Will Webberley

I don't use Facebook often. In fact, I only have an account currently because our company uses the "Login with Facebook" functionality in…

Like many people, I own and manage multiple email accounts - for example, some are for work, for home, or for specific projects. I used to…

Simple and RESTful HTTP APIs The HTTP standard is an expressive system for network-based computer-computer interaction. It's a relatively…

Pre-ordering the PinePhone Beta Earlier this week I ordered a PinePhone, which recently became available as a Beta Edition. I've been…

Why use decentralised communication services Centralised communication services, such as Telegram, Signal, and Whatsapp, offer convenient…

The last twenty years of internet evolution Although I was still somewhere between being of single-digit age and a young teen back in the…

Minimising possessions Like many people I these days try and live a minimal life when it comes to possessions. Having more stuff means there…

RSS has had a bit of a resurgence for personal websites and blogs in recent years, especially with the growing adoption of Small Web and…

Python's Flask framework is an easy and excellent tool for writing web applications. Its in-built features and ecosystem of supporting…

By now I'm sure everyone has heard the horror stories about people (seemingly-) randomly losing access to their Google accounts. Often the…

For many small or personal services running on a VPS in the cloud, administration is often done by connecting directly to the server via SSH…

Many people no longer feel comfortable using Facebook. Whether you were never a member to begin with or you've had an account but chosen to…

Shapes and patterns can be leveraged in user interfaces to guide your users, draw attention to content, lend weight or emphasis, or just for…

React state React state management is what gives the library its reactiveness. It's what makes it so easy to build performant data-driven…

Many people would consider RSS - Really Simple Syndication - to be a relic of the past. However I think it has been making a comeback. RSS…

If you need a database for your next project, why not first consider if SQLite might be a good option? And I don't mean just for getting an…

If you've visited my geminispace (gemini://g.wilw.dev) you'll have noticed that I've recently been on a mission to decentralise the every…

Over the past few months I have been trying to use centralised "big tech" social media platforms less and instead immerse myself into the…

Building apps on serverless architecture has been a game-changer for me and for developers everywhere, enabling small dev teams to cheaply…

If you write React web apps that interface with a backend web API then definitely consider trying React Query. The library makes use of…

This short post introduces a useful JavaScript operator to help make your one-liners even more concise. The specification was added formally…

JavaScript has lots of handy tools for creating concise code and one-liners. One such tool is the optional chaining operator. The optional…

This note documents the set-up of a k8s cluster from scratch, including ingress and load-balanced TLS support for web applications. It's…

ZEIT's Now service is great for deploying apps and APIs that are able to make use of serverless execution models, and I use it for many of…

A previous note about Philips Hue bulbs got me thinking that the API exposed by the bridge might be used to warn if the house lights are…

I recently blogged about Nintendo Hotspot data and mentioned it could be more usefully consumable in a native mobile app. Android Hotspot As…

Since getting a DS, StreetPass has become quite addictive. It's actually pretty fun checking the device after walking through town or using…

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post about wrapping some of Weka's classification functionality to allow it to be used programmatically…

As is the case with many people, all music I listen to on my PC these days plays from the web through a browser. I'm a heavy user of Google…

A while ago I wrote an article for Heroku's Dev Center on carrying out direct uploads to S3 using a Python app for signing the PUT request…

In my last post I discussed methods for streaming music to different zones in the house. More specifically I wanted to be able to play music…

For a while, now, I have been looking for a reliable way to manage zoned music-playing around the house. The general idea is that I'd like…

Surf forecasts Last week I released a new version of the tides Android app I'm currently developing. The idea of the application was…

Back in March, I emailed Magic Seaweed to ask them if they had a public API for their surf forecast data. They responded that they didn't at…

I today issued a full upgrade of the server at flyingsparx.net, which is hosted by Digital Ocean. By default, on Arch, this will upgrade…

Over the last few months, I've started to use Weka more and more. Weka is a toolkit, written in Java, that I use to create models with which…

This is just a quick post to mention that I have made the source for the Gower Tides app on Google Play public. The source repository is…

My hosting for my website has nearly expired, so I have been looking for renewal options. These days I tend to need to use servers for more…

I've been having trouble connecting to Eduroam, at least reliably and persistently, without heavy desktop environments or complicated…

I wanted a way in which users can seamlessly upload images for use in the Heroku application discussed in previous posts. Ideally, the image…

A few posts back, I talked about the development of an Android app for tide predictions for South Wales. This app is now on Google Play. If…

I've taken to writing most of my recent presentations in plain HTML (rather than using third-party software or services). I used JavaScript…

Tides Main Activity I've always been interested in the development of smartphone apps, but have never really had the opportunity to actually…