A quick walk outside during lunch at the #DigitalDevon conference - Torquay, Devon.

Looking out to sea near Harbour Cove Beach, Padstow.

I'm trying to read a book (a real, actual, paper one!) in a coffee shop, but can't concentrate for more than a few words before my mind's focus is pulled away by the music. 

A metaphor, perhaps, for the amount and volume of information surrounding us now. Like the music, the information flow is getting louder and louder; always vying to be in the foreground.

I can at least try to quieten the information down, though. I've been removing apps and accounts; publishing to my own site rather than platforms and social media posts; and relying on open standards such as RSS feeds and writing in plain text. I'm gradually switching to open-source and self-hosted apps.

Maybe I've just hit "the age" where the music is always too loud. Whilst I can't do much about that, I can at least do something about the volume of the information I receive.

Ps. If you're interested, you can see the apps and services I currently use here. 

Walk to Woolacombe and Morthoe, North Devon.

Looe, #Cornwall

Exeter Cathedral, Devon.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this has allowed me to migrate existing content from my Markdown files using a custom CLI tool I've written in Ruby. It also means that - thanks to the obsidian-pagecord plugin - I can use Obsidian to write and publish content.

Email posting is the headline feature that has drawn me to Pagecord for friction-less publishing, but whilst HTML formatting is supported, it doesn't parse Markdown in the emails.

For those longer posts where I would like to be more precise about headings, links, code blocks, etc., the Obsidian Pagecord plugin means I can write in a familiar - and powerful - Markdown editor, whilst easily publishing directly to the site.

☕ Morning #coffeeandcode at Elements Cafe, Plymouth Science Park.

Ever since it was shut down, I've wished to replicate that simplicity in my publishing. I've tried various blogging platforms; started writing my own apps; and put together solutions via tools like Zapier - but nothing felt quite as elegant and efficient as Posterous.

Most recently I've been using 11ty to power this site, but - even though I spend most of my working time in a code editor - I've never found using Zed or VSCode or Vim, or any code editor, a good place for writing.

Coupled with the fact I would procrastinate by running npm updates, wrangling with JavaScript, and trying out the latest version of [insert any framework/tool/package here] to get my site "just right", it has meant that I've always spent more time updating the code rather than the content.

I've always found myself settling back to a static site generator, and the hope that I'll "just write more". That's often not the case though.

So I've been been interested to see the  the development of Pagecord, and light but increasingly-powerful blogging platform written by Olly Headey.

(As an aside, Olly was one of the co-founders of FreeAgent - the bookkeeping software I've used since day one of my business, and wouldn't be without 🙏)

Back to Email

Like Posterous, Pagecord is based on the same idea of posting via email. I love this, and the recently released API - coupled with Olly's fast responses to feedback and adding or tweaking features - has given me the confidence to finally take the plunge and migrate this blog.

I'm also happy knowing that the blog is running on a Rails app again, which I'm far more familiar with!

Migrating Content

To quickly migrate the content over, I put together a simple pagecord-cli tool to import my markdown posts and do some gsub-bing to remap asset URLs.

I've also included a feature in the CLI tool can export my content back to markdown+yaml to ensure data portability.

Future

I really like Pagecord, and Olly has done an amazing job. Pagecord is open source, although contributions are currently closed.

However, one element I'm hoping to add are thumbnail images for my moments posts, rather than the current list of titles. 

But, more than anything, it's great to support a great, independent blogging app. I hope that I'll be able to settle my blog and finally get back into the writing habit unencumbered by package updates, CSS tweaks, breaking changes and specs, and WYSIWYG editors.

PS. Yes - this post was written and sent via email 🎉

Ref: Sky News: Are you using an AI-generated password? It might be time to change it

View through a stone wall looking back to Plymouth near Foggintor Quarry, Dartmoor, Devon.

Happy New Year!

Welcoming 2026, here is what I plan to focus on in the months ahead. The key themes are simplification, lightness or reduction, and relying less on third-party software and services.

• Develop products and productised services to complement my consulting work. Simplify the offering - it feels like I've overcomplicated things. Business goals is a separate post...
• Reduce reliance on hosted services. Default to self-hosted, open-source, and plain-text-first software. See uses for progress, and my current #appdefaults.
• Similarly, simplify the technology I use. Fewer gadgets. Fewer "smart" devices. Fewer apps. Fewer payments.
• Travel more, more lightly.
• Continue to work on strength training, diet, and reducing BF%.
• Read more books. Currently I am tracking books to read, those in progress, and books finished in an Obsidian note.
• Keep walking, and walk more.
• As ever - publish a bit more content here!

See now for an updating list of what I'm focussing on throughout the year.

Reflective Christmas Lights in the trees at Crealy, Devon, UK

Christmas Lights Installation @ Eden Project, Cornwall, UK

Hamilton @ Theatre Royal, Plymouth, UK.