https://jessicajournals.com/ Recent content in Home on Jessica Journals Hugo -- gohugo.io en-uk Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/aoty-2025/ Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/aoty-2025/ <p>In this post extremely belated post, I&rsquo;ll look back on the music I&rsquo;ve listened to in 2025 and what ended up on my list of top fifty albums. I&rsquo;ll be counting down to my favourite album of the year, and listing my three favourite tracks from each album, though these tracks aren&rsquo;t in ranked order.</p> <p>Usually, I write a little about each album, but due to ongoing fatigue, I&rsquo;ve decided it&rsquo;s better to at least get the list out rather than be bogged down with this barrier. I do feel bad about it, as I&rsquo;d love to explain why certain albums are where they are, and what it was I liked and disliked in an album, maybe I&rsquo;ll be able to return and expand at a later date, but for now, this is the list.</p> <p>And yes, these are my favourite albums of the year, not necessarily the best, but the ones I have enjoyed the most. Not every album here is amazing, but nonetheless had at least three songs I liked - though the list is strong this year and I can easily say I liked every album, in one way or another, that landed up here!</p> <p>There is also a full list of all the albums listed at the end.</p> <h2 id="50-revelation---the-knocks--dragonette">50: Revelation - The Knocks &amp; Dragonette</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Dance, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Dreams</li> <li>The Hero</li> <li>Let My Love Open The Door</li> </ul> <h2 id="49-oyster---chloe-moriondo">49: oyster - chloe moriondo</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>hate it</li> <li>oyster</li> <li>use</li> </ul> <h2 id="48-whos-the-clown---audrey-hobert">48: Who&rsquo;s the Clown? - Audrey Hobert</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Alternative</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Sue me</li> <li>Don&rsquo;t go back to his ass</li> <li>Sex and the city</li> </ul> <h2 id="47-off-with-her-head---banks">47: Off With Her Head - BANKS</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, R&amp;B</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>I Hate Your Ex-Girlfriend</li> <li>Meddle In The Mold</li> <li>Best Friends</li> </ul> <h2 id="46-euro-country---cmat">46: EURO-COUNTRY - CMAT</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Alternative, Country</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>When A Good Man Cries</li> <li>Coronation St.</li> <li>Take A Sexy Picture Of Me</li> </ul> <h2 id="45-returning-to-myself---brandi-carlile">45: Returning To Myself - Brandi Carlile</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Folk, Rock</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Human</li> <li>Returning To Myself</li> <li>Church &amp; State</li> </ul> <h2 id="44-i-feel-everything---maggie-lindemann">44: i feel everything - Maggie Lindemann</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Rock</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>it&rsquo;s still you</li> <li>i don&rsquo;t belong here</li> <li>joyride</li> </ul> <h2 id="43-not-for-lack-of-trying---dodie">43: Not For Lack Of Trying - dodie</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Folk, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Darling, Angel, Baby</li> <li>I Feel Bad For You, Dave</li> <li>Different</li> </ul> <h2 id="42-princess-of-power---marina">42: PRINCESS OF POWER - MARINA</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>CUNTISSIMO</li> <li>DIGITAL FANTASY</li> <li>KEY TO THE CASTLE</li> </ul> <h2 id="41-dont-tease-me-with-a-good-time---jessie-j">41: Don&rsquo;t Tease Me With A Good Time - Jessie J</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>THREW IT AWAY</li> <li>BELIEVE IN MAGIC / JOY (INTERLUDE)</li> <li>I&rsquo;LL NEVER KNOW WHY</li> </ul> <h2 id="40-perrie---perrie">40: Perrie - Perrie</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>If He Wanted To He Would</li> <li>Pushing Up Daisies</li> <li>Bonnie and Clyde</li> </ul> <h2 id="39-forever-is-a-feeling---lucy-dacus">39: Forever Is A Feeling - Lucy Dacus</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Big Deal</li> <li>Best Guess</li> <li>Lost Time</li> </ul> <h2 id="38-for-melancholy-brunettes-and-sad-women---japanese-breakfast">38: For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women) - Japanese Breakfast</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Honey Water</li> <li>Mega Circut</li> <li>Picture Window</li> </ul> <h2 id="37-willoughby-tucker-ill-always-love-you---ethel-cain">37: Willoughby Tucker, I&rsquo;ll Always Love You - Ethel Cain</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Folk</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Tempest</li> <li>Nettles</li> <li>Fuck Me Eyes</li> </ul> <h2 id="36-flux---alison-goldfrapp">36: Flux - Alison Goldfrapp</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electropop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Reverberotic</li> <li>Hey Hi Hello</li> <li>Find Xanadu</li> </ul> <h2 id="35-a6---lights">35: A6 - Lights</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>SURFACE TENSION</li> <li>WHITE PAPER PALM TREES</li> <li>CLINGY</li> </ul> <h2 id="34-mans-best-friend---sabrina-carpenter">34: Man&rsquo;s Best Friend - Sabrina Carpenter</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Tears</li> <li>Goodbye</li> <li>House Tour</li> </ul> <h2 id="33-a-complicated-woman---self-esteem">33: A Complicated Woman - Self Esteem</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Mother</li> <li>Lies</li> <li>69</li> </ul> <h2 id="32----kesha">32: . - Kesha</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Rock, Folk</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>JOYRIDE.</li> <li>LOVE FOREVER.</li> <li>ATTENTION!</li> </ul> <h2 id="31-addison---addison-rae">31: Addison - Addison Rae</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Fame is a Gun</li> <li>Aquamarine</li> <li>In The Rain</li> </ul> <h2 id="30-everybody-scream---florence--the-machine">30: Everybody Scream - Florence + The Machine</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Rock, Alternative, Experimental</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>One of the Greats</li> <li>The Old Religion</li> <li>And Love</li> </ul> <h2 id="29-happiness-is-going-to-get-you---allie-x">29: Happiness Is Going To Get You - Allie X</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Down Season</li> <li>Uncle Lenny</li> <li>It&rsquo;s Just Light</li> </ul> <h2 id="28-midnight-sun---zara-larsson">28: Midnight Sun - Zara Larsson</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Saturn&rsquo;s Return</li> <li>Eurosummer</li> <li>Hot &amp; Sexy</li> </ul> <h2 id="27-the-dream---the-favors">27: The Dream - The Favors</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Folk, Alternative, Rock</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>The Little Mess You Made</li> <li>Home Sweet Home</li> <li>David&rsquo;s Brother</li> </ul> <h2 id="26-eusexua---fka-twigs">26: EUSEXUA - FKA twigs</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Eusexua</li> <li>Sticky</li> <li>Striptease</li> </ul> <h2 id="25-tunnel-vision---beach-bunny">25: Tunnel Vision - Beach Bunny</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Rock, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Vertigo</li> <li>Violence</li> <li>Clueless</li> </ul> <h2 id="24-fancy-that---pinkpantheress">24: Fancy That - PinkPantheress</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance, Garage</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Stateside</li> <li>Girl Like Me</li> <li>Romeo</li> </ul> <h2 id="23-dont-press-play---ava-max">23: Don&rsquo;t Press Play - Ava Max</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>World&rsquo;s Smallest Violin</li> <li>Sucks To Be My Ex</li> <li>Lost Your Faith</li> </ul> <h2 id="22-i-dont-know-how-but-they-found-me---jensen-mcrae">22: I Don&rsquo;t Know How But They Found Me! - Jensen McRae</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Folk, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Tuesday</li> <li>I Can Change Him</li> <li>Let Me Be Wrong</li> </ul> <h2 id="21-fall-in-love-with-her---sabrina-claudio">21: Fall In Love With Her - Sabrina Claudio</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Need U To Need Me</li> <li>Before It&rsquo;s Too Late</li> <li>Detoxing</li> </ul> <h2 id="20-the-art-of-loving---olivia-dean">20: The Art of Loving - Olivia Dean</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Loud</li> <li>Close Up</li> <li>So Easy (To Fall In Love)</li> </ul> <h2 id="19-i-love-my-computer---ninajirachi">19: I Love My Computer - Ninajirachi</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Dance, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Fuck My Computer</li> <li>It&rsquo;s You</li> <li>All I Am</li> </ul> <h2 id="18-perimenopop---sophie-ellis-bextor">18: Perimenopop - Sophie Ellis-Bextor</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Disco</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Rentless Love</li> <li>Vertigo</li> <li>Time</li> </ul> <h2 id="17-a-little-louder-please---rose-gray">17: A Little Louder, Please - Rose Gray</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Wet &amp; Wild</li> <li>Tectonic</li> <li>Angel of Satisfaction</li> </ul> <h2 id="16-black-star---amaarae">16: Black Star - Amaarae</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>S.M.O.