Initial Charge is written and produced by Mike Rockwell and focuses on Apple products, software, the web, and other geek-related topics.
Photo by Maggie Gallagher
Contact
If you have any comments, ideas, or suggestions for the site, feel free to share them. Whether it’s a technical problem, a typo, a review recommendation, or just a thought you’d like to share, you can reach out by email at desk@initialcharge.net or via Mastodon (ActivityPub) — @mike@libertynode.net.
Hardware Setup
Initial Charge is written and produced on an iPhone 15 Pro and an 11-inch iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard utilizing the following apps:
- Bitwarden, syncing with Vaultwarden
- Spark, syncing with Fastmail
- Brave
- Code Editor
- Jetpack Mobile
- Kiwix
- Pixelmator
- Shortcuts, with The Toolkit
- Simplenote
- Things for iPhone and iPad
- iA Writer, syncing over Dropbox
- NetNewswire, syncing with FreshRSS
- Linkwarden
Some writing, development, and design work is accomplished on a Framework 13 (Ryzen 5 7640U) running Ubuntu 24.04. Notable apps include Apostrophe, Zed, and GIMP with the PhotoGIMP patch.
Screenshots of my device setups are regularly published to the Home Screens Series.
Server Software
Initial Charge is hosted by SiteGround and built on WordPress. The site uses a small number of excellent WordPress plugins, including Jetpack, SiteGround Optimizer, Two Factor, and Webmention.
Website analytics are tracked using Jetpack’s built-in WordPress.com stats.
Twitter syndication is accomplished using a self-hosted n8n server and the X API.
Syndication
The main feed, which contains all of the recently published feature articles and Linked List entries on the site, is available in the following formats:
- RSS: initialcharge.net/feed
- Mastodon: @initialcharge@libertynode.net
- Twitter: @initialcharge
And if you’d prefer to follow specific sections of the site, you can use the Articles-Only RSS Feed or the Linked List RSS Feed.
Web Standards
Initial Charge makes every attempt to adhere to web standards. The site’s markup is written in valid HTML 5, its layout uses valid CSS, and its syndicated feed is valid RSS.
Additionally, to help ensure safe browsing throughout the site, Initial Charge uses most of the recommended security headers — including Referrer-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security, and more.
