What I done did in November 2020
Exciting times ahead
Built my first app for Solid
At the start of the month I took a dive into building an app that uses a Solid pod for data storage. I’ve been wanting to give Solid a go for a while now as I think it will be something we’ll see in the future, either in it’s current form as an open source project or as an government/enterprise level adoption that means people use their work/government pods for everyday use.
I do have a few concerns around Solid and it’s lack of granular permissions but as it gets adopted more I’m sure that’ll be resolved as more and more users ask for it.
Started to get my app ready for beta
November was a big month on the app front, all the non-techy bits needed to release the app (company, banking, developer accounts etc) have been set up and now I’m just going through the app with a fine-tooth comb to make sure I’m happy with what’s going into beta.
I’m really looking forward to getting the app in people’s hands for the beta and while I’m prepared for people to tell me how ugly my baby is I’m slightly anxious of the last 6 months being a time sink.
But that’s all part of the process, it’ll fail but there’ll be a lot learned to make the next stab a little more successful.
Built my first app for Miro
I really love Miro, it’s a great app that I use everyday in both my day job and when building the app.
I noticed that Miro has a SDK for building plugins for the web version that seemed pretty straight forward so I decided to give an idea I had a go and in an evening was able to get a basic version of the idea running.
I was very happy with the results and once the app is in beta I’ll likely develop the Miro plugin idea further, although I have yet to really see how a developer can make money directly from the Miro marketplace.
Upgraded my PC
In June I decided to buy myself my first non-Apple PC in 14 years. I wrote about why I decided to not buy another Mac at the time and the points I made then still very stand.
Since then I’ve experimented with various different window managers for Linux (as you do) and ran with awesomewm and while it was a really cool set I’ve since gone back to Unity.
As I got used to use a proper desktop (not just a Macbook hooked up to a monitor) I started to get into gaming and ultimately ended up buying a 1TB to install Windows onto so I could run WoW and Steam properly.
I also bunged another 32GB of RAM in there while I was at it and it only set me back about £200.
The price and the ability to upgrade the components in the system easily is something I don’t think have really been possible with a Macbook Pro 2013.
I think even with the M1 chip coming out on the new Macbooks and it’s performance amazing everyone I don’t think I’ll ever get another Mac and will likely emulate Mac OSX for my development needs once my 2016 Macbook is deemed not worthy of updates.