</li> <li>ms60</li> <li>Fineshyt</li> </ul> <h2 id="15-vie---doja-cat">15: Vie - Doja Cat</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Hip-Hop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Jealous Type</li> <li>AAAHH MEN!</li> <li>Silly! Fun!</li> </ul> <h2 id="14-its-not-that-deep---demi-lovato">14: It&rsquo;s Not That Deep - Demi Lovato</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Ghost</li> <li>Frequency</li> <li>Sorry To Myself</li> </ul> <h2 id="13-d-r-e-a-m-s-i-c-l-e---maren-morris">13: D R E A M S I C L E - Maren Morris</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>lemonade</li> <li>too good</li> <li>cut!</li> </ul> <h2 id="12-ego-death-at-the-bachelorette-party---hayley-williams">12: Ego Death at the Bachelorette Party - Hayley Williams</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Love Me Different</li> <li>Ice In My OJ</li> <li>True Believer</li> </ul> <h2 id="11-salvation---rebecca-black">11: SALVATION - Rebecca Black</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Twist The Knife</li> <li>TRUST!</li> <li>Do You Even Think About Me?</li> </ul> <h2 id="10-mayhem---lady-gaga">10: MAYHEM - Lady Gaga</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Disease</li> <li>Abracadabra</li> <li>Vanish Into You</li> </ul> <h2 id="09-something-beautiful---miley-cyrus">09: Something Beautiful - Miley Cyrus</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Pop, Rock</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Walk of Fame</li> <li>Reborn</li> <li>Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved</li> </ul> <h2 id="08-eusexua-afterglow---fka-twigs">08: EUSEXUA Afterglow - FKA twigs</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Love Crimes</li> <li>HARD</li> <li>Sushi</li> </ul> <h2 id="07-confessions---louise">07: Confessions - Louise</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Manifesting</li> <li>Follow Me</li> <li>Get Into It</li> </ul> <h2 id="06-west-end-girl---lily-allen">06: West End Girl - Lily Allen</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Alternative</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Tennis</li> <li>Ruminating</li> <li>Dallas Major</li> </ul> <h2 id="05-heidiwood---heidi-montag">05: Heidiwood - Heidi Montag</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>White Flag</li> <li>Screensaver</li> <li>Go Harder</li> </ul> <h2 id="04-a-matter-of-time---laufey">04: A Matter of Time - Laufey</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Jazz</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Snow White</li> <li>Too Little, Too Late</li> <li>Forget-Me-Not</li> </ul> <h2 id="03-thats-showbiz-baby---jade">03: THAT&rsquo;S SHOWBIZ BABY! - JADE</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>FUFN (Fuck You For Now)</li> <li>Natural at Disaster</li> <li>Before You Break My Heart</li> </ul> <h2 id="02-lux---rosalía">02: LUX - Rosalía</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Experimental, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>La Yugular</li> <li>Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti</li> <li>Divinize</li> </ul> <h2 id="01-sincerely---kali-uchis">01: Sincerely, - Kali Uchis</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B, Pop</strong></p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Angels All Around Me…</li> <li>Lose My Cool,</li> <li>Fall Apart,</li> </ul> <hr> <h2 id="full-list">Full List</h2> <ol> <li>Sincerely, - Kali Uchis</li> <li>LUX - Rosalía</li> <li>THAT&rsquo;S SHOWBIZ BABY! - JADE</li> <li>A Matter of Time - Laufey</li> <li>Heidiwood - Heidi Montag</li> <li>West End Girl - Lily Allen</li> <li>Confessions - Louise</li> <li>EUSEXUA Afterglow - FKA twigs</li> <li>Something Beautiful - Miley Cyrus</li> <li>MAYHEM - Lady Gaga</li> <li>SALVATION - Rebecca Black</li> <li>Ego Death at the Bachelorette Party - Hayley Williams</li> <li>D R E A M S I C L E - Maren Morris</li> <li>It&rsquo;s Not That Deep - Demi Lovato</li> <li>Vie - Doja Cat</li> <li>Black Star - Amaarae</li> <li>A Little Louder, Please - Rose Gray</li> <li>Perimenopop - Sophie Ellis-Bextor</li> <li>I Love My Computer - Ninajirachi</li> <li>The Art of Loving - Olivia Dean</li> <li>Fall In Love With Her - Sabrina Claudio</li> <li>I Don&rsquo;t Know How But They Found Me! - Jensen McRae</li> <li>Don&rsquo;t Press Play - Ava Max</li> <li>Fancy That - PinkPantheress</li> <li>Tunnel Vision - Beach Bunny</li> <li>EUSEXUA - FKA twigs</li> <li>The Dream - The Favours</li> <li>Midnight Sun - Zara Larsson</li> <li>Happiness Is Going To Get You - Allie X</li> <li>Everybody Scream - Florence + The Machine</li> <li>Addison - Addison Rae</li> <li>. - Kesha</li> <li>A Complicated Woman - Self Esteem</li> <li>Man&rsquo;s Best Friend - Sabrina Carpenter</li> <li>A6 - Lights</li> <li>Flux - Alison Goldfrapp</li> <li>Willoughby Tucker, I&rsquo;ll Always Love You - Ethel Cain</li> <li>For Melancholy Brunettes (and Sad Women) - Japanese Breakfast</li> <li>Forever Is A Feeling - Lucy Dacus</li> <li>Perrie - Perrie</li> <li>Don&rsquo;t Tease Me With A Good Time - Jessie J</li> <li>PRINCESS OF POWER - MARINA</li> <li>Not For Lack Of Trying - dodie</li> <li>i feel everything - Maggie Lindemann</li> <li>Returning To Myself - Brandi Carlile</li> <li>EURO-COUNTRY - CMAT</li> <li>Off With Her Head - BANKS</li> <li>Who&rsquo;s the Clown? - Audrey Hobert</li> <li>oyster - chloe moriondo</li> <li>Revelation - The Knocks &amp; Dragonette</li> </ol> https://jessicajournals.com/now/ Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/now/ <p>A now page displays what is going on in someone&rsquo;s life at this moment. <a href="https://nownownow.com/about">You can read more about them here.</a></p> <h2 id="subjects">Subjects</h2> <h3 id="enjoying">Enjoying</h3> <ul> <li>Watching football</li> <li>Listening to music</li> <li>Tinkering</li> </ul> <h3 id="tinkering">Tinkering</h3> <ul> <li>Home Assistant</li> <li>Linux</li> </ul> <h3 id="playing">Playing</h3> <ul> <li>Everafter Falls</li> </ul> <h3 id="listening">Listening</h3> <ul> <li>Brandi Carlile</li> <li>Laufey</li> <li>Weyes Blood</li> <li>Mitski</li> </ul> <h3 id="watching">Watching</h3> <ul> <li>Drag Race</li> <li>Hacks</li> <li>Twenty Twenty Six</li> <li>Race Across The World</li> </ul> <h3 id="reading">Reading</h3> <ul> <li>Concorde - Mike Bannister</li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/opensuse-leap-16/ Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/opensuse-leap-16/ <p>I&rsquo;ve recently made a change in the operating system running on my laptop, and I thought I&rsquo;d explain what happened there in this short post.</p> <h2 id="what-happened-to-endeavour-os">What Happened To Endeavour OS?</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/migrating-to-endeavouros/">When I last wrote about Linux on my laptop</a>, a mid-2011 MacBook Air, I was using Endeavour OS, and I was relatively satisfied with it. However, a few things happened that made me change, and I&rsquo;ll be honest, not necessarily for good reasons now I look back!</p> <p>Initially, my poor old MacBook Air started to experience failing internal WiFi connections, where I could only access the network wirelessly in short bursts and at low speeds. I was seriously concerned this would finally be the end of the ageing laptop. As a last ditch effort, I ordered a high quality Linux compatible WiFi dongle in hopes of saving the device, and then faced a new issue: too powerful for the laptop 🤦‍♀️</p> <p>It didn&rsquo;t go the waste though, as I was able to use it to boost the quality of WiFi from my mini PC server, which came with a mini WiFi dongle and occasionally conked out under the load. So, I swapped these around and tried again - I knew the mini dongle would work with Linux as it was with my mini PC running <a href="https://ubuntu.com/download/server">Ubuntu Server</a> (I will indeed write a future post about this, I promise, it&rsquo;s like 80% written already!), but I still struggled to get a consistent network connection, and faced dropouts to the point of being unable to run system updates.</p> <p>Accepting defeat, I decided the only use the laptop had left was offline use, and so could be used to test Linux distributions on, which I did immediately when trying <a href="https://getaurora.dev/en/">Fedora Aurora</a> on the laptop <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/fedora/">before installing it on (what was then known as) my gaming Windows PC</a>. I then needed to test out <a href="https://neon.kde.org/">KDE Neon</a> for my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/audio-setup-2026/">audio setup plan</a>, so installed that on the laptop and was happy with the results to pursue it on the intended device when it arrived.