Did you know that I run my own social network? You might have heard me talk about oslo.town before today, either online or in-person. Behind the scenes, oslo.town is powered by Mastodon – a bit of free software.
Every website that runs Mastodon should work pretty well on your mobile phone, but you can also download apps to do the same thing. And some people prefer apps.
There were some decent apps for Android (Tusky) and iPhone (Metatext), but there wasn’t an official app for Mastodon. Until now!
I recently added my little social network logo to Red Bubble – which means you can now buy a whole plethora of oslo.town merchandise.
oslo.town has recently topped 100 members and was never meant to be a big thing, so I’m quite happy with this. And, I’m not expecting to see people (other than myself) walking around the city wearing merch – but the option is there should you want to own some swag.
If you’re looking for an alternative to Twitter, you don’t need to look further than Mastodon. But, if you live or come from Scotland, then you might want to join your fellow country-folk on a social network for Scotland.
mastodon.scot is a bilingual online community, inviting Scottish folk to sign up and chat with the 1,500 other members of the site.
And, if you don’t know anyone on the site, you can always invite your friends or follow some of the 2 million people on the wider network – called the fediverse.
A Mastodon instance
mastodon.scot is based on the same technology as the social network that I run for the people of Oslo — oslo.town. Both sites are able to ‘talk’ to one another and members of oslo.town are able to follow and interact with members of mastodon.scot.
If you want to get to grips with Mastodon, but don’t live in either Scotland or Oslo, check out some of the Mastodon instances you can join.
And, if you have any questions about mastodon.scot, check out the profile of @trumpet@mastodon.scot for more information.
If you’re looking for an alternative to Twitter, you don’t need to look further than Mastodon. But, if you live or come from Wales, then you might want to join your fellow country-folk on a social network for Wales.
toot.wales(or Tŵt Cymru) is a bilingual online community, inviting Welsh folk to sign up and chat with the 3,500 other members of toot.wales.
And, if you don’t know anyone on the site, you can always invite your friends or follow some of the 2 million people on the wider network – called the fediverse.
A Mastodon instance
toot.wales is based on the same technology as the social network that I run for the people of Oslo — oslo.town. Both sites are able to ‘talk’ to one another and members of oslo.town are able to follow and interact with members of toot.wales.
If you want to get to grips with Mastodon, but don’t live in either Wales or Oslo, check out some of the Mastodon instances you can join.
And, if you have any questions about toot.wales, check out the profile of @jaz@toot.wales for more information.
We made it. The year is 2020 and if you are reading this I’m going to presume you are one of the lucky ones who made it through Christmas and New Years celebrations in one piece.
This is the first blog post of the year, a mere 14 days in. With any luck, I’ll remember to post a little more regularly throughout the upcoming year. If you want to be at the cutting edge of these blog post updates, make sure you subscribe to the blog.
So, what’s happening?
I bought a new camera.
After noticing that I have a lot of expensive photography equipment that gets used twice a year, it was time for a spring clean. During Spring 2020, I will sell all the DSLR cameras and lenses that are collecting dust. In the meantime, I picked up a Sony Cybershot RX100 IV.
Since it’s a small compact camera, I don’t expect to be taking the professional-level nature and wildlife photography I was hoping to with the DSLR. Yet, the new camera is small enough to fit in my pocket and carry around with me most of the time. It’s great to whip from the pocket and sporadically snap what I see.
Like these two unedited examples:
And also the photo at the top of this post (of the two cats) is from the new Sony.
New logo for oslo.town
Maybe you read the blog post about oslo.town or maybe you didn’t. Either way, what you need to know is that I was using the Oslo Kommune logo for the site, but recently made a few tweaks so it looked similar, but different.
I have turned St. Hallvard, the patron saint of Oslo, considered a martyr because of his defence of an innocent thrall woman… into a mastodon elephant. Yep. Sorry about that.
Charitable efforts
I’m not here to blow my own trumpet, but I made an effort to sign up once more as a volunteer at the Norwegian Red Cross. At least once a week, I’ll be helping out at a homeless shelter in Oslo.