Home RSS icon Posts RSS icon Microblog

Microblog

These are just little notes and thoughts thrown out into the World.

Atom Feed

2024-01-23 05:05:58

How did I not know that I could subscribe to an atom feed in Amfora,

the gemini protocol browser I use? 🤦

And how did I not realise I could create an atom feed for my blog posts

and microblog with Kiln! 🤦

All fixed now, both blog and microblog now have atom feeds for gemini

and https protocols.

/posts/atom.xml

/microblog/atom.xml

[..]

2023-12-12 20:14:31

Last video in my mini series on creating a Debian package file (.deb) for Snippet Expander.

Snippet Expander: Packaging for Debian - Part 7 - .deb done! 🎉 | Always Developing #234

[..]

2023-11-30 20:18:36

First video in a new mini series of live coding videos:-

Snippet Expander: Packaging for Debian - Part 1 | Always Developing #227

[..]

2023-09-21 08:58:15

Svelte 5 runes are going to be awesome! 🎉

Introducing [Svelte 5] runes

I've definitely hit some of the pain points that runes seek to address.

In particular, the $derived rune will simplify a whole bunch of code for me

that currently necessitates using $: along with passing extra variables into

a function to ensure reactive values flow.

Being able to refactor some reactive code out to JavaScript files will also

be a big win, some of our script tags are getting a little unwieldy.

Really looking forward to getting my hands on Svelte 5 and doing a little bit

of code gardening next time I hit some code that can be simplified by runes.

[..]

2023-04-13 22:04:28

Tumbleweeds ...

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⣤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣰⡾⠋⠀⠀⣀⣴⠶⣶⣦⣤⣀⠀⠙⠒⠦⣤⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣾⠋⠀⣠⣴⠞⠉⠀⠀⠀⠈⠉⠛⠿⣶⣤⡀⠀⠈⢻⡄⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣸⣿⣶⠟⠋⠀⠀⣤⣶⣾⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠙⠻⣷⣄⠀⠃⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⡿⠋⠁⣠⣾⠁⢠⣿⡟⠁⠈⠉⠙⢻⣿⣷⠀⠀⠈⠻⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⣴⡟⠁⠠⣾⣿⡇⠀⠸⢿⣄⡀⠀⠀⠰⣿⣿⠏⠀⠀⠀⣠⣿⡟⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⡀⠙⣇⠀⠀⠘⢿⣧⠀⠀⠀⠈⠉⠂⠀⠀⢸⣿⠀⠀⢀⣴⡿⢻⣿⡷⠂⠀
⠀⠀⢱⡀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠻⣷⣦⣄⣀⣀⣀⣀⣤⣾⣿⣷⣤⡾⠋⠀⢈⣿⡇⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠈⣷⡀⠀⠀⠀⡄⠀⠙⢿⣿⠿⠿⠛⠛⠋⣉⣭⡿⠋⢀⣤⣾⠿⠟⠃⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⢹⣿⣄⡀⠀⢻⣆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣴⣟⣋⣤⣾⠟⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⢿⣿⣶⣤⣽⣷⣄⣀⣤⣴⣶⣿⣿⣿⠟⠋⠀⢰⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠑⢦⣀⠉⠙⠛⠛⠛⠛⠛⠛⢉⣉⣉⣀⣤⣤⣤⣤⣿⣿⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⢿⣶⠶⠖⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

[..]

2022-12-06 08:27:30

Had a bit of time to return to Snippet Pixie development last night, and instantly found a UX bug with the CLI.

It wasn't a code bug, technically it worked as it should, but it definitely did not work in a way that someone (now) less familiar with its quirks would expect.

So I added tests to enforce how someone might expect the CLI to work, and fixed the code. It was a nice re-introduction to the project's code.

Seems like a rest from a project is a good way to get a fresh pair of eyes on it.

[..]

2022-11-29 08:55:00

Had a very nice email late last night from someone struggling with running a Wails app on NixOS they built, looking for any help I could offer because I'm the maintainer of the Nix package.

Did my best to offer some debugging tips, then went to bed.

In the morning I had a couple of lovely emails detailing how one of my tips solved the problem, and a link to a gist for the flake.nix they now use. That'll help me should anyone else contact me with similar issues.

Lovely start to my day! 🎉

[..]

2022-09-22 08:58:13

Wails v2.0.0 has been released!

Wails v2 Released

Well done Lea and all the many contributors to this excellent tool for building desktop applications with Go and web technologies!

[..]

