Posts tagged: “notes”

Monthly Notes: March 2022

Not a lot happened in March which is not too bad, apart from the lack of work and downtime at work, which makes for a long and boring day. Continue working on a freelance website project.

Monthly Notes: February 2022

Very short update for this month. Mostly personal updates, a lot of articles read and some freelance work

Monthly Notes: January 2022

Wowsers January flew by. I started the year with a detox. Set a reading goal of 10 books - only managed four last year...

Monthly Notes: July 2021

July was a bit of a mixed bag of events and feelings, including having my second covid jab, celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary and more...

Changelog: Add other links to the footer

Saw a tweet about how websites with RSS - should have a link to it in the header to save digging into code to find it. Well I had a task to add these other links to my site and was going to wait until the redesign, but decided to redesign the footer slightly to include them.

Monthly Notes: June 2021

Not much to note for the month of June. Been busy with my permanent job and working to get the new Surbiton Tyre and Wheel website finished.

Monthly Notes: May 2021

Another short notes post for this month. Been busy at my new permanent job at intelliflo - learning the ropes and how to be a permanent employee again. Plus freelance work. I've had my google free phone now for over a month and I finally got round to adding some new features to my website.

TIL: Generating a hash from the command line

Since adding Content Security Policies to my website, I need to add a sha for any inline scripts I use - I only use one, which is the one to initiate the ServiceWorker.

Changelog: Added Webmentions

Changelog: Added Webmentions

TIL - Webmention and URLs

Creating a post with a title that has uppercase letters, like IR35 - the URL will have those uppercase letters in your file system, but in the live URL they will be lowercase

Monthly Notes: April 2021

Busy month adjusting to being a permanent employee again and finishing off freelance work. New de-googled Android mobile phone

DeGoogling is the same as jailbreaking apparently

Turns out that some apps will treat your DeGoogled Android phone as a phone that has a custom ROM installed aka it has been 'jailbroken' and won't run

Opting out of Google's FLoC Network

This website is now opted out of Google's FLoC Network

Monthly Notes: March 2021

March has been a busy month with me going back to permanent employment and starting a new job at intelliflo. Finishing my last contract. Finishing a freelance project and starting another one.

Monthly Notes: February 2021

February was quite a busy month work-wise. Finishing the Property with Prospect website as well as finishing and presenting the design for the new Surbiton Tyre and Wheels website

Bye Bye Gmail

That's it - I have finally deleted my Gmail account. I've been using a self-hosted email address for a year now and slowly switching email addresses on websites I still use.

Monthly Notes: January 2021

January has been a good month with a steady flow of work and spending plenty of time with the family whilst making the most of being in lockdown.

Monthly Notes: December 2020

Not a very busy month as the year comes to an end and things slow down ready for the Christmas break. Spent quite a bit of time working on improving my website by forcing myself to adhere to my strict Content Security Policies.

Monthly Notes: November 2020

Don't you hate when you go from having no work to then having way too much work and it starts pilling up on you? That was November for me.

Monthly Notes: October 2020

October was a surprisingly busy month which is a good thing after months without any work. It's good to be back in work mode but must not forget to continue working on my business, website and side projects.

Monthly Notes: September 2020

September flew by. Not much to report as it was a quiet month on the work and personal fronts. Launched a new client website and a got personal achievement too.

Escaping Nunjucks code in a markdown code block

Turns out you need to escape Nunjucks code within a markdown code block. Found a solution by Mark Llobrera - @dirtystylus

Monthly Notes: August 2020

Augusts' monthly notes are mostly personal and shorter than usual as I didn't get up to much - and that's a good thing - we all need to know how to chill once in a while. 👍

Monthly Notes: July 2020

July has been a bit slow going as I slowly get back into web development, now that the homeschooling has ended and I'm cooking a lot less as my wife has now finished work. I'm still looking for my next contract, but I do have some potential freelance projects coming up shortly. Things are looking up.

June 2020: Monthly Notes

Wowsers, we are already halfway through the year and what a terrible year it has been. Hopefully, it will get better soon.

