---
layout: post
title: "My Static Blog Toolkit"
date: 2015-03-05T18:02:04-05:00
summary: A rundown of the tools I (currently) use along side my octopress / jekyll blog
image: /images/2015/toolbox.jpg
image_source: https://flic.kr/p/c4QJzC
tags:
- site
---

As I continue to tinker with my [Octopress](http://octopress.org/) blog, I have found that there are some complimentary tools "necessary" to make things even better. I'm sure this list will evolve, but so far here's what I've got:

### FeedPress

With [feedburner](http://feedburner.google.com/) all but abandoned by Google, I've been on the hunt for something a little more reliable. At some point, I came across [FeedPress](https://feed.press/) as a viable alternative.

I had a long standing [issue](https://github.com/walkah/walkah.net/issues/3) to convert my feedburner feeds over and finally took the plunge. While I wish the stats were real-time, I otherwise have no complaints whatsoever paying a few dollars a month to have reliable feed analytics with some neat features.

Here's my [feedpress affiliate link](https://feed.press/?affid=6753) if you're interested in checking them out.

### Buffer

One thing I quickly noticed with my new FeedPress account: RSS *is* dead. My subscriber account is way down. What? No, of course that has nothing to do with not posting for a few years.

All the kids these days are are on the social networks. If I want people to read what I write, that's where I need to be. [Buffer](https://bufferapp.com/) makes this easy with scheduling and some additional analytics.

As a bonus, you can have FeedPress automatically post new articles to a connected Buffer account. Now that's automagical!

### Atom

No, not the feed format. Feeds are dead. I'm talking about the hot new [text editor](https://atom.io/) from the lovely folks at Github. What makes it great for my Octopress blog? It has built-in [live markdown preview](https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview) that even renders [YAML front matter](http://jekyllrb.com/docs/frontmatter/).

This is getting pretty efficient. I may look around for free/open alternatives to FeedPress and Buffer, but for now the seamless integration seems worth it.

Am I missing anything?
