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(142 items)

Obsidian Updated 24 September 2024

Obsidian is a note/knowledge management tool Iā€™ve used a fair amount in the past (before moving to nb). Below I log some considerations I dealt with whilst using Obsidian. Self-deleting files Wh...

Uses Updated 23 September 2024

A collection of ā€œthingsā€, software and systems I use on a frequent or daily basis. I enjoy using open source, self-hosted, and independent software where possible. I like the reliability a...

My Knowledge Base With "nb" 22 September 2024

Whilst browsing my GitHub home feed a little while back (not something Iā€™m in a habit of doing, generally), I stumbled upon the command line journaling tool jrnl. I thought it looked interesting... (5 minute read)

nb Updated 22 September 2024

As of September 2024 I use nb as my primary note-taking and knowledge management program. Install On a Mac, it can be installed from Homebrew: brew install nb. Set nb directory I sync my nb documents ...

Ramblings on Hypermedia APIs for Pure Web Applications 7 September 2024

Many moons ago I would write web applications using technologies like PHP or Python to directly serve web content ā€“ often using templating engines to more easily handle data display. These apps ... (8 minute read)

jrnl Updated 1 September 2024

A few weeks back (as of 2024-09-01) I posted about a tool called jrnl on Mastodon. The post got a fair amount of engagement and discussion, and Iā€™ve also given it a go over the past couple of we...

Tailscale Sidecars Updated 1 September 2024

If youā€™ve followed my blog or other notes, youā€™ll be well aware of my extensive use of Tailscale for nearly everything ā€“ securing access to remote servers and for connecting to servi...

Borgtastic Backups 19 August 2024

Restic has been my go-to backup tool for many years, and Iā€™ve used it for a wide range of workloads ā€“ including for managing filesystem, Postgres, Photoprism and Vaultwarden backups. At th... (3 minute read)

Vaultwarden Updated 29 July 2024

I self-host a Vaultwarden instance to manage my usernames, passwords, two-factor codes, and other details for my accounts everywhere. Standard Bitwarden clients (including browser extensions and mobil...

Photoprism Updated 29 July 2024

Iā€™ve switched from managed photo providers (such as Apple or Google photos) to a self-hosted Photoprism instance. This note documents my setup. I use Linode for this, and you can get a free $100...

Podcasts Updated 2 July 2024

I subscribe to a small number of podcasts. I usually listen to them when at the gym or out walking, and so if I subscribe to too many I just canā€™t get through them all each week! That said, I&rs...

Cloudfront + S3 Updated 2 May 2024

The tempting approach is just to use a publicly accessible bucket in ā€œwebsite modeā€ for a website (since the website itself will also be public), and then use Cloudfront with the bucket&rs...

PostgreSQL Updated 31 October 2023

This is a reference quick-start note for deploying PostgreSQL via Docker, and with working self-signed TLS. 1. Generate keys for TLS E.g. with one year expiry: mkdir postgres-certs && cd postg...

MongoDB Updated 31 October 2023

This is a reference quick-start note for deploying MongoDB via Docker, and with working self-signed TLS. Note: This setup does not yet consider replica sets. Coming soonā€¦ 1. Generate keys for T...

Links Updated 16 August 2023

A scratchpad of links. Technology Keep a Changelog - Donā€™t let your friends dump git logs into changelogs. ChangeDetection.io - detect changes to websites ProtoSchool - Interactive tutorials on decent...

Cross-publishing web content to Gemini 1 June 2023

My personal website is generated using Hugo, which allows me to write nearly all of the actual content itself in plain markdown files. I also maintain a Gemini capsule (hosted at gemini://wilw.capsule... (2 minute read)

CI/CD with Woodpecker and Gitea 23 April 2023

Some of my personal projects are beginning to get larger and more complicated, often involving different front-ends and services that all need to be separately built and deployed. Managing all of thes... (2 minute read)

Hosting S3 content via Bunny CDN Updated 23 April 2023

As well as serving content from a storage zone, Bunny CDN can also serve from other origins. For example, S3-compatible storage solutions. For example, this website is stored on Linode Object Storage,...