Recording audio input from other apps

Turns out that you can't easily recorded audio from one app to another on a Mac, without some extra software and changing some preferences

April & May 2020: Monthly Notes

I've now been in lockdown for about sixty days and I'm struggling with lack of routine and schedule. As much as I try to stick to a schedule, it's hard, with everyone at home all the time - their routines and schedules get in the way of mine.

New Pallet Project

Started on a non tech project today. My office is a mini loft above our garage, and it has these gaps for storage that I don't need, so I'm covering them up with pallet wood planks.

March 2020: Monthly Notes

Better late than never I guess? So March has been the longest Monday ever! I was in lockdown two weeks before the government told us to do so, just because I could work from home, so I did because I didn't want to risk going into a large open office.

February 2020: Monthly Notes

February was a good month for me as I released my first open-source project - a tiny thing I made - an eleventy shortcode for using cloudinary images in your markdown files.

Performance? What performance?

Just found an image on my clients' website (added by a third party) that weighs in at, wait for it, a whopping 39.4mb 😬

Switching to Firefox Focus

I've now switched my default browser to Firefox Focus - a privacy focused browser. No cookies, ads, tracking or history.

Off Facebook

My Facebook account has been deactivated for over a year and now I've now asked for it to be deleted.

Google Pay

Removing your Google account from your phone means Google Pay will stop working - derp

Getting rid of Google calendar

Replacing Google calendar has been one of the hardest apps/services to replace.

Pi-hole and New Router

The next stage in my privacy control adventures is to setup Pi-hole at home.

Estimote LTE Beacons Developer Kit

My estimote LTE beacons developer kit has finally arrived (made to order) - so looks like I'll be tinkering with this at this weekend 🤓

Eleventy Cloudinary Shortcode

Created a shortcode for @eleven_ty so I can use Cloudinary images within markdown files.

Created my first NPM package

I just created my first NPM package and it was surprisingly easy to do it.

January 2020: Monthly Notes

January has been a surprisingly busy month - it's normally a bit quieter than this. My contract was extended until the end of March - it was supposed to be just a 6-week contract until mid-January, so I had lined up some freelance work to tide me over before starting a new contract.

Native disclosure element works in Instapaper app

Reading an article about the native HTML disclosure element (details + summary) and was pleased to see that it works in the Instapaper app

Firefox Focus

For a privacy focused browser, I was surprised to see Google as the default search engine. 🧐

Google Hangouts

Almost ready to uninstall Google Hangouts from my phone.

Replacing my phone's OS

It's been a week since #naconf and Laura Kalbag's talk on privacy - I've been reviewing my own privacy since then.

New Adventures 2020

Really looking forward to New Adventures 2020 conference in a few weeks. Great way to start the year. Let me know if you're going.

Monthly Notes: November

November saw the end of my contract at Signet and the start of a new contract at the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). I have worked with them before and they asked to come back to help them with a new project.

Monthly Notes #1: October

I struggled to keep up with writing weekly notes since I cut my days at the office down to just three and they felt like they were the same thing every week and I didn't have much to write every week - so I am not trying a monthly note. We'll see how I get on with this schedule.

Weeknotes #24

Not a lot to write about this week. Still really busy with my current contract - busy is good. But obviously its harder to keep up with note-taking in preparation for writing these.

Weeknotes #23

As my current contract gets busier and we head towards a huge deadline, I'm a lot more tired in the evenings, so the last thing I want to do when I get to the hotel and get back on my computer and do some work or write a blog post.

Weeknotes #22

This weeknotes has been in my drafts for a few weeks now. It only takes getting busy at work, for writing weeknotes to fall off the radar. I need to find a way of fitting this into my routine.

Version 2 of my website went live last week

Published version 2 of my website. Rebuilt using 11ty, Nunjucks and hosted on Netlify and using NetlifyCMS for content.

Weeknotes #21

Work on the new header continues for one of the brands and the pressure is on to get it finished within this sprint. More work on my own website and some tinkering with our new car.

