Over the weekend, I launched I code and I cook, A personal blog about life away from the computer.
@jennybeaumont there’s a certain irony in the tagline wink
— Anne Ditmeyer (@pretavoyager) December 9, 2013
In addition to talking about food and other non-computer related activities, as well as giving me a much needed outlet to share, it will serve as a playground to experiment with themes and features from a user’s perspective, and to submerge myself in the world of blogging.
I’ll reflect on those developments and discoveries here.
Although I’m really liking the default Twenty Thirteen theme as a structural base for my client projects, let’s face it, it ain’t pretty (sorry Matt). So I’ve gone with the Twenty Twelve theme to get me started. It isn’t exactly beautiful, but it is very neutral and minimalistic – just what I need to get me started so I can focus on writing above the rest.
One thing I’m looking forward to exploring is the use of post formats. Conceptually I think they’re a brilliant idea, but I don’t see a lot of the blogs I follow using them. Are they practical? Are they under-exploited? Or are they ultimately just gimmicky and not very useful?
The client work I do is primarily using WordPress as a CMS, with integrated blogs being more incidental than the primary focus. Do you use post formats on your blog? I would love to hear your thoughts on them, please post in the comments below!
// Edit: here are some tweets I got around the subject of post formats
@jennybeaumont I am yet to see a real site that made me feel "wow, post formats are good and useful here"
— Andrey Savchenko (@Rarst) December 10, 2013
@Rarst @jennybeaumont I haven't found a use for post-formats either. Seems like a bit of an edge case to me.
— Ryan Hellyer (@ryanhellyer) December 10, 2013
@ryanhellyer @Rarst @jennybeaumont I use them to show/hide different meta boxes in the admin. Quite useful there. Keeps admin tidy
— Daniel Dvorkin (@MZAWeb) December 10, 2013
@ryanhellyer @Rarst @jennybeaumont imho best uses: as Tumblog alternative, as secondary loop content, or purely as taxonomy
— Chip Bennett (@chip_bennett) December 10, 2013