Woodpecker CI Updated 23 April 2023

I use Woodpecker CI to automate my personal CI/CD processes. This note documents my setup. Create a docker-compose.yml and bring the service up (notes on environment below): version: '3' servi...

Hosting on Bunny.net Updated 24 March 2023

Bunny CDN provides a cost-effective, easy-to-use, and highly performant service for delivering web content. I currently use it to serve this website, as well as a few other systems. Pull zones and sto...

A question about encryption for self-hosting 5 March 2023

I self-host a number of services - Nextcloud, FreshRSS, PhotoPrism etc. - at home on a Raspberry Pi. Attached to this Pi is a large SSD to hold the service data and configuration, and all of this is p... (3 minute read)

Server & database backups Updated 10 December 2022

I run a number of services on my own machines and VPSs, and for each system I ensure there are appropriate backups in place. Backup target I usually use Backblaze B2 as a backup solution due to its lo...

Selfhosting Updated 10 December 2022

Iā€™m interested in being able to look after my own data, as much as possible. I try to ensure that this is at least (almost) as convenient as commercial where I can (and so there is probably much...

Joplin Updated 10 December 2022

My notes are kept using Joplin. I use Joplin server to keep all of my devices in-sync. Below is a docker-compose.yml I use to run the server. version: '3' services: db: image: postgres:13 volu...

Window management workflows on macOS 10 December 2022

macOS window management Every Mac user seems to have a different way of managing their open applications and windows. Some people prefer to view each window in ā€œfullā€ mode, in which they t... (3 minute read)

Raspberry Pi Updated 9 December 2022

I have a small fleet of Raspberry Pis (mostly the Pi 4 Model B), which I use at home for various tasks. They are all firewalled off and are reachable via Tailscale. A small number of the services they...

Setting-up a Mac Updated 4 December 2022

This note documents my setup for building a sane-ish (for me) software environment on macOS for work, development, and life. Core tasks Rename the Mac (Settings -> General -> Name) Add home dire...

Donations Updated 25 November 2022

Donations I make To free, open-source, hobby services and products. Product/service Link Donation FreshRSS Liberapay Ā£3 / month Fosstodon Patreon Ā£4 / month Photoprism Patreon Ā£2 / month Joplin Patreo...

From Google and Apple Photos to Photoprism 25 November 2022

A history of media storage solutions Back in 2021 I blogged about how and why I wanted to switch from Google Photos as a storage solution (and source of truth) for my lifeā€™s photo and video libr... (5 minute read)

2FAuth Updated 27 October 2022

2FAuth is a self-hostable web service for managing two-factor authentication tokens. It has a nice, clean interface, is responsive (so it can be simply added to the homescreen on iOS), and has various...

Tailscale: multi-service HTTPS on a single machine 27 October 2022

Update 2024-09-01: I have since written a note on Tailscale Sidecars which provides a more elegant solution to this problem. I have left this post here for posterity. HTTPS on Tailscale Tailscale&rsqu... (4 minute read)

Note-taking apps: Bear and Joplin 2 October 2022

The Bear notes app has been my go-to notes app for Mac, iPhone, and iPad for some time now. Itā€™s got a great UX, a customisable UI, and is one of those apps that feels like a (clichĆ©d) ā€œde... (3 minute read)

Managing s3cmd profiles Updated 1 October 2022

s3cmd is an excellent tool for interacting with S3-compatible storage solutions (Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Linode Object Storage, etc.) via the command line. I personally find it easier to use and more...

Gitea Updated 28 September 2022

Gitea is a fantastic GitHub-like service for git remotes and for viewing code and git projects via a web-browser. One can join existing instances (such as Codeberg), or self-host it. I self-host a Git...

