Latest Posts (20 found)
Kev Quirk Yesterday

Linux in the Air

Sal talks about how Linux is going through somewhat of a revival at the moment, as well as some of his own thoughts on the whole Mac vs Windows vs Linux debacle. Read Post → I think a lot of this Linux revival is thanks to a perfect storm going on in the OS space, namely: I’ve been back on Linux (specifically Ubuntu) since I bought my Framework 13 , and I’ve been very happy. The only issues I’ve really had are with some apps being blurry under Wayland, but I’ve been able to easily work around these issues. Sal has had some similar problems with Wayland, but has also managed to work around them. My son also runs Linux on his iMac , and I’m about to replace Windows 10 on my wife’s X1 Carbon with Ubuntu too. So we’re going to be a Linux household very soon. And you know what? It’s fine. My son doesn’t know (or care) that he’s running Linux. My wife will be in the same boat - as long as she can check her emails, browse the web, and manage our finances in a spreadsheet, she’s good. Linux based operating systems are great, and I’m thrilled they’re going through this revival. If you’re thinking about switching, I’d implore you to do so - remember you can always try before you “buy” with a live USB. So there’s no commitment required. If you do switch, please remember to donate to your distro of choice. ❤ Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ You can reply to this post by email , or leave a comment . Microsoft forcing many users to buy new hardware because of arbitrary hardware requirements, as well as forcing users to have an online accounts. Apple completely screwing up MacOS Tahoe with their Liquid Glass update.

programming Programming linux Linux open-source Open Source
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Kev Quirk 1 weeks ago

The Case for Blogging in the Ruins

Joan makes the case that the modern web, dominated by platforms and algorithms, has stripped away depth, ownership, and genuine thought. Blogging, she argues, is a quiet act of resistance that lets us think clearly, write freely, and leave something real behind. Read Post → I’m not sure where I first heard about Joan and her superb writing, but I’ve been following her for around a year or so now, I think. Anyway, I was catching up on my RSS feeds and came across this post from a few days ago. It’s fantastic, as it most of what Joan puts out. Start a blog. Start one because the practice of writing at length, for an audience you respect, about things that matter to you, is itself valuable. Start one because owning your own platform is a form of independence that becomes more important as centralized platforms become less trustworthy. Start one because the format shapes the thought, and this format is good for thinking. I couldn’t agree more. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ You can reply to this post by email , or leave a comment .

writing Writing media Media culture Culture
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Kev Quirk 1 weeks ago

How You Read My Content (The Answers)

Two days ago I published a simple survey asking how you read the content I put out on this site. Here's the results of that survey. Originally I was going to leave the survey running for at least a week, but after less than 48 hours, I received an email from Zoho telling me I’d hit the monthly response limit of 500 responses. If I wanted more responses, I’d have to pay. Nah. 500 responses is enough to give me a good indication on how people consume my content, so I was good with that. Also, 500 responses in less than 48 hours is bloody brilliant. Assuming only a small proportion of readers actually responded (as that’s usually the case with these things) that means there’s a healthy number of you reading my waffle, so thank you! The survey simply asked “how do you read the content I put out on this site?” and there were a handful of options for responses: If someone selected the last option, a text field would appear asking for more info. There were a few people who used this option, but all were covered by the other options. People just wanted to add some nuance, or leave a nice message. ❤ So I updated all the something else responses to be one of the other 4 options, and here’s the results: A highly accurate pie chart Well, quite a lot, actually. It tells me that there’s loads of you fine people reading the content on this site, which is very heart-warming. It also tells me that RSS is by far the main way people consume my content. Which is also fantastic, as I think RSS is very important and should always be a first class citizen when it comes to delivering content to people. I was surprised at how small the number was for Mastodon, too. I have a fair number of followers over there (around 13,000 according to Fosstodon) so I was expecting that number to be a bigger slice of the pie. Clearly people follow me there more for the hot takes than my waffle. 🙃 This was a fun little experiment, even if it did end more quickly than I would have liked. Thanks to all ~500 of you who responded, really appreciate it. See, you don’t need analytics to get an idea of who’s reading your stuff and how. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ You can reply to this post by email , or leave a comment . Mastodon / Fediverse Occasionally visit the site Something else