2022-09-02 12:42:03

Today is my last day working for both Delicious Brains and my own consultancy company, Byte Pixie.

Because on Monday I'm officially a full-time employee of WP Engine, continuing to work on WP Offload Media! 🎉

[..]

2022-08-10 08:12:41

After a mini summer break, it's nice to be back in the saddle and recording Always Developing sessions for my YouTube channel again.

My YouTube channel

[..]

2022-06-02 19:33:02

It's a big day! The WordPress plugin I work on, WP Offload Media, along with the other plugins developed by Delicious Brains, have been acquired by WP Engine!

The teams behind the Delicious Brains plugins are all moving across to work for WP Engine, keeping continuity of development and support.

After nearly 8 years working with Delicious Brains, I'm a little sad to be parting ways with Brad, who's been a great boss and friend, and I'll be forever grateful that he took a chance on hiring me so long ago.

However, I'm also rather excited to be able to continue working on WP Offload Media. We've got some awesome stuff already in development and planned for WP Offload Media, and I think WP Engine is going to be a great company to continue the plugin's journey forward with.

WP Engine Has Acquired the Delicious Brains Plugins!!

WP Engine Acquires Popular Delicious Brains WordPress Plugins Including Developer Favorite Advanced Custom Fields

[..]

2022-05-17 23:13:16

Even though I was pretty tired all day as I was rudely awoken by a peacock at 04:44 this morning, and eventually gave up trying to get back to sleep just after 06:00, I had a weirdly productive day today.

My Always Developing session went well, with me finishing off the search box for the new Snippet Pixie GUI app's list snippets screen. I think it's looking and working pretty good, even if I say so myself.

At work I did a tonne of writing, screenshotting, and video recording for an upcoming blog post, and worked out a nice way to proceed with my next big piece of development.

In the evening I updated, rebuilt, tested and pushed out changes to three open source projects, and tested a fix to a service I use.

Oh, and I wrote a long over due microblog post. 😉

[..]

2022-03-12 12:03:10

Just checked this morning, wails 2.0.0-beta.33 is now available in the nixpkgs unstable channel. 🎉

[..]

2022-03-10 08:24:29

Super stoked to get Wails v2 into nixpkgs!

wails: init at 2.0.0-beta.33

It'll take a little while for wails to make its way through the build and test infrastructure and hit the unstable channel, and then eventually the next stable release, but it's on its way!

[..]

2022-03-08 20:43:33

This evening Always Developing #139 was published:

Snippet Pixie: Next - Switch golang date format based on user's locale | Always Developing #139

This session wraps up placeholder expansion work for the Snippet Pixie rewrite.

It was an interesting challenge to get localized date formatting working in Go.

[..]

2022-02-22 22:22:22

It was really great to see the Wails v2 beta for Linux released today.

Wails v2 Beta for Linux announcement

I'm planning to dive in and start using Wails as part of the Snippet Pixie rewrite fairly soon. I just need to have a fully working CLI version completed first.

[..]

2022-02-08 20:18:10

Somehow I've got 100 subscribers to my Always Developing YouTube channel. I have no idea why people watch me floundering around while trying to rewrite Snippet Pixie in Go.

Snippet Pixie: Next - Floundering around with golang locales and dates | Always Developing #122

[..]

2022-02-02 09:45:21

Today I recorded Always Developing #120, and finally finished the Snippet Pixie rewrite's CLI import feature. That took way longer than I expected to complete.

[..]

2021-12-16 22:35:50

This evening, Always Developing session #100 was published! 🎉

Snippet Pixie: Next - Start implementing JSON export format | Always Developing #100 🎉

Since starting to record development sessions back in April of this year, I've actually published 102 videos, as a couple were short ".1" follow-ups to the main session.

Of course, session #100 published today was just like many, finishing with me running out of time as I scratch my head over some problem. Luckily I recorded #101 this morning, which neatly wraps up the issue I was having formatting the JSON at the end of #100. Hopefully #101 will finish being processed by YouTube in time for me to be able to publish it tomorrow.

[..]

2021-11-01 22:22:22

Today's Always Developing session that I've just published to YouTube, was one of those nice ones where I finally figured something out, well, hopefully.

Snippet Pixie: Next - Writing a D-Bus server and client in Go - Part 4 | Always Developing #77

I was really struggling with how to use the result of a function call in Go that returned an Interface type. In particular I wanted to use the returned dbus.BusObject as the receiver for a function, it just wasn't playing nice.

Then I figured out how to embed the dbus.BusObject into a custom type so that it inherited the interface via the underlying dbus.Object that is actually returned from the function.

