Advent of Bloggers 2021: Day 14

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.

Max Böck's Blog (mxb.dev)

I first discovered Max Böck's blog when I was researching how the web was in the '90s and early '00s. Max's blog post "The Return of the 90s Web" was one of many articles that encouraged me to explore the web as it was years ago. I am glad I did. The web of the past can tell us a lot about what the web can be: a decentralised hub where you can find data and host your own website to share information. The web can be creative, and indeed whimsical.

My choice of whimsical is intentional as Max has created a website that lists websites that are made with the intent that they should not take themselves too seriously. Max called this the Whimsical Website Club. If you're in the mood to explore what you can accomplish with web design, consider checking out the Whimsical Website Club.

Max posts blog posts every now and again in the "writing" section of his site. He has blogged about topics like Webmentions, static site generation, Eleventy, and, the web of the past. There are many hidden gems to find if you scroll through Max's archive and click on a few posts that intrigue you.

Max's blog has one of the most unique theme changing mechanisms I have seen on the web. There is a small paint brush in the top right corner of the screen which, when clicked, will let you choose from one of many colour schemes that Max has created. I love the idea of offering many different colour schemes to visitors. You can choose your own and stick with it as you read through Max's blog.

In addition, Max posts notes on his site. These are often quotations from articles or responses to resources on the web that Max has found. Max's implementation of notes is elegant: notes are easy to read across themes and have clear context. Notes also support replies so you can comment, like, and "repost" them with Webmentions. I love seeing different implementations of webmentions on sites.

Wrapping Up

The spirit of this series is to help you find blogs to explore. With that in mind, I must conclude this post with a link to Max's blogroll. His blogroll opened my eyes to many different blogs. If you have blogs that you like to read, consider sharing them on your website so that other people can find them. Personal blogs mostly rely on people, not algorithms, to spread the word of their existence and content.

I am having fun writing this series. I'm continually amazed by how unique blogs are across the web. There are truly amazing sights on the web. You just have to explore a bit to find them. I shall see you tomorrow for the fifteenth post in this series.