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Kev Quirk 1 weeks ago

I've Pre-Ordered the Clicks Communicator

I've yearned for a Blackberry form-factor for years, and now Clicks have made that wish come true. I had to pre-order one! If you don’t know what the Clicks Communicator is, this 12 minute video should help: BlackBerry’s design will always have a special place in my heart. I much prefer a physical keyboard over a touchscreen, and I’ve said many times that smartphones are far too big these days. The Clicks Communicator is smaller and it has a proper QWERTY keyboard. It is all very BlackBerry, and I love that. The team have also teamed up with the Niagara Launcher developer to deliver a more focused UI. That was yet more good news for me, as I already use Niagara Launcher on my Pixel 9a. It felt like a match made in heaven, so I pre-ordered one immediately. In all honesty, I do not understand why Clicks are marketing the Communicator as a companion device. I assume they are positioning it as a slimmed down alternative for people who still want a flagship phone, but that framing feels odd. It will be running full fat Android 16, and their FAQ confirms (in the very first question, no less) that the Communicator can be used as a primary device. That is exactly how I intend to use it. The companion device messaging is confusing. At first, I assumed it was something closer to the Light Phone , but it is not that at all. It’s a normal phone. I am not a marketer, so perhaps there is a strategy here that I am missing, I just hope it does not hurt their sales. Either way, I am genuinely looking forward to receiving my Clicks Communicator later this year. I will, of course, write about it once it arrives. Has this cool new phone piqued anyone else’s interest? Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ You can reply to this post by email , or leave a comment .

android Android mobile Mobile hardware Hardware
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Kev Quirk 1 weeks ago

How Do You Read My Content?

I'm trying to get an idea on how people consume the waffle I put out, it should only take 5 seconds to respond, and I'd be very grateful. It’s well publicised that I don’t run any kind of analytics on this site . For me, engagement is far more important. But I’m trying to better understand how you fine people consume the waffle I spit out into the world. The only reason I want to do this is that I think it will be interesting to know. I could temporarily add tracking to the site, but that feels icky to me; I’d rather have something that’s opt in. So I’ve created a really simple form that you can fill in. It only has 1 question, so should take no more than a few seconds to complete. If you’re a regular reader, I’d be very grateful if you could take a few seconds out of your day to cast a vote please. The form is embedded below, but it may not embed properly in some places (like on the RSS feed), so just in case here’s a direct link to the form too . Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ You can reply to this post by email , or leave a comment .

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Kev Quirk 2 weeks ago

Good Riddance, 2025

I'm glad to see the back of 2025, so let's focus on 2026. As I write this, it’s 18:49 on New Year’s Eve. I’m sat in the lounge, with the fire going, annoyed that our NYE plans have been ruined by me having the flu. I feels like an appropriately shitty end to a very shitty year. In 2025, I: Yeah, it’s been rough. But toward the end of the year I made some decisions to make my life more sustainable. So I’m going to try and not dwell on the past, but instead look forward to the future. As I look to 2026, I want to: There’s more I want to do, but if I can get these done, I’ll consider 2026 a win. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ You can reply to this post by email , or leave a comment . Worked way too much Spent too much time away from home travelling for work Neglected those I love Helped my Mum, where possible, through recovering from a heart attack Lost my sister Eat healthier and lose weight Exercise more Spend more time with loved ones Stop being such a shitty friend and make more of an effort

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Kev Quirk 3 weeks ago

Is Firefox Firefucked?