I then went on to set up a custom Interface that my type adhered to, and even put it in a package so that any client application can use it to ensure all functions are implemented.

There's still a long way to go, lots to add to that interface in both client and server, and likely a bunch of refactors yet to come, but I'm very pleased with the way things are shaping up.

[..]

2021-08-31 12:54:48

I realized that I made a mistake in my second "Playing with Wails app builder" video. Building from source was broken as I was still relying on the JS/CSS artefacts from a local build, and the dependencies for them aren't going to play well with flatpack-builder's restrictions on build tools. So Part 3 was born!

Playing with Wails app builder: Part 3 - A better Flatpak manifest for Wails | Always Developing #57

[..]

2021-08-29 16:33:08

I've had fun in my last couple of Always Developing sessions.

In the first of them, Always Developing #55, I had a quick look at the Wails desktop app framework that uses Go for the backend, and web technologies for the frontend.

I of course used Svelte on the frontend 😄. After a quick look, I then started seeing if I could work out how to package the demo app as a Flatpak. This was in response to a discussion thread I'd seen on the Wails GitHub repo.

Playing with Wails app builder: Part 1 - Trying to package app as a Flatpak | Always Developing #55

Wails

GitHub discussion

I didn't get far with the Flatpak in session #55 as I ran out of time. But this morning I had a bit of time so had a go at finishing it off in Always Developing #56, and actually managed to do it. 🎉

Playing with Wails app builder: Part 2 - Finishing Flatpak of app | Always Developing #56

Wails looks very interesting, definitely going to play with it some more, and consider it for future endeavours.

[..]

2021-06-30 12:10:49

Kicked off a new round of Snippet Pixie development last night by making sure it still works as expected on elementary OS 6.0 beta 2.

Passed with flying colours! 🎉️

Testing Snippet Pixie with elementary OS 6.0 beta 2 | Always Developing #43

[..]

2021-06-12 22:11:37

Today we were de-cluttering and I found my wedding ring! 🎉️

I thought I'd lost it before moving back to the UK from NZ, when I'd lost a good chunk of weight, figuring it just fell off while out and about and was lost for good. I had been very conscious of how loose it was at the time. But it turns out I somehow left it in a small bag of ties, cufflinks etc. Maybe it fell off while I was filling the bag and didn't notice at the time.

So for approx 5 and a half years I've not been wearing a ring, feels great to be wearing it again.

[..]

2021-06-02 14:20:00

It's an incredibly exciting day at Delicious Brains, where I work, but I've got the day off today! 🎉🤦

A WordPress Announcement of Epic Proportions

[..]

2021-05-26 19:17:42

Yay, this entry's filename and front matter were auto populated by Snippet Pixie while working in the terminal! 🎉️

[..]

2021-05-24 22:18:50

I'm so rubbish at social stuff.

Last week I wrote an article about how my personal site is now a Gemini Capsule by default, and only just now remembered to post something on Twitter about it. 🤦️

Anyway, the post is at the following link.

Switched site to Gemini

[..]

2021-05-19 19:30:31

Really happy to see 1Password for Linux getting its official release today.

Welcoming Linux to the 1Password Family

I've been using the beta snap packaged versions for a long time now, great to be able to refresh to the stable version.

Updating 1Password snap from edge to stable [IMG]

[..]

2020-03-26 21:00:14

Ahhh, love that new server smell. 😀

New server with SpinupWP [IMG]

[..]

2020-03-18 21:49:34

There's a new version of WP Cron Pixie! 🎉

WP Cron Pixie

WP Cron Pixie 1.4.1 changelog:

[..]

2020-03-17 22:21:43

Hello make, my old friend.

screenshot of make running in terminal [IMG]

[..]

2020-03-05 09:37:21

Enjoyed attending #dttech last night, my first @DigitalTaunton event.

@DigitalTaunton

Liked the format of 2 main talks + 3 lightning talks after a break.

Great talks, and very well organised event, a lot of work must have gone into it, congrats to all! 👏

[..]

2019-12-18 11:43:16

FYI, if you try to circumvent paying for support for a client's product I work on by bombarding my personal email address, my contact page, or any other means that are not a proper support channel, I'm still not going to reply to your vague mess of a support request! 👿

[..]

2019-12-16 19:54:58

TIL: enabling boot.cleanTmpDir on NixOS can solve the most head-scratchy of head-scratchy things!

[..]

