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Obbiously you can. But maybe not a <.

jeremycherfas, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Oh boy; Another wrinkle. In reading <description> from my RSS feed, microblog converts <title> Into ``. Again, I have no idea whose behaviour is correct here.

jeremycherfas, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

Is there, anywhere, a definitive guide to how micro.blog truncates posts it receives via RSS?

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 10 April 2018

0 stars 10 comments

@jeremycherfas Cool. Micro.blog tries to be smart about those kind of truncated titles in a feed, but misses it sometimes. So if there's a way to just remove the title from the feed, it will be more consistent.

manton, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas I checked your feed. The truncation is happening in your feed, not Micro.blog. Your RSS title is a truncated version of the post. (Micro.blog has special support for detecting this up to a point, but it can't catch everything.)

manton, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@manton That's the weird part, I think. It was a status post. Has no title to begin with. I'd better look more closely at how Known builds the feed.

Thanks.

jeremycherfas, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas @matigo @cn Yes, this help page describes the rules. If you think anything's missing from there, let me know and I'll update it.

manton, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@manton This is the bit that concerns me:

If the post has no title and is over 280 characters, the text is truncated with a link back to the full post on your site.

What sets the length at which the post is truncated? Sometimes it seems awfully short, as in my post immediately before the root of this one. If I knew for sure, I could write appropriately.

// @matigo @cn

jeremycherfas, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@matigo Jeremy and I (and others) know there are a number of unwritten rules to posting // @jeremycherfas

cn, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@cn these rules are incomplete based on experience. The system has evolved a bit in the months since :P

// @jeremycherfas

matigo, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas @matigo some answers here?

cn, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@matigo 'deed it would.

jeremycherfas, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas that would be useful …

matigo, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

Strange question, I know, but ... Is there any way I can restrict access to a post in WP without having to make people jump through **any** hoops to see it?

There are lots of solutions that allow only registered users to see a specific post. What I want ideally is a link I can give people that will work for them and not for anyone else. A page hidden from anyone who does not have that link.

The idea is to give email subscribers and other supporters access either exclusively or well in advance of the general public.

Just read a horrible coinage: autonomobile. Cars were never automobile without a driver. We are still waiting for a truly automobile means of transport.

This is worrying. I received a message from Fastmail saying I had reached my sending limit for the day. Impossible. I raised a ticket and 8.5 hours later got confirmation my account had been compromised. I'll say this for Fastmail; the recovery process is superb. The worrying part is that I **know** I did not reply to any phishing expedition. So how did it happen? Brute force, maybe. Pwned, maybe.

Not that he needs it, but let me offer @matigo as my Micro Monday suggestion.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 02 April 2018

0 stars 3 comments

@PhoneBoy Seconded. @jeremycherfas @matigo

sumudu, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@sumudu @PhoneBoy @jeremycherfas y'all are crazy. I spam timelines with reckless abandon! :P

matigo, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas I agree on @matigo as a #MicroMonday recommendation.

PhoneBoy, Mar 25 2018 on micro.blog

As I start work on my monthly review, it occurs to me that despite having signed up for @belle's excellent roundup of reviews, and checking my spam folder, I've never received a single one.

I am **very** firmly of the opinion that cross posting original stuff from one site to another ought to be a considered decision on each occasion. Yes, that’s just me. It could be you too. Add a little friction; you know it makes things better.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 26 March 2018

0 stars 7 comments

@jeremycherfas Agree. But one cannot select that option in individual posts; can it? Once you configure cross posting it applies to all posts, right?

sumudu, Mar 26 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Yes. I’ve been thinking about friction a lot recently. We build tools and processes to make our lives faster and easier, but rarely do we design for friction, to force thought and reflection before action.

vasta, Mar 26 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Agreed. I have my various blogs feed in to here, but that's all. I could post to Twitter/Fb, as I've set that up, but it's not often I will want to. Somewhat like my real-life friends, my social networks don't overlap a lot. (ADN refugees excepted).

vanessa, Mar 26 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas yep. I'm certainly getting there, too …

matigo, Mar 26 2018 on micro.blog

@PhoneBoy Too much for some, not enough for others.

jeremycherfas, Mar 26 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas And by Ana Lang I mean enabling, obvs.

jeremycherfas, Mar 26 2018 on micro.blog

@vasta I actually just wrote a post about this!

frostedechoes, Mar 27 2018 on micro.blog

Replied to a post on twitter.com :

Better download that then, pronto. Thanks for the tip-off.

Replied to a post on boonbutts.withknown.com :

Best suggestion I can offer is to ask specific questions. There are also some superb introductions, like this one https://adactio.com/journal/7698 that explain the basic ideas.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 23 March 2018

0 stars 1 comment

@jeremycherfas Thank you. That may be useful. Favorited for future reference.

sumudu, Mar 23 2018 on micro.blog

Replied to a post on seishonagon.micro.blog :

That reminds me, I should take a look at https://www.jeremycherfas.net/blog/putting-my-house-in-order-phase-2 and see what's changed.

