Jason Starts A Real Blog

I've long desired to have a central place -- let's call it an idea repository -- where I can share random mental doodles, document things, brainstorm, post lyrics or short stories... Somewhere I can easily write and publish whatever crosses my mind. Whatever I feel is worth being out there in the world. I finally realized I don't want to worry about managing the backend of a site like that. I don't want to stress over the theming, the polish, the navigation menu, making it look just perfect.

All of that has historically prevented me from getting it started; prevented me from actually just writing.

Almost 2 years ago now, Canonical guy Alan Pope (and many other people!) recommended using Standard Notes, an open source, multi-platform note-taking app. I've used it daily ever since, but mainly just for jotting down ideas, maintaining to-dos, or adding to an ever-expanding list of software or music recommendations from you guys!

Little did I realize you could effortlessly publish a blog with it! Using just Standard Notes and an extension called Listed*, you can write and publish blog posts from within Standard Notes (whether that's the web app or the native app installed on your phone, Linux, Windows or macOS).

*Note that using extensions in Standard Notes requires an Extended (paid) account, but it opens a LOT of options and functionality! 

I was flabbergasted (that's a word I still use) at how easy this was.

I wrote this in Standard Notes, hit the "Actions" dropdown menu and then clicked "Publish to Blog." I could have also published a private link if I wanted another set of eyeballs on it first. You can always publish edits, and you can even publish to your own custom domain (provided you have an Extended account which I finally treated myself to).

With another click, you can email your subscribers to notify them of your new blog post -- and the entirety of the post will land in their inbox. Nice!

So let me carry forward Alan's enthusiastic recommendation: Standard Notes is twice as awesome as I previously thought, and you need it in your life.

Anyway, welcome to the blog! Note that you can subscribe for email updates, and subscribers can also reply directly to posts.

And OF COURSE there's an RSS feed :D

See ya!

~Jason