2019-11-24 16:47:32

Yay, after a couple of days painting the landing I'm finally at podcast zero! 🎉 (there may have been a good bit of podcast culling and skipping too)

[..]

2019-10-01 12:02:31

I just wrote about How I Use tmux For Local Development across on the Delicious Brains blog.

How I Use tmux For Local Development

If you use the command line at all, you should check it out!

How I Use tmux For Local Development header image [IMG]

[..]

2019-07-26 15:36:43

Me: Ooh, I have a great idea and it'll have a sweet domain too!

... goes to register domain ...

Me: Dammit, domain's already taken, and not being used!

... later updating some DNS settings and spots ... that sweet domain that I've had for years! ...

Me: 🤦‍♂️

[..]

2019-07-25 10:30:16

I love how the @phpstorm splash screen artwork changes for each major release. It's always very striking.

@phpstorm

PhpStorm 2019.2 splash screen [IMG]

[..]

2019-07-23 08:21:38

TIL: The "rc" in things like .bashrc comes from "runcom", which is a syllabic abbreviation of "run commands".

runcom

Not something like "runtime configuration" like I've always thought.

[..]

2019-07-10 22:20:21

I very much like the look of the Plasma desktop with the full Breeze Dark look and feel.

Snippet Pixie on KDE Neon [IMG]

[..]

2019-07-10 22:10:01

Snippet Pixie is now available as a snap. 🎉

Snippet Pixie

sudo snap install snippetpixie --classic

I even tested it with LibreOffice Writer and gedit on KDE Neon, but remember folks, Snippet Pixie is a GTK app, so your mileage will vary greatly.

Snippet Pixie Snap in KDE Neon's app store [IMG]

[..]

2019-06-18 18:39:14

Roof top terrace for the win!

Sunset over rooftops of Berlin [IMG]

[..]

2019-06-18 18:13:44

Delicious Brains spent 4 hours walking Berlin on an alternate culture tour today, great way to see and learn about about a side Berlin often missed by tourists.

Delicious Brains

Walking through artistic area of Berlin [IMG]

[..]

2019-06-11 12:42:00

WP Offload Media 2.2 is out, with background offload, download, and download and remove tools, plus huge performance improvements in the admin area. 🎉

WP Offload Media 2.2 is out

WP Offload Media 2.2 release post banner [IMG]

[..]

2019-05-23 15:03:00

Just created 2k subsites on a @SpinupWP managed site, and thoroughly tested the queue feature of @wpoffloadses!

@SpinupWP

@wpoffloadses

Now to create 300k+ posts/media for @wpoffloadmedia testing!

@wpoffloadmedia

Screenshot of terminal showing WP-CLI output [IMG]

[..]

2019-05-18 16:17:37

While mowing the lawn this afternoon I rescued this little fella that flew straight into a cobweb.

Red and black moth on my finger [IMG]

[..]

2019-04-30 13:12:11

We often get asked whether WP Offload Media can work with this, that, or the other S3 API compatible storage provider, so I wrote about how I got MinIO working with WP Offload Media:

deliciousbrains.com/s3-compatible-storage-provider-minio

[..]

2019-04-08 12:29:39

This is what the snapcraft store's usage map looks like for an app when you're the only person that knows there's a beta snap available. 😜

beta snap

Snippet Pixie beta in Snap Store [IMG]

[..]

2019-04-05 08:37:19

Snippet Pixie 1.1.1 released! 🎉

Snippet Pixie

@NathanBnm

[..]

2019-04-04 08:08:33

Big thanks to everyone that has shown their appreciation for Snippet Pixie with donations via the @elementary AppCenter, or got in contact to say thanks, it means a lot to me and is very encouraging.

Snippet Pixie

@elementary

[..]

2019-04-02 20:59:55

TIL: sudo apt install libreoffice-gtk3 and all of a sudden LibreOffice Writer is compatible with Snippet Pixie! 🎉️

Snippet Pixie

[..]

2019-01-30 13:05:48

A couple of years ago we had a support request regarding Chinese characters in offloaded files, I've used the example file name ever since for testing, including acceptance tests. I've only just now bothered to see what the file name translates too...

Screenshot of Google Translate showing Peppa Pig as result [IMG]

[..]

2019-01-16 21:54:06

Snippet Pixie 1.0 has been released!

Snippet Pixie

Now autostarts on login by default, and tabbing into the body entry field selects all text, making adding new items a little bit quicker.

Screenshot of Elementary AppCenter showing Snippet Pixie 1.0.0 [IMG]

[..]

