Why I moved my blog to Medium from Tumblr

So, I moved my blog. Again. A year ago in February, I wrote a blog post on my very first blog on Blogger titled I am moving to Tumblr from Blogger. Today, I am writing the same story with but with different platforms.

A-year-ago-me was smitten with the idea of posting longish texts with photos, videos, audios and links — types of media that is provided by Tumblr itself on the dashboard; little did I know that I wouldn’t want my hard worked stories like text/video reviews posted to the same page as the Instagram repost of my lunch. Because my videos are horizontal and most Instagram photos are square, the photos seemed to dominate my blog rather than highlight my longer stories. It’s time to separate these medium, hence I went for Medium Publication.

When Medium first launched, I almost moved my blog to it. But then it only had profiles rather than publication. Profiles are really not something that can replace a blog in my mind. But a Publication seems to do the trick. Once you only have one editor and one writer for a publication, it can function as one person’s blog. Another reason I waited was that it wasn’t possible to link custom domain to any profile or publication on Medium, but now you can use custom domain for a publication. Starting today AnuHarchu.com will lead you to my Medium Publication, Anu Harchu | A Life Blog, rather than my Tumblr log.

My lunch pictures on Instagram can be shared to my Facebook or Tumblr, but it won’t dominate my stories anymore. Again, Medium has proven to be champion in making text writing as easy as possible to everyone with one exception — writing in Cyrillic on Medium is just plain ugly.

A screenshot from one of my stories on Galaxy Note 7’s influence on Samsung as a brand and company. Read it here.
I believe that this only-one-font-platform would change itself to accommodate those who write in Slavic or any other language that uses Cyrillic.

Cheers,
Anu

My First MacBook and How I Got It

A couple of months ago Indra suggested that I should get a Mac, changing my life long dedication to PC. Her having got a MacBook Air 11" and showing it to me convinced me to break the bank and splurge on an Apple machine — at least half a decade ambition of mine. So the search began.

You have to decide which model is the right fit for you

There is a neat tool on Apple’s website (apple.com) that helps you compare MacBooks listing all the technical specifications, dumbed down as low as it can be along, with its cute pictures. Even then, if you’re not a tech-amateur-enthusiast, it’s pretty hard to comprehend the specifications truly for your own need. So, I suggest you to breeze over the specs and head to the kingdom of all technological device reviews — YouTube.

I followed that journey and ended up deciding that a MacBook Air 11" (mid 2014) was the thing for me. I’d try to get this specific one. But if budget wouldn’t allow it, I’d be open to a mid-2013 edition.

Since MacBooks run on the premium side of the laptop market, I wanted to get a used one that is in a pristine condition and a very low battery cycle count.

Looking for the MacBook online

I was watching BBC’s Sherlock S02E01 A Scandal in Belgrade, in which Sherlock insisted on not putting his clothes on without the identity of his client whilst in the Buckingham Palace — the very heart of British nation as Mycroft put it. | Picture taken by the author August 20, 2015.

So the machine I chose for myself retails for $899 and up. But I managed to find a MacBook Air 11" early-2014 edition for $699 on eBay with only 3 battery cycle. (For those who don’t know it, 1 battery cycle is 100% of battery used. So this mean either my chosen MacBook has been emptied 3 times or it has been used until 50% of the battery for 6 times or similar)

An issue with finding a second hand device online is usually it is far away from your location. In my case, the parcel has to be shipped from United States to Mongolia, which cost me $89 for a priority shipping with insurance. (you need it priority aka EMS in the east) It took about 2 weeks to get here because of the 5-day holiday in Mongolia during the Naadam.

Get a case for your machine ASAP

You don’t want your precious MacBook dented or scratched. Plus, adding a case or a protective shell personalizes it to your need.

I ended up getting a wine red, sand textured hardcase for my beloved machine for about $11.89 on — nowhere but eBay. Looks good doesn’t it?

The sand pattern wine red hard case put on the MacBook Air 11". | Photo was taken by the author August 20, 2015.

Now I am is search for another one for my dear colleague Naanga. I hope I’ll be able to find her a good deal. Good luck on your pursuit if you’re planning to get a MacBook online instead of buying it from retailers.

Struggles of being a non-English blogger

When I say a non-English blogger, I mean it in a sense that the blogger is not a native English speaker and trying to blog in their mother language. But for the sake of this story, I am going to take myself as an example of it. So there is going to be many “I”s in this story.

Audience

When I started my first blog on Blogspot back in 2009, I used to write book reviews is Mongolian. It could be a platform issue rather than the language issue, but using a language that is spoken by fewer people is bound to limit the reach of your story. That’s why I gave up on writing in Mongolian (I wasn’t that literal to write in it anyway) and started composing my blogs in English instead. That way, the hits for your blog is going to increase due to search result and probability for engagement increases as well.

Fonts, fonts and fonts

Having a beautifully designed blog is a part of a blogging experience. But constantly building on the template is very time consuming, hence Medium is such a convenient platform for whoever wants to share their story without all CSSs and HTMLs. Though even Medium can’t get behind the barriers of font selection. The current font that is used for English text does not look good once it’s changed to cyrillic. In result, the blog turns out to be something that is so unappealing to the eye, that you don’t really want to read it.

Lack of objects

Is it just me or everyone here has nothing exciting going around in their lives to blog about? I am more of a lifestyle blogger (the easiest one to write), but taking photographs for a blog is very hard. But seeing some Mongolian Instagrammers’ feed, their photographic skills or environment seem to be perfect for a hip-blog.

Lack of inspiration might be playing quite a lot of role in not blogging as frequently. But with tons of content out there already, internet can be without you (me), maybe.