🛃 Getting Started With Your Own Micro Blog
So you signed up for MicroBlog, made a post and …. now what?
Caveat - I am not the best person to ask, but have been around MicroBlog long enough to know a thing or two about a thing or two and fro some reason, I do occasionally get asked how to … and I help … so I guess other agree. (It’s also true that everyone starts somewhere and just like everyone, there is a phenomenal community here that helps me - so in turn maybe I can help others.)
This then is my take on ‘now what’. It’s a basic summary, that I will publish today and it will not be complete and then as I rediscover questions from the past or build on a recent engagement, it will get more complete.
First my take on ‘what is micro blog’. And I think the answer is along the lines of the Parable of The Blind Men and The Elephant
When it comes to MicroBlog it is
- Your Blog
- An Aggregator
- A Syndicator
- A Social Network
For now let’s focus on numero uno - Your Blog … because if you signed up and are here, congratulations - you have your own blog.
Key Components
- What It Looks Like
- Improving Functionality of what comes ‘in the box’
What It Looks Like
The easy bit is ‘templates’. Basically, if you are logged on at micro.blog - then look to the top right of the web page and
- click on your image (if you uploaded one)
- click on ‘plugins’
YUP - it’s that easy. (even easier - look on the left at the column of stuff - see that thing that says ‘plugins’ … yup - click on that.)
- click on ‘find plugins’
- click on ‘Themes’ - which these days are actually plugins (but as you can see are very specific kinds of plugins)
- choose the one you want
- install it
In my particular case, I am currently using Hitchens, which has received some nice comment from a few people - but - spoiler alert - 99% of what you see is thanks to Pete Moore ( pimoore, his web site ), who is the designer of the template - even down to that bright yellow. He in turn writes at the top of his template .. Ported from and based on Hitchens for Jekyll, by Pat Dryburgh ( pat, his web site ) .. it really does take a village.
With more questions, I will come back and fill in more detail, but for now let’s stop.
What It Does
If you wander round my site, you will find all kinds of nuances and touches that (IMHO) improves what the basic site does. It isn’t magic - it is something called ‘plugins’.
You get to plugins in the exact same way as you got to templates, except this time it is even more logical
Log on at micro.blog - then look to the top right of the web page or in the left column like earlier.
- click on your image (if you uploaded one)
- click on ‘plugins’
as before - even easier - look on the left at the column of stuff - see that thing that says ‘plugins’ … yup - click on that.
.. and behold a veritable cornucopia of plugins that extend what your site can do. My site uses a total of 13 (if you include the Hitchens template) .. here they are.
I might come back and highlight more as to why they are soooo good - but for now, what do you want to know about?