There's going to be a Tinderbox zoom meetup on the 24th to discuss "blogging with Tinderbox."

To reduce the chances of us looking dumb, the responsible parties are going to get together on zoom today to kind of go over the agenda.

I think it's going to be an interesting meet-up on the 24th, and if you're interested in either blogging or Tinderbox, you should join it. It's open to anyone, you don't have to be a Tinderbox user or a blogger. It can get kind of wonky over 90 minutes, but we'll try to keep it fairly non-technical.

Preparing for today's get-together has made me think more about Tinderbox (and blogging) at a broader level than I have in a long time. I often think about it in immediate, technical terms if something goes awry, or I want to try something new. But this has made me look at all the overall "production process," or, as the cool kids call it, "workflow."

I don't think of myself as a "creator," or a "writer," just as I don't think of myself as a "photographer." To me, those appellations refer to people with perhaps a different intent, or maybe just greater confidence. But we all "make stuff." And there is some reward in the effort.

Part of that reward, I think, is in using the tools. People become passionate about their tools. I use Olympus, now OM Digital Solutions, or OM System (I really don't know what to call the corporate brand) cameras. They offer advantages to me as a "guy who takes pictures," and I wouldn't enjoy taking pictures as much if I had to learn how to use a different camera.

Some people like learning how to use a different camera. The camera is the object, perhaps the process, not the photograph. At least, the photo is secondary, necessary only to evaluate the camera.

I enjoy blogging with Tinderbox. I enjoy the tool. Now, both OM System cameras and Tinderbox can frustrate me at times. Sometimes I don't get the result I anticipated, and I don't know why at first. Then I have to dig in and figure out what went wrong. Typically, I misunderstood something, or forgot a setting. It's seldom the tool. The tool can produce the outcome I envisioned, I just misused it.

I like owning my tools. There are many blogging platforms that offer a writing environment as a service that you pay for. I pay for my hosting, a kind of rent for some server space and domain resolving. But I own my copy of Tinderbox. I don't own the IP. It's not "free software" in any sense. But I don't rent it. Every year I pay for a year of updates, but if I stopped paying, it'd work the same way it does now for as long as I had this computer and OS. (Apple changing the OS is an important reason to pay for application software updates.)

But everything I "create" here is right here in this file, which is backed up to a few different places. I don't have to "download my content." It's right here, where I created it. I do have to upload it though. And if I my host goes out of business, I'll just upload it someplace else.

And I enjoy using Tinderbox. It's not for everyone, to be sure. But it rewards patience and commitment. It's a unique and powerful tool, and it's been around for a long time. I've been using it for more than 20 years.

Jack Baty enjoys using tools too. I think he's more of a "tool is the object" kind of guy with regard to software. (There's nothing wrong with that.) I think he's pretty settled on the kind of camera that produces the images he envisions. Jack and I will be talking about blogging with Tinderbox. Mark Bernstein, the developer of Tinderbox (and blogger) will be there too, along with other experienced users like Mark Anderson, who publishes a whole Tinderbox reference web site using Tinderbox.

It should be fun. I'm looking forward to it.

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:28 Friday, 9 February 2024