Well, I’ve been letting this site and the blog software bake in the sun for a few months. There where some bugs I needed to resolve behind the scenes and some nagging CSS issues that plagued the site.

These have now been ironed out and the site should also now perform better, and be smoother to read though.

Talking of Reading…

RSS & ATOM

I have added RSS and ATOM feeds to the site, so you can read the content in your preferred tools and applications without needing to visit the site!

True Docker Hub image

To help with the testing and maintenance of the site software - I’ve created a true Docker Hub image of the site. So now - on the production server (sounding all professional now), I just need to do a docker compose pull and docker compose up -d

So, to recap

• Site performance improvements
• Site CSS improvements
• Site RSS/Atom feeds added
• Administration tweaks
• Docker Hub account and image!

But, what’s next? Well - I’ve been using Github since before Microsoft took it over. But today, I have started moving my code over to Codeberg.org

So you can now find my recent projects there.

The main reason for doing this is to ensure my code is free for all, with no risk of any paywalls Microsoft may put up when they need to monetise for Co-Pilot.

I will leave up locked version on Github for now, but any changes will now be to Codeberg.

Last year, I set about the task to stop using as many Google services as possible. This includes

• Gmail
• Google Drive
• Chrome and Chromium based browsers
• Google Photos
• Google Docs
• Google Search

What Did I replace these with?

• Gmail was replaced by Proton Mail
• Google Drive was replaced by a NAS at home
• Chrome was replaced by Zen Browser
• Google Photos was replaced by Immich
• Google Docs was not replaced, just no need for it any more!
• Google Search was replaced with DuckDuckGo

Do I miss any of the Google products?

Not at all. Google search is too sponsored now with it difficult to get true results. Google photos is just too much risk they will use my photos to train AI without my authorisation and if hacked they could end up in anybody’s hands.

And with all the chatter of Google Mail going AI - I will stick with either Proton mail - or my hosting providers basic services for my other emails.

Now I have a stable site that shows my thoughts to the world, I can tinker.

I have the site running twice - once in a live environment that you are seeing and a dev site on my desktop that I use to tinker with!

What’s changed overnight

• The background is gently animated
• The posts now have header images with a default if I forget to set one
• The home page now scrolls a lot better on mobile phones
• The logo now sits nicer on mobile phones
• The home page will only load more posts when required
• The admin panel is now paginated
• The admin panel has a separate area if I want to change my password!
• I can save posts as Drafts and come back to them later!

I am going to stop tinkering for a while as I am back at work next week and have to go on-site on Wednesday and Thursday in Leeds and will be leaving at 5am!

Talktech on Githib

I’ve been tinkering with projects over the years and have a few FOSS projects for the world to play with. They are all things I created for my own use and give back to the world.

MastoCloud

• Do you post on a Mastodon server?
• Do you like WordClouds? – what is a word cloud?
• Do you want to create one based on your posts on your Mastodon account?

Then you want MastoCloud. It’s a Python tool that will login to your account, find your words and analyse for usage and create an image based on your settings!

Galactic Unicorn weather clock

This uses the fantastic Galactic Unicorn LED display from Pimoroni Here and open weather map api to get the local weather and display the current weather as an icon with the time next to it.

You can look at the code Github Link

Other older projects

There are a few other projects that I’ve not touched for a few years - so take a look and reach out to me on Hachyderm.io

I have decided to give another operating system (or Linux Distro) a try. It’s been a while since I have been using Manjaro and I have grown to love the ARCH-ness of it.

However, I feel like trying another Arch distro, so I have moved on the the latest build of EndevourOS.

First impressions

Unlike when I first gave Manjaro a test, Endevour got going with my RTX5060Ti without any issue! It found it and enabled full resolution and refresh rate support out of the box.

It also found my 2.5Gb Ethernet adapter without question and linked me up and I can see internal network speeds as quick as ever.

I’ve also been able to install all the required software, link Steam and Zen Browser without any problems at all.

Second impressions

Well - it still works well. I have all the bits and stuff setup just how I like with the menu at the top of the screen where it belongs and the active icons nicely set into the centre of the bar (I use an ultra-wide monitor so it’s where my eyes go).

The computer I was using as my old blog host deleted my site!

So I have decided to take the opportunity to start a fresh.

This site is not using any existing off-the-peg blogging software. It is using Markdown flat-files and is using a new bit of software to render.

I wanted something simple, but with the ability to be easy to customise and that is as unique as I am!

I hope you like it. I will be recreating my posts over the next few weeks.

Kindest Regards,

Vincent Willcox AKA TalkTech