Encrypting volumes with LUKS Updated 28 September 2022

For sensitive data storage in the cloud, I will usually provision a separate volume, encrypt it, and then use this as the volume mapper for containerised services. Creating and attaching a volume I us...

Nextcloud Updated 28 September 2022

I use Nextcloud as an alternative to Google Drive or iCloud. I self-host it on a VPS or Raspberry Pi and make it available only within my Tailscale network so that it is only accessible to my own auth...

Nitter Updated 28 September 2022

When browsing Twitter, I use a self-hosted Nitter instance. Nitter allows you to browse Twitter using a more privacy-respecting front-end. To run Nitter, create a docker-compose.yml: version: "3&#...

Teddit Updated 28 September 2022

When browsing Reddit, I use a self-hosted Teddit instance. Teddit allows you to view Reddit using a nicer and more privacy-respecting front-end. To run Teddit, create a docker-compose.yml: version: &#...

FreshRSS Updated 28 September 2022

For managing and consuming RSS feeds, I use FreshRSS. To run a FreshRSS instance, create a docker-compose.yml file: version: "3" services: freshrss: image: freshrss/freshrss environment: - &#3...

Traefik Updated 28 September 2022

Most of my personal services I run within my Tailscale network, and so I do not tend to bother with HTTPS (since provisioning TLS certificates for multiple services running on a single host via Tailsc...

Umami Updated 28 September 2022

I use Umami for analytics on this website and a few other services that I run. I self-host Umami using Docker. To start, create a docker-compose.yml: version: '3' services: umami: image: ghcr....

Fixing unzip on Alpine Linux Updated 27 September 2022

Alpine Linux ships with several BusyBox utilities, including many day-to-day shell commands. One such example is the unzip tool for extracting ZIP files. Recently, when unzipping a large archive on Al...

Monica Updated 27 September 2022

I use a self-hosted Monica instance to keep on top of birthdays and other useful/interesting notes about friends and family. This note documents my setup. Create a docker-compose.yml file: version: &#...

Re-Building my Website with Hugo 3 September 2022

GatsbyJS For several years Iā€™ve been using GatsbyJS to generate the static site content for this website. Gatsby is a great tool and produces blazing-fast websites through the use of an interest... (6 minute read)

Making Tax Digital and Plain-Text Accounting 30 July 2022

HMRCā€™s Making Tax Digital Making Tax Digital (MTD) is part of the UK Governmentā€™s plan for modernising the tax system for both businesses and individuals. For years, HMRC (the Government&r... (3 minute read)

My setup for coding on iPad 12 June 2022

Since getting a Magic Keyboard for my iPad Pro, Iā€™ve been using the iPad for many areas of work for which before I would have needed a laptop. In fact, last week I was able to use the iPad full-... (6 minute read)

Plain Text Accounting Updated 11 June 2022

Over the past couple of years I have been intrigued (and sort of excited) about the ideas behind plain text accounting. To be excited about accounting is probably unusual but I love its simplicity and...

Parcel to the rescue 25 May 2022

Earlier this week I needed to make some changes and re-deploy an old Vue app. I hadnā€™t touched the codebase in over a year, and my experience with the rate of change in the front-end web space m... (3 minute read)

Simple Ledger visualisations using Python 24 April 2022

If youā€™re a current follower of this blog then you may already know that Iā€™m a bit of a fan of using plain text accounting for managing finances. I mainly use the Ledger text file format a... (7 minute read)

Design Updated 9 April 2022

Iā€™m not a designer, so I find it useful to take inspiration from others when building software. Illustrations Ira Design for illustrations unDraw - A great collection of open-source illustration...

Ideas Updated 9 April 2022

Blog by mail A service by which users can write, submit and update a blog via email. For example, use the subject line to indicate a path (for a webpage) or blog post ID Use send date as post date? Or...

