Advent of Bloggers 2021: Day 7

I am writing a blog post every day from December 1st to December 24th, 2021, about a blogger whose writing or site I follow. My aim for this series is to help you discover new blogs and to help get the word out about content creators whose blogs I appreciate. You can read more about this series in the inaugural Day 1 post.

@rowanmanning.com

I originally found rowanmanning.com through the weeknotes published on the site. Every week, Rowan publishes a few bullet points about what he has done that week. I enjoy reading weeknotes because they give you a glimpse into new worlds. If you love reading weeknotes, or are looking for some inspiration on how to get started, Rowan's site is a good place to visit. There is more to Rowan's site than just weeknotes: you'll find some interesting longer pieces on technology.

Rowan's homepage has two columns: weeknotes and latest posts. I love this structure because it lets you find exactly what you're looking for without having to navigate around. You're one click away from either reading a weeknote, a blog post, or looking at the archives for either of these categories. Each blog post is tagged with a nice colour which makes navigation even easier.

Going over to Rowan's blog, you'll find articles on topics from RSS to accessibility testing. There's plenty of reading on the blog to keep you going if you have a free hour or two and don't know what to read. His most recent article, Webmentions for your Static Site, walks through a challenge that I have faced and presents a detailed solution with code.

Rowan's site has a simple but beautiful design. The tag and article colours really make each page stand out. The navigation bar has two shades of green at the top, catching my eye every time I look on a page. I love sites that both have interesting content and are great to look at!

If you're looking for a place to get started on Rowan's blog, I would recommend:

• Rowan's Weeknotes
• Week 58: Wired
• Webmentions for Your Static Site

Wrapping Up

I started this challenge one week ago. Since starting, have used this bit at the end of each article for some commentary on blogging more broadly. I would like to end today's wrapping up section with a question: how do you discover blogs?

In this series, I am presenting lots of blogs whose content I like. Finding these blogs has taken a lot of time. If I find an interesting blog, I'll subscribe and save it in my feed reader for later use. I usually find blogs through surfing the web, going from site to site clicking on web pages that look interesting, but I am curious how other people find blogs too.

I shall see you in tomorrow's blog post where I'll talk about another blog I find interesting.