recap &mdash; Doctacosa https://blog.interordi.com/tag:recap 🪶 I'm a real blog! Maybe? 🤔 Thoughts by Stéphane, often in English, parfois en français! Mon, 27 Apr 2026 17:44:49 +0000 Links https://blog.interordi.com/links <![CDATA[This blog Follow this blog on the Fediverse: @doctacosa@blog.interordi.com Note that replies aren't visible. If you want to comment, consider pinging the author instead! Subscribe to the RSS feed Browse by tag: General: #musings #personal #projects #recap #tools #webdev By project: #fediverse #interordi #osmium #minecraft Its author Follow @Doctacosa@social.interordi.com on the Fediverse Learn more about Stéphane See some of my projects on GitHub Visit Interordi.com for anything else! ]]> This blog

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]]> https://blog.interordi.com/links Wed, 03 Apr 2024 03:42:59 +0000 One project a month in 2023 https://blog.interordi.com/one-project-a-month-in-2023 <![CDATA[One idea I had in mind in January last year was to try different things, or build up some prototypes, just to satisfy my curiosity. One year later, I can say mission accomplished! But what did I do, after all? Let's look back. In January, I experimented with self-hosting various tools in a low-maintenance format. I ended up adopting YunoHost to handle some tools like my news feeds, project tracking, online visits counter and more. Since installing it, it's been very easy to use without requiring me to waste time just trying to keep it running, so I consider this a pretty big win. In February, I wanted to experiment with the Fediverse in some way or another. I compared some of the various platforms and ended up adopting Misskey, hosted on the YunoHost from January. It's now open to the public and running smoothly, but the updates to it haven't followed as expected - I might need to look at an alternative since it's now several months and a major version out of date. Mars saw me putting a focus on push notifications. Now that iOS 16.1 supports them for web apps, I wanted to exploit them to reach as many people as possible. That's now live in the Creeper's Lab Companion for all platforms, giving people an opportunity to stay updated on the latest news if they want to. This work will be reused for Osmium later. April was a time of experimentation about chat alternatives. Discord is working well for us, but I don't want to grow too attached to a platform I don't control, so I did some experiments with XMPP and Matrix. These didn't go too far due to various technical and software limits. I'll have to revisit this. May was dedicated to spring cleaning on the Creeper's Lab. Nothing extraordinary happened; instead, I used the opportunity to smooth out some rough edges and improve the automation of some components. Shiny new things are good, keeping what you already have is even better! Part of June went into building a prototype for a news reader, as I was looking to develop an alternative to simply following sources on social media. I ended up shelving the project after discovering that existing tools like Inoreader already do pretty much everything I had in mind. July went into studying tools integrating (but not requiring!) Discord. Unlike the chat search from April, this was all about building different methods to access the same things, like a tighter forum integration. I polished an existing prototype while drafting some other concepts. Part of this is still on the drawing board. August is when I decided to put an extra effort on improving my online presence. I finally figured out a simple web address that's all about me (interordi.com/stephane) while making an effort on my visibility on some social media platforms. I still have a lot more to do on this - I offer various tools and online communities, but people need to know they exist... and that I'm behind them! An exception happened in September, where I used my available time to play catch-up on various things. I was feeling rather overwhelmed at the time, so rather than spread myself too thin by playing with something new, I focused on getting back in control of everything happening at the time. October was basically split in half, as I was on vacations during the first half. The second had all my energy going into the launch of Osmium, which finally happened after so many efforts! November is when I decided to make a push to add new achievements to the Creeper's Lab. This had been planned for a long time, I finally had all the building blocks together, so it was time to assemble them. This was a big hit with the community, proving that the effort was worth it! Closing the year in December, I've looked at replacing the JavaScript library I use for pie charts, line graphs and the like. The one I was relying on was getting old and difficult to use. I ended up adopting Chart.js as a modern alternative that's much more flexible. It's not integrated on any visible page yet, but I've been preparing its integration in several places. And that's it for a year! Some of these took time to do, others happened across a single Saturday or two, but forcing myself to have a different target every month ensured I wasn't just doing standard dev work. This gave me an opening to do a few things that I was already thinking about but never had the opportunity to make happen. I'm considering doing something similar this year, if only to see if some of my ideas are worth pursuing or not! #projects #personal #recap - Doctacosa]]> One idea I had in mind in January last year was to try different things, or build up some prototypes, just to satisfy my curiosity. One year later, I can say mission accomplished! But what did I do, after all? Let's look back.

In January, I experimented with self-hosting various tools in a low-maintenance format. I ended up adopting YunoHost to handle some tools like my news feeds, project tracking, online visits counter and more. Since installing it, it's been very easy to use without requiring me to waste time just trying to keep it running, so I consider this a pretty big win.

In February, I wanted to experiment with the Fediverse in some way or another. I compared some of the various platforms and ended up adopting Misskey, hosted on the YunoHost from January. It's now open to the public and running smoothly, but the updates to it haven't followed as expected – I might need to look at an alternative since it's now several months and a major version out of date.