Self-hosting apps and services using Traefik reverse proxy 9 April 2022

I often talk about self-hosting on this blog, and Iā€™m certainly a big fan of being able to control my own data and systems wherever possible (and feasible). Iā€™ve recently switched from usi... (7 minute read)

Interacting with a Nextcloud instance deployed with Docker 28 January 2022

If youā€™ve ever run your own Nextcloud before, you may have noticed screens like the following in your instanceā€™s settings pages. The messages advise a number of maintenance procedures to h... (2 minute read)

The future of the decentralised web: thoughts on web0 and web3 21 January 2022

I recently signed the web0 manifesto, which embodies many of the values I consider to be important when it comes to technology - and the web in particular. web0 is the decentralised webā€¦ web0 i... (8 minute read)

Browser push notifications in a Flutter web application 18 December 2021

šŸŽ‰ This is post 100 in my attempt at the #100DaysToOffload challenge! For a couple of years I have been writing mobile apps using the Flutter framework, having previously been a React Native advocate. ... (6 minute read)

Moving my Matrix identity to Element One 15 December 2021

For as long as Iā€™ve been using Matrix Iā€™ve hosted my own homeserver on my own VPS and at my own domain. Why I chose to move I previously wrote about how I self-host my homeserver with the ... (4 minute read)

Nextcloud for photos: using cheaper object storage 11 December 2021

Some people may remember my quest a few months back to find a good alternative to Google Photos for image storage and backup. At the time, I talked about Piwigo, Mega and pCloud as potential candidate... (7 minute read)

Parse and process incoming emails in a web application 5 December 2021

Most applications include some sort of outbound transactional email as part of their normal function. These email messages could be to support account-level features (such as password-resets) or to no... (6 minute read)

Open-sourcing projects 2 December 2021

I maintain a small number of projects in my spare time. The amount of time I get to work on and maintain these varies depending on my other workloads. The projects were never designed to be a means of... (1 minute read)

Server back-ups with Restic 27 November 2021

A while ago I posted about how I back-up my personal servers to Backblaze B2. That approach involved adding all of the files and directories into a single compressed archive and sending this up to an ... (5 minute read)

Nightfall City 25 November 2021

From the hills of Duskā€™s End to the small alleys of Main Street, you feel drawn to the lights of this vibrant metropolis in an uncharted internet territory. The sign reads ā€œNightfall&rdquo... (2 minute read)

Webzines 20 November 2021

Iā€™ve really enjoyed my recent discovery of a couple of traditional-style webzines. Webzines (sometimes referred to as online magazines, or - in this instance - simply ā€œzinesā€) are a ... (1 minute read)

On websites and creativity 13 November 2021

Iā€™ve recently been reminiscing about the ā€œoldā€ days of the web. They felt much more like expressions of personality and creativity. These days, most people have social media accounts... (2 minute read)

Automatically scanning for malicious user-uploaded files 6 November 2021

If you run a service that accepts file uploads from users, and then subsequent re-download by other users (such as images), then your service is potentially at risk of becoming a system for distributi... (5 minute read)

Taking FreeBSD for a spin 29 October 2021

Background Iā€™ve recently noticed (and read) more and more posts discussing *BSD systems. Creations like the new (and excellent) OpenBSD Webzine and blogs (such as Rubenerdā€™s and Solene&rsq... (5 minute read)

This Week in Tech (TWiT) 17 October 2021

Another podcast I frequently listen to likely needs no introduction of its own. The This Week in Tech (or just ā€œTWiTā€) networkā€™s flagship podcast - also called TWiT - must be one of ... (1 minute read)

Giving a talk at the BSV Wales meet-up 13 October 2021

Last week I gave a talk at the Bitcoin Association BSV Meet-up for Wales, hosted by Tramshed Tech in Cardiff. Before learning about this meetup, I had not heard of BSV - either from a technology or cu... (1 minute read)

Dotty 11 October 2021

A few years ago I was in the position of needing a solution to backup and sync dotfiles (configuration files for various pieces of software) across my machines. Specifically, I had Mac computers and L... (2 minute read)