</p> <p>I then had another bout of illness that left me in bed for an extended period of time, and became frustrated I was not able to write or code, as these were too difficult to do on my phone. I booted up the laptop again, trying to troubleshooting the issue, and found a simple solution: long cable.</p> <p>To be specific, a long USB extension cable plugged into the laptop, and have the mini WiFi dongle plugged in the other end, and have the end dangle all the way to the bottom of the bed. For some reason, this works much better - not perfect as I do still get random dropouts, but I was able to download large system updates!</p> <p>And&hellip; that is sort of where I left it 🤷‍♀️</p> <p>Well, for a while! Initially, I was satisfied with KDE Neon just doing all it needs to do, which isn&rsquo;t a lot: <a href="https://librewolf.net/">Librewolf</a> as a web browser, <a href="https://kate-editor.org/">Kate</a> for coding, <a href="https://git-scm.com/">git</a> and <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a> were installed for development, I use <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora</a> for writing, and <a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a> is running to ensure everything is in sync, along with <a href="https://tailscale.com/">Tailscale</a> to keep my laptop within the same virtual private network as my other devices. There really is not much going on - I pretty much only use three applications!</p> <h2 id="opensuse">openSUSE</h2> <p>However, I then thought I ought to be more considerate, and I liked the idea of having a different operating system - <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/">Fedora</a> for my main, <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> on the server and audio device, and something else for the laptop. Historically, I&rsquo;ve had <a href="https://archlinux.org/">Arch</a> on my laptop in some way, shape or form, but as the network connection really is quite unstable, I could not use the laptop for rolling releases anymore - the updates would become too much for it!</p> <p>As such, I considered other Linux distributions, and decided to give <a href="https://get.opensuse.org/leap/">openSUSE Leap</a> a go. I had actually considered <a href="https://get.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/">openSUSE Tumbleweed</a> (the rolling release variety) on my main computer, with its snapshot capabilities and default <a href="https://kde.org/">KDE desktop environment</a>, believing it to be a decent alternative to the Fedora Aurora I was using and switching away from. I&rsquo;d never used openSUSE before, despite being aware of it, but thought the benefits of it were worth trying out, but I struggled immensely with NVIDIA driver issues and then boot manager issues, so I gave up. However, openSUSE Leap seemed fully compatible with the hardware in my MacBook Air, and being non-rolling would not need as much updating, so it seemed like a good opportunity to finally give openSUSE a good try.</p> <p>The process to install wasn&rsquo;t smooth though! Almost certainly due to an error I made, I actually laughed when I booted in for the first time after installation and saw just a command line interface, no desktop environment! So yeah, was a bit of a learning curve setting up networking and then downloading KDE Plasma 6 through the command line, but it worked and then I booted into a very empty desktop environment. As I had installed it after the initial installation process, it came with very little bundled, so I have had to install all sorts to bring it up to speed, but it was actually nice to know the laptop is as unbloated as can be, and only has applications and services I want - though installing various dependencies was a bit time consuming at the start! I liked using <a href="https://documentation.suse.com/smart/systems-management/html/concept-zypper/index.html">zypper</a> to install most of the software, but still used <a href="https://flatpak.org/">Flatpaks</a> in <a href="https://apps.kde.org/discover/">Discover</a> (which needed installing too!) to fill in a few gaps. I also feel like the operating system is very stable, I&rsquo;ve yet to experience any weirdness or crashes, and feel it&rsquo;s quite fast, with the network even dropping out less.</p> <p>After the basics were setup, I began on customisation, and decided to go back to <a href="https://catppuccin.com/">Catppuccin</a> for a comprehensive soaking of the operating system in one single theme - <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/kde">something very easy to do with the install script provided for KDE</a>. I chose Catppuccin Frappé (with Flamingo as my accent colour) as the lightest of the dark modes with <a href="https://store.kde.org/p/2303161">Yet Another Monochrome Icon Set</a> to complete the uniformity. I&rsquo;ve set the panels up in a similar way to my main computer, with a small panel at the top for the system tray, time, and global menu. On the bottom panel I have large icons Mac-style, along with some widgets including clipboard contents, sticky notes, colour picker and pinned folders for quick access.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Overall, I have been very satisfied with openSUSE Leap so far. I know I&rsquo;m not doing anything too demanding with my setup, just a few applications running to write and code, with a web browser for occasional referencing and Syncthing running in the background, as well as my long cable dangling out the side for intermittent networking. It&rsquo;s a shame the network has become so dodgy because that is its only fault. With openSUSE Leap, the laptop honestly feels very responsive and stable, despite being nearly fifteen years old. You really would not know it, not only with its usability, but with KDE and the drenching of Catppuccin Frappé, it looks incredible and significantly more modern than its hardware and age suggests. I&rsquo;m happy with using Fedora KDE as my daily driver on my main computer, but it has made me curious what life would have been like if I had been able to set up openSUSE Tumbleweed on it, because, at least with my time with Leap, I think it&rsquo;s a very good contender which should be considered if you&rsquo;re still hopping between Linux distributions.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/audio-setup-2026/ Thu, 19 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/audio-setup-2026/ <p>Last year, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-setup-2025/">I wrote about reorganising the hardware side of my music setup, along with a few software changes</a>. However, shortly after that post, I started to experience some issues and decided an overhaul was already needed. So! In this post, I&rsquo;ll go into what went wrong, the various ideas I explored, what I landed up with, and why this is now titled Audio Setup and not Music Setup.</p> <h2 id="issues">Issues</h2> <p>The biggest issue I experienced were loud pops and bangs coming from the Raspberry Pi running <a href="https://moodeaudio.org/">MoOde</a> when songs were skipped or when scrubbing through the track. These were disconcerting, startling, and meant I had to make some changes. I was also unhappy with certain gaps in my audio setup overall, such as being unable to use my IEMs on my tablet without 3.5mm output, and I have no access to FM/DAB+ radio in any way, which is an issue during live sporting events where apps streaming radio tend to be a good minute behind. MoOde also didn&rsquo;t help me access podcasts, audiobooks and other services like my favourite internet radio stations and self-care apps. As such, this problem went beyond just music!</p> <h2 id="the-perfect-solution-doesnt-exist">The Perfect Solution Doesn&rsquo;t Exist</h2> <p>A tablet or phone with Android would solve most of these issue, as I could install apps for the things I needed, but hardware was at fault here: not only would I need two USB outputs (one for power and one for a Digital-to-Analogue Converter, known as a DAC, to achieve high quality audio), but I was cautious of battery drain and long-term battery health, as well as preventing a &ldquo;<a href="https://www.ifixit.com/News/69041/how-batteries-can-catch-fire-and-how-to-prevent-it">spicy pillow</a>&rdquo;, where the battery degrades and swells, to disastrous results. A USB splitter might solve the first issue and give me two USB outputs, and while some industrial tablets do offer battery bypass, where the device disconnects from the internal battery and runs entirely off external power, I found such tablets were expensive and more for retail use, rather than for the consumer.</p> <p>For a short while, I had conceded to simply needing to save up and purchase something that just did the job. My first idea was a Digital Audio Player, known as a DAP - basically, a modern day iPod. The one I had my eye on was the <a href="https://www.fiio.com/M21">Fiio M21</a>, a nearly £300 device (!), but it ran Android, had a built-in DAC, and Desktop Mode, where the internal battery disconnected to preserve battery health. But the price put me off, and I didn&rsquo;t need a portable device. I then looked at the <a href="https://ugoos.com/ugoos-am9-64bit-amlogic-s905x5-android-tv-box">Ugoos AM9</a>, a sort of Android TV box which ran off external power, but with full Google Play store integration, and multiple outputs for a DAC to connect. I&rsquo;d need to attach it to some sort of monitor and find an input method, but for while this did seem the best idea, despite it being expensive at nearly £200 (and I&rsquo;d need to buy a monitor on top of that), I then realised something I had not considered: What if the issue isn&rsquo;t hardware, but software?