Spotlight

A Big Refresh for Toby Geeks Out!
My last big update to the blog was back in April. Since then I've been quietly adding small things here and there, nothing major. But today I decided it was time to do a full redesign. Here's the why behind it. My header, feature area, and subscribe box were all painted in heavy navy blocks, one …
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There's No Right Way to Blog, Just Mine
I read a post from Dan Q this week called You Don't Have to Blog Like Me, and I agree with every bit of it, 100 percent. There's no right way to do this, it really is just preference. His post is basically a permission slip: you don't have to tag things, keep a schedule, have a feature image, split …
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No, AI Image Slop Is Not Ok
I found a post by Gordon McLean called "When Is AI Image Slop Ok?" and I want to answer it straight: no. Slop's not ok. That doesn't mean AI images are off the table, I use them on this blog myself sometimes, tied to whatever I'm actually writing about, chosen on purpose. What's not ok is the lazy, …
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It Was Always Bigger Than That
250 years later, here's what actually got lost. I love this country. I don't love a flag, and I think a lot of people mix those two things up without realizing it. This year's Fourth of July landed weird for me. With the current administration in office, I couldn't get into the mood for cookouts and …
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Maybe It's Just Me, But Blogging Shouldn't Have This
John Gruber over at Daring Fireball recently gave a name to something we've all been quietly furious about for years: the dickover. It's that full-screen curtain that drops the second you land on an article, demanding you subscribe to a newsletter, accept seventeen kinds of cookies, or download an …
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Today, Recent, Fading: The Inkwell Idea I Couldn't Leave Alone
So my RSS tab in Perch runs on Inkwell, Micro.blog’s RSS reader, using my micro.blog token. Inkwell’s own apps have this thing where posts are split into three tabs — Today, Recent, and Fading — and stuff just naturally ages out instead of turning into a giant unread pile. Manton talked about this …
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The ADA Turns 36. The Work Isn't Done
Thirty-six years ago today, a civil rights law went into effect that said — in plain terms — disabled people belong everywhere. In jobs. In schools. On buses. In buildings. In public life. That was the promise. The promise is still being negotiated. What the ADA Was Built to DoFor anyone who wasn't …
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Twenty-Two Years and Eight Platforms Late

Twenty-two years of blogging. Eight platforms. More hiatuses than I care to count. I started in 2004 back when blogging was just what you did if you had something to say and a corner of the internet to say it in. I kept coming back, even when life got in the way. I always do. I put together a full timeline of the journey: The Long Road Here ↗

Two New Pages, One Productive Day
Back in February I installed the Newsletters plugin for Micro.blog — @manton’s own — and then completely forgot about it. Today I stumbled across it again and finally dug in. It creates a dedicated /newsletters/ index page listing all your past issues. Neat! Except it came with absolutely zero …
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The Android Feature That Leaves "Close All Tabs" Guides in the Dust
There are guides out there covering how to close all your tabs at once — like this one. Solid tips, all of them. Closing all tabs at once beats going one by one through the tab switcher any day. I get why people need it. But not one of them mentions that Android already closes certain tabs for you …
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