Blogging Archives - Page 4 of 6 - Neil Turner's Blog

Using the Gutenberg editor in WordPress

December 31, 2024August 4, 2018 by Neil Turner

Yesterday, I upgraded to the newly-released version 4.9.8 of WordPress (soooo close to 5.0!) which allows you to opt into the new Gutenberg editor (available as a plugin). Gutenberg is the single biggest change to the WordPress blog post editing screen in years, and has been in testing for some time. The scale of the changes are probably why it’s available as a plugin for now, and not yet fully bundled with WordPress itself.

Gutenberg reflects the progression of WordPress from simply a blogging system to a more general-purpose content management system that can be used for a wide variety of web sites. When you create a new blog post, you insert ‘blocks’ of content. These blocks can be paragraphs of text, pull-quotes, images, or rich media such as embedded video or image galleries. Blocks gain some additional functions that were not previously available, including drag and drop re-ordering, and the ability to save blocks as ‘reusable content’ for future repeat use.

The new content editor will be familiar with anyone who has written posts on Medium as Gutenberg works in a very similar way. It’s also worth remembering that the last time the WordPress content editor underwent a major change, few people were using tablet computers and the iPad hadn’t yet launched. Whilst the drag and drop function doesn’t seem to work on a touchscreen, the new interface does seem to work better on handheld devices.

I expect that Gutenberg will become the default editor in WordPress very soon. If you use WordPress regularly, I would advise you to opt into it, to get to grips with it. The ‘classic’ editor is still there to go back to if you find it too frustrating but Gutenberg is likely to be the future. And it’s updated regularly in response to feedback, so any issues that you do have should be ironed out in time. It’s taken me a little time to get used to, but I’ve written this and yesterday’s post in it.

14 years of blogging

December 29, 2024January 14, 2016 by Neil Turner

Today marks 14 years since my first blog post. No, I can’t quite believe it either.

Considering all of the things that have happened in my life over the past 14 years, I’m pleased with myself for finding the time to keep the blog going, even if I do go through periods of not writing anything for a while. I’m hoping to be able to continue for some years to come.

I’ll save the big retrospective for next year, when hopefully I’ll be celebrating 15 years.

Finding a Medium

December 29, 2024July 23, 2015 by Neil Turner

A screenshot of my first post on Medium, called 'Too Many Inboxes'

I’ve posted my first piece on Medium. Entitled ‘Too many inboxes‘, it was inspired by this Tweet from Buzzfeed’s Chris Applegate:

Trying to remember whether I agreed to drinks with @humour42 over SMS, Twitter DM, Facebook Messenger, email or WhatsApp. The future sucks
— Chris Applegate (@chrisapplegate) July 7, 2015

The separation of messaging into proprietary silos is a problem – and it’s far from being a new problem either. I felt it was something that was interesting enough to write around 1500 words on – which Medium estimates will take you around 6 minutes to read.

I chose to publish the piece on Medium, rather than on here, partly as an experiment. I decided that it would be sufficiently interesting to warrant exposure to a wider audience, but I also wanted to see just how much attention a Medium post from a regular person like me would get. How it performs will dictate whether I post further long-form blog posts there, or whether everything stays on here in future. It follows an experiment with Buzzfeed last year, which ultimately didn’t achieve anything.

Don’t worry – even if it is a success, I’m not going to switch over to Medium for everything. I like being able to manage everything myself, and I doubt that there’s such a wide audience for what we’re doing in our new house, or pregnancy announcements.

I was surprised at how easy it is to write on Medium. Generally, the pieces I have come across have all been high quality and so I assumed there was some kind of vetting procedure. But no – apparently anyone with a Twitter account can write anything. The writing tools are minimalist, but functional.

So far, my post has been up on Medium for about 90 minutes. It’s been viewed 11 times and read 5 times. That’s about how much a typical blog post on here would get – not great, but at least it’s not being totally ignored. And a couple of my Facebook friends liked it and commented on it, which is nice.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, I would appreciate a few minutes of your time reading the post at Medium, and your comments or recommendations. Thanks.

Diary of a Teenage Blog

January 5, 2025January 14, 2015 by Neil Turner

As of today, this blog becomes a teenager, as I’ve been writing on here for 13 years now. I think this blog still counts as the longest project that I’ve persisted with; whilst I may go some time without writing anything, I’ve never seriously considered giving it up. Which is more than can be said for various other projects that I’ve abandoned over the years.

