Tag: Writing

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I’m excited to report the publication of Mastodon for Dummies, my new collaboration with Chris Minnick. This book will help you escape from Elon Musk’s Twitter — or any other corporate social media platform. You’ll get started with the open-source Mastodon alternative.

Check out the Books page for the story of how this book came to be. After an extended hiatus from book authoring, I couldn’t ask for a more worthwhile topic.

What’s different about Mastodon?

Mastodon differs from corporate social media platforms in these important ways: Book cover for "Mastodon for Dummies" by Chris Minnick and Michael McCallister.

  • No one owns Mastodon, and anyone can set up a community.
  • You are a valued member of the community, not an advertising target.
  • There’s no algorithm that decides what you see. Your feed depends solely on who you follow.
  • Community and conversation come first, not virality.

What else is in the book?

Chris and I quickly (the book is just 150 pages) walk you through the process of choosing a homebase on Mastodon. You’ll learn how to connect with other users, including your Tweeps who’ve joined the platform. Not sure how to be conversational on social media? We can help you post effectively too.

We tell you how to build a business on Mastodon too. You’ll find that it’s a very different vibe than Twitter, but if you really put your customers first, you’ll do well.

Besides all the good information we provide, you’ll find all the features — and fun — you expect from a For Dummies book. (Confession: With apologies to the publishers I’ve worked with over the years, I’ve always wanted to write one of these. Another bucket list item checked off!)

Working on Mastodon for Dummies

I’m honored to partner with Chris Minnick on this project, and I can tell you he’s a great guy and a writing dynamo! He has called Mastodon for Dummies his “most important” book, and I have to agree with him.

Anyway, if you’re on Mastodon, do give me a follow: @workingwriter. You can also follow MichaelMcCallister.com directly at https://www.michaelmccallister.com/author/mike/.

Let me know if you have questions about the book, Mastodon, or anything else.

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I’ve had the honor to publish a few articles in Linux Format, also known as LXF, the UK’s surviving print Linux magazine. I’ve subscribed to it for a few years now, but the coronavirus pandemic has wreaked havoc for overseas delivery (among other things). My issues have been appearing in my mailbox in seemingly random order.

This week I received the October 2020 issue #268 with BUILD A SMART HOME OFFICE on the cover. Inside was a small, but pleasant surprise. (Note: I may disappoint you with the link; you’ll see a list of the stories, but can’t read them if you’re not a subscriber.)

On the first page of every LXF issue, the five guys (yes, I’m afraid they’re all men) who write most of the magazine’s content answer that month’s “Who We Are” question. This issue’s question was about top tips or tools to help readers to work smarter.

I smiled at Nick Peers’ recommendation:

If, like me, your thoughts and inspirations vanish as quickly as they appear, you need some way of getting them down on (virtual) paper. And what better tool than Joplin (https://joplinapp.org). which ended my years-long quest for a note-taking tool that does it all? Don’t believe me? Check out our tutorial in LXF260…

Nick doesn’t have anywhere near the space to include every critical detail, but I smiled because I wrote the bloody tutorial!

Now a close reading of this little blurb doesn’t say explicitly that my tutorial persuaded him to try Joplin, thus ending “my years-long quest for a note-taking tool that does it all.” But I’m still going to believe that it did.

What is Joplin?

So what is Joplin? Well, it’s a few things:

  • An open-source replacement for the commercial note-taker Evernote
  • A place to write down all those brilliant ideas you have in your head, but can never seem to act on
  • A Markdown editor
  • A place to store interesting things you find online, and access with any device you have

Joplin imports your Evernote notebooks after you export them. If your favorite browser supports extensions, Joplin will let you save web pages and articles.

Using Joplin

Here’s the default screen:

Editing screen for the Joplin open-source notetaking app.
Joplin makes it easy to take notes and store them.

You can organize your notes into Notebooks any way you like. Everything is searchable in the search bar at the top of the second column where your note titles live. The editor shows text with Markdown markings showing formatting. If you don’t know Markdown, use the standard text-editor toolbar at the top. Joplin then renders your notes in HTML on the right.

If you don’t need to see both views, press Ctrl+L to toggle that view. If you love to configure software so it’s just right, there’s Tools > Options (or Ctrl+,).

Joplin runs on Linux, Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, so you should be able to take notes and read them everywhere. To do that, however, you need to store them in the cloud. Joplin currently supports NextCloud, Dropbox and OneDrive. Set up your cloud account in Joplin, and click Synchronize to send your notes there.

That’s the quick tour. If you can’t get a copy of Linux Format #260, the Joplin website can help you get started. The Support forum is really good too.

If you have a favorite note-taking app, tell me about it in the Comments.

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I’ve got a new post up at the WPMU blog: How to Add Medium’s Most Popular Features to WordPress. In this story, you’ll learn about themes and plugins that can make your WordPress site look a bit like Medium, and aim to replicate some of their sharing features. Medium itself offers a WordPress plugin that will allow this post to appear on its platform (click the link below to see it). You may see more of those tools, or at least the effects of same, here in the coming weeks.

Logos for Medium.com

It seems like I’m now on a tear comparing these two platforms (see my last two posts). But this is a pretty important issue, to my mind, for the reasons laid out on those last two posts.  But then there’s this idea of Medium’s being just easier than WordPress for everyday, non technically oriented writers. That’s not entirely wrong, but perhaps the real consideration is that Medium isn’t sure what their future looks like, either. That’s the nature of a for-profit startup that doesn’t make money.  As free software effectively owned by its community, WordPress’ future stretches as long into the future that people want to use it.

You have to make your own decisions, of course. If you have questions, feel free to comment here, or fill out the contact form for a private conversation.

What do you like about Medium? What do you like about WordPress? Is there a love/hate relationship with either site (or both)? All worth thinking about — and discussing.

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