I've been using Firefox for over 20 years at this point, but after a stream of cock-ups, I'm thinking about moving on. I’ve been using Firefox since 2005, so not long after it was first released. I distinctly remember the first time I heard about it - I was on a training course with the Army and the instructor was using Firefox. Netscape was effectively dead, and everyone was using Internet Explorer, but I’ve always been a magpie for the new shiny, so when I saw his browser, I asked him about it. He told me about it being a fork of Netscape (which was my browser of choice when I first started using the Internet), so I jumped on board and have been happily using Firefox ever since. Well, I was happy up until the last few years. I first wrote about my concerns with Firefox’s direction back in 2022 where I talked about the ever increasing CEO salary, despite their ever decreasing market share, their teaming up with Meta on Interoperable Private Attribution (IPA) , them shilling cryptocurrencies, and of course the fact they’re pretty much entirely funded by Google. Well, over the last 3 years, things haven’t gotten any better and my concerns around the direction Mozilla is taking Firefox have continued to rise. On top of the few concerns I had back in 2022, there’s a bloody list of additional concerns I’ve picked up since then: Mozilla have been getting a lot of shit for the last few days about the whole modern AI browser comment their new CEO made. And rightly so, I think. To me, there’s a clear difference between a browser that has AI capabilities embedded in it, like an AI chat bot, and an AI browser . The latter aren’t browsers. They’re an abstraction layer between you (the user) and the web, summarising, filtering, and rewriting it before you ever see the original, and I have no desire to be a part of that mess. I don’t mind having a browser with a chat bot embedded in it, as long as it can be switched off. I’d prefer for it to be opt-in, but meh, if it’s only a rocker switch in settings, while annoying, I can live with it. But having this layer of abstraction between me and the web that I know and love? No thank you. I’m worried about the direction Firefox is headed in. Not just because of their AI strategy; I actually think that’s a symptom, not the root cause. The root cause, as I see it, is that the leadership team at Mozilla has no fucking clue how to make Firefox a sustainable business, so they’re just throwing shit at the wall and hoping something sticks. All while giving their CEO larger and larger salaries. Because Mozilla has been suckling on Google’s teat since the very early days, they’ve never had to make a sustainable business. Google dodged the bullet and wasn’t ultimately forced to sell Chrome, but it exposed just how dependent Mozilla still is on Google’s money, and now it looks like they’re scrambling to invent a strategy of their own. But it’s shit, and as a long-term user of Firefox, it feels almost user-hostile at this point. Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve been dabbling in other browsers, but haven’t found anything I like as much as Firefox. While I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not looking for browser recommendations. So please don’t contact me with recommendations. By all means contact me with your opinions on all this though. Vivaldi has too many bells and whistles for my liking, plus there’s a number of UI inconsistencies that annoy me. Brave has all the crypto nonsense embedded, but it can be switched off. Then there’s forks like Librewolf and Waterfox, but they’re intrinsically tied to upstream Firefox, and they don’t have mobile apps. So I’m not sure they’re a good option, either. Correction from future Kev: Waterfox does in fact have an Android app . Firefox won’t be changing to a modern AI browser any time soon, so there’s no rush for me to jump right now. So I’m planning to continue testing alternatives and just hope that the Mozilla leadership team have a course correction. But if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that a course correction is unlikely to happen. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA) - In Sept 2024, Mozilla rolled out this new PPA feature that was enabled by default and helped advertisers measure performance without traditional tracking. Adjusted telemetry in mobile app - Firefox mobile versions shipped with a third-party telemetry SDK (Adjust) that sent usage and install data without prominent user disclosure. After pushback, this was later removed [slow clap]. Buying an Ad firm - yes, that’s right, dear reader. Everyone’s favourite FOSS web browser decided to buy an ad firm , because, you know, “privacy-centric adverts” . We won’t sell you data, pinky promise… - in early 2025 a formal Firefox Terms of Use was introduced , which included a clause granting Mozilla a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence” to use user-entered data. At the same time, they quietly removed explicit “never sell user data” language from privacy messaging. Brilliant. What’s the strategy? - as we move to mid-2025 it started to become clear that Firefox’s leadership is out of touch with their users . Firefox to evolve into an AI browser - that’s right, according to their new CEO Firefox is set to “evolve into a modern AI browser” .

ai AI
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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

The Fisherman and The Businessman

I didn't expect a parable about a fisherman to smack me in the face with such clarity, but here we are. While reading Grow slowly, stay small on Herman’s blog, I learned about The Fisherman and The Businessman , which goes like this: A businessman meets a fisherman who is selling fish at his stall one morning. The businessman enquires of the fisherman what he does after he finishes selling his fish for the day. The fisherman responds that he spends time with his friends and family, cooks good food, and watches the sunset with his wife. Then in the morning he wakes up early, takes his boat out on the ocean, and catches some fish. The businessman, shocked that the fisherman was wasting so much time encourages him fish for longer in the morning, increasing his yield and maximising the utility of his boat. Then he should sell those extra fish in the afternoon and save up until he has enough money to buy a second fishing boat and potentially employ some other fishermen. Focus on the selling side of the business, set up a permanent store, and possibly, if he does everything correctly, get a loan to expand the operation even further. In 10 to 20 years he could own an entire fishing fleet, make a lot of money, and finally retire. The fisherman then asks the businessman what he would do with his days once retired, to which the businessman responds: “Well, you could spend more time with your friends and family, cook good food, watch the sunset with your wife, and wake up early in the morning and go fishing, if you want.” – Herman Martinus Ah man, preach! This resonated so much because I recently realised that I’m The Fisherman . Well, to be more accurate, I was The Fisherman posing as The Businessman . Now I’m just The Fisherman, and it’s lovely. Since stepping down as an executive I’ve become happier, got far more job satisfaction, and I spend more time with my family. I’ve also realised that a lot of what was driving me was ego. I wanted to be important. I wanted the fancy title, the corner office, the prestige . I wanted the job for all the wrong reasons. I’m not saying all execs are egomaniacs. I’m saying my reasons for chasing that level were mostly ego. That’s on me. At this point I have what I think is the perfect balance between pay, free time, and job satisfaction. I love my job again and I’m really fucking happy. What’s the point of this post? Honestly, I have no idea. I just wanted to share this great little parable and say thanks to Herman for sharing it originally. If you’re not happy with your job, maybe it’s worth asking which one you’re being right now. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email