Mars saw me putting a focus on push notifications. Now that iOS 16.1 supports them for web apps, I wanted to exploit them to reach as many people as possible. That's now live in the Creeper's Lab Companion for all platforms, giving people an opportunity to stay updated on the latest news if they want to. This work will be reused for Osmium later.

April was a time of experimentation about chat alternatives. Discord is working well for us, but I don't want to grow too attached to a platform I don't control, so I did some experiments with XMPP and Matrix. These didn't go too far due to various technical and software limits. I'll have to revisit this.

May was dedicated to spring cleaning on the Creeper's Lab. Nothing extraordinary happened; instead, I used the opportunity to smooth out some rough edges and improve the automation of some components. Shiny new things are good, keeping what you already have is even better!

Part of June went into building a prototype for a news reader, as I was looking to develop an alternative to simply following sources on social media. I ended up shelving the project after discovering that existing tools like Inoreader already do pretty much everything I had in mind.

July went into studying tools integrating (but not requiring!) Discord. Unlike the chat search from April, this was all about building different methods to access the same things, like a tighter forum integration. I polished an existing prototype while drafting some other concepts. Part of this is still on the drawing board.

August is when I decided to put an extra effort on improving my online presence. I finally figured out a simple web address that's all about me (interordi.com/stephane) while making an effort on my visibility on some social media platforms. I still have a lot more to do on this – I offer various tools and online communities, but people need to know they exist... and that I'm behind them!

An exception happened in September, where I used my available time to play catch-up on various things. I was feeling rather overwhelmed at the time, so rather than spread myself too thin by playing with something new, I focused on getting back in control of everything happening at the time.

October was basically split in half, as I was on vacations during the first half. The second had all my energy going into the launch of Osmium, which finally happened after so many efforts!

November is when I decided to make a push to add new achievements to the Creeper's Lab. This had been planned for a long time, I finally had all the building blocks together, so it was time to assemble them. This was a big hit with the community, proving that the effort was worth it!

Closing the year in December, I've looked at replacing the JavaScript library I use for pie charts, line graphs and the like. The one I was relying on was getting old and difficult to use. I ended up adopting Chart.js as a modern alternative that's much more flexible. It's not integrated on any visible page yet, but I've been preparing its integration in several places.

And that's it for a year! Some of these took time to do, others happened across a single Saturday or two, but forcing myself to have a different target every month ensured I wasn't just doing standard dev work. This gave me an opening to do a few things that I was already thinking about but never had the opportunity to make happen. I'm considering doing something similar this year, if only to see if some of my ideas are worth pursuing or not!

#projects #personal #recap

– Doctacosa

]]> https://blog.interordi.com/one-project-a-month-in-2023 Thu, 11 Jan 2024 05:00:00 +0000 Thoughts for 2023 https://blog.interordi.com/thoughts-for-2023 <![CDATA[For many reasons, I'm not a big fan of doing strict planning for an upcoming year. The fact that I'm handling these projects part-time plays a big part into this: since I only have so many hours available, I need to make some tough choices at times. Plus, I don't control everything! As an example, some Minecraft updates can be more complicated to handle and those are released on Mojang's schedule. Still, after the holidays rush, I find myself in a planning mood, so here are some things I'm hoping to focus on in the upcoming months! Something I want to make more of an effort on is to test out different technologies and build up more prototypes. It's a way to feed the curiosity beast, plus it lets me get a clearer picture on what is and isn't possible. Sometimes, these come in useful later. For example, the procedure to link Interordi Accounts with Discord that went live last week is based off a prototype I built over two years ago! I've made an effort over time to make more of my projects and code available to other developers and server owners, especially my Minecraft plugins, and I want to do more of this. Some elements are simple to release since they stand alone, others are more complex since they're tied to Interordi internals. That Discord integration opened up a door, though: since I introduced a new bot to make it work, I can move the Interordi-specific features there and keep the chat bot itself dedicated to its own tasks. This way, I keep one while the other can be reused elsewhere! Online communities are often at the center of my thoughts, as I've covered before. I still don't really know what I want to do there, but I've been actively doing research on the various options that are available out there, both on chat and social media. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear from you! In the middle of all the regular maintenance and upkeep, I've been developing a new thing that's getting closer to being unveiled. While I'm not going into specifics yet, I have high hopes for this one! And this is just the expected - I didn't plan for the second half of 2022 to be as busy as it got, there's all the stuff I have no control over, plus I want to jump at opportunities that might present themselves, so none of the above is on the strict schedule. I'm aware of some of what I want to do, so I'm keeping at it... while still letting myself unwind with a game or book once in a while. :-) #2023 #planning #personal #recap - Doctacosa]]> For many reasons, I'm not a big fan of doing strict planning for an upcoming year. The fact that I'm handling these projects part-time plays a big part into this: since I only have so many hours available, I need to make some tough choices at times. Plus, I don't control everything! As an example, some Minecraft updates can be more complicated to handle and those are released on Mojang's schedule. Still, after the holidays rush, I find myself in a planning mood, so here are some things I'm hoping to focus on in the upcoming months!