2019-01-10 13:33:26

Thanks for the Hacktoberfest t-shirt, stickers and coaster @digitalocean, @github and @twilio!

Hacktoberfest

@digitalocean

@github

@twilio

Hacktoberfest 2018 t-shirt and stickers [IMG]

[..]

2019-01-09 19:34:21

🎉 My handy new app for expanding text snippets, Snippet Pixie, is now available in the @elementary AppCenter!

Snippet Pixie

@elementary

AppCenter

Snippet Pixie screenshot [IMG]

[..]

2018-12-05 15:10:29

While you're re-skinning your web app with NES.css you should definitely be listening to Pretty Eight Machine by Inverse Phase, which is an excellent 8-bit tribute to probably my favourite album of all time, Pretty Hate Machine by Nine Inch Nails.

NES.css

Pretty Eight Machine

Inverse Phase

Pretty Hate Machine

Nine Inch Nails

[..]

2018-11-23 12:28:07

Just received a nice t-shirt and a couple of lovely "Sammy the Shark" stickers in the post, thanks @digitalocean!

@digitalocean

DigitalOcean t-shirt and stickers [IMG]

[..]

2018-10-31 15:58:24

If anyone's still looking for an Initiative Q invite, I've still got some going spare.

initiativeq.com/invite/BB...

[..]

2018-10-12 15:39:43

So now we know what @robwalling's next adventure is!

@robwalling

TinySeed. The First Startup Accelerator Designed for Bootstrappers.

tinyseed.com

[..]

2018-09-25 20:26:32

Big day for me today, after months of work, we at Delicious Brains released WP Offload Media 2.0, our plugin for offloading your WordPress Media Library to cloud storage.

WP Offload Media 2.0

It used to be called WP Offload S3 as it worked exclusively with Amazon S3, but now that we've added support for offloading your WordPress Media Library to DigitalOcean Spaces too, seemed like a great time to change the name!

Amazon S3

DigitalOcean Spaces

I made a lot of changes to the internals of WP Offload Media in preparation for this release, previously the plugin was scattered with S3 specific code, now it's much more adaptable to alternate storage providers. In fact it should be a lot easier to work in a different SDK than the AWS PHP SDK that we're currently using for both Amazon S3 and DigitalOcean Spaces, you know, should we decide to add something like Google Cloud Storage support via the Google Cloud Client Library for PHP.

AWS PHP SDK

Google Cloud Storage

Google Cloud Client Library for PHP

[..]

2018-08-26 10:41:00

Office invasion!

Chickens in office [IMG]

[..]

2018-08-25 10:49:25

Just found the Two-Bit History blog, and found myself saving pretty much every post to Instapaper.

Two-Bit History

Its Timeline page is a great idea.

Timeline

Nice one @TwoBitHistory!

@TwoBitHistory

[..]

2018-08-22 07:56:02

As a family we have now also watched MiB3. My wife says that was her favourite as it fills in some of the back story, but Abi and I still think it's narrowly beaten by the original as our favourite.

[..]

2018-08-18 13:49:29

Every weekend we settle down to watch a family friendly movie that Abi hasn't seen yet. We watched Men in Black one and two back to back last night, so good, just great fun movies. Abi's favourite bit? The talking pug of course!

[..]

2018-08-16 15:15:51

The RustyElm microcast is now available via Apple Podcasts and any other podcast app that uses the iTunes Podcast directory!

RustyElm in Apple Podcasts

[..]

2018-08-16 09:12:00

Apple's Podcast Connect is working again, yay!


Screenshot of iTunes Connect with rustyelm podcast submitted [IMG]

[..]

2018-08-13 22:19:03

Umm ... oh dear, I ... umm ... just listened to my ... umm ... new microcast episode, and I umm ... did a lot of ... umm ... umms, sorry!

RustyElm 2018-08-13: Alright, Let's Do This!

[..]

2018-08-11 11:39:41

Listening to @cheesemaker on Micro Monday just now made me wonder when I first started blogging.

@cheesemaker

Micro Monday

Turns out it was February 2002, via the now defunct CityDesk desktop application. In that first blog post I make mention of having been building some now long lost CMS of my own, I don't even remember that!

My first CityDesk article in February 2002

CityDesk

[..]

2018-08-09 08:49:29

It's just occurred to me that one of the reasons I've been drawn to moving my site to Micro.blog is the shear simplicity of the writing experience and themes. It's all about the words, while pictures stand out as real content rather than necessary decoration.

[..]


---

~/