Weeknotes #20

After a bit of an unscheduled break, my weeknotes are back. You may notice that weeknotes are no longer showing on the blog index - after some feedback, I decided it didn't make sense to clutter the blog with notes. They have taken over because I've not been writing much of anything else.

Weeknotes #19

I'm sounding like a broken record, but it has been yet another slow week. We're still having some GIT related issues - not me personally, but we're also completely redoing our build process so that has caused some expected issues.

Weeknotes #18

Bit of a slow week at work while we wait for the new UX Designer to get acquainted with the business and produce some designs for the Front-end Developers to produce.

Weeknotes #17

Another bank holiday week but it was a very busy weekend. Second week at my new contract. I'm really getting behind on week notes, so this week I have published two in order to keep up to date.

Weeknotes #16

Started a new contract on Monday, working for Signet Jewellers aka H.Samuel and Ernest Jones based in Borehamwood, North London. It was a hell of a drive, but as usual, I drive to work Monday morning and then stay in the area until I drive back on Fridays.

Weeknotes #15

This weeknotes is late again due to having a weekend without being in front of a screen, most of it - my youngest child had been begging me to jump on the Minecraft server so we could play together. This week was my last with DXW and DfE (only 2 days) and the rest of the week was spent working on my own website and on my freelance project.

Weeknotes #14

Not much happened this week. The handover process is well underway and there if not much left now to handover. It was my last full week in Manchester.

Weeknotes #13

This week started the handover process to my replacement at the Department for Education, as well as making a lot more progress to the prototype. Got a new contract lined up to start pretty much as soon as I finish my current one, which is a first and I have finally made nsome time to work on my own website.

Weeknotes #12

Short week at work due to the bank holidays in the UK. First time working from home in this contract. I should really make some notes during the week to make writing weeknotes easier.

Weeknotes #11

Another short week notes this week due to a short week and a long bank holiday weekend that I spent with friends and family and no screens.

Weeknotes #10

This weeks 'weeknotes' is being posted a bit later than usual. I was supposed to write it on the train up to Manchester on Sunday evening, but I still can't get used to working on a laptop on the train.

Weeknotes #9

This week I was in Manchester for my new contract. I was only there for two days for the project kick off and tech setup. Monday and Tuesday was a blur. I couldn't focus on anything.

Weeknotes #8

This week started with me handing in my notice at my then-current contract. I felt very guilty about ending my contract early, I managed 5 weeks out of 12 - it's the first time I have ever had to end a contract early.

Weeknotes #7

Well, it was another uneventful and unproductive week - I've been distracted all week. I've decided to finish my current contract early. I've never done this and I have mixed feelings about it, but I know that I am not happy here and I don't see it getting better.

Weeknotes #6

It's been another pretty uneventful week apart from all the wind we had here in the east - we lost yet another water butt. This week I didn't do any JavaScript learning and I've not managed to continue reading any of the books I've started. Managed to make some more progress with my freelance project. Work-wise nothing much has changed or improved.

Weeknotes #5

My week didn't have a great start but it got much better towards the end. Did loads of JavaScript learning this week. Fixed an issue I've been having with Sublime Text and wrote a blog post.

Weeknotes #4

It's been another tiring week, but I felt it went by fairly quickly. Tiring because I did about ten hours of driving this week to my new contract. But I made some progress on my freelance project.

Weeknotes #3

This week has been a busy one - with the housework and a new freelance project. There's been a lot of furniture moving around while the new carpets were fitted.

Weeknotes #2

This week I'm starting with what didn't go well, as it was a bit of a blow for me. I'm also introducing a personal section because I like writing about my personal life on my blog, so felt it was appropriate - it also explains why I didn't get much work done on my website!

Weeknotes #1

My first #weeknotes. I really like the idea of these - just like the yearly reviews - so why not a weekly review. I'm hoping this will help me, not only with getting into the habit of writing but also make my weeks more productive as I look back and see what did and didn't work well.