Pinephone: Manjaro and Phosh 2 October 2021

Itā€™s been a few weeks since my last post about the Pinephone. Since then I have been playing further with a different graphical shell and have been trying out new applications. In that previous ... (3 minute read)

Accessibility is for everyone 22 September 2021

For many developers, the notion of adding accessibility features - such as image alt text attributes to web page images and integrations with host usability enhancements, such as screen-zoom and text-... (3 minute read)

Pacman: signature is unknown trust 19 September 2021

I was performing a standard system upgrade on an Arch server this morning and received the following messages (maintainer details redacted): $ sudo pacman -Syyu ... # Download of packages (159/159) ch... (1 minute read)

Using Telegram bots to receive updates from your automated systems 9 September 2021

The need for notifications I self-host several services on various servers - for both some professional and personal uses. I use automated backup scripts to periodically sync data to Backblaze (which ... (4 minute read)

SSO Tools 2 September 2021

Another project I try to maintain (when I can!) is SSO Tools. This is a simple web service that aims to help developers test their own servicesā€™ single sign-on (SSO) functionality. The motivatio... (1 minute read)

Stripping sensitive EXIF data from uploaded images 28 August 2021

The problem with image uploads Many services - including web and mobile apps - allow for their users to upload imagery. This could be to enable users to upload an avatar image or perhaps create a gall... (7 minute read)

Adding 'dark mode' and dynamic theming to your React websites 21 August 2021

Adding theming and the choice between ā€œlightā€ and ā€œdarkā€ modes to your website can enhance your siteā€™s accessibility and make it feel more consistent with the host operat... (8 minute read)

Starting out with BookWyrm 20 August 2021

For several years Iā€™ve been a user of Goodreads. Itā€™s a very popular platform, and I primarily use it for keeping track of the books Iā€™ve read, for receiving suggestions about new bo... (2 minute read)

Treadl 13 August 2021

I donā€™t tend to talk much about the projects Iā€™m working on, but thought this would be a good opportunity to write a post about one such project - Treadl. Treadl is a web app (and more rec... (2 minute read)

Pinephone update: the first few weeks 9 August 2021

Back in April, I bought a Pinephone. I used the phone quite consistently for the first few weeks and I meant to write an update here a couple of months back, but work (and other things) got in the way... (4 minute read)

My development stack 4 August 2021

Some people have complex development processes and flows - making use of tools such as heavy editors and IDEs, Docker for running and building locally in development, or even develop entirely remotely... (2 minute read)

Code syntax highlighting in Gatsby 28 July 2021

Providing code snippets on your website or blog can be a great way to convey meaning for technical concepts. Using the HTML pre tag can help provide structure to your listings, in terms of spacing and... (2 minute read)

Capsule.Town 27 July 2021

The Gemini protocol has gathered even more momentum in the few months since I last posted about it. Its popularity is largely driven by its privacy-focused and content-oriented design. It doesnā€™... (2 minute read)

Accidental Tech Podcast 26 July 2021

I listen to a number of podcasts each week. One of these is ATP (Accidental Tech Podcast). This is one of my favourite weekly podcasts. Itā€™s humurous and full of cutting-edge discussion from the... (1 minute read)

Generating video previews in webapps 19 July 2021

Many web apps have support for uploading video files. Whether itā€™s a media-focused platform (such as a video sharing service) or just offering users a chance to add vlogs to their profile - vide... (2 minute read)

Syncing RSS feeds with FreshRSS 12 July 2021

I enjoy reading my RSS feeds across my devices - whether itā€™s on my phone when out and about, my Mac in between bouts of work, or my iPad when in downtime. Being able to sync feeds across these ... (2 minute read)

How to resize images client-side in your webapps 6 July 2021

The problem Image processing and resizing is a common task in many types of applications. This is made even more important by modern phones that take photos several megabytes in size. For example, if ... (4 minute read)

