I have missed the daily photoblogging challenge due to personal issues in my life. I shall be starting a daily photoblogging journey from today. Let’s rock and roll! : ridwan.micro.blog

@ridwan hope things are going better now. Looking forward to your next photos!

@ericmwalk Thanks Eric. Much better now. 🙌

@ridwan I hope everything is okay for you.

@canion I’m doing OK. Thanks. Lot of thoughts running through my head for the past few days. Journaling really helped me to get back on track. 🙏🏽

@pimoore Cheers for that. I really enjoyed listening to your chat with @jean on Micro Monday.

@pimoore I’m going to add “starting a microcast” as one of my 2022 ideas to pursue. Just not sure what I should be talking about. 🤣

@ridwan Do it! My Keep Practising podcast improved my skill set and unlocked a whole bunch of new opportunities, such as @hemisphericviews

@ridwan Glad to have you around whenever you are around. Hope all is well now.

@canion Starting a microcast was one of my ideas to improve my speaking & presentation skills as part of my day job. Obviously I didn’t mention that in my professional development plan. I wanted to keep it separate so I can experiment and see how it goes.

@pimoore Narrowing down on an idea is really difficult.

@pratik Pretty good! It just comes and goes. :)

@ridwan good on you, and well done keeping them separate.

@pratik Bro what do you think of Blot.im? My Write.as is up for renewal this Dec and I want a simple blogging platform for longform posts. I know that you are a longtime Blot.im subscriber. Just wondering about your thoughts. Cheers.

@ridwan I recommend it highly. But note that you have to use a text app and write in Markdown. I use Drafts which also makes it easy via Actions to insert footnotes, add photos, and to eventually publish to Blot and/or Microblog. It’s also very cheap and no need of backup coz the files always remain on your Dropbox or Github. I’m hoping for an iCloud option but that’s on Apple to allow first.

@pratik Cool! I use Obsidian as my primary notes app and it is brilliant for Markdown. Blot is $40 per year now. It’s still compared to other platforms. I’m hoping to get a good deal on Black Friday, if they are going to do one. Now they allow Google Drive integration so I don’t mind connecting to it. However, Blot needs full access so I’m thinking of sticking with Dropbox for the moment. I like how simple Blot is! My only complaint is there’s no community and it kind of feels like lonely. 🤣

@frostedechoes How do you post from Obsidian? I tend to create the post in Obsidian; run it through Grammarly for typos and grammar; copy the MD file to the Dropbox folder. I even created a template with for drafts, tags, scheduled posting etc. I like the simplicity of just blogging via txt files. @pratik

@frostedechoes Thanks to an awesome shortcut made by @jmreekes. I’m thinking it can be now made to work on the Mac thanks to Monterey. That would be cool coz I write most of my long form posts for Blot on the Mac

@frostedechoes @ridewan I’m gonna have to get this a go. I mainly write and publish my posts in Drafts.

@pratik @frostedechoes I’m going to update my MacBook Air this week and I’ll play around with it.

@ridwan Obsidan is a great app. I also highly recommend Blot.im for long form posts. Like Obsidian, I love that Blot is nothing but a collection of Markdown and/or plain text files which makes it super simple to move if needed.

@ridwan David Merfield (the dev behind Blot) is super helpful as well

@jmreekes Awesome. Let me know if you update it. I was planning on trying it out on the Mac this weekend

@pratik Will do

@frostedechoes

David at Blot is also interested in exploring what he can do with blot, so that blot could essentially replicate the ‘publish’ functionality of Obsidian. Graph aside, I don’t think he’s too far away.

// @frostedechoes @jmreekes @pratik @ridwan @canion @pimoore

@pratik @jmreekes

Now that shortcut by @jmreekes is really rather good - Thankyou

@jmreekes there is a drafts action that publishes to Blot

@frostedechoes Thanks for the heads up. I’ll take a look at it

@JohnPhilpin I’ve got a few Blot related Drafts actions. One action runs the Blot image shortcut and pastes the resulting link in Drafts. The other actions saves as a draft post in Blot and the other action publishes the post.

@frostedechoes Haha! You can use the share function on iPad right? Never thought of that or it just didn’t hit me. I normally compose on iPad and use PC to move files. I could easily use the share function now! What a facepalm moment! 🤦‍♂️ 🤣

@jmreekes I have read some reviews online and Dave seems to be a nice guy. I do like the simplicity and I can use M.b for the community side, which is lacking in Blot.

@JohnPhilpin That would be a game changer. What really amazed me is the simplicity in publishing posts. It just blew me away. @jmreekes @frostedechoes @pratik @canion

@frostedechoes @jmreekes Me too! I tried it on my iPhone and get the same error. Didn’t know what that means? 🤣

@jmreekes @JohnPhilpin This Drafts app seems really cool. I had Drafts 4 back in the day but never used to its full potential.

@ridwan Drafts is one of my most used apps. If I’ve got a bunch of events to add to my calendar (like my kid’s school schedule), I enter them in Drafts and run a Fantastical action. Texts to my wife start in Drafts, I’ve got an action that pre fills her number into Messages…

@ridwan That action means no sending messages to the wrong person. New posts here or Blot, drafting & sending email messages, new Reminders, etc all start in Drafts

@jmreekes Trying the Blot Images shortcut on the Mac now. Gets stuck at the point where it asks for access to Dropbox. I click on continue in the popup dialog box and nothing happens. So the shortcut currently is not linked to Dropbox. I think it should work fine after that. Googling now.

@ridwan oh yes light years beyond 4 .. I pay for it - but there are micro bloggers who use the free version and are very happy.

@jmreekes I just downloaded Drafts app. It seems really good. Will need to play with it over the weekend.

@ridwan @frostedechoes @pratik Sorry it took me a few days to take a look at it. Of course, the shortcut works fine for me. Here is the shortcut I’m using, which is the same as the @pratik shared

@ridwan @frostedechoes @pratik if it still doesn’t work, try to get a screenshot of the error message and let me know.

@JohnPhilpin I’ll try to do it tomorrow. They’re simple actions that use the built-in Dropbox action step in Drafts. The Save as Draft action saves to my Blot Drafts Folder in Dropbox and the Publish action saves to my Blot posts folder

@ridwan @JohnPhilpin @frostedechoes @pratik @canion My folder structure for blot mirrors @trhall. Thomas is the reason for my switch to Blot

@JohnPhilpin I forgot I had written this post which describes how I use Drafts & Shortcuts to post to Blot @frostedechoes @ridwan @canion

@jmreekes Thanks for sharing your post and shortcut. I shall have a look. Cheers.

@jmreekes Thanks for sharing. 👍🏻

@ridwan @frostedechoes @pratik I think I may have found a potential issue/error with the shortcut. In the Text Step at the end of the shortcut there is a / missing in the image markdown link. The text should be ![](/_assets/Name Variable.File Extension variable. This error shouldn’t affect the uploading of the image to the correct folder but will affect Blot trying to load the image.

@jmreekes Thanks! Haven’t used it recently but will make the change

@jmreekes Ahh! This completely skipped my mind to revert to you. Thanks for letting us know. I will try it out and let you know. @frostedechoes @pratik

@jmreekes @pratik @frostedechoes I’m trying to upload from my iPhone and it doesn’t work. I guess it is only Mac?

@ridwan It works on iPhone and iPad as well. Is it giving you an error message?

@jmreekes This is the error

I have changed the folder path to my blog. Still shows this error.