App Review – Day One

App Essentials for Writing

Day One is the focus of today’s app spotlight. It isn’t the best for long form writing, or any kind of publishing, but it makes an excellent private journal. Day One is available for free on iOS and Android devices.

With Daily Prompts, the ability to post images, videos, and audio, Day One is an incredibly robust application. Personally, I use it for a pic-a-day and shorter journaling exercises. I write across dozens of genres, so I have a lot of apps for writing. This is where my private thoughts go.

Day One offers one of the best daily prompt services. I don’t really use writing prompts often, but Day One’s are a step above the usual. It will also integrate with the WordPress mobile app Jetpack. Jetpack will show prompts from Day One on the opening page. There are also tons of stats(see the image above) that track all kinds of stuff, and some excellent widgets for your Home Screen.

Day One is available for free, but if you can afford the $35/yearly, it’s worth it too.

I’ve been using it for 5 years now. I’ve paid for the premium for 2 of those years. Premium is certainly the way to go, but it’s not necessarily the best choice for everyone. The way I post my entries in it doesn’t really require the premium features. In the past I’ve paid just to support the dev team, because they are great, and constantly updating.

Jack Lhasa

New Home for NFTs

I’ve just discovered an NFT marketplace that blows all of the others I’ve used completely out of the water.

If you look at the NFTs I have created, and you see something with multiple copies, that means they are available. If you’d like any of these, let me know. I promise that they will all be reasonably priced.

Surreal

Handles my thousands of NFTs without a single issue. Makes creating new NFTs so simple, anyone can do it!

An Oddity (Surreal NFT)

An AI rendition of my friend Akela.

A Brand New Way to Blog

PenX.io offers an incredibly robust blogging platform with a host of features that would normally require the use of a half dozen sites and services.

Part 1 in a series: Intro

Last weekend I discovered a brand new startup blog service, PenX. I really enjoyed its unique feature set, and sleek themes from the get. If you are used to the massive theme selection of some web2 blog platforms, the choices here may seem limited at first. I ran into a few problems with some of the more complicated aspects of it, and reached out to the Discord server.

The next day I had a reply from the projects lead developer. He’s a great guy, and took a lot of his own time to walk me through some of the problems I was experiencing.

This is when I learned that the team was very small, and that PenX was in a still very early phase of development. Due to our conversations, 0xZio made several adjustments over the next few days, reconciling all the issues I’d encountered thus far.

0xZio.eth is the lead developer at PenX. There is a Farcaster channel for PenX, in which I’ll be aiding in the moderation. There isn’t much there at the moment, but that will change fast.

Now, because of the extremely early stage in the PenX lifespan, I recommend creating a new wallet to interact with it. Or perhaps you have several sitting around for exactly this reason(As I do).

You’ll need a wallet that is compatible with the Base L2 chain. With this wallet, you’ll sign for most actions, even if they involve no monetary exchange.

PenX has 2 features built in that you cannot find in any other blog suite. The first of which is a fully customizable, set any price you like, establish as many tiers as you like, membership system. Lots of blogs have membership systems. I’ve never seen anything give the user this much control and freedom over how memberships work.

The second, which ties in with the other features is a CreatorFi Launchpad. Here, any PenX user can mint their own token in base, and allocate it as they see fit. Again, there is a high degree of freedom here, unlike any launchpad I’ve ever used.

These features will cost you a fractional amount of ETH on Base to cover the standard, super cheap gas and such of Base.

Another feature you’ll notice quickly is PenX’s proprietary token, which any blog owner may claim daily. The $PEN token currently has no equatable value, but as more users discover this incredible package, I expect that to change.

All content can be token-gated as the author sees fit. And every post can be set to collectible, in the manner you’re probably used to seeing on Paragraph and Mirror. This feature is the final setting before posting publicly, so you are always aware of a posts collectibility. Posts can also be gated until they are minted, which is a unique twist on what we’ve seen from the other Web3 major platforms.

