Manton Reece

Over a year ago I proposed a new blog archive format. The idea was to have a better way to save the posts and photos in your blog, or move your blog to another platform. I’m happy to announce that Micro.blog can now export in this format.

Here’s how it works:

• Click Posts → Export → “Export in blog archive format”.
• Micro.blog will generate the archive, which is an HTML file with Microformats, a JSON Feed of all posts, and a folder of uploaded photos. The HTML file uses relative img references so you can open it directly without a server. The JSON Feed includes both HTML and Markdown. (Micro.blog actually uses Hugo to generate the HTML. I’ve made the theme available on GitHub.)
• The archive is zipped and renamed with the .bar file extension. When you download a .bar file, you can rename it .zip to open it, but having a new extension should make it more convenient to copy the file or import it into other apps.
• Micro.blog uploads the file to S3 and sends you an email when it’s available to download.

If you’ve uploaded a lot of photos, the archives can be fairly big. It’s working well for my blog and I’ll be monitoring it to see how well it works for other blogs. If you have a blog-related app that could import or export this format, let me know!

www.manton.org/2019/03/1...

There’s now an option to switch your subscription to be billed yearly instead of monthly. When you do, you’ll get a discount equivalent to 2 free months.

If you’re signed in to Micro.blog, click here to start switching your subscription. For now, new customers always start with monthly billing, but we’ll be expanding this in the future. (I talked through some of the complexity of this feature on the latest Core Intuition.)

Thanks for your support! If you notice any problems or have questions, please let me know: help@micro.blog.

www.manton.org/2019/03/0...

SXSW is underway in Austin, which means it’s time to mark the anniversary of my blog. 17 years ago today I started blogging on manton.org. Radio Userland → Movable Type → WordPress → Micro.blog. Still my favorite place to write.

I love this video from WordPress. Very similar in style to what I always imagined we could do for Micro.blog.

We just posted Core Intuition 363. This episode continues the big theme from the last few episodes as Daniel considers taking on extra work beyond Red Sweater. From the show notes:

Daniel reveals to Manton that he’s (on the verge of) taking a part-time job. They assess the likely impact on Red Sweater, and how it might affect Daniel’s self image as an “independent developer.” Manton talks about updates he’s making to Micro.blog’s billing infrastructure, and how small improvements can lead to recurring increases in revenues. Finally, Daniel reviews his plans for the upcoming 4.3 release, and questions whether having less time to work on Red Sweater might make the time he does spend on it more productive.

As part of the discussion around MarsEdit 4.3, I mention the new archive export feature in Micro.blog. That has now been rolled out. If you host your blog on Micro.blog, you can find it by clicking “Posts”, then “Export”.

www.manton.org/2019/03/0...

Brent Simmons has a good list of Marzipan questions. The one I’m slightly worried about is whether we can ship Marzipan apps outside the App Store. Other limitations will improve with time, but closing off distribution is a deal-breaker for me.

So many great podcasts. I’ve thrown out any structure in how I choose what to listen to. I just have a “Latest” playlist in Overcast with the recent episodes across all podcasts at the top. Tap on a few episodes that look good, depending on my mood.