1st Week of Bear Blog, Some Updates!
This is my 7th post on Bear Blog! I'm having tons of fun with Bear Blog so far, and I made a few changes to things that I want to share. It might be a good reference for me or just a place to look back in the future.
stuff around the blog
changes to the theme
This was a sudden change, as I thought the previous theme was pleasing and simple. I used the starter theme, which you can choose from in the theme section. However, I stumbled upon mgx's Abzu theme, which I thought looked beautiful. I like how clean and modern it looked and saw that they shared the CSS code. So I switched up the colours to something more warm-ish, and here it is! I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks now, after some small tweaks. He also made a few other themes and blogs himself - check it out!
Update 28-1-25: I've sinced switched over to the Bearming Theme made by Robert Birming! I liked the Abzu theme that I was using but I like how minimal Bearming looked, whilst still looking very modern and material.
changes to the toast button & removing the count
I also changed my toast button, based on this! I like that you're able to choose what icons you want to use, and I think it looks clean. I decided to use a potato as 'mishmash' is inspired by mashed potatoes, and it would only make sense. If you click on it, it'll show the 'tasty' emoji and the word 'Mashed!'.
Additionally, I decided to remove the counter. This is more for me as I think numbers could get in the way of expression sometimes.
It would be great if there's a place we could see the counter itself without looking at it on the blog post. So, you could still have that information somewhere without it being right there in front of your face.
Update 28-1-25: I have now changed the toast button to the unlikely upvote button add-on made for the Bearming Theme :)
comments section
I wasn't too sure if I actually wanted comments to be on my blog. Like, what if there's no engagement at all? Then, wouldn't it be a wasteful effort? Or even if there is some engagement - then it might be distracting or might invite haters.
After some deliberation, I decided to include a comment section. I think a nice thing about personal blogs is that you're able to engage with the authors, and comments are easy for them. I initially used komments. cloud, which I think is a pretty good option, but it doesn't show up on your blog post page itself, which is not ideal. It's great and simple to set up if that's not an issue though!
I eventually found this post by elmc.at that showed how to use Bluesky as a comments platform - essentially embedding it into each of your posts! It looks pleasing and is more familiar-feeling vs. the earlier method. One thing to note is that you would have to share the post's link to your Bluesky for it to work.
Apart from that, I've got Buffer set up to post my scheduled post links so I don't have to think about it too much if I have any posts I want to post on a later date.
search function
In addition to the above, I added the search function by Yordi I mentioned previously in my attempt at the bear blog post! If you click on the Blog section, you're able to now search through the titles of my posts. Of course, this is not the best solution if I wanted to search for a specific word/phrase in the blog post itself, but it's a great start before I figure out how to categorize things so things don't get too messy.
added a contact section
My temporary solution to this was to embed a Google Form that I created under my Gmail account to a page on the nav bar. It's not that bad of a way to have a contact form, but, aesthetically I didn't quite like it.
I saw a couple of people using this Letterbird embed, and I liked the clean look of it, so I switched it to that. Now you can contact me directly that way!
I decided not to embed my email account onto my blog (at least for now) as I don't feel comfortable sharing that online yet.
new guestbook
I was also using this komments.cloud as a guestbook, but I ended up switching it to this one, made by meadow. It's able to show the people who signed the guestbook directly onto the page, which I like.
content related!
adding a 'mikro' section
I'm experimenting with microblogging in Bluesky, and it'd probably be more of a daily log or a space for quick notes and thoughts throughout the day. I used this cool tool made by Christopher William that can create a little widget for users to share their Bluesky posts feed onto their blogs.
So if you head over to the Mikro section of my blog, you'll be able to see the posts I make throughout the day. There's a limit to how many it can show in one go, but I think it serves its purpose well enough. I quite like it! I like the idea of my blog to serve as a centralized place for everything personal-blogging-related. Will I use Bluesky that much? I don't know. I've never been a frequent poster on Twitter/Mastodon/etc.
Note: Mikro means micro in Bahasa Melayu, which is the native language of Malaysia.
Update 28-1-25: I've removed the mikro section as there's been some issues where the feed seems to not be updating properly. Not sure if it's an issue with the api, but I'll be removing it for the time being! Might try out something like Sylvia's status page.
i got an upgraded Bear Blog subscription!
I've been trying to think of a sustainable way to not only support the creator but also give myself accountability and keep this project afloat (and also not put myself in financial ruin haha). There's no monetary benefit of this on my end, but I like that it gives me a place to output creatively, even if it's not in the traditional art or fiction writing that I've always imagined when people share about the ways they get their creative muscles flexing.
I won't lie, I did take a look at the new micro.one plan that Manton introduced just a few days or a week or so ago. It's only 1 USD per month, and you get to access the community, and you get a blog, which you can also use to host pictures. Honestly, that's a pretty good deal compared to other blogging platforms you can find. Micro.blog is a pretty cool place from what I can tell, and they have a great community there as well. However, from what I can tell, it is a little more social-focused, and that's not what I'm primarily looking for.
I also appreciate that Bear Blog has a lifetime subscription. I prefer applications that have that option - even though there's always a risk that you don't end up using an application for enough years that it justifies the cost. It still is a nice option if you're looking for something long-term.
So, I decided to try out my first month of upgraded Bear Blog! As I'm from Malaysia, there was a discount code that I could utilize. It brought down the costs to a very affordable one for me, so I jumped the gun. I'm trying out all the paid features: embedding non-css stuff like for the Mikro section, Bluesky comments, and even the search function.
I'm also thinking of creating a personal photo blog where I could upload my monthly highlights and have those categorized properly, so they don't just disappear into the blackhole in my Google Drive. Haven't thought too far into that yet. I'm very curious about how people might use their blogs as a photo/video archive. If you do know anyone or even do this yourself, please leave a comment or reach out! I would love to chat about how this could work.
That's it for this post! Thank you for reading this, and if you have any thoughts - feel free to respond via Bluesky below or reach out to me via the Contact section.
🎵 Song of the day
[7/100] for #100DaysToOffload