P&B: Jeremy Keith

 

This is the 86th edition of People and Blogs, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Jeremy Keith and his blog, adactio.com

To follow this series subscribe to the newsletter. A new interview will land in your inbox every Friday. Not a fan of newsletters? No problem! You can read the interviews here on the blog or you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

If you're enjoying the People and Blogs series and you want to see it grow, consider supporting on Ko-Fi.


Let's start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?

My name is Jeremy Keith. I’m from Ireland. Cork, like. Now I live in Brighton on the south coast of England.

I play traditional Irish music on the mandolin. I also play bouzouki in the indie rock band Salter Cane.

I also make websites. I made a community website all about traditional Irish music that’s been going for decades. It’s called The Session.

Back in 2005 I co-founded a design agency called Clearleft. It’s still going strong twenty years later (I mean, as strong as any agency can be going in these volatile times).

Oh, and I’ve written some nerdy books about making websites. The one I’m most proud of is called Resilient Web Design.

What's the story behind your blog?

I was living in Freiburg in southern Germany in the 1990s. That’s when I started making websites. My first ever website was for a band I was playing in at the time. My second ever website was for someone else’s band. Then I figured I should have my own website.

I didn’t want the domain name to be in German but I also didn’t want it to be in English. So I got adactio.com.

To begin with, it wasn’t a blog. It was more of a portfolio-type professional site. Although if you look at it now, it looks anything other than professional. Would ya look at that—the frameset still works!

Anyway, after moving to Brighton at the beginning of the 21st century, I decided I wanted to have one of those blogs that all the cool kids had. I thought I was very, very late to the game. This was in November 2001. That’s when I started my blog, though I just called it (and continue to call it) a journal.

What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?

Sometimes a thing will pop into my head and I’ll blog it straight away. More often, it bounces around inside my skull for a while. Sometimes it’s about spotting connections, like if if I’ve linked to a few different things that have some kind of connective thread, I’ll blog in order to point out the connections.

I never write down those things bouncing around in my head. I know I probably should. But then if I’m going to take the time to write down an idea for a blog post, I might as well write the blog post itself.

I never write drafts. I just publish. I can always go back and fix any mistakes later. The words are written on the web, not carved in stone.

Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?

I mostly just blog from home, sitting at my laptop like I’m doing now. I have no idea whether there’s any connection between physical space and writing. That said, I do like writing on trains.

A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?

I use my own hand-rolled hodge-podge of PHP and MySQL that could only very generously be described as a content management system. It works for me. It might not be the most powerful system, but it’s fairly simple. I like having control over everything. If there’s some feature I want, it’s up to me to add it.

So yeah, it’s a nice boring LAMP stack—Linux Apache MySQL PHP. It’s currently hosted on Digital Ocean. I use DNSimple for all the DNS stuff and Fastmail for my email. I like keeping those things separate so that I don’t have a single point of failure.

I realise this all makes me sound kind of paranoid, but when you’ve been making websites for as long as I have, you come to understand that you can’t rely on anything sticking around in the long term so a certain amount of paranoia is justified.

Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?

I’m not sure. I’m not entirely comfortable about using a database. It feels more fragile than just having static files. But I do cache the blog posts as static HTML too, so I’m not entirely reliant on the database. And having a database allows me to do fun relational stuff like search.

If I were starting from scratch, I probably wouldn’t end up making the same codebase I’ve got now, but I almost certainly would still be aiming to keep it as simple as possible. Cleverness isn’t good for code in the long term.

Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what's your position on people monetising personal blogs?

I’ve got hosting costs but that’s pretty much it. I don’t make any money from my website.

That Irish traditional music website I mentioned, The Session, that does accept donations to cover the costs. As well as hosting, there’s a newsletter to pay for, and third-party mapping services.

Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?

You should absolutely check out Walknotes by Denise Wilton.

It’s about going out in the morning to pick up litter before work. From that simple premise you get some of the most beautiful writing on the web. Every week there’s a sentence that just stops me in my tracks. I love it.

We wife, Jessica Spengler, also has a wonderful blog, but I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?