</p> <p>The problem with relying on an Android system, especially through manufacturers like Fiio and Ugoos, is that they rarely commit to providing regular software updates to the next versions of Android, unlike phone manufacturers who do for at least a couple of years. As a result, even if I do find good hardware, be it a DAP or an Android box, will I end up with a £200 brick in a few years time?</p> <p>Because of this, I decided I could not rely on the Android ecosystem, but was happily surprised to learn all my apps, bar one, had versions of their services that can be accessed via a web browser. I would have to compromise and stop using <a href="https://www.symfonium.app/">Symfonium</a> to access my music, but considering the benefits I would gain elsewhere, I decided this was a good trade-off, because the perfect solution doesn&rsquo;t exist.</p> <h2 id="the-next-best-thing">The Next Best Thing?</h2> <p>During all this, I began using Linux as my daily driver, and unexpectedly discovered that Linux on my old Windows PC runs significantly better than my Mac Mini did, and I am now finally able to multitask and play media at the same time as other applications without experiencing lag. As a result, I do not need a separate playing device at my desk, and I can simply open a web browser on one of my monitors, and play music, audiobooks, podcasts, internet radio and most of my other apps with their web versions - I could even play most video, though one service annoyingly states they do not work on Linux and Chromebooks. As such, for this one service, I do bring the tablet back out for short term use. Otherwise, I&rsquo;m pretty happy at set at my desk for my audio needs!</p> <h3 id="mini-pc">Mini PC</h3> <p>So, if the perfect solution doesn&rsquo;t exist, is the next best thing&hellip; a computer? Well, I was growing in confidence using Linux, and I knew I could get a mini PC relatively cheap considering I had upgraded my Raspberry Pi 4 server to a refurbished enterprise mini PC to not much expense. Although that ran headless, and I knew with this new device I would need a monitor and some sort of input device, but I was hopeful I could achieve all this on the cheap if I was lucky, and thankfully, I was quite lucky.</p> <p>First, I spotted a pretty beaten up (I&rsquo;m talking taped cardboard attached!), but fully functional and internally upgraded passively cooled (nice and quiet!) enterprise mini PC made ten years ago for a real bargain. I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to multitask on it, I&rsquo;d need all the graphics set to low, and I&rsquo;d have to run a lightweight operating system on it, but that was fine - all I needed for it to do was open a web browser, navigate to where I wanted to go and play audio. Second, I needed to deal with that navigation: how would I do the actual navigating and see where I&rsquo;m going? Thankfully, I was lucky again and stumbled across a fourteen-inch portable touchscreen monitor that was severely incorrectly priced during a sale - half the price of its non-touch version! I snapped it up, and when everything arrived, I&rsquo;d managed to get the mini PC and touchscreen monitor (plus the cables I needed to connect everything together) for less than £70!</p> <p>Next, I needed to set it all up. Based on the time using my main computer, I decided I loved <a href="https://kde.org/">KDE</a> as a desktop environment, and wanted to use it as although it was not as lightweight as <a href="https://xfce.org/">XFCE</a>, nor as good at touch as <a href="https://www.gnome.org/">GNOME</a>, it was a good compromise between the two: better at touch than XFCE and lighter than GNOME. I also wanted KDE for full integration with its companion service <a href="https://kdeconnect.kde.org/">KDE Connect</a>, which allows you to use your phone to remotely control the computer. Because, although I had my touchscreen monitor for tapping away to navigate, I could use the on-screen keyboard and password manager on my phone to easily type and copy-and-paste login information without needing to type them out on the touchscreen monitor - and it has been a lifesaver, making everything so much smoother and faster, along with the added benefit of using my phone as volume control!</p> <p>As a result, to make the mini PC as lightweight as possible with KDE being the star, I decided to use its <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a> based distribution, <a href="https://neon.kde.org/">KDE Neon</a>. It worked really well, and was not a hassle at all to install. I then set to tweaking everything to prioritise touch. KDE is fantastic at customisation, so I decided on one large panel at the bottom with an Application Dashboard widget, so I get a nice large fullscreen experience when selecting applications and turning the computer off, <a href="https://librewolf.net/">Librewolf</a> (web browser of choice) pinned, and large widgets of sound, network, Bluetooth, KDE Connect, and a toggle for the on-screen keyboard in case I do need it - all easy to touch with imprecise fingers tapping away. I&rsquo;ve also increased the resolution scale to 145% to make things easier to see and touch, used <a href="https://store.kde.org/p/2303161">Yet Another Monochrome Icon Set</a> to create uniformity across the icons, and installed <a href="https://github.com/ashbork/kde">Rosé Pine Moon</a> colours to create softness on the eyes when using the computer late at nights.</p> <p>Software wise, I installed the <a href="https://github.com/zombieFox/nightTab">NightTab</a> browser extension on Librewolf, and configured it to create large, easily tapped, bookmark buttons of the various websites hosting the audio content I want to access. Initially, I had also dabbled with music player <a href="https://github.com/jeffvli/feishin">Feishin</a> after discovering it can run in Docker and stream uncompressed to web browsers, but I found Feishin did not play nice with touchscreens, so I just switched to using my music library <a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a> directly, which while not as pretty as Feishin or Symfonium, it at least worked!</p> <h3 id="fmdab">FM/DAB+?</h3> <p>All of this though doesn&rsquo;t address an issue I talked about at the start, which was that internet radio of live sporting events tended to face quite a substantial delay, which was frustrating when following along on social media and being behind. As a result, the simple solution was to buy an FM/DAB+ radio I found on sale and add it into the mix, with an RCA switch just before the powered speakers, handling inputs from the radio and the DAC connected to the computer. A push of the button simply swaps between radio or DAC, and I&rsquo;m happily listening to football coverage and being kept in the loop!</p> <h2 id="but">But&hellip;</h2> <p>Of course there is a but!</p> <p>During all of this, I also contemplated another route entirely which utilised my Raspberry Pi that I found very intriguing: <a href="https://github.com/snapcast/snapcast">Snapcast</a> and <a href="https://www.music-assistant.io/">Music Assistant</a>.</p> <p>Much like how <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/">Home Assistant</a> pulls together different smart home devices to work with each other, despite their differing ecosystems, Music Assistant works by combining various audio providers and player providers. From there, any audio provider can push audio from their service to any player provider in one single unified interface with full control. Music Assistant is updated regularly and there are all sorts of music providers supported, such as <a href="https://www.audiobookshelf.org/">Audiobookshelf</a>, <a href="https://watch.plex.tv/">Plex</a>, <a href="https://opensubsonic.netlify.app/">OpenSubsonic</a>, <a href="https://tunein.com/">Tune-In Radio</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds">BBC Sounds</a>, various streaming providers like <a href="https://open.spotify.com/">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://tidal.com/">Tidal</a> and <a href="https://www.qobuz.com">Qobuz</a>, and even RSS feeds of podcasts. Player providers include a mix of established hardware names like <a href="https://www.sonos.com">Sonos</a> and Yamaha&rsquo;s <a href="https://uk.yamaha.com/en/audio/home-audio/explore/musiccast/">MusicCast</a>, <a href="https://lyrion.org/players-and-controllers/squeezelite/">Squeezelite</a> devices either from the obsolete <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeezebox_(network_music_player)">Squeezebox</a> range or installing the successor <a href="https://lyrion.org/">Lyrion Music Server</a> on your own hardware, devices with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AirPlay">AirPlay</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cast">Google Cast</a> protocols, and devices, like Raspberry Pis or refurbished computers, with Snapcast&rsquo;s Snapclient installed on them.