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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

Year 3 at the Smallholding

We're been living on our smallholding in Wales for 3 years now. Here's how things have been going this year. I’m a little late with my update this year because I’ve had a few things going on at home. This has accidentally become an annual tradition at this point, so I’m gonna roll with it. I re-read last year’s update to see what I did and, more importantly, what I’d listed in the closing what’s next? section. It included: Well, dear reader, most of that plan went to utter rat shit this year. Aside from continuing to work on the garden, we got absolutely nothing on the list done. That’s mainly because we ended up having to replace the entire roof on the house, which is still ongoing as I write this. Worse still, because the new roof is heading into winter, we’ve had lots of rain. That in turn means leaks in the house, the worst of which has been in my oldest son’s bedroom. If you read last year’s post, you’ll recall we only renovated that room last year. 😡 If you’ve never had to put a new roof on your house, firstly you’re very lucky. But secondly, they’re really expensive. So that has meant we haven’t had any disposable income for other projects. We managed to plant some wildflowers in the far field, which one of our neighbours who keeps bees is very appreciative of. Wild flowers starting to come through in field We also had a load of groundwork done at the back to flatten some of it off. They ended up moving 50 tonnes of soil from the area to make it level. Our hope is that this summer we’ll be able to enjoy drinks and barbecues on the new flat piece of land. We’re also continuing to improve the chicken coop. We now have a fairly large enclosed outdoor space for them, mainly because of bird flu in the and the council applying restrictions on where they can roam. We’ve also grown the flock to 17 hens and a rooster. The list for this year is going to be similar to last year’s. I just hope there will be fewer expensive surprises. We’re hoping to add a polytunnel so we can grow more of our own vegetables. I’d also like to insulate the roof in the conservatory as it’ll effectively give us another room we can use all year round. The bathrooms, toilet and kitchen will have to wait. We’ll just have to see how the cashflow looks. If next year I can get the polytunnel and conservatory done, I’ll class that as a win. I’d love to get a quad bike for towing the flail too, but again…money. All in all it’s been a difficult year at the smallholding, but we have a new roof, so that’s good. I suppose… Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email Renovating the brick shed on the drive into an annex for guests. Continuing to work on the garden. Insulating the roof in the conservatory. Two more bathrooms, a downstairs loo, and the kitchen.

culture Culture writing Writing
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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

How I Replaced My Son’s PC With an £88 iMac

I recently replaced my son's broken PC with a 2015 iMac from eBay. Here's how it went... A year or so ago, my wife and I gave our oldest son a spare computer we had lying around. This was mainly for homework, but also for some light gaming, like Minecraft and Super Tux Cart. The machine was actually the little home server I built a few years ago. At 6 years old the motherboard decided to give up the ghost and blew. After talking to him about it, we decided to look for something a bit smaller and cool looking. Originally I was going to go with one of those Raspberry Pi keyboards , but they’re £200 and would likely struggle playing Minecraft. Then I read about someone loading Linux onto an old Mac with great success (I can’t remember who it was, so can’t provide a link I’m afraid). Anyway, I’ve always loved the look of the old iMacs, so decided to have a peek on eBay for one. I ended up finding a late-2015 21.5” iMac with 8GB RAM, a 1TB HDD, and a 4th Gen Core i5 processor for £88, delivered! For that price I wasn’t expecting much. But it looked clean in the pictures, so I decided to take a punt. While waiting for it to arrive, I ordered CPU paste, adhesive strips for resealing the screen, and a RAM upgrade before realising the RAM is soldered on these models, so that was a bust. I also replace the tired old HDD with the 512GB SSD from my son’s previous machine. I opened it up, replaced the paste, installed the SSD, and sealed it back up. The SSD already had Ubuntu Mate 22.04 on it with all his files and Minecraft maps, so I booted it and let the drivers sort themselves out. A quick later and everything worked perfectly. I also bumped it to 24.04 while I was there. Here’s how the new machine looks on his little desk in his bedroom: Pretty cool, I think you’ll agree. Oh lordy, this thing is quick ! It boots up in a few seconds, every single app opens pretty much instantly, and he gets a stable 60+ FPS on Minecraft. He’s thrilled with it, and so are we. So much so that we will probably do the same thing again next year when we look to get a machine for our youngest. If you’re on the hunt for a new device, I’d seriously consider looking at an Intel Mac with Linux. They’re blazing fast, they look great, and are amazing value. The only downside is that this window is closing. Apple’s move to the M-series chips means Linux support will be tougher over time. Projects like Asahi Linux exist, but support varies and the long-term outlook is unclear. For now though, our oldest son has a solid machine that should last him for a few years. If it dies again, I’ll probably look at a Framework 12 , but hopefully it won’t come to that. What do you think about running Linux on older hardware? Would you try something like this? Leave a comment or drop me an email and let me know. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email