You know I mentioned that The Session is funded by donations? Well, actually, this month—April 2025—any donations go towards funding something different; bursary sponsorship places for young musicians to attend workshops at the Belfest Trad Fest who otherwise wouldn’t be able to go:

thesession.org/donate

So if you’ve ever liked something I’ve written on my blog, you can thank me by contributing a little something to that.

Cheers,
Jeremy


This was the 86th edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Jeremy. Make sure to follow his blog (RSS) and get in touch with him if you have any questions.

Awesome supporters

You can support this series on Ko-Fi and all supporters will be listed here as well as on the official site of the newsletter.

Jamie Thingelstad (RSS) — Piet Terheyden — Eleonora — Carl Barenbrug (RSS) — Steve Ledlow (RSS) — Paolo Ruggeri (RSS) — Nicolas Magand (RSS) — Rob HopeChris Hannah (RSS) — Pedro Corá (RSS) — Sixian Lim (RSS) — Matt Stein (RSS) — Winnie Lim (RSS) — Flamed (RSS) — C Jackdaw (RSS) — Fabricio Teixeira (RSS) — Rosalind CroadMike Walsh (RSS) — Markus Heurung (RSS) — Michael Warren (RSS) — Chuck Grimmett (RSS) — Robin Harford (RSS) — Bryan Maniotakis (RSS) — Barry Hess (RSS) — Ivan MorealeBen Werdmuller (RSS) — Cory GibbonsLuke Harris (RSS) — Lars-Christian Simonsen (RSS) — Cody SchultzBrad Barrish (RSS) — Nikita Galaiko — Erik Blankvoort — Jaga SantagostinoAndrew ZuckermanMattia Compagnucci (RSS) — Thord D. Hedengren (RSS) — Fabien Sauser (RSS) — Maxwell OmdalNumeric Citizen (RSS) — Jarrod Blundy (RSS) — Andrea Contino (RSS) — Sebastian De Deyne (RSS) — Nicola Losito (RSS) — Lou Plummer (RSS) — Leon Mika (RSS) — Veronique (RSS) — Neil Gorman (RSS) — Reaper (RSS) — Matt Rutherford (RSS) — Aleem Ali (RSS) — Nikkin (RSS) — Hans (RSS) — Matt Katz (RSS) — Ilja PanićEmmanuel OdongoPeter Rukavina (RSS) — James (RSS) — Adam Keys (RSS) — Alexey Staroselets (RSS) — John LMinsuk Kang (RSS) — Naz Hamid (RSS) — Ken Zinser (RSS) — Jan — Grey Vugrin (RSS) — Luigi Mozzillo (RSS) — Alex Hyett (RSS) — Andy PiperHrvoje Šimić (RSS) — Travis SchmeisserDoug JonesVincent Ritter (RSS) — ShenFabian Holzer (RSS) — Courtney (RSS) — Jeremy Bassetti (RSS) — Luke DornyThomas EricksonHerman Martinus (RSS) — Benny (RSS) — Annie Mueller (RSS) — SekhmetDesignGui (RSS) — Jamie (RSS) — Juha Liikala (RSS) — Ray (RSS) — Chad Moore (RSS) — Benjamin Wittorf (RSS) — Prabash Livera — BinaryDigit (RSS) — Radek Kozieł (RSS) — Marcus RichardsonEmily Moran Barwick (RSS) — Zach Barocas (RSS) — Gosha (RSS) — Ruben Arakelyan (RSS) — Manton Reece (RSS) — Silvano Stralla (RSS) — Mario Figueroa — Benjamin Chait (RSS) — Cai Wingfield

Want to support P&B?

If you like this series and want to help it grow, you can:

  1. support on Ko-Fi;
  2. post about it on your own blog and let your readers know about its existence;
  3. email me comments and feedback on the series;
  4. suggest a person to interview next. I'm especially interested in people and blogs outside the tech/web bubble.

Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my generous supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

Manu's Feed

18 Apr 2025 at 12:00

When a side project finds you

 

I didn’t plan to start working on a new side project and yet, here we are. Back in the summer of 2023 when I had the idea for People and Blogs and I purchased the peopleandblogs.com domain name I said to myself “This is the last domain I’m gonna buy for a side project”.

Fast forward roughly a year and a half and I get an email from the always lovely Ray asking me if I was interested in becoming the new owner and custodian of his blogroll.org. I couldn’t pass on the opportunity. As you know, I am very into blogging and personal sites because I truly believe those are the antidote to the current awful state of the web. I started the P&B series because I wanted to help people connect with one another, facilitate discovery, and encourage more people to get back into blogging. That is because I believe that if you have something worth sharing, it’s better to do it on a site you control, rather than on social media. And blogroll.org, as a project, is very much aligned with that goal which is why I immediately said yes to Ray.

It took me a while to code a new version of the site and move everything from WordPress to Kirby but the new version is finally online.

I have to say that I’m quite pleased with this new version. It’s a lot more colourful than the sites I usually make but that tracks with the way my life is changing. I’m starting to get a bit tired of all this black and white and colours feel a lot more playful. The site is set in Sofia Pro and as mentioned runs on the latest Kirby version. It’s a V1, many features are missing and there are a lot of entries in my to-do list for this project but I’m happy that it’s at least online and people can start submitting sites again.

Like all the other things I’m doing online these days, the site is supported by the kindness of friends and strangers and if you find projects like this to be valuable and want to contribute you can join them for as little as 1$ a month.

As always if you have comments, feedback or feature requests, you can email me. My inbox is always open.


Thank you for keeping RSS alive. You're awesome.

Email me :: Sign my guestbook :: Support for 1$/month :: See my generous supporters :: Subscribe to People and Blogs

Manu's Feed

12 Apr 2025 at 09:45



Refresh complete

ReloadX
Home
(134) All feeds

Last 24 hours
Download OPML
A Very Good Blog by Keenan
A Working Library
Alastair Johnston
Anna Havron
*
Annie
*
Annie Mueller
Apple Annie's Weblog
*
Articles – Dan Q
*
Baty.net posts
bgfay
*
Bix Dot Blog
*
Brandon's Journal
Chris Coyier
Chris Lovie-Tyler
Chris McLeod's blog
Colin Devroe
*
Colin Walker – Daily Feed
Content on Kwon.nyc
Crazy Stupid Tech
daverupert.com
Dino's Journal 📖
dispatches
dominikhofer dot me
Excursions
Flashing Palely in the Margins
Floating Flinders
For You
*
Frank Meeuwsen
frittiert.es
Hello! on Alan Ralph
*
Human Stuff from Lisa Olivera
inessential.com
*
jabel
Jake LaCaze
*
James Van Dyne
*
Jan-Lukas Else
*
Jim Nielsen's Blog
Jo's Blog
*
Kev Quirk
lili's musings
*
Live & Learn
Lucy Bellwood
Maggie Appleton
*
Manton Reece
*
Manu's Feed
*
maya.land
*
Meadow
Minutes to Midnight RSS feed
Nicky's Blog
*
Notes – Dan Q
On my Om
Own Your Web
Paul's Dev Notes
*
QC RSS
rebeccatoh.co
reverie v. reality
*
Rhoneisms
ribbonfarm
Robert Birming
*
Robert Birming
Robin Rendle
Robin Rendle
Sara Joy
*
Scripting News for email
Sentiers – Blog
*
Simon Collison | Articles & Stream
strandlines
Tangible Life
the dream machine
*
The Torment Nexus
*
thejaymo
theunderground.blog
Thoughtless Ramblings
tomcritchlow.com
*
Tracy Durnell
Winnie Lim
*
yours, tiramisu
Žan Černe's Blog

About Reader


Reader is a public/private RSS & Atom feed reader.


The page is publicly available but all admin and post actions are gated behind login checks. Anyone is welcome to come and have a look at what feeds are listed — the posts visible will be everything within the last week and be unaffected by my read/unread status.


Reader currently updates every six hours.


Close

Search




x
Colin Walker Colin Walker colin@colinwalker.blog