Brad Enslen

At the bulky end of the ultra portable typewriter spectrum (as near as I can tell, since I don’t have a lot of ultra portables to compare it to) is this made in Mexico 1970’s Olivetti Lettera 35i I bought on eBay. You can see a sideways photo here.

This was something not quite an impulse buy, more of an opportunity buy. This typewriter was listed as “New” by the seller. It was still in it’s original box, yes it had been sold and the box opened, but the typewriter was still wrapped in the original clear film and inner packing. Somebody had bought it over 40 years ago, inspected it, and then tucked it away in a closet for decades unused.

And there is no sign of it having ever been used. The roller has no marks on it and the thing is as pristine as the day it came off the assembly line. Only the ribbon did not survive. No case, just an original Olivetti vinyl tote bag and instructions.

The body is cast aluminum, not plastic and everything just works. It might need a little lube and it definitely needs a new ribbon. What the heck, I pounced on it. The seller was not fibbing, it really is in New condition. I’m glad I took the chance and bought it.

The nice bit is it’s not so valuable that I would be afraid to take it somewhere and type, like in a park.

So this is #3 in the collection.

I was not a big fan of President Obama’s time as President. He did too little to undo the gross overreach of Federal power from the Bush the Second years and he did use Executive Orders a bit too much for my comfort even if they were mostly well intentioned.

What frosts me, is the Republicans bitterly decried President Obama’s use of Executive Orders, but many are now supporting Trump’s State of Emergency declaration - not all but far too many. That just strikes me as two-faced.

State of Emergency Declarations are intended for REAL FECKING EMERGENCIES not as a cheesy loophole to get around Congress.

The only emergency is the loose cannon in the White House.

Anyone familiar with Wordpress knows about the Related Posts feature as part of JetPack. This places 3 links to other posts you have written with similar content just below each post on WP and it does a pretty good job of it. I think Blogger has a similar function.

It took many months, but what I noticed, over time on WP is that visitors, often helicoptering in from search engines, would actually use the Related Posts to explore deeper and read more posts on my blog, which is what I wanted.

I knew I would be giving that up when I moved to Micro.blog which does not have a Related Posts option. (For good reason, to do Related Posts right and make them relevant takes quite a bit of programming and overhead and it’s not vital to the MB service in the way editing templates or categories are.) But I started wondering if there was a third party hosted service that would do it and discovered two that are not just Wordpress plugins, but usable on most websites.

• AddThis - they have a number of tools and a Related Posts JS is one.
  
• Shareaholic

Disclaimer: At this moment, I don’t know if either of these “free” services insert ads or whatever

The Experiment: Add This

I have signed up for Add This and installed the JS code on my Micro.blog hosted blog. Three types of code were available for an HTML site:

1. Slider - I hate sliders so I skipped that.
2. Inline - This puts the Related Posts in among your content, not my favorite but I might try it if it will put the related posts immediately below the content and above the Comments. Must experiment.
3. Footer - The related posts show up in the bottom of the page no matter what. Don’t let the name fool you the code goes in the Post template not the Footer on MB.

Installation

You install the unique JS code just like I installed the Comment Code in the template.

How it Works

Once you install the custom code on your template you need to manually bring up individual blog posts. As near as I can tell this calls in AddThis which scrapes the page and adds that page to it’s list of your pages. Per AddThis: it takes about 24 - 48 hours for related posts to show up.

Does it Work?

As I write this, I’m less than 24 hours into it so it’s too early to know anything.

Some observations:

1. When I installed this my blog title was kinda long. Add This wants to put the full title before the post title so all related posts look like they have the same Title. You have to mouse over to see the rest of the post title. I have shortened the blog title but I may have to manually call fro a re-scrape.
2. I’m not sure about relevance. The long blog title might be messing things up. Right now it looks like it’s just suggesting random posts, but that might still be better than nothing. I’m not sure how relevant this will be even under optimal conditions. We will see.
3. I focused on having it scrape long form blog posts.
4. The Footer style code always appears at the bottom of the page. This is not all bad since it does not interfere with the rest of the page content if it loads a little slow.
5. It will slow page loads slightly. Not a problem with the Footer style code.
6. It is easy to install.
7. You can get rid of the AddThis branding. Fortunately the branding is small.
8. I like that the code does not tack on Sharing buttons or other stuff I don’t want.
9. It does adapt to mobile.