Using Blurhash to create placeholders for your images 30 June 2021

Loading indicators In user-facing software, loading indicators are extremely important to let your users know that something is happening. This is the same no matter whether your software is a CLI pro... (6 minute read)

Self-host your web searches with Whoogle 24 June 2021

Google and DuckDuckGo Itā€™s common knowledge that part of Googleā€™s business model is to use the data it knows about you, your searches, and browsing patterns in order to more effectively se... (3 minute read)

Joining a panel at Wales Tech Week 23 June 2021

Wales Tech Week is an annual event held by Technology Connected. The 2021 event is running this week, aiming to bring technologists together from a wide range of businesses and organisations across Wa... (1 minute read)

Tmuxinator: simple terminal workspaces for your projects 18 June 2021

Living without workspaces IDEs and richly-featured text editors - such as VS Code and Sublime Text - support many great features. One of these is the notion of projects or workspaces. Such workspaces ... (5 minute read)

RSS: include your entire posts in your feeds! 12 June 2021

Recently Iā€™ve noticed that some of the RSS feeds I subscribe to have become more and more restrictive. A post might contain just a title, or perhaps a short snippet or introductory paragraph, wi... (5 minute read)

The networking mall 23 May 2021

Someone non-technical recently asked me the question, ā€œwhat actually is a server?ā€. They knew it was just a type of computer that runs somewhere that can be accessible over the internet, b... (5 minute read)

How I back-up my personal server 18 May 2021

For a couple of years now I have been using a self-hosted Nextcloud as a replacement for iCloud and Google Drive. I wonā€™t go into the details as to why (especially given the additional upkeep an... (5 minute read)

Self-hosted notes and to-do lists 9 May 2021

In this post I will talk a little about how I handle my digital notes and to-do lists. In the spirit of my last post on data sovereignty, the focus will be on self-hosted approaches. To-do list manage... (5 minute read)

Data Sovereignty 5 May 2021

The term ā€˜data sovereigntyā€™ is something we hear much more about these days. Increasingly Iā€™ve also heard it being mentioned in different contexts. Weā€™ve seen it more in the wo... (2 minute read)

Go Time 4 May 2021

I listen to a number of podcasts each week. One of these is Go Time. The Go Time podcast releases episodes every Thursday. Its format is mostly comprised of panel discussions and interviews with found... (2 minute read)

Starting out with the Pinephone 27 April 2021

As you may know, I recently purchased the beta edition of the Pinephone. It arrived last week in the Pinephone Beta Edition box shown below. As mentioned in my previous post on the subject, I bought t... (3 minute read)

Reporting business accounts using Ledger 17 April 2021

As is the case with many countries, all businesses in the UK must report the state of their financial accounts to the relevant inland revenue service at their year-end (in the UK, this is HMRC). This ... (4 minute read)

Is Facebook scraping the Fediverse? 7 April 2021

I donā€™t use Facebook often. In fact, I only have an account currently because our company uses the ā€œLogin with Facebookā€ functionality in order to offer an additional single sign-on ... (2 minute read)

From Apple Mail to Spark to Thunderbird 4 April 2021

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 be a strong user of solely web-based email clients (such as G... (7 minute read)

The simplicity and flexibility of HTTP for APIs 31 March 2021

Simple and RESTful HTTP APIs The HTTP standard is an expressive system for network-based computer-computer interaction. Itā€™s a relatively old standard - it started life as HTTP/1.0 in 1996 and t... (6 minute read)

PinePhone and PineTime 27 March 2021

Pre-ordering the PinePhone Beta Earlier this week I ordered a PinePhone, which recently became available as a Beta Edition. Iā€™ve been excitedly following the progress of the PinePhone for some t... (2 minute read)

Running your own Matrix homeserver 22 March 2021

Why use decentralised communication services Centralised communication services, such as Telegram, Signal, and Whatsapp, offer convenient means to chat to friends and family using your personal device... (7 minute read)