</p> <p>As you can see, this creates an audio hub where podcasts, audiobooks, internet radio, streamed music and local music can all enter into one controllable central point, and can then be broadcast across a wide of range of devices from various manufacturers. Granted, this did not solve my FM/DAB+ radio issue nor accessing the web versions of my self-care apps, but a large part of distributing audio interests of mine could be conducted by this one piece of software.</p> <p>Given at how I have a Raspberry Pi now going spare, I decided to play around with it. I installed Music Assistant via Docker Compose on my server, running alongside Navidrome and Home Assistant (which will help enhance my setup later on, but technically not needed), and is easily accessible anywhere on your network via a web browser, where you can then not only configure all your inputs and outputs, but also be used as a controller and player. As a controller, you select the sources you wish to listen to and then the player to send the audio to, whereas using it as a player will just play the audio in the web browser you&rsquo;re accessing it from. However, the audio&rsquo;s quality is dependent on both the source and the player: Tune-In Radio won&rsquo;t be high quality regardless of where you&rsquo;re sending the audio to, so no issue there, but your high quality FLACs will not come through in high quality either through some outputs like <a href="https://www.fully-kiosk.com/">Fully Kiosk Browser</a> on an old <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_HD">Fire HD tablet</a>. As such, it is best to pay attention to the audio quality, by looking at the playback screen which lists both the input quality and output quality, to make sure you&rsquo;re getting what you&rsquo;re after.</p> <p>I decided to install <a href="https://dietpi.com/">DietPi</a> on my Raspberry Pi to act as a player, as it offers Snapcast during setup, which not only installs Snapclient for me, but also guided me through basic configuration too, where I simply pointed the Snapclient towards the server where Music Assistant runs, and although I do not have a Snapserver running, Music Assistant broadcasts as a Snapserver for the Snapclient to connect to. After that, I can finish up on Music Assistant, adding the Snapclient as a provider and can now be selected as a player option.</p> <h3 id="control">Control</h3> <p>Perhaps most exciting about Music Assistant (at least for me!) is how it can be controlled. As it can be fully integrated into Home Assistant, where all the providers and players can be seen, a world of opportunity opens up. You can, for example, use <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-AKnFAVzsY">physical Zigbee buttons</a> to trigger simple play, pause, next track, previous track, volume up and down controls, as well as more advanced automatons such as playing something from Music Assistant when you awake in the morning, or enter a room. A <a href="https://community.home-assistant.io/t/loratap-6-button-remote/877775">physical Zigbee button remote</a> can be used to switch playback between different internet radio stations or music playlists. For a test, I picked up a cheap six-button Zigbee remote and configured it as such for each button:</p> <ol> <li>Single press rate currently playing Navidrome song as 1 star. Double press previous track in Music Assistant. Hold press play soothing classical music playlist made of such internet radio stations.</li> <li>Single press rate currently playing Navidrome song 2 stars. Double press next track in Music Assistant. Hold press play lofi music playlist made of such internet radio stations.</li> <li>Single press rate currently playing Navidrome song 3 stars. Double press volume down in Music Assistant. Hold press play laid-back jazz playlist made of such internet radio stations.</li> <li>Single press rate currently playing Navidrome song 4 stars. Double press volume up in Music Assistant. Hold press play upbeat jazz playlist made of such internet radio stations.</li> <li>Single press rate currently playing Navidrome song 5 stars. Double press toggle shuffle in Music Assistant. Hold press play ambient music playlist made of such internet radio stations.</li> <li>Single press toggle play/pause whatever was playing last. Double press toggle repeat in Music Assistant. Hold press play funky and disco inspired house music playlist made of such internet radio stations</li> </ol> <p>It was pretty great being able to just start and stop music, as well as change genres, so easily. I&rsquo;d often just start an album, playlist or internet radio station on my phone or a web browser on my computer, and then just manage through the remote, as well as stop it whenever I left the room, without needing to access my phone. It was also great at jumping between services quickly, I didn&rsquo;t need to go to a different app or website for the audiobooks, the internet radio or the local music library - it was all in one place!</p> <h3 id="music-assistant-issues">Music Assistant Issues</h3> <p>However, it was not a perfect system. My first issue of played music from my Navidrome server not scrobbling back to Koito was easily resolved by installing the <a href="https://www.music-assistant.io/plugins/subsonic_scrobble/">Subsonic Scrobbler plugin</a>, but the other issues proved to be trickier. I found podcast integration difficult as I could not get the self-hosted option supported, <a href="https://gpodder.github.io/">gPodder</a> via <a href="https://github.com/kd2org/opodsync">oPodSync</a>, working no matter how many different Docker images I tried, and while the <a href="https://podcastindex.org/apps?appTypes=app">Podcast Index</a> could be set up, I could not find all my podcasts to add to my library. I could add my followed podcasts one-by-one via RSS feeds, but this was cumbersome and a lengthy process, plus it cluttered up the provider list. Although I could have added podcasts to AudioBookShelf, these would only be downloaded and not streamed, and I want to be able to browse through my followed podcasts, see what catches my eye and play it - I don&rsquo;t want hundreds of files stacking up I never get round to listening to!</p> <p>Aside from that, there was then the obvious: what can be played through Music Assistant is restricted to what is currently being provided by Music Assistant. To be fair, they are regularly adding providers, with the likes of BBC Sounds, <a href="https://bandcamp.com/">Bandcamp</a> and <a href="http://soma.fm/">Soma.fm</a> being added while I was tinkering around, which gives me hope more may be added to plug gaps in coverage, such as <a href="https://pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a>, which is being discussed here in the <a href="https://github.com/music-assistant/server/pull/3127">Music Assistant GitHub</a> and <a href="https://forums.pocketcasts.com/forums/topic/music-assistant/">here in the Pocket Casts forums</a>. However, I do not expect every single thing on the internet that can be streamed to be added, that would be ridiculous! As such, the web versions of my self-care apps aren&rsquo;t there, nor <a href="https://mynoise.net/">MyNoise</a> to generate background sounds (<a href="https://github.com/orgs/music-assistant/discussions/3340">though this has also been requested!</a>).</p> <p>There is the newly added (at time of writing!) <a href="https://www.music-assistant.io/plugins/vban-receiver/">VBAN Receiver</a> which will play whatever audio is pointed at it, but I&rsquo;d still need a central point to initiate the audio, and while technically I guess that could be set up on the mini PC, I&rsquo;m unsure if it is powerful enough to remotely control the entire screen for navigation purposes - something beyond KDE Connect, so I&rsquo;d need to set up some sort of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VNC">VNC</a> and now it&rsquo;s just starting to get too large and complex to manage. So, no, I decided against that as an option - but I did investigate!</p> <p>Lastly, although control with physical Zigbee buttons was neat, I did find myself missing a screen to see the current song playing and sometimes found I&rsquo;d left the screen on my phone on so I can see information about the song, which obviously wasn&rsquo;t good for battery health! However, as I write this, I now see implementation of the <a href="https://www.music-assistant.io/player-support/sendspin/">SendSpin</a> protocol, which although primarily used to send and receive audio, <a href="https://gist.github.com/kahrendt/a86b20601f02df9f3861a48cedc98e17">can also be used to send and receive metadata</a>, including track name and album artwork, as well as controls for the audio, so perhaps if I picked up the right hardware I could use that? Maybe?