Posts on Matt Langford

Some Catching Up

Wed, 13 May 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Things have been busy over the last few months, and I’ve fallen behind on more than a couple things. As plans settle in for the summer, I believe I’ve got an opening to be more consistent in publishing useful items. I plan to start that before the end of the month and layout my intentions fully. In the meantime, I thought I’d recap some things in 2026.

What I'm Using in 2026

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 -0500

It’s been a while since I updated the list of “what I use,” and there have been some changes. One of the first things you might notice is the move to first party apps and services. Let’s get straight to it.

Introducing Axiom Bible — A Bible App That Gets Out of Your Way

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 -0600

I’m a pastor in Louisiana, and like most people in ministry, I’ve tried just about every Bible app out there. They all start the same way: you open the app to read a passage, and before you get to a single verse you’re greeted by a carousel of reading plans, a social feed, devotional pop-ups, and enough graphics to make your phone feel like a magazine rack.

I didn’t want any of that. I just wanted to open an app, read Scripture, and go about my day.

So I built one.

Being a Kids' Baseball Coach

Wed, 26 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0600

For the last few years, my son has played baseball. He gets his love for the game from his parents, as both my wife and I grew up in and around the sport. I know the game, the rules, the strategies, the concepts, the stats, the terminology, all of it. But until this year, I was simply a supportive parent who always sat next to the dugout.

Conquering Bing

Tue, 04 Nov 2025 00:00:00 -0600

Or maybe the title should be Relentlessly Badgering Bing Until They Give Up and Finally Fix Things.

The Back Story

On February 3, 2015, I purchased mattlangford.com from GoDaddy. From the date I purchased it, until October 31, 2025, my site has not been listed on Bing despite taking every measure possible. Over the years, I sent countless emails and support requests, registered for every version of their webmaster’s portal, followed every guideline, submitted every sitemap, used IndexNow, consulted dozens of people, the list goes on and on…

Basic iPhone Privacy & Security

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

As part of finding ways to achieve Digital Simplification , I wanted to find the easiest solution to maintain proper levels of privacy and security on my personal devices. Yes, I could go crazy with self-hosted solutions, dive into Mullvad VPN , or Faraday Cages, but that misses the whole point of what I’m trying to accomplish. I want the perfect combination of better-than-good and simple.

Digital Simplification

Tue, 28 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

One of the main issues with being a tech enthusiast is allowing things to get a little too complicated. Yes, the shortcuts, automations, niche apps, and random hacks are fun to create and experiment with, but there always comes a point where things are a little overdone.

A Reading Habit

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

I’ve always been an avid reader, but I’ve taken it up a notch recently. I’ve read 36 full-length novels so far in 2025 with a little over 2 months remaining in the year. I follow a few people who have blown by that number, but I’m happy with it considering my lifestyle (dad of two, primarily).

The Ever Evolving Blog

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

I almost titled this post something along the lines of Rethinking the Rethinking of the Rethinking of My Blog. Fortunately, common sense won out and that didn’t make the cut. But essentially that’s what this is. Let’s recap:

I decided to move my personal blog away from Micro.blog .
I chose Jekyll/Netlify as the destination.
I made some further tweaks to that setup.

And now, I scrapped all of that and ended up on Bear.

Rethinking Webmentions

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

In the transition to a new personal blog, I initially wanted to fully incorporate webmentions . I even designed and coded a mostly custom setup that included a beautifully formatted facepile, replies list, and on and on.

Making My Blog Fully My Own

Sun, 12 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Let me be clear from the start: I’m not leaving Micro.blog . In fact, I currently have more sites hosted on Micro.blog than not, including all my custom themes and documentation sites. Micro.blog is an excellent platform, and I continue to recommend it to anyone looking for a simple, community-focused blogging experience.

But for my personal blog, I wanted something different. I wanted to dive deeper into the IndieWeb rabbit hole, gain more granular control over security implementations, and have the flexibility to experiment with web technologies in ways that a hosted platform doesn’t easily allow. This post details that transition, the reasoning behind it, the decisions I made, and the technical implementations that shaped this site.

What I'm Using

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 -0500

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been heavily analyzing and (hopefully) optimizing my workflows and strategies. Many of these have been in use for multiple years, but there are quite a few additions as well. I’ve made an effort to go with first party apps unless I have a specific need for something else.

Introducing Mythos Theme

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 -0500

After years (wow, that happened fast) of crafting themes for Micro.blog, I’m excited to introduce Mythos Theme — my latest project that represents the direction of my theme development work. Before diving into what makes Mythos special, I want to share some important updates about my existing themes and where they stand moving forward.

Easily Insert Code Snippets into Apple Mail (and others)

Thu, 12 Jun 2025 00:00:00 -0500

As a theme designer, I frequently provide basic support via email. As a primarily Apple ecosystem user, my go-to email clients are Apple Mail on both macOS and iOS, along with iCloud.com. For the most part, they do what I need them to do. Unfortunately, they don’t have a solid built-in way to share code snippets. Yes, there are snippet sharing services that will do the trick, but sometimes you just really want to have some inline code in an email that looks and acts like you expect.