#indieweb

Replied to a post on prettygoodhat.com :

Good going.

Replied to a post on twitter.com :

In fact a far better answer to the question "Why do bell peppers come in different colors" is "Because plant breeders made that happen by selecting different varieties".

Replied to a post on twitter.com :

Can't think why a respected organisation would link to this. It is wrong on so many levels. Final colour at maturity is a heritable trait. Different varieties mature to different colours.

You can get good help

1 min read

I managed to fix a long-standing niggle with my #indieweb practice this afternoon, thanks to some great help from cweiske and others. For the longest time Quill, a micropub client that I can use to publish here, wasn't showing me an option to syndicate directly to Twitter. That meant that I tended reply to tweets and stuff right there in the silo and not bring them back here. Fair enough, especially when a reply without context is like an egg without salt. But we figured it out, in part by that old standby of "switch it off and then switch it back on again". That got things working, and was enough of an impetus to upgrade WithKnown to the latest build. And so far, everything looks good.

#indieweb

This is another test

This is a test.

Upgraded Known to latest build; everything seems to be OK but if you spot anything odd, please let me know.

It is slightly odd to see the mad rush away from Facebook. Everything old is new again.

With a whole two days still to run on the trial, I plunked down good money for [Tyme-app](https://www.tyme-app.com/mac-2/). It is just so much better than one I was using before. Night and day.

Blimey! I just started another Coursera offering this morning, and this evening I get an email imploring me to look at another 24 courses. Who do they think I am?

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 19 March 2018

0 stars 2 comments

@jeremycherfas I'll take "Someone who loves to learn" for $400, Alex.

kitt, Mar 20 2018 on micro.blog

@kitt true enough, but one at a time, please.

jeremycherfas, Mar 20 2018 on micro.blog

I haven't done the Micro Monday thing before now; Mondays are often a bit busy. But today, I’m going to suggest @modernlittleme for a different perspective on life.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 19 March 2018

0 stars 1 comment

@jeremycherfas Suggestion accepted. Thank you!

sumudu, Mar 19 2018 on micro.blog

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that IFTTT simply isn't reliable enough to, er, rely on.

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 19 March 2018

0 stars 3 comments

@jeremycherfas has anything in particular sparked this conclusion?

mrkrndvs, Mar 19 2018 on micro.blog

I've noticed it misses posts it should be catching too. I don't have numbers, but would guess 5-10%. I don't rely on it for anything mission critical.

Chris Aldrich, Mar 19 2018 on stream.boffosocko.com

@jeremycherfas it's a free service without an obvious revenue model. It's to be expected.

PhoneBoy, Mar 19 2018 on micro.blog

Mentioned in: I wanted to use a new highlight in Instapaper to trigger an action, and while last week the email action didn't work, this week it

Jeremy Cherfas, Mar 19 2018 on stream.jeremycherfas.net

I noticed the name @Jack in the credits for The Archive, and wondered: Do you (does he) use the zettelkasten method in full, or just take notes with The Archive?

I thought I read that m.b re-polls feeds from time to time and picks up edits. In fact, I know it does. But what if a post on my connected site never actually made it here? Is there anything I can do to bring it in?

Jeremy Cherfaspublished this 16 March 2018

0 stars 7 comments

@jeremycherfas you can manually hit the m.b ping URL to re-index an rss feed (screenshot since m.b buggers up example urls like this, sometimes)

eli, Mar 16 2018 on micro.blog

@eli Thanks. That's good to know. Now to see whether it worked.

jeremycherfas, Mar 16 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Hhhmn. Not so far. I wonder whether that is because I started with an @name. Let me try again.

jeremycherfas, Mar 16 2018 on micro.blog

@JohnPhilpin Now I’m thinking that an @name at the start of a post on an external site may be a problem.

jeremycherfas, Mar 16 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas doesn’t sound right

JohnPhilpin, Mar 16 2018 on micro.blog

@jeremycherfas Starting with an @-mention for external sites should be fine. So, the feed is on your account, but the post never showed up? If you want to send me the permalink I can look into it. (It polls every couple minutes.)

manton, Mar 16 2018 on micro.blog

@manton Thanks, but not to worry. I did a new post on my site, and that did show up. The old one did not, even after I pinged the url as @eli advised. It is hard to mention a micro.blog user on my own site and have it show up here. Automation for that would be great.

jeremycherfas, Mar 16 2018 on micro.blog

What a ghastly afternoon. Power cut 15 minutes before I was due to record an interview with someone in New Mexico. The power came on a minute later, but the iMac was moribund. Luckily I was able to use the phone to email him, and he was cool about rescheduling. But I was stuck with a dead iMac until I thought of searching support. Turns out this was a thing, and there is a procedure, and everything is alright again. But still,

Just downloaded The Archive https://zettelkasten.de/the-archive/ from Zettelkasten.de and rather hoping it plays nicely with nvALT and 1Writer (because I need iOS too)