If you read this blog, you might assume it doesn't update because I have nothing to talk about. The truth is, I have a lot I want to say, but I usually don't feel like writing when I'm at my computer.
One thing I post a lot of is commentary and links to interesting things I find online, but I use Facebook for that because the mobile interface is extremely convenient. Recently, I started posting through Buffer, which provides a similar interface, and also lets me decide when to post things (to avoid a deluge of posts every Saturday morning). Buffer lets me post to Facebook, Twitter or Google, but none of them are ideal. Facebook is private, which simultaneously reduces my audience, and potentially annoys people who use Facebook purely for social purposes. Google+ appears to be perfect, but doesn't support RSS, the mobile interface still doesn't meet my needs, and Buffer only works with "pages". Twitter just doesn't give me enough space to write anything interesting.
What I really want is an easy way to create a site that works like kottke.org or Daring Fireball. For a while, I've been thinking of writing a blog engine with a nice REST API, and an app to connect to it. The downside to doing that is that I'd need to use a database, instead of the git repo with Markdown files that I used now. I also didn't feel like writing that software, since there's more interesting things to program, and I don't want to waste my time reinventing that wheel.
So, I've been writing slowly while I wait for someone else to solve the problem for me. Putting off writing had just made me want to write more though, so today I finally decided to take action. Since my main problem was, "I want to write blog posts on my phone, and I don't feel like fixing my blog", the obvious solution was to just find a decent Markdown editor for Android and try writing with that.
A quick Google search suggested Lightpaper, a text editor with Markdown previews and Dropbox integration. Apparently it can also post to Wordpress and some other blogging sites. My new plan is to write posts on the phone, then post them on my computer (maybe one day I'll get Python and git installed on my phone). I'm also planning to start posting shorter link-commentary posts here instead of Facebook. I might try to set up multiple feeds at some point, but it seems unnecessary at the moment.
Beside RSS support, posting on here will also let me post multiple links in a single post, which will help a lot. Previously, I've had to pick the best of several interesting links. Without that constraint, it will be possible to quote from multiple sources, and also link to Wikipedia when I mention things that may not be common knowledge.
I'm excited to try this, and I guess we can see how effective it is by looking at the frequency of posts from now on. Writing this article was actually much easier than I expected, so I have high hopes.