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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

Local vs Cloud

I was listening to the Waveform podcast on my way to work this morning and they were talking about cloud vs local computing, and I have thoughts... I was listening to the Waveform podcast on my commute this morning when they started talking about cloud vs local computing. The discussion quickly drifted into hypotheticals about unlimited storage and choosing one world or the other. But the whole debate felt off to me, because it rests on a bad assumption: that “cloud” and “local” are two totally separate things. Before we can argue about cloud vs local, we need to be clear about what we’re comparing. People talk about the cloud like it’s some mystical ether, but as the saying goes, it’s really just someone else’s computer. If it’s a machine you don’t own, sitting in a datacentre somewhere, it’s cloud. By contrast, local doesn’t just mean “ the laptop you’re holding ”. It includes anything you own and control: your PC, a server in a cupboard, or a NAS on your home network. Once you see it this way, the Waveform question becomes more interesting. Because I think local can include your own private cloud. At home I use a Synology NAS as the centre of my own little ecosystem. It runs all the services I rely on daily, but with the convenience you’d usually expect from big cloud providers. A few examples: Everything lives on hardware I control, but it’s still available wherever I am. Backups are handled locally (to a USB drive connected to the Synology) and off-site (to Backblaze B2, encrypted before upload). The result is a system that behaves like a cloud service, but where I hold the keys. Here’s my extremely high-quality architectural diagram: No, I never studied art. I’m not going to get into specifics for obvious reasons, but the short version is that my Synology isn’t exposed to the Internet at all. My router only accepts traffic from specific networks, so I connect over VPN. It’s always-on for me and my wife, so the experience is completely transparent. If you’re thinking of building something like this, I’d strongly recommend not exposing any part of your home network directly to the Internet. Back to the original question. The unlimited storage bit doesn’t matter; you only need enough storage, not infinite. Given the choice between 100% cloud or 100% local, I’d choose local every time. Not because I want to avoid cloud-like features, but because local gives me the same benefits without giving away control. My photos sync automatically, I can share links to files, edit documents anywhere, and my data is backed up properly . The truth is that the whole premise of cloud vs local is a false choice. You don’t have to pick one at the expense of the other. You can have the convenience of the cloud running entirely on hardware you own. The real choice isn’t cloud or local, it’s whose cloud you want to rely on. What do you think? Do you lean toward cloud, local, or something in between? Feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email, I’d love to hear how you approach it. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email Plex for media Synology Photos for backing up images from my phone Calendar and Contacts, all synced via DAV Synology Drive for documents My journal app A notes app I use for Fediverse posts, so I have local copies of everything I post

hardware Hardware cloud Cloud
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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

Static Site Generators

Jan talks about how static site generators are far more complicated than WordPress, despite (ironically) their output being far simpler. Read Post → I enjoyed this post from Jan once I’d translated it from Dutch and could actually read it. He talks about the irony of how the output of a static site generator is so simple, yet they’re somehow difficult to set up and maintain. Since I’ve been around the block when it comes to blogging platforms, I have some thoughts on this. While talking about his time testing Jekyll , Jan says: Ruby dependency mess, this is not what anyone wants, drama. I get where he’s coming from. Dependency issues with Ruby can be annoying. But honestly, I can’t say I’ve had any real problems with Jekyll while using Ubuntu. For me it’s been as simple as following the install instructions , running a quick , and I was off to the races. Yes, setting up a static site is definitely more involved than installing WordPress. I completely agree there. But once it’s up and running, I’ve found there’s very little ongoing maintenance. The worst it gets for me is when a gem updates and I need to run before getting back to work. WordPress, on the other hand, has always been more frustrating for me to manage. There’s just so much noise in the admin UI. So many panels, so many settings, so much stuff most people will never touch. And then you have plugins, their updates, their banners, their upsells. It becomes… messy. That said, if you’re willing to ignore those frustrations, WordPress can be simple. Especially if you stick to an off-the-shelf theme and don’t tinker. The truth is, it’s great that we have all these options. Different people have different expectations, preferences, and levels of comfort. Some folks want a managed dashboard full of knobs and switches. Others want a quiet folder of Markdown files and a build command. I don’t agree that static site generators are inherently more difficult than WordPress. It really comes down to the use case and the person using the tool. Anyway, go read Jan’s post — it’s interesting. And if you have opinions, drop me an email or leave a comment below. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email

ruby Ruby Jamstack web-development Web Development
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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