On page example, here.

Will it Increase Page Views?

That is going to take a few weeks of testing. I don’t think it will hurt. Since it appears in the footer it is quite far down on the page. I will let you know as I experiment.

If anyone else decides to experiment with either of these services please let me know! Thanks.

• Webmentions received from non-MB member blogs and Twitter and published on MB hosted blogs (comments, facepiles etc.)
• * Ability to reply via webmention.
• Replies from Micro.blog timeline should appear on MB hosted blogs.
• Comment form with antispam protection on MB hosted blogs.
  
• Trackbacks and pings received should appear on MB hosted blogs. (Needs antispam.)
• Ability to send Trackbacks and Pings.

Narrative: as @Manton mentioned in the latest Core Intuition the part of Micro.blog that sustains the service (pays the bills) is the blog hosting half. So, to me, that service needs to be compelling as a free-standing blog host to attract and retain paying customers. By now most blog services have the same old list of standard features those do need to be looked at and included on MB, but IMHO, the thing that no other blog system has is turn-key, out of the box true Indieweb discussion support. Micro.blog is much further along than anybody else in this regard but what it’s missing is in that bullet list above and that list is in rough order of importance. Having those would differentiate the MB service from Blogger, Wordpress.com and all the rest. Own the niche. Indieweb type discussion is the only really new thing out there in the blogosphere, and it’s doable.

Why? I think when potential customers see how much interaction there is on MB hosted blogs they will find that a compelling reason. The comments and mentions appearing right on the hosted blog’s post pages would be visible proof of activity - and people respond to activity. (These things should have an off/on switch so the blog owner can enable/disable as they choose.) I also think this is viral - interest will spread by word of mouth.

I do suspect that most of these are in the pipeline but feedback is good and making MB hosted blogs more like stand alone blogs is good too because people will be less likely to look to WP, Blot or other scripts for their blogs.

My 1940’s refurbished Royal Quiet Deluxe came in today. It’s a wonderful machine and it looks almost brand new. You can see my exclusive Yet Another Sideways Photo here Sigh

This was a model that I really wanted to have. Back when I was in grade school, reading Hardy Boys detective books and watching the 1960’s revival of “Dragnet” on TV I would start banging out my own detective reports on a kids typewriter which soon rattled apart. My mother, bless her heart, dug out two old late 40’s Royal portable Quiet Deluxe typewriters from the basement. These had been my Mom and Dad’s typewriters at university. Both needed service with keys sticking. We got got the better of the two repaired by trading in the other machine to the repair shop in return for service. So soon I was back to typing up imaginary police reports on rainy days.

I think my mother saw some value in this play typing. I started using a dictionary for one thing, that alone was a major breakthrough, and I was writing sentences even paragraphs because I wanted to not just because I had to for school.

I don’t know what ever happened to that old Royal, but if I was going to start collecting typewriters I wanted to replace it.

I bought this typewriter online from Kentucky Typer a typewriter refurbisher and repair store. The whole transaction went so smooth and the machine was just as described. Bookmark them. I recommend them highly.

Adding Hosted Comments to a PAGE on Micro.blog

Sometimes we create PAGES on a blog that contain content that we would like visitors to be able to comment about. I’ve been trying to figure out how to add hosted comments just to a page on MB, full stop. I had examined all the templates and found no good place to insert the commenting JS code. And even if I had found a place the added problem would be: I only want comments on certain pages not all pages. What to do?

Adding comments from Disqus, IntenseDebate or others to a page on Micro.blog is different than adding it to posts and far easier. **You don’t have to mess with templates!”