Naturally, now that this blog is in its teenage years, it’ll struggle to wake up in the mornings, be prone to mood swings and struggle with emotional changes.

And a scary thought is that in around four to five years time, this blog will be as old as I was when I started it. Hopefully I’ll still be blogging by then.

Blogiversary number 12

January 5, 2025January 14, 2014 by Neil Turner

It’s that time of year again – another birthday for the blog. This time, if this blog was a human living in the UK, it would have started secondary school in September.

I can’t believe that, 12 years on, I am still writing on this blog. Though my interest wanes at times, and I can go several days without posting, I’m usually able to come up with something at least once a week.

I didn’t have any suitable photos to use on this entry, so I quickly drew the above birthday cake with a multi-coloured biro, and then Instagrammed it. This is why I’m not an illustrator.

11 years

December 23, 2024January 14, 2013 by Neil Turner

Today is this blog’s 11th blogiversary – or, 11 years since I first started writing this blog. Obviously it’s not quite as a big a milestone as 10 years was last year, but every year counts. Arguably, of all the things I do or have done, this is the thing that I have done for the longest time without giving it up. I’ve been close to giving up a few times, but, 11 years on, it’s still here.

There have, of course, been changes over the years. In January 2002, I was 17, single, living with my parents in York, at college, a few months away from my A-level exams. Now, in January 2013, I’m 28, engaged, living with my fiancée in Sowerby Bridge, working and a few months away from my wedding. But, some things have stayed the same, and wanting to write a blog is one of those things that hasn’t changed.

On blogging something every day

December 23, 2024July 3, 2012 by Neil Turner

Today marks the 30th successive day that I have posted a blog entry. This used to be something that I could do with no effort – in fact, go back to 2002-2004 and I was often blogging several times a day. Nowadays, it requires much more effort.

Back then, there was no Twitter or Facebook. Consequently some of the posts I made were merely a couple of sentences – maybe a very brief commentary on an interesting link. Those sorts of things now go on Twitter or Delicious, with the subsequent digest of links being auto-posted on Saturday mornings. Unless I can come up with a few paragraphs of thought, I tend not to bother with blogging about one particular news item.

Plus I have less time to write blog posts these days. Back when I was at university, I had enough breaks during the day to post regularly. Now that I work full time, I only have lunch breaks, evenings and weekends to blog. Generally, I will write several entries in one go, and then schedule them to be posted on each subsequent day (I actually wrote this on Sunday afternoon, for example). Whilst I have managed to produce something every day recently, it hasn’t been easy and I respect those people like Dave2 who are still able to produce substantial blog posts every day, year in, year out.

I’m going to try to keep on with posting something every day for as long as I can. It isn’t easy, but hopefully keeping it as a habit will help, and you can also support me by commenting on posts to show that what I write is worthwhile.

10 years

December 23, 2024January 14, 2012 by Neil Turner

If I could go back in time and tell 17 year old me that in 10 years time I’d still be blogging, 17 year old me would probably be rather surprised. But here I am – 27 year old me is celebrating this blog’s 10th blogiversary. A whole decade of blogging. Wow.

When I did my ‘hello world’ post back on the 14th January 2002 I would never have imagined that I’d still be going now. Despite all the changes in my life over the past 10 years – moving to new places, going to university, getting jobs, finding the love of my life – this blog remained here. Sure, it’s changed a lot, but pretty much every blog entry I’ve made is still intact here.

So, happy birthday blog. Maybe you’ll even be here in 20 years time.

Making a Mess in the Kitchen

December 23, 2024November 13, 2011 by Neil Turner

Christine, the amazing woman that I’m planning to marry sometime in the near future, also happens to be a very good cook, and luckily for you, she’s decided to start a recipe blog called Making a Mess in the Kitchen. I’m hosting it, and it sits in its separate installation of WordPress (I had considered enabling Network mode on WordPress, since I now have 3 WordPress installs on here, but decided it was too much effort).

There’s a few recipes, and some other general cookery-ness, on there now, and I’m sure she’ll continue adding to it as she continues to experiment new things. I’ll just keep on washing up after her.