Adding Comments to My Jekyll Site

I've been working on adding support for comments over the last few months. On a static site, that's hard, but it's finally done. A few months ago Maurice Renck and I were having a conversation on the Fedi (I think) and he mentioned that he would prefer to leave a comment than send me an email. Since then I’ve also seen a few other people talk about how they like to see a comments section on blogs. So while I’ve been pissing about with Jekyll recently, I decided to build a commenting system for this site. That’s a fantastic question, dear reader, and the answer is that all the solutions I’ve found are either too expensive, not privacy focused, or don’t appear to be getting regular updates. Why are commenting systems so bloody expensive? Like, they’re pretty simple, so why on earth does it cost more than the VPS that hosts the entire site to have what basically equates to an embedded form and a teeny-weeny DB that stores maybe a few hundred KB of plaintext? Especially when a very small percentage of people are likely to bother leaving a comment. Annnnyyyyywwwwwwaaaaaayyyyyy……. For the last month or so, I’ve been working away on creating my own commenting system that has the features that I’d want to see, which are: My little commenting system is now live available at the bottom of this and every other post on this site. I’m fully expecting there to be the odd bug - if you find any, please do let me know . Here’s a peek at what the admin UI looks like when someone comments (right-click > open in new tab to enlarge): I’m thinking about releasing the source code for this so other folk can have a commenting system on their own site. I’m also considering developing this to a point where I can offer it as a hosted solution for others to use, but I’m not sure I want that in my life. If I do, it won’t be expensive. In the meantime, if you want to leave a comment, the form is below. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email Independent of the site they work with so they can be easily removed if I want to (embedded by loading a JS script). Be privacy focussed - no tracking or requirements to login/create an account. Send email notifications via Amazon SES when someone submits a new comment, or when someone replies to your comment (if you provided an email). Have a simple admin UI where I can approve/delete comments before they’re published, and reply.

javascript JavaScript open-source Open Source web-development Web Development
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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

RE: Why Do You Need Big Tech for Your SSG?

Loren posts a response arguing that while self-hosting and local builds have their charm, the simplicity and zero-maintenance nature of services like Netlify often make them the more practical choice for small personal sites. Read Post → I enjoyed this post as it approaches the problem I wrote about yesterday from a completely different perspective. While I spoke about rolling my own infrastructure and building locally to maintain control, Loren talks about the simplicity and cost (free!) of hosting with services like Netlify. Loren closes his post by saying: If you’re running a complex site or you’re philosophically opposed to big platforms, a VPS + rsync pipeline might be worth it. […] For my tiny, low-traffic static site, the convenience, zero cost, and redirect handling of GitHub + Netlify are hard to beat. I think this is the crux of the whole discussion. For me, it’s more about control than being opposed to big platform. I think they have their place, but for my use case, my personal blog isn’t it. For Loren, it’s all about simplicity and just getting shit done. It’s fantastic that we have different options that allow for more control, or for ease of use. As a result, we have a diverse pool of people and opinions on the Indie Web, and I don’t think anyone can argue against that being a good thing. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email

Jamstack web-development Web Development devops DevOps
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Kev Quirk 1 months ago

Why Do You Need Big Tech for Your SSG?

A look at why small, personal websites don’t need big-tech static hosting, and how a simple local build and rsync workflow gives you faster deploys, more control, and far fewer dependencies. OK, so Cloudflare shit the bed yesterday and the Internet went into meltdown. A config file grew too big and half the bloody web fell over. How fragile . It got me thinking about my fellow small-web compatriots, their SSG workflows, and why on earth so many rely on services like Cloudflare Pages and Netlify. For personal sites it feels incredibly wasteful: you’re spinning up a VM, building your site, pushing the result to their platform, then tearing the VM down again. Why not just build the site on your local machine? You’re not beholden to anyone, and you can host your site anywhere you like. All you need is a hosting package that supports SSH (or FTP if you must) and a small script to build your site and rsync any changes. Here’s the core of my deployment script: Here’s what it does: That’s it. And that’s all it needs to do. With these few lines of Bash, I can deploy anywhere, without waiting for someone else’s infrastructure to spin up a build container. My full script also checks the git status, commits changes, and clears the Bunny CDN cache, but none of that’s required. The snippet above does everything Cloudflare Pages and similar services do — and does it much quicker. My entire deploy, including the extras, takes about eight seconds. If you’re hosting with one of the big static hosting platforms, why not consider moving away and actually owning your little corner of the web? They’re great for complex projects, but unnecessary for most personal sites. Then, the next time big tech has a brain fart, your patch of the web will probably sail right through it. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email ✅ No CI/CD pipeline. ✅ No big tech — just you and your server. ✅ No VMs spinning up and down at the speed of a thousand gazelles. Jumps into the directory where my source website files live. Builds the Jekyll site locally. Syncs the built files to my server over SSH, deleting anything I’ve removed locally.