The Tildeverse 15 March 2021

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 ā€™90s and early ā€™00s, I still fondly remember disco... (5 minute read)

Thoughts on minimalism, and what happens when I get mail 8 March 2021

Minimising possessions Like many people I these days try and live a minimal life when it comes to possessions. Having more stuff means there is a greater level of responsibility required to look after... (6 minute read)

Easily set up discoverable RSS feeds on a Gatsby website 4 March 2021

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 IndieWeb ideologies. Many static site generators - including Hu... (7 minute read)

Making your Python Flask app serverless 28 February 2021

Pythonā€™s Flask framework is an easy and excellent tool for writing web applications. Its in-built features and ecosystem of supporting packages let you create extensible web APIs, handle data an... (8 minute read)

Migrating from Google Photos: Nextcloud, Piwigo, Mega, and pCloud 24 February 2021

By now Iā€™m sure everyone has heard the horror stories about people (seemingly-) randomly losing access to their Google accounts. Often the account closures are reported to have been accompanied ... (8 minute read)

SSH Jumping and Bastion Hosts 10 February 2021

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. Such servers should be hardened with firewalls, employ an ... (4 minute read)

Using Monica to Help Manage your Personal Relationships 7 February 2021

Many people no longer feel comfortable using Facebook. Whether you were never a member to begin with or youā€™ve had an account but chosen to remove yourself from the service, or youā€™ve simp... (5 minute read)

Add icing to your websites using pattern.css 6 February 2021

Shapes and patterns can be leveraged in user interfaces to guide your users, draw attention to content, lend weight or emphasis, or just for aesthetics and decoration. Layout and styling on the web is... (2 minute read)

React State Management with Zustand 5 February 2021

React state React state management is what gives the library its reactiveness. Itā€™s what makes it so easy to build performant data-driven applications that dynamically update based on the underl... (5 minute read)

RSS: The Rise and Fall... and Rise Again 3 February 2021

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 is a mechanism by which people can automatically receive upda... (9 minute read)

Why not SQLite? 1 February 2021

If you need a database for your next project, why not first consider if SQLite might be a good option? And I donā€™t mean just for getting an MVP off the ground or for small personal systems; I me... (3 minute read)

Out with the Old: Moving to Gitea 30 January 2021

If youā€™ve visited my geminispace (gemini://wilw.capsule.town) youā€™ll have noticed that Iā€™ve recently been on a mission to decentralise the every-day tools and services I use, and wil... (4 minute read)

Geminispace Updated 20 January 2021

Gemini is a newer internet protocol designed to provide a more lightweight, privacy- and content-focused experience. For more information I recommend reading this blog post about it. I try not to repl...

Project Gemini 20 January 2021

Over the past few months I have been trying to use centralised ā€œbig techā€ social media platforms less and instead immerse myself into the more community-driven ā€œfediverseā€ of d... (3 minute read)

Scaling serverless apps: some lessons learned 3 January 2021

Building apps on serverless architecture has been a game-changer for me and for developers everywhere, enabling small dev teams to cheaply build and scale services from MVP through to enterprise deplo... (6 minute read)

React Query 15 December 2020

If you write React web apps that interface with a backend web API then definitely consider trying React Query. The library makes use of modern React patterns, such as hooks, to keep code concise and r... (1 minute read)

JS Tidbit: Nullish Coalescing 20 November 2020

This short post introduces a useful JavaScript operator to help make your one-liners even more concise. The specification was added formally in the 11th edition of ECMAScript. It is implemented as a l... (1 minute read)

JS Tidbit: Optional Chaining 10 October 2020

JavaScript has lots of handy tools for creating concise code and one-liners. One such tool is the optional chaining operator. The optional chaining operator is useful for addressing an attribute of a ... (2 minute read)

Command-line bookkeeping in Animal Crossing 23 May 2020

I recently stumbled across an article on Hacker News discussing the pros of basic personal accounting using GnuCash - a free and open-source desktop accounting program. The article was interesting as ... (26 minute read)

