Technology is terrible, Instapaper goes independent, and IndieWeb takes means. It’s the audio edition for This Week in the IndieWeb for July 14th - 20th, 2018.

You can find all of my audio editions and subscribe with your favorite podcast app here: martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/.

Music from Aaron Parecki’s 100DaysOfMusic project: Day 85 - Suit, Day 48 - Glitch, Day 49 - Floating, Day 9, and Day 11

Thanks to everyone in the IndieWeb chat for their feedback and suggestions. Please drop me a note if there are any changes you’d like to see for this audio edition!

Nostalgia for homepages, IndieAuth gets an explainer, and lots of new events. It’s the audio edition for This Week in the IndieWeb for July 7th - 13th, 2018.

You can find all of my audio editions and subscribe with your favorite podcast app here: martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/.

Music from Aaron Parecki’s 100DaysOfMusic project: Day 85 - Suit, Day 48 - Glitch, Day 49 - Floating, Day 9, and Day 11

Thanks to everyone in the IndieWeb chat for their feedback and suggestions. Please drop me a note if there are any changes you’d like to see for this audio edition!

Baltimore's first Homebrew Website Club of July met at the Digital Harbor Foundation Tech Center on July 11th!

Here are some notes from the "broadcast" portion of the meetup:

jonathanprozzi.net — Been building static HTML/CSS layouts for fun! Some examples. Also started practicing turning those designs into layouts in Figma. Had a usability testing call w/ the folks from Gatsby that turned into a great discussion about how to better build community starters.

dariusmccoy.com — Was having some issues w/ his site, which is hosted on AWS. He is thinking about wiping his instance and starting a new one, since he has lost track of some of his passwords. In a tricky spot because AWS doesn't offer any tech support for free tier users. Talked about switching to Digital Ocean or something simpler but will have to balance his budgets to justify the costs.

derekfields.is — Been taking a Udemy course on VueJS. Before that has been working on a schedule for developing his website. Has a friend doing the same and they mutually keep each other on track to spend a certain amount of time on developing their skills and sites. It's kind of working!

martymcgui.re — Brought a bunch of stickers and other fun things home from IndieWeb Summit! Had a great time seeing folks he met last year and meeting new folks. Lots of great discussion sessions, hacking projects, wild ideas, and more. He really needs to write it up on his site! His hack day project also desperately needs to be written up – it's an IndieWeb-style web ring, available at 🕸💍.ws ! This week he added support for indielogin.com, which lets people sign in using their own websites by setting up only a couple of links.

Other discussion:

• IndieWeb Summit! Marty went and loved it. Next year would love to bring more folks from HWC Baltimore, and travel assistance is available. We'll work on it.
• Marty met Jared Ewy of name.com at the Summit and talked about all the cool work DHF does teaching youth to build websites, the upcoming Web Shop, hosting HWC and IWC Baltimore, etc. Jared gave him a bunch of codes for free domains and some hosting discounts to benefit that work, so we discussed lots of ideas!
  
• Some possibilities: give Web Shop youth employees incentive to work on their own projects, outside of paid jobs, to learn more about building their own sites. Host a special Homebrew Website Club that's a 2-hour jam for new folks who don't have a domain yet to get set up with a website. Host a longer "Build Your Website Day" (maybe in coordination with a multi-city Drag Queen Build-a-Website Day?)
• What would an IndieWeb "starter pack" look like for a quick "you have a domain but no money" way to get started? GitHub looks good for skill building for folks that want to get into web development someday because it's mostly managed by hand. Netlify looks pretty good for this because they offer hosting, flexible static site generation, SSL for HTTPS, and the NetlifyCMS. They also support some features like building your own webhooks on JavaScript, which could eventually be used to handle common IndieWeb building block endpoints (IndieAuth, Micropub, Webmention, ...) Because they run all the stuff for a given site from a git repository, it's possible to take a site from Netlify and set it up elsewhere if their offerings change.
• "Packages" for a getting started workshop. E.g. "what will you get at the end + what will you need to learn along the way." Static HTML/CSS on GitHub could get a portfolio site done. For $5/mo a Neocities site can be hosted on a custom domain and requires no Git/GitHub wrangling. Micro.blog hosting is also $5/mo and brings a ton of features, interactivity, and community.
• Talked about VueJS passing React in terms of number of stars on GitHub, and speculating why that is. For example, VueJS can be a lot easier to dip your toes in and get started without a complicated build toolchain.