Any post can be commented on. All posts have a Tip button so your readers can reward you without minting. There’s also a fully detailed collaboration system.

Currently content can be set to several formats, including, Journal entries, Blog posts, static pages, an image gallery, and databases.

Each blog also comes with a personal subdomain option, mine is https://exoteric.penx.io/, for example.

I’ve only begun to really dig into the real robustness of this new platform. It’s also available for self-hosting with a one-click deploy.

That’s where I’ll end this post, however, as it’s already far longer than I intended.

Jack Lhasa
A Shaman with an addiction for fresh startups.

Https://exoteric.live

Https://exoteric.penx.io/

Be on the lookout for more posts about PenX from me, as I intend to do a deeper piece on the features I’ve only briefly described here.

December Update

In this style, next year, each month will have an update. These posts will be much like you probably expect.

Content

I will be adding a new category of posts, as I intend to do at least one long format post about music every month. Sometimes this will be more often. I may venture into other areas, as I intend to continue experimentation.

zkSync Era

This month we launched the meme token, $BALLS on the zkSync Era blockchain. This token is something that Jean and I have been discussing/planning for many months now. We’ve received quite a surprising amount of interest. We haven’t exactly dug ourselves out of poverty, but it is still incredibly exciting. The token has been fully generated, and we expect to reach DEX listing very soon. I’ll post about that when we get there. The future is bright, and you gotta have $BALLs!!

NFTs

I continue to offer my own art, mostly set in the fictional universe of Exoteric, on several fronts. Lens is sort of the ‘proto-release’ area with conversation and community being the core. The Uncut Network is home to the majority of low priced, readily available NFTs. In news there, the Only Shadow collection will be coming to a close in January. This region of the Exoteric World is very likely to show up again in the future. The Cost of Magic collection will move to the forefront at Uncut. Details forthcoming.

Fiction

The fictional Storyverse called Exoteric will continue to grow. Each NFT release has included some light flavor text, adding small details to the world. As focused NFT collections begin and end, so will the stories of the related region. I am working on a knowledge base that will debut soon. It will always be a work in progress. An ebook is planned covering The Only Shadow story, including the all the current images used for NFTs, as well as new art, and the story that ties it all together.

Knowledge Base

The upcoming knowledge base will be reminiscent of an RPG manual written in the wiki format. Once I’ve completed a sufficient amount of its skeleton, I’ll make it public while I continue to add to it. The Knowledge Base will become increasingly important to the Exoteric project, as I hope others will want contribute their own stories, art, music, design, etc within the Exoteric multiverse. Anyone interested is welcome to contact me at any time, but I won’t actually be seeking out other creators to collaborate with until I’ve made more of the setting public.

That’s all folks!

December can be a tough time. I hope that my efforts can provide some pleasure to others. The goal is to make my vision come to life, in a way that is fun and relatable; to create a massive fictional context, in which others want to add to themselves, becoming fans and creators.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Thank you all for your purchases, support, companionship, and inspiration.

Jack Lhasa

The Short Story

I minted my first NFT in 2021. On the WAX chain. A simple pic that I was using for profiles at the time. I spent the next 2 years doing mostly test mints. Learning how things worked on different chains and in different markets.

Minted stuff that no one else ever saw. Or I sent directly to friends. I took this across many blockchains, learning the nuances of their NFT processes. I used the following blockchains: WAX, Polygon, BSC, Pixie, Base, Optimism, Degen, Zora, & more.

What that gave me was a broad appreciation for NFTs as a medium and the skill to create them anywhere.

LENS chamged that forever. It’s so much easier on the creator, the collector, and the trader. No other protocol has anything so easily used. And now, as Lens migrates from Polygon to a dual-chain system based on ZK rollups, it is poised to change the world’s view of NFTs, as well as revolutionize web3 social media.

Lens is a Game Changer.

Originally posted on lens 04/27/2024. Edited for blog use on 12/30/2024.