Something I want to make more of an effort on is to test out different technologies and build up more prototypes. It's a way to feed the curiosity beast, plus it lets me get a clearer picture on what is and isn't possible. Sometimes, these come in useful later. For example, the procedure to link Interordi Accounts with Discord that went live last week is based off a prototype I built over two years ago!

I've made an effort over time to make more of my projects and code available to other developers and server owners, especially my Minecraft plugins, and I want to do more of this. Some elements are simple to release since they stand alone, others are more complex since they're tied to Interordi internals. That Discord integration opened up a door, though: since I introduced a new bot to make it work, I can move the Interordi-specific features there and keep the chat bot itself dedicated to its own tasks. This way, I keep one while the other can be reused elsewhere!

Online communities are often at the center of my thoughts, as I've covered before. I still don't really know what I want to do there, but I've been actively doing research on the various options that are available out there, both on chat and social media. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear from you!

In the middle of all the regular maintenance and upkeep, I've been developing a new thing that's getting closer to being unveiled. While I'm not going into specifics yet, I have high hopes for this one!

And this is just the expected – I didn't plan for the second half of 2022 to be as busy as it got, there's all the stuff I have no control over, plus I want to jump at opportunities that might present themselves, so none of the above is on the strict schedule. I'm aware of some of what I want to do, so I'm keeping at it... while still letting myself unwind with a game or book once in a while. :–)

#2023 #planning #personal #recap

– Doctacosa

]]> https://blog.interordi.com/thoughts-for-2023 Thu, 12 Jan 2023 05:00:00 +0000 A look back at the past year https://blog.interordi.com/a-look-back-at-the-past-year <![CDATA[Now, before you assume the wrong thing, this isn't a yearly recap! This post is a follow-up to various tidbits I've mentioned at some point in the past year. I think follow-ups are underrated: it's nice sometimes to have a small update to confirm (or infirm!) something from before. Back in August, I mentioned working with my tablet during a train ride. One issue I faced is that the battery barely lasted over three hours, while I was expecting much more. I'm happy to report that I've done better since, with about eight hours of usage without recharge. I'm not sure if I had a stray process wasting energy in the background before, but I'm glad to see it's now matching my expectations! In May, I described the activity chart I was working on. It's now live at the top of my portfolio, highlighting when I have been active on some of my key projects. I also added the ability to check back on previous years. While that history is incomplete, I think it's neat to see how I have been busier in some time periods more than others! Notably, we see an uptick after I decided to publish some of my code for all to see, on GitHub. A month before, in April, I wrote about my anti-TODO list. It's basically a daily note taking of the things I've done, which I've found to be a good way to reassure myself that progress does indeed happen (almost!) every day. It turns out that the notebook format I use has enough space for two years of notes, almost to the day: I started my current one on 1 January 2021, and I'll run out of room in about four days! March was when I mentioned working on my online visibility, and which social networks I could be more active on. Reading my thoughts on Twitter is funny in retrospect, especially with how... unstable the platform has been lately! I still haven't really decided anything on this topic, as nothing feels natural. One does need to go out of their comfort zone once in a while, though. More happened, of course, but I especially like how these all had something worth writing about! #projects #personal #recap - Doctacosa]]> Now, before you assume the wrong thing, this isn't a yearly recap! This post is a follow-up to various tidbits I've mentioned at some point in the past year. I think follow-ups are underrated: it's nice sometimes to have a small update to confirm (or infirm!) something from before.

Back in August, I mentioned working with my tablet during a train ride. One issue I faced is that the battery barely lasted over three hours, while I was expecting much more. I'm happy to report that I've done better since, with about eight hours of usage without recharge. I'm not sure if I had a stray process wasting energy in the background before, but I'm glad to see it's now matching my expectations!

In May, I described the activity chart I was working on. It's now live at the top of my portfolio, highlighting when I have been active on some of my key projects. I also added the ability to check back on previous years. While that history is incomplete, I think it's neat to see how I have been busier in some time periods more than others! Notably, we see an uptick after I decided to publish some of my code for all to see, on GitHub.

A month before, in April, I wrote about my anti-TODO list. It's basically a daily note taking of the things I've done, which I've found to be a good way to reassure myself that progress does indeed happen (almost!) every day. It turns out that the notebook format I use has enough space for two years of notes, almost to the day: I started my current one on 1 January 2021, and I'll run out of room in about four days!

March was when I mentioned working on my online visibility, and which social networks I could be more active on. Reading my thoughts on Twitter is funny in retrospect, especially with how... unstable the platform has been lately! I still haven't really decided anything on this topic, as nothing feels natural. One does need to go out of their comfort zone once in a while, though.

More happened, of course, but I especially like how these all had something worth writing about!

#projects #personal #recap

– Doctacosa

]]> https://blog.interordi.com/a-look-back-at-the-past-year Sun, 18 Dec 2022 05:00:00 +0000