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Kev Quirk 2 months ago

Small Web, Big Voice

Andre argues that independent blogging isn’t about scale at all, but about integrity — choosing a place you control, writing in your own voice, and keeping the web human. Read Post → I read this post this morning while I was perusing my RSS feeds with a coffee. Firstly, I’m not sharing this because Andre called out my blog (although being bundled with people like Rach and Manu is extremely flattering). I’m sharing it because I agree with everything he says in the post. Having a place on the web that I’m 100% in control of, where I can share my own thoughts, feelings, and opinions is very powerful for me. Over time this blog has evolved from me sharing technical posts most of the time, to a legit personal blog with a technical twist. Despite what sites like ProBlogger say, I don’t have a niche, and I don’t try to grow my audience ( I don’t even know how big my audience is ). I just write whatever is on my mind at any given time, and people usually get in touch with me to discuss the topic. It’s fantastic. If you’re on the fence about starting a blog, I implore you to do so. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done with a computer. If you, please drop me an email with the link - I love discovering new blogs! Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email

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Kev Quirk 2 months ago

Giving My Jekyll Site a CDN Front End

I've managed to get my Jekyll based site working behind Bunny CDN, while maintaining my .htaccess redirects. Here's how I did it... Since switching back to Jekyll recently, I’ve been running this site on a Ionos-hosted VPS, then using a little deploy script to build the site and rsync it up. This all worked fine, but I really wanted to use Bunny CDN for more than just hosting a few images and my custom font. Being a static site, I could have dumped everything onto their storage platform, but I have a metric tonne of redirects in a file from various platform migrations over the years . Bunny’s Edge Platform could have handled these, but with the number of redirects I have, it would have been a slog to maintain. So I assumed I’d never be able to put Bunny in front of my Jekyll site easily and went about my business. 💡 Then I had an epiphany. What if I created a Bunny pull zone that uses as the public domain, then set up a separate domain on my VPS, host the site there, and use that as the pull zone origin? My theory was that Bunny would still be requesting content from the VPS, so my redirects might still work. …turns out, they did. I duplicated my live site so I could experiment safely. The setup looked like this: The first thing I had to do was update the field in my Jekyll from to , rebuild the site, and upload it to . Now, you might be thinking, “Kev, why build the site with the wrong domain?” But I haven’t. By building the site with the test domain, all links point to . If I built it with the origin domain, all internal links would lead to the wrong place. They would still work, but the site would be served from , which is not what I want. Next up was redirect testing. I visited , which should hit and redirect to . The redirect worked fine, but the resulting URL was being served from the origin domain. So instead of seeing I saw . This happened because Bunny requested the file from the origin using its own hostname, not the hostname I typed. In simple terms: So Apache went: “Oh, you want ? Sure. That’s at . Here ya go…” This would not break anything for visitors, but I didn’t want appearing anywhere. It looked messy. Two changes fixed it: Forward Host Headers makes Bunny tell the VPS the hostname the visitor used. So instead of: “I’m asking for this on behalf of .” Bunny says: “I’m asking for this on behalf of , not .” The domain alias ensures Apache accepts that hostname and serves it correctly. The other thing to double-check is that every page sets a proper URL. The origin domain is publicly accessible, so crawlers need to know which domain is the real one. That should always be the Bunny pull zone domain. In Jekyll this is simple. Add the following to the section of your layout: With the redirect behaviour sorted, the last step was to add a purge step to my deploy script so Bunny knows to fetch the latest version whenever I publish a new post or update something. Here’s the snippet I added: I set my Bunny API key and Pull Zone ID as variables at the top of the script. The statement simply says, “If the response isn’t 200 or 204, tell Kev what went wrong.” And that is it. Last night I flipped the switch. Bunny CDN now sits in front of the live site. I also moved the VPS from Ionos to Hetzner because Ionos now charge extra for a Plesk licence. I went with Hestia as the control panel on the new server. If you spot any bugs, please do let me know, but everything should be hopping along nicely now. (See what I did there? God I’m funny!) Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email - the domain configured in the Bunny pull zone - the origin domain on my VPS, where the site actually lives I visited . Bunny checked its cache. It wasn’t there, so it asked my origin for the file. But Bunny made that request using its own hostname ( ), not the one I typed. Apache saw the request coming from and applied the redirect to . Apache then rebuilt the redirect URL using the hostname it was given, which was . Enable Forward Host Headers in my Bunny pull zone. Add as a domain alias of on my VPS.

