Blog Questions 2024

Jumping on Kev and Manuel, here are my answers.

Why did you start blogging in the first place

The oldest post here comes from 2008 when I thought I was a decent designer and made some Photoshop brushes. I had blogged a bit before that on WordPress.com, but those posts are gone.

I started blogging because I was learning stuff about design, coding, and running a business and didn’t have anyone to really talk to. I had seen others blogging and just started myself as an experiment in building a website.

What platform are you using to manage your blog and why did you choose it?

I fell into early WordPress and it was easy. I wouldn’t recommend WordPress anymore though, despite making a living still working on WordPress.

Have you blogged on other platforms before?

This site was on Statamic for a while until I wanted to do some extra stuff I could easily accomplish with my WP knowledge and I didn’t have time to figure it out with Statamic. I moved back to WordPress, which I now regret.

How do you write your posts?

Posts go in Obsidian and then I use the Obsidian WordPress plugin to get posts to the site before I do a bit of tweaking on the WordPress end to get what I want.

When do you feel most inspired to write?

Anytime I read an article that inspires me, but I do reserve Friday morning to write my newsletter and book club posts for the weekend.

Do you publish immediately after writing or let it simmer as a draft?

I almost always publish immediately because I don’t have time to come back to stuff and do a bunch of editing. I’ve got work and 3 kids to get places. My writing time is far more limited than I’d prefer.

What’s your favourite post on your blog?

Nothing comes to mind as a favourite post, but I can tell you my biggest annoyance with the posts that are popular. I hate that the most popular stuff is almost always some review of a task manager or other piece of software. Most task managers work enough the same that it doesn’t matter what you use your system is far more important than the specific tool. But people always want to find some tool that will magically fix their poor systems instead of just fixing the system.

So many wasted words on reviewing the next revision of the same old software that has a new coat of paint.

Any future plans for your blog? Redesign, move platforms…

I’ve recently written that WordPress feels bloated and I’m disappointed that Matt is being a huge asshat which has many of my friends leaving WordPress as well so I’m going to jump platforms at some point. I’ve started to take steps by moving my membership/product platform to Kit so that I can handle those aspects outside of WooCommerce which will make a platform move easier.

I’m leaning towards Statamic again because I have a much better understanding of how it’s setup due to work in Laravel lately. Along with this will come a site redesign, likely using the catppuccin colours as a base for the design. No ETA because I’m busy, but dang I grumble a bit everytime I use the bloated mess that is WordPress now.

2 responses to “Blog Questions 2024”

Sven
4:52
I do WordPress sites as a sidebusiness myself and can relate to the frustration. So as my wife wants to start a blog sometime in the nearer future I am torn between just spinning up a new WordPress site for her (with Enhance on a private cluster from a friend the overhead isn’t too bad).
Or doing something different. I came across “Ghost” some 1-2 years ago and there is a EU-based company which does offer hosting services for it (Digitalpress) thats not tied to member counts and such. Any thoughts on that one?
Statamic has a steep learning curve for me as I am not familiar with linux VPS security and don’t want to expose another potential spam machine to the web…
Anyways: if you are leaving wordpress behind for your own projects I would be very much interested to read your thoughts / toughtprocess for choosing your next plattform for your content.
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1. Curtis McHale
  6:57
  On the VPS front for Statamic I’d recommend Laravel Forge and one of the providers they support. Bit more expensive this way, but they take care of setup and you still have access to the server via SSH if you want to tinker. That’s how we host our Laravel projects and how I’d host a Statamic project. It’s in fact how I now host this site and my other WP projects after WP Engine sent me a $1000 bill they insisted was from “real” traffic (not bots) that I didn’t see anywhere in my analytics.
  Ghost is great. I know the founder from before this in his WP days. I know a number of creators I support use it happily. If you don’t want to tinker at all and just set it and forget it that’s a great option.
  A few of the other options I’ve looked at are here: https://curtismchale.ca/2024/10/25/maybe-hugo/
  I’d likely stick with something PHP based because it’s in my wheelhouse of knowledge. Needs to support Kit (Convertkit) for sales/memberships as that’s where I’m setting up now. Proper markdown support is ideal so I don’t have to do some janky conversion as I do now in WP. An admin panel so that if I ever need to do client projects with it I can give it to clients.
  That’s my shortlist right now.
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