Goto: Account > Edit Design > Pages > select a page to edit.

The content box (the form you post content in when making a page) accepts Markdown, HTML and JavaScript. So it finally perked up to my brain-pan that I could probably just add the custom JS code below the normal content of a page right in the content form.

It’s that simple. You have to repeat this for each page you want comments on. It will not appear on all pages automatically.

You can see an example on my World War II Movies List page.

I’ve only done this with IntenseDebate code but it should work with others.

Enjoy.

Today I found a used typewriter stand at a local office furniture store, $25. Made in 1961, almost as old as me - vintage, and built strong as a tank and still solid as - a typewriter stand built like a tank.

Also stopped by the local charity resale shop: they had 3 portable manual typewriters marked $10, 30 and 40. I didn’t test them. All were well used and needed extensive cleaning at the least. If I were a refurbisher and mechanically handy, I would have bought the lot but passed because that’s not a gig I want to get into. That and none where a model that “spoke” to me.

Backing up to 13 February 2019

Most people are collecting portable typewriters which means the full desktop manuals are not getting a lot of love and therefore the prices are much lower. Below is an avacado green Royal desktop which I did not buy priced at an antique mall for $45 and you can probably get it for less. Assuming it works that is a good price for a machine for maybe a 10 year old that is keen on having their own typewriter or somebody on a tight budget but wants a manual.

Well, it’s started. My habit, when I start a new venture, is to jump in with both feet and thrash around after doing just enough research to get me into trouble. :-)

So, yesterday I found an excellent 1950’s Royal at a local antique mall. I have to confess, I also have two other typewriters on order. One from eBay and another from an online refurbisher/dealer. More on those purchases when they arrive in the next few days.

The advice given to search locally: antique stores, resale shops, old long established office equipment stores, is sound. I visited three local antique malls and found quite a few typewriters at decent prices that compare well with prices on eBay but have the advantage over eBay in that you can physically inspect and test the machine, dicker on price and you don’t have to pay +$40 for shipping.

Ahead…

1. Ultra Portables: for some reason these appeal to me the most right at the moment. They are always so slim and sleek.
2. Brands: I’d like to have an Olympia, these were always so expensive. Olivetti, see Ultra Portables above. Otherwise, brand is a factor but I’m not really checking a tick-box trying to buy one of each brand. I guess it’s a secondary consideration.
3. Condition: I’m trying to buy machines that are either refurbished, serviced or in proven good working order. Right now, I don’t know enough to attempt refurbishing typewriters on my own and it’s not something I’m interested in right now.
4. Style: This is a key consideration. I’d love to have a Remington Streamliner from the late ‘30’s to early ‘40’s. Looks, definitely play into this.
5. Price: Another big factor. I definitely like bargains.

This is my crude guide to adding third party commenting to Micro.blog. Right now Micro.blog only has commenting in the social timeline. If you want non-Micro.blog members to comment on your post pages you will need a third party service I know @Manton intends to add commenting on the post pages to MB at some point in the future so I consider this to be an interim solution.

Pick a comment service and sign up.

Pick a comment host and sign up. Look it over so you understand the administrative aspects. The service will give you either a custom JavaScript code or HTML code that they expect you to copy/paste into your theme. You will need this later.

Edit MB Theme

1. Read Help File on Custom Themes
2. Watch Manton’s Screencast I watched this several times until I was pretty sure I knew what to do.
3. Go to Edit custom themes in your admin panel.
4. You want to fetch the template files for the theme you are using, so find the repository name for your theme. I’m using Marfa theme so I typed in “theme-marfa” and if memory serves all the Marfa templates were fetched.
5. You only need to edit one template \ layouts/post/single.html
   

You are going to paste the JS code from your custom comment provider right where my super crude arrow is pointing below.

Save and you should be done. I’ve only done this with IntenseDebate using their “Generic” code so I can’t tell you how the other services will work on MB. YMMV.