Thanks to everybody who came out! We hope to see you all again at our next meeting on Wednesday July 25th at 6:30pm (quiet writing hour at 5:30pm)!

Reddit-but-IndieWeb, Facebook’s socialized risks, and you got your ActivityPub in my Webmention. It’s the audio edition for This Week in the IndieWeb for June 30th - July 6th, 2018.

You can find all of my audio editions and subscribe with your favorite podcast app here: martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/.

Music from Aaron Parecki’s 100DaysOfMusic project: Day 85 - Suit, Day 48 - Glitch, Day 49 - Floating, Day 9, and Day 11

Thanks to everyone in the IndieWeb chat for their feedback and suggestions. Please drop me a note if there are any changes you’d like to see for this audio edition!

Recaps from the 8th annual IndieWeb Summit, Indigenous and Aperture open to the public, and announcing IndieWebCamp Berlin 2018. It’s the audio edition for This Week in the IndieWeb for June 23rd - 29th, 2018.

You can find all of my audio editions and subscribe with your favorite podcast app here: martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/.

Music from Aaron Parecki’s 100DaysOfMusic project: Day 85 - Suit, Day 48 - Glitch, Day 49 - Floating, Day 9, and Day 11

Thanks to everyone in the IndieWeb chat for their feedback and suggestions. Please drop me a note if there are any changes you’d like to see for this audio edition!

Kicking off IndieWeb Summit 2018!!

IndieWeb Summit is here, YouTube blocks Blender, and RPGs on your TLDs. It’s the audio edition for This Week in the IndieWeb for June 16th - 22nd, 2018.

You can find all of my audio editions and subscribe with your favorite podcast app here: martymcgui.re/podcasts/indieweb/.

Music from Aaron Parecki’s 100DaysOfMusic project: Day 85 - Suit, Day 48 - Glitch, Day 49 - Floating, Day 9, and Day 11

Thanks to everyone in the IndieWeb chat for their feedback and suggestions. Please drop me a note if there are any changes you’d like to see for this audio edition!

The 2018 IndieWeb Summit is now less than a week away, and I'd like to personally invite you, (yes, you!) to join us there.

IWS kicks off with a pre-party on Monday evening at the Pine Street Market where you can enjoy some great handmade food and drinks. More importantly, you can meet and befriend some of the most earnest and clever folks I know when it comes to having fun being yourself on the web. You're likely to share stories about how awful silos like Facebook and Twitter have become, get inspired to build things you didn't even know you wanted to put on your website, and hatch schemes for what you'd love to learn, discuss, and build over the next two days.

Tuesday is a day of discussions and, while there will be some extremely great keynote talks and a chance to show off your favorite feature on your own site, most of the day is reserved for discussions chosen by the folks who attend. I've seen sessions range from the extremely technical (build a Micropub server in 40 minutes) to the extremely personal (what is the meaning of identity on the web?). If you've got burning questions, you can volunteer to lead a session on a topic even (especially?) if you're not an expert. If you're not sure sit in on whatever feels interesting to you! There is no pressure to be clever.

Wednesday is all about creating. Take something you learned from Tuesday, or just something you've been meaning to do, and build it! There will be some optional HowTo sessions for some of the technical IndieWeb building blocks, and lots of knowledgable folks who would love to answer questions and even collaborate on projects. At the end of the day, you can show off what you've got. Or not! It's your website, no pressure.

As the producer of a weekly informational podcast about the IndieWeb, I would love to chat with anyone who is willing! I'll be conducting one-minute interviews on what inspired folks to get involved in the IndieWeb and what they're working on for their personal website. If you want to be interviewed, but we don't find time during the Summit, I'll be around Portland on Thursday, and on Friday I'll be around the Open Source Bridge un-conference.

IndieWeb Summit was one of the most inspiring events for me when I attended my first one in 2017. In the year since I have been inspired to add tons of new things to my website and built out some new IndieWeb-related tools, which I've (sort of) kept track of. Additionally, Homebrew Website Club Baltimore celebrated our 1-year anniversary, and hosted Baltimore's first IndieWebCamp!

So, no matter where you are in terms of technical skills, what your website currently looks like or does, or whether it even exists yet, I encourage you to join us at IndieWeb Summit!