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James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Background; foreground

In a way, I carry my website with me wherever I go. Technically, my website is a few keystrokes away on my phone, but I think the presence of my website extends beyond the technical. Having a website encourages me to write, I think, because I know I have a place to put and sh...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Wonders of Web Weaving, Episode 2

The second episode of Wonders of Web Weaving is out: In Episode 2, I chat with Alexandra, the author of xandra.cc, a founder and barista at the 32-Bit Cafe. We talk about, among other things, building indie web communities, communicating the possibilities of having a personal website to new audiences, and more. I hope you enjoy the episode! Wonders of Web Weaving has an RSS feed you can use to follow along from wherever you get your podcasts.

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

My favourite typewriter

This is my entry to this month's Bear Blog Carnival, on the topic of our favourite thing in a niche hobby. Thank you for hosting, Kami! This was a fascinating topic to think about. Alternative Text My favourite typewriter is the one I have: a Royal typewriter, likely decades...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Evening tea

For the last few weeks I have been making a cup of decaf tea in the late evening, almost as part of a wind-down ritual for the day. While I was making a cup this evening, I heard birds singing. I felt the warmth from the tea in my hands and the warmth of the bird song in my...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Growing with my website

At this evening’s Homebrew Website Club, I asked: What was the biggest change in our websites since we started them? This question was inspired in part by Paul saying something to the effect of how we build our websites and, in the process, figure out what we want our website...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Walking

Something different catches my eye, my ear – all my senses – on every walk. I walk through streams of thoughts and feelings and sensations. Today, what first caught my eye was a bird perched on a tree along a path lined with trees and bushes. The song of the bird eased me int...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Announcing Wonders of Web Weaving

If you have ever spoken to me, you may have heard me express a meandering interest in doing something with audio. I think the heart of this interest is that I love conversations and storytelling. I love hearing people talk about the things that make them light up. I love aski...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Serendipity

The steam of the espresso machine — of focusing in the milk to make sure it is just right, of tapping to remove the bubbles, of preparing. Soft instrumental music plays in the background, more upbeat than the music to which I was listening earlier — easing me more into the da...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Affordances of a screenless writing interface

This post was written first with my screenless writing interface, and then edited in Ghost, which I use to publish blog posts to this website. The extent of my edits were fixing typos and reworking the introduction and conclusion a little bit. My original concern when brains...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Writing a blog post without a screen

This text below post is presented verbatim, as it was typed with only a keyboard: without a display or any assistive technology. Typos are left in. The "Notes after writing" and "My writing setup" sections were typed on my Mac as I prepared to publish the post. This is my fi...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Ideas for web readers

Every so often I have an idea for a feature that might be interesting in a web reader. I write down my ideas in my notes. Sometimes, an idea makes its way into Artemis, the calm web reader I maintain. Other times, the idea stays in my notes where it can breathe, mature, and m...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Artemis changelog #9

I have been working on a few new features for Artemis, the calm web reader I maintain. You can read a summary of what’s new below. See, sort, rename, and delete folders You can now view a list of the folders you have created, specify in what order folders should appear in you...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

How I use my phone

In my last two blog posts, I discussed how I use greyscale mode on my phone and night shift on my computer. These blog posts were inspired by discussions happening in the IndieWeb community about greyscale, and now, more generally, how we use our phones. My phone, an iPhone,...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Night shift

Writing my post on how I use my phone in grayscale yesterday got me thinking about other customisations I make to the computing devices I use. The first one that came to mind is that I keep my laptop, and by extension my external display when I am using it, in night shift mod...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Using greyscale

Back in 2023 I challenged myself to use my phone in greyscale mode for a week. The experiment was successful: a week later, I was still using my phone in greyscale mode. At some point afterwards, I did disable greyscale mode. But last year, or early this year (I can't remembe...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Quotes from Tufte’s course

I took Edward Tufte’s online course on analysing and presenting data. It lasted four hours and was a mixture of reading from his books and listening to lecture material. The course was terrific and I learned so much. As I was taking the course, I took down a few quotes that s...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Seasons

My first thought was the field of pink petals. Day by day, petals fall from the tree as green leaves grow from the blossom. I wonder for how long the petals will keep falling. There seem to be a million dots of pink in spring, from which there is a new perspective to see ever...

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James' Coffee Blog

Day; night

The day holds onto the light for as long as it can. The warm glow of the horizon reminds me of all of the bright adventures of the day, and makes me wonder “what will I do tomorrow?”. I can see the first star, which means that night will soon be here; the time for rest, processing, and preparing to imagine tomorrow. (Written a few days ago, and published on a rainy evening where the memories of the sunset on a clear evening warm my heart.)

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

My words, not my content

Every so often I think about the word “content.” It’s not my favourite word. Content feels relatively flat compared to the things to which it can refer. I have been meaning to write about my preference for something else for a while: I prefer to say “my words” or “my stories...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Walking

I don’t think I will need my jacket. The weather is warm enough that I can go outside without one. It always feels both special and jarring on the first days of the year when the world is so warm that you can go out without a jacket – the anticipation for the warmth clashes w...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Log in, sign in

Log in, sign in I recently experimented with writing a new 401 page for the IndieWeb wiki to replace the default nginx page we have. My experiment is not live yet, but I wanted to document a few of the decisions I made while writing the page. First, I chose the title “You ne...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Joyful web design

I think about joy when I make web pages. If you hover over the mascot on my blog, its eyes will open. The typeface of my blog title on my home page is the same one Taylor Swift used for her evermore album. If you explore my website for long enough, you will find an Easter egg...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Sunset, Düsseldorf

The moment when the sun crosses the horizon feels like it should last longer than it does. Within a few minutes, the sun has moved out of view; the red glow — a moment of transition (is all of life a moment, or moments, of transition?) — tells us where the sun once was. The g...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Of the night; a note

The joy of exploring a city with friends — of getting lost and finding your sense of place again, of laughing under the moon and discussing the rainbows we see when we look at light; of discussing the cuisine of Germany in a warmly lit bakery, a treat as the day came to an end; of looking forward to the next day — conversations and talks and futures.

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Designing software with travel in mind

While I was away in Düsseldorf, and when I got back, I received a notification in Artemis asking whether I wanted to change the time zone in which the reader was set. It is important that the user’s timezone is correct so that Artemis can continue to update at midnight in the...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Reorganising the Artemis settings page

Since the release of Artemis, the settings page has been growing steadily in size. What was a few options has grown into over a dozen. With every added option, it was harder to find each individual option. The new settings page With that in mind, over the last few weeks I hav...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Weather

Last week, I had a call with someone for an upcoming project. I naturally asked how the weather was. Shortly after I asked, I realised that I don’t like to ask about the weather just because British people like talking about the weather. I realised that I wanted to see a sliv...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf 2026

A row of people waving with smiles on their faces, the attendees of IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf. I am positioned third from the left, in my favourite jacket, blue denim. ALTA row of people waving with smiles on their faces, the attendees of IndieWebCamp Düsseldorf. I am positione...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Butterflies

I like to walk quickly. One of my childhood friends did, too. Whenever I reflect on the pace at which I walk, I think of the times when we tried to walk as fast as possible. My friend was much more athletic than I – with longer legs, too – so they often had the edge in walkin...

James' Coffee Blog Supports Webmention
James' Coffee Blog

Living the indie web life

In 2018, David and Chris recorded a podcast episode about the indie web in which the topic “living the indie web life” came up. As soon as I heard the phrase, I thought to myself: what does living the indie web life mean to me? This evening I hosted an online Homebrew Websit...