Kubernetes Cluster: Essentials 2 February 2020

This note documents the set-up of a k8s cluster from scratch, including ingress and load-balanced TLS support for web applications. Itā€™s mainly for myself to revisit and reference later on. The ... (6 minute read)

Go backends on Now 20 August 2019

ZEITā€™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 my projects (including this website, at the time of wri... (2 minute read)

Hue: Security Lights 18 August 2017

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 left on too late at night, or even if they get turned on at une... (1 minute read)

Android: Consuming Nintendo Hotspot Data 27 May 2015

I recently blogged about Nintendo Hotspot data and mentioned it could be more usefully consumable in a native mobile app. As such, I wrote a small Android app for retrieving this data and displaying i... (1 minute read)

Nintendo's Hotspot 'API' 12 May 2015

Since getting a DS, StreetPass has become quite addictive. Itā€™s actually pretty fun checking the device after walking through town or using public transport to see a list of Miis representing th... (3 minute read)

Using Weka in Go 1 May 2015

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post about wrapping some of Wekaā€™s classification functionality to allow it to be used programmatically in Python programs. A small project Iā€™m current... (1 minute read)

Media and volume keys in i3 28 April 2015

As is the case with many people, all music I listen to on my PC these days plays from the web through a browser. Iā€™m a heavy user of Google Play Music and SoundCloud, and using Chrome to handle ... (2 minute read)

Direct-to-S3 Uploads in Node.js 17 January 2014

A while ago I wrote an article for Herokuā€™s Dev Center on carrying out direct uploads to S3 using a Python app for signing the PUT request. Specifically, the article focussed on Flask but the co... (1 minute read)

CasaStream 14 September 2013

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 from one location and then listen to it in other rooms at t... (3 minute read)

Zoned Network Sound-Streaming: The Problem 2 September 2013

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 Iā€™d like to be able to play music from a central point and have ... (3 minute read)

Gower Tides v1.4 31 July 2013

Last week I released a new version of the tides Android app Iā€™m currently developing. The idea of the application was initially to simply display the tidal times and patterns for the Gower Penin... (2 minute read)

Magic Seaweed's Awesome New API 3 July 2013

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 didnā€™t at the time, but that it was certainly on their to-do li... (2 minute read)

Accidental Kernel Upgrades on Digital Ocean 20 June 2013

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 every currently-installed package (where there is a counterpart... (2 minute read)

WekaPy 12 June 2013

Over the last few months, Iā€™ve started to use Weka more and more. Weka is a toolkit, written in Java, that I use to create models with which to make classifications on data sets. It features a w... (2 minute read)

Gower Tides Open-Sourced 26 May 2013

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 available on GitHub. From the repository I have excluded: Image... (1 minute read)

flyingsparx.net On Digital Ocean 23 April 2013

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 than simple web-hosting, and most do not provide the flexibi... (1 minute read)

Trials of Eduroam 16 April 2013

Iā€™ve been having trouble connecting to Eduroam, at least reliably and persistently, without heavy desktop environments or complicated network managers. Eduroam is the wireless networking service... (2 minute read)

AJAX + Python + Amazon S3 5 April 2013

I wanted a way in which users can seamlessly upload images for use in the Heroku application discussed in previous posts. Ideally, the image would be uploaded through AJAX as part of a data-entry form... (2 minute read)

Gower Tides App Released 7 March 2013

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 you live in South Wales and are vaguely interested in tides/... (1 minute read)

ScriptSlide 18 February 2013

Iā€™ve taken to writing most of my recent presentations in plain HTML (rather than using third-party software or services). I used JavaScript to handle the appearance and ordering of slides. I bun... (1 minute read)

Delving into Android 13 November 2012

Iā€™ve always been interested in the development of smartphone apps, but have never really had the opportunity to actually hava a go. Whilst Iā€™m generally OK with development on platforms I ... (3 minute read)