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Kev Quirk 2 months ago

Email Is Amazing, but People Try Their Best to Ruin It

Alex has written a lovely reflection on rediscovering the joy of email as a slower, more deliberate way to talk with people. Well worth a read if you miss when the inbox felt like a conversation, not a chore. Read Post → Alex’s blog is a one that I only discovered a couple days ago when he emailed me about my previous post . We ended up having a good old natter about all kinds of things. As is par for the course, I checked out his blog, quickly found we have a lot in common, and our love of email is one of them. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m very anal with my email and like Alex, I also look forward to checking my email every morning as there’s usually at least 1 interesting email from a reader. Today I have 5 of them to reply to (including a response from Alex) - it’s one of my favourite times of the day. Anyway, I digress. Like Alex, I love email - it’s a fantastic way to communicate with the rest of the world. It’s a tried and tested, robust tool. It’s not email that’s the problem, it’s the people who use it. Alex is also building his own CMS for HTML , which is another thing we have in common . Anyway, go read his blog. It’s great. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email

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Kev Quirk 2 months ago

What Happens After We Die?

My mum recently asked me what I think happens after we die. Not being religious, I think my response surprised her. The death of my sister has been weighing heavily on my mum’s mind, and she recently asked me what I think happens after we die. She knows I’m an atheist, so she wasn’t expecting anything spiritual or religious. Even so, I think my answer gave her some comfort, so I thought I’d share it here. My initial response was very direct: nothing . She paused, then asked: What? Like just blackness? No. “Blackness” still implies something . I think death is the absence of anything at all. Just like before you were born: there’s no consciousness, no awareness, no blackness. Simply nothing. But I could tell she wanted more than a blunt philosophical answer, so I went a bit deeper. I genuinely believe that, after we die, we’re all reincarnated. Not spiritually, but literally. Every element that makes us - oxygen, nitrogen, iron, calcium etc. were forged in the heart of a star through nuclear fusion. Lighter elements like hydrogen and helium came from earlier processes, but the vast majority of what we’re made of was created in stars. So yes, dear reader, you’re made of stardust. 🌟 When we die, all of those elements that make you you break down and are reabsorbed into the universe. And basic physics tells us that energy cannot be created or destroyed. So the energy that powered you is also recycled back into the cosmos. So what happens after we die? Given enough time, the elements that formed my body and the energy that animated it will likely be used again to create new life. It won’t be me in any conscious sense, but some part of what once was me will exist in something else. That feels like a kind of reincarnation. I don’t think this was the answer my mum was expecting, but she told me she liked it. It gave her some comfort to know that even though Lisa is gone, the physical stuff that made her is being recycled. In that sense, she isn’t truly gone. None of us are. What do you think happens after we die? I know this is all a bit deep and meaningful, and a departure of what I usually post. But this is the shit that’s rattling around my grey matter at the moment. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email

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Kev Quirk 2 months ago

Archive or Delete?

When it comes to email, are you an archiver or a deleter? Chris talks about his approach, and some of what others do. I thought I’d add my approach to the pile. Read Post → When it comes to email, I’m extremely anal. I’m a zero inbox kinda guy - my inbox is a place for emails to temporarily live before I deal with them. Once they’re dealt with, they either get archived or deleted. Right now I have 5 emails in my personal mailbox, and 7 in my work email. I treat it as a kind of living to-do list. I get tonnes of email, especially in work (hundreds a day), so to anyone who says they get too much email to do inbox zero, I call bullshit. Anyway, I digress, this post isn’t about my love of zero inbox. That’s a post for another day. After reading Chris’ post, I dropped him an email with my thoughts, but I decided to write them out here too. Personally, I do a combination of both. I probably delete around half of the email I receive, but for the other half, I do one of two things: I have a clean up of my mailbox at the end of every year. Everything in my sent items and archives get moved to a sub-folder by year, then the oldest year gets deleted. I only keep 3 years of mail in my mailbox. The exception to this is my Keep folder. Stuff in there is considered important and kept indefinitely. I host my email with Zoho , where I get 5GB of storage space. Some people think that’s not a lot, considering you get 3x that with a free Gmail account. But 5GB is an absolute shit-tonne of storage when you consider that emails are basically text with the odd attachment. With my 3 year archive, and decades of important email in my Keep folder, I’m currently using 1.19GB of the space that comes with my mailbox. Sorry, I went off on another tangent there…clearly I’m very passionate about email and should probably write more posts about it. Maybe I should start a blog dedicated to email, just like Chris did ! 🤔 So that’s my approach to archive vs deletion , what do you do? I hope you’re not one of those heathens who has tens of thousands of unread email in your inbox? If so, I’m not sure we can be friends. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is great, and you're great for using it. ❤️ Reply to this post by email Archive it. Move it to my Keep folder.

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