</p> <h2 id="best-of-both-worlds">Best of Both Worlds</h2> <p>However, as I was writing this post, I had an idea about my setup: could I combine the benefits of a computer accessing websites like those of MyNoise, podcasts or self-care apps, as well as utilise Music Assistant and the benefits of not only having most audio content in one place, but also access to the automations of Home Assistant? Initially, I thought this would be done simply by accessing the webpage of Music Assistant and playing audio from there, streaming via the web browser, but while Music Assistant &ldquo;sees&rdquo; the web browser as a player, Home Assistant did not recognise it as a device to interact with.</p> <p>Although there are not many options (yet!) of running SendSpin, I looked at cross-platform <a href="https://github.com/Sendspin/sendspin-cli">SendSpin-CLI</a> and wondered if I installed on a computer, would be considered a device in Home Assistant&rsquo;s eyes? It was quite easy to install, just running a command from the GitHub page and then walking through the configuration setup, and although I had an issue with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PipeWire">Pipewire</a> and permissions, these were easily fixed, and then sure enough, not only did Music Assistant see the new SendSpin player, but so did Home Assistant - and most importantly, I could hear the audio being played as instructed by Music Assistant! Well, now we&rsquo;re onto something!</p> <p>I was then able to edit the existing automations I had made for the Raspberry Pi running SnapClient and point them instead to this SendSpin instance running on my mini PC, as well as now control 90% of the content I wanted anywhere by accessing the Music Assistant webpage on my phone, which allowed the mini PC to turn its screen off, and me then jumping between my local music library, internet radio and even audiobooks, all from my phone. I have again found myself falling into the issue of wondering what song is playing, but this is less of an issue with internet radio where it is more used as background music, and I am more interested in ever about exploring <a href="https://esphome.io/">ESPHome</a> and creating something using an e-ink device to show me the information of what is currently playing - never played around with ESPHome before, so it will probably take me some time!</p> <p>Overall, I&rsquo;m very satisfied with where I have landed up with my audio setup. I like how most of it is now contained in one place with Music Assistant, how it can be controlled with Home Assistant, and that I am still able to access content not currently provided by Music Assistant, as well as not being locked into an ecosystem or facing issues with battery health. I also like how Music Assistant makes expansion cheap: to add coverage to more areas simply requires a Pi running Snapclient, a DAC and speakers. I&rsquo;ve seen a lot of people over the past few months reconsider their music setups, either swapping streaming platforms or deciding to go offline with their collection, and I highly recommend if you&rsquo;re already into Home Assistant to try out Music Assistant as it really is a phenomenal piece of software that might improve your setup too.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/manifesto-2026/ Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/manifesto-2026/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/manifesto/">I last wrote my website&rsquo;s manifesto in 2023</a>, and due to the recent revamp, I thought I ought to provide an updated version noted changes made since. I don&rsquo;t believe there are too many changes, so the vast majority of text here is repeated from before, but enough change has happened to warrant an update.</p> <p>For those who have not read the first manifesto, this post elaborates on my thinking, and stating more explicitly the theory and principles which influenced my decisions in how the website should function and why. As such, it is a post less on the technical side of things, and more on the philosophy.</p> <h2 id="a-manifesto">A Manifesto?</h2> <p>Yes, I initially found the wording of such a post a little peculiar, however, after seeing many use the term, I decided to adopt it for this post too: a statement of intent.</p> <p>Here are similar documents some I&rsquo;ve come across:</p> <p><a href="https://seirdy.one/meta/site-design/">Site design standards</a>, <a href="https://maya.land/internet/">the internet</a>, <a href="https://l-chan.neocities.org/manifesto">My Manifesto</a>, and <a href="https://charinusraps.neocities.org/pages/writing/articles/2023-07-11-Manifesto">We Are Not At A Crossroads</a>.</p> <h2 id="content">Content</h2> <p>In this section, I&rsquo;ll be focused on the content of my website and what I hope it achieves and represents, because the content is at the heart of any website. It does not matter how a website looks or behaves if there is poor quality content once the user accesses it.</p> <h3 id="learning-in-public">Learning In Public</h3> <p>When I was looking into digital gardens, one narrative stood out: <a href="https://www.swyx.io/learn-in-public">Learning In Public</a>. That being that we should be sharing our progress on whatever it is we do, because it helps us and helps others. For me personally, I&rsquo;ve been trying to do this as a means to battle my perfectionism, make mistakes and change course in public, and realise nothing bad happens as a result.</p> <p>As such, this is the main ethos I would like my content to represent, how I write about things changing, my thinking about these changes, and possibilities next. My posts are partly logs, and partly an article.</p> <h3 id="user-experience">User Experience</h3> <p>I&rsquo;ll go into this a bit more in the Accessibility section, but as something which affects all my visitors, I want to have a user experience which can be considered as pleasant. I don&rsquo;t want them to have to worry about slow pages or if their data will be eaten up. I don&rsquo;t want the content to be degraded by obnoxious pop-ups, annoying adverts, or the content just being nonsensical through SEO bloat.</p> <p>The first part is more technical, but I do think it is also philosophical as it is something I am seeing people - good and nice people on the Web Revival boat, choosing to create websites which are slow and eat up data with little to no consideration of the user. These are often off-set with declarations that &ldquo;this is my website for me to express myself&rdquo; and that &ldquo;my website was made for me and not you&rdquo;.</p> <p>I understand such sentiments, but do worry not only about the accessibility aspect I will discuss in the next section, but about a mentality that an exclusionary web is fine, and it&rsquo;s okay to exclude some people as long as the web administrator is happy. It&rsquo;s not a stance I am personally content with, and would feel saddened if a user had such a poor experience on my website that they were unable to access my content.</p> <p>The next point goes to essentially capitalism. SEO bloat creating poor content to make you click on a page which will then load up a bunch of adverts and a pop-up begging you to sign up to the newsletter so you will be notified when new content is out so you can back to the website to see more adverts. Me saying this is nothing groundbreaking or interesting, but I wanted to clearly state my distain for such websites, and how these websites are ruining the user experience browsing the internet. No one likes these websites, and yet we have to put up with them. Because money.</p> <p>Even if you do install an ad-block, and I also highly recommend setting up a custom DNS if you are able (mine is an absolute life changer), that does little to the pollution of websites creating poor quality content to trick search engines to displaying their websites higher up the results. It often feels like the best place to actually find answers, advice and information these days is sadly on Reddit, which brings me to&hellip;</p> <h3 id="closed-silos">Closed Silos</h3> <p>My content is here on this website. I also have a <a href="https://beige.party/@jessica">Mastodon account</a> where I talk more casually.</p> <p>My content is not behind a barrier, such as a Facebook page which requires you to login to see more information, nor hidden away somewhere like Discord where you again have to join the server to access the data. Reddit has great content, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Reddit_API_controversy">but changes to API access and the removal of moderators from their own communities by staff</a>, have shown how this content was never ours to begin with. The keys to the data are being held by someone else, and they can restrict and cut off access as they please.</p> <p>I am personally annoyed at how I have to <a href="https://colab.research.google.com/drive/13AE8RvjnCfuBJGaACEqxeBIMo33_l-Sc?usp=sharing">use a script to build my own .apk</a> of the Reddit app of choice (Infinity) just continue using it following changes to the API, but I am more annoyed at how the website with the most &ldquo;real&rdquo; content on the internet is at risk of disappearing.</p> <p>This website may one day vanish. Although I host now for free on Cloudflare connected to GitHub, not only is my website reliant on these two accounts staying active and these free policies continuing, but also on the domain name being paid yearly. Athough, I could look into archival methods so the website will live on via somewhere like the <a href="http://wayback.archive.org/">WayBack Machine</a> to preserve the content.</p> <p>I write almost all of the website in Markdown, and I have been able to re-write this website a few times now, with all the content being able to move pretty easily between the versions as those .md files need little change. I can pretty much take these small files anywhere with me and republish elsewhere with little difficulty. Thus, I do not see my content as being stuck in one place, which is important to me.</p> <p>Furthermore, I have an <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/index.xml">RSS feed</a> which automatically updates whenever the website does, which means my content can be viewed outside of my website and via an RSS reader of your choice instead, truly existing outside of any silo.</p> <p>Lastly, I also want to break silos even more by embodying a <a href="https://thoughts.melonking.net/thoughts/every-site-needs-a-links-page-why-linking-matters">movement where it is encouraged to keep interlinking across the internet and not have your website be a dead end</a>. I want my posts to have <a href="https://manuelmoreale.com/i-hate-internal-linking">many links for your to read or follow up from</a>, and I also want you to know about websites I like and people I&rsquo;ve found interesting.</p> <h3 id="expression">Expression</h3> <p>Finally in this section, I&rsquo;ll be boring and state that my content is an expression of who I am. I intend to write to be informative, hoping someone somewhere stumbles across something I&rsquo;ve linked to or said, and find that help them in their life. However, that content has to first be relevant to me, and I won&rsquo;t be writing about stuff I don&rsquo;t care about.</p> <h2 id="accessibility">Accessibility</h2> <p>I take accessibility seriously. I never used to, but after spending time with people who experience the web differently, I realised how important it was to make my website become more inclusive. <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/seesboy/719933727206227968">As best put here</a>, &ldquo;an inaccessible web is not a free web&rdquo;, and while fighting the good fight against Web 3.0 and corporations is neat and all with our handmade unique websites, how effective are they if we leave people behind due to our design decisions?</p> <h3 id="colours">Colours</h3> <p>For my most recent redesign, I chose to simplify with just two theme choices, a light <a href="https://ethanschoonover.com/solarized/">Solarized</a> inspired theme, and a dark <a href="https://catppuccin.com/">Catppuccin Frappé</a> one. However, neither of their respective colour palettes are fully compliant with <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA Normal</a>, and required me to tweak slightly using <a href="https://colourcontrast.cc/">Colour Contrast Checker</a> to make them comply. However, if I have made a mistake, and a combination falls below these standards, please let me know via Mastodon.</p> <p>Having an appropriate colour contrast is important as if the contrast is poor, it may be excluding people with some visual impairments. <a href="https://www.whocanuse.com/">WhoCanUse</a> has examples of how certain colour combinations may appear to people with certain impairments. Plus, accessible colour contrast can be fun, <a href="https://randoma11y.com/">RandomA11y</a> has many bright and colourful ideas.</p> <h3 id="access">Access</h3> <p>I wanted the website to be accessible, literally able to access, on mobile devices, screens with various display sizes, and functional via using zoom. Sadly, I&rsquo;ve seen Web Revival websites which break when zoomed in or on mobile devices, or even in smaller desktop window sizes. This is a problem not just for accessibility, where some may need to make text larger to view more comfortably, but this also affects those on older hardware with smaller screen sizes and many people who simply do not have a desktop or laptop, and can only access the internet via a mobile device.</p> <p>I also did not want force people into using certain web browsers only to access this website. As such, it has been tested on Windows, Mac OS and Fedora, as well as on Firefox, Librewolf, Brave, Vivaldi, Chrome, Safari and Edge.</p> <h3 id="images">Images</h3> <p>I have tried to make sure all images and icons have alt text to visually describe them, and to blur any animated graphics until hovered over so as to not trigger people with visual sensitivities.</p> <h3 id="consistency">Consistency</h3> <p>I have tried to create consistency for the user so all links are the same colour, all links are bold except those within long texts as this may make the reading experience more difficult, though all links of any kind are underlined, and the underline is not used anywhere else.</p> <p>I have standardised font sizes, as well as use a consistent heading structure, though I may have made a few errors along the way, I am trying to fix these whenever I encounter them. I&rsquo;ve also made sure the layout doesn&rsquo;t change and stays consistent, though the sidebar does disappear when on non-article pages as it is redundant.</p> <h3 id="text">Text</h3> <p>Alongside the colour changes, I am using <a href="https://jacobxperez.github.io/lexica-ultralegible/">Lexcia Hyperlegible</a> as my font choice due to its improved readability, I have also tried to make sure I&rsquo;ve written using either CamelCase, pascalCase or kebab-case to assist screen readers, and tried to make links more descriptive by explaining them, though I may have made mistakes and missed chances to correct them, but will rectify these if found.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not saying my website perfectly follows my own manifesto. I&rsquo;m sure it doesn&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;m sure there are mistakes I have made, but my intent is to try to be better and try to create a website as best as I can to adhere to the principles in this manifesto. I&rsquo;ve recently adopted a mantra of &ldquo;strive for progress, not perfection&rdquo;, and I think my website embodies that.</p> <p>I do think with some reflection, others might be able to do something similar. I&rsquo;m hoping this manifesto won&rsquo;t just be a case of naval-gazing, or simply a document to hold myself accountable, I hope others may read it and see what steps they can take to think about the user visiting their website.</p> <p>I know that a lot of Web 1.0 had loud graphics with clashing colours and was an assault on the eye at times - surely a tribute to that era, an era that wasn&rsquo;t inclusive, has to remain this way to be fitting of the time? Well, I would argue that both can be done with some compromises, and the spirit can remain.</p> <p>Graphics can be compressed to reduce size and given alt text for screen readers, colours checked for decent contrasts, and animations paused or blurred until the user goes to activate them. Layouts can be built to be responsive to screen sizes, even those with multiple DIVs: <a href="https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/">Sadgrl&rsquo;s layout builder</a> has the option for two sidebars alongside a main DIV, and they collapse down accordingly to all fit neatly inside smaller screens.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m not one to seek out controversy, I want us all to be happy and have fun, but I think this sort of thing is important. Just a few small steps may greatly improve access to our websites and welcome our users to them rather than appear as hostile experiences which feel exclusionary and discriminatory against those with certain disabilities, impairments and sensitivities.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/website-revamp-2026/ Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/website-revamp-2026/ <p>It&rsquo;s that time again! I have revamped the website, and in this short post, I&rsquo;ll go over the changes I&rsquo;ve made and why.</p> <h2 id="why">Why?</h2> <p>The old website was fine, and there really was not much reason to revamping it yet again. However, a few things happened that made me want to change it. Primarily, I was experiencing some low self-esteem and had found myself in a bit of a hole of negative thinking about my skills and ability - revamping the website would prove to myself I could still do things. However, I wouldn&rsquo;t be revamping it just for the sake of it, I also wanted to improve the back-end code to be more efficient and comply better with various internet standards, better comply with various accessibility aspects, and I wanted to change the layout.</p> <h2 id="what">What?</h2> <p>Cleaning up code was cumbersome and time consuming, as was trying to wrap my head around proper syntax use and standards by both Google and those in IndieWeb, but it&rsquo;s made me feel better about the website as a whole. I tried to reduce unique code to certain pages as much as I could, trying to be as Markdown as possible without inserting HTML or making dedicated CSS classes, but found alternatives to be poor and made the website worse. As such, pages like the <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/button-wall/">Button Wall</a> and <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/old-graphics/">Old Graphics</a> survive. Some other changes that crossover between back-end and front-end are the headers, which now all correctly flow from H1 to H2 to H3 and H4 without jumps (also part of improving accessibility). I&rsquo;ve added <code>&lt;!--more--&gt;</code> to each post signifying the preamble text and is used as excerpts for the front page. As such, the front page now lists more information about the five most recent posts, as well as everything being paginated, so the visitor can now browse through the post extracts.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ve also changed the overall layout in other ways, with posts having a column of metadata and the Table of Contents to the side, which turn into the ingredients list when viewing a recipe page. All pages show a modified header with the theme selector, as well as links to Mastodon and the RSS feed up there too. There has been a change from the more boxed-in appearance to the new full width header, and also more space for the post content, which now runs all the way to the bottom of the page. Overall, I also just wanted a lot more breathing room and &ldquo;white space&rdquo;, to make the content feel a lot less cramped.</p> <p>I decided to remove both <a href="https://www.webmentions.com/">WebMentions</a> and <a href="https://mermaid.js.org/">Mermaid Diagrams</a>. For WebMentions, it wasn&rsquo;t getting used and I&rsquo;d come to be happy with this being just a place I write about things I want to without external validation. For the diagrams, it had always bothered me that I was unable to have these change (at least, I could never work it out!) the theme of these dependent on the site&rsquo;s wider theme - it was always stuck in dark mode. A such, I&rsquo;ve accepted to go without, and instead try to be better at explaining things in text without the use of diagrams.</p> <p>Speaking of themes, although I do love the colours in <a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/">Rosé Pine Dawn</a>, I became sort of enamoured by the <a href="https://ethanschoonover.com/solarized/">Solarized</a> Light theme and the idea of going back to a more vintage or retro time in technology, though I have modified the colours to be more accessibility friendly. This was many months ago as I write this, so I can&rsquo;t quite remember why I was so convinced I had to use such colours and imagery, but I was inspired somehow and decided to go for an approach of bold colours, yellow undertones instead of pure white, large text, and blocky lines or dots. For dark mode, I was not too keen on using the related Solarized colours here, and instead reverted back to <a href="https://catppuccin.com/">Catppuccin</a> I&rsquo;d used in the past, as although I prefer the light mode of Rosé Pine&rsquo;s Dawn to Catppuccin&rsquo;s Latte, I like the dark mode of Catppuccin&rsquo;s Frappé more than Rosé Pine&rsquo;s Moon. Plus, I quite like how the two different themes, the light theme of Solarized and the dark of Catppuccins Frappé, have two different &ldquo;feels&rdquo; to them as well, with the light mode being more retro, with the dark being more modern.</p> <p>As a result of my new &ldquo;vibes&rdquo;, I have removed the use of emojis throughout the website design as I felt they did not fit the new vision of the website, but have introduced more <a href="https://css-shape.com/">CSS generated graphics</a> alongside the <a href="https://css-pattern.com/">CSS generated patterns</a> used in the header as well as for the background. I&rsquo;ve also the font from Atkinson Hyperlegible to Lexcia Ultralegible, as I liked the changes the newer font made.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ve also made more subtle changes, utilising the &ldquo;outset&rdquo; and &ldquo;inset&rdquo; border styles across the website. Inset is used for both inline and blocks of code, whereas outset can be found for words used in lists that are bunched together, such as tags on a post or attributes like my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/finch/#food-favourites">Finch Nova&rsquo;s favourite food</a>! I also use outset as the border of my images with captions, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/kinder-world/">as seen with my plants in Kinder World</a>, and for the &ldquo;cards&rdquo; in my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-reviews-english/">Music Reviews post</a>.</p> <p>Lastly, I changed a lot of lists into tables, such as with my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/about-me/">About Me page</a> and the <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/">Rooms page</a>, as I felt these optimised the space better. I also added more description to the Rooms page, better explaining what each section was about.</p> <h2 id="when">When?</h2> <p>One of the main reasons I have not written much over the past year was that I actually started this in mid-2025, and it not only became a preoccupation, but also meant new posts would be written with the new website in mind, but would appear on the old website. I did publish the occasional post, deciding it was worth the hassle of having it in two different /content/ folders at the same time, but a lot of work was being done in private, with the website looking neglected, when that couldn&rsquo;t be further from the truth - though I do admit illnesses slowed down progress, but it was always on my mind!</p> <p>A website is never really &ldquo;done&rdquo; though, and worryingly I asked for various old books on website design, usability. accessibility and style over Christmas I have yet to dive into, and I&rsquo;d be surprised if I don&rsquo;t end up inspired to revamp the website again with these new ideas in my mind. For now though, I am glad I (finally!) completed this project of mine, finishing what I set out to do all those many months ago last year!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/uses/ Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/uses/ <p>On this page, I will list, and update, what I am currently using on my devices. If you wish to know more about my self hosting set-up, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/tags/self-hosting/">I suggest checking out this tag here</a>, as I tend to write quite extensively when I make changes to such a set-up.</p> <h2 id="platforms">Platforms</h2> <h3 id="cross-platform">Cross-Platform</h3> <ul> <li>Note-Taking: <a href="https://github.com/TriliumNext/Notes">Trilium Next</a></li> <li>To-Do: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV">CalDAV</a></li> <li>Communication: <a href="https://www.signal.org/">Signal</a></li> <li>Bookmarks: <a href="https://karakeep.app/">Karakeep</a></li> <li>Search: <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/">DuckDuckGo</a></li> <li>Podcasts: <a href="https://pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a></li> <li>Audiobooks: <a href="https://www.audiobookshelf.org/">AudioBookShelf</a></li> <li>Music: <a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a></li> </ul> <h3 id="desktop">Desktop</h3> <ul> <li>Operating System: <a href="https://www.fedoraproject.org/">Fedora</a></li> <li>Writing: <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora</a></li> <li>Web Browser: <a href="https://librewolf.net/">LibreWolf</a></li> <li>Email: <a href="https://www.betterbird.eu/">BetterBird</a></li> <li>To-Do: <a href="https://useplanify.com/">Planify</a></li> <li>Calendar: <a href="https://github.com/KDE/merkuro">Merkuro</a></li> </ul> <h3 id="mobile">Mobile</h3> <ul> <li>Operating System: <a href="https://www.android.com/">Android</a></li> <li>Launcher: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.squarehome2">Square Launcher</a></li> <li>Icons: <a href="https://github.com/Donnnno/Arcticons">Arcticons</a></li> <li>Web Browser: <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/browsers/mobile/focus/">Firefox Focus</a></li> <li>Email: <a href="https://k9mail.app">K-9 Mail</a></li> <li>To-Do: <a href="https://tasks.org/">Tasks</a></li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/fedora/ Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/fedora/ <p>As the &ldquo;tech support&rdquo; member of my family, I was tasked with helping those on Windows devices migrate over to Linux, <a href="https://www.tomsguide.com/news/windows-11-system-requirements">as they their PCs were not compatible with Windows 11</a>, <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-10-support-has-ended-on-october-14-2025-2ca8b313-1946-43d3-b55c-2b95b107f281">Windows 10 support was ending</a>, and they did not want to buy a new PC as theirs were working perfectly fine.</p> <p>As a Mac user, this didn&rsquo;t trouble me necessarily, but I was aware of my own impending end-of-life issue too, <a href="https://www.tomsguide.com/computing/macos/apple-is-ending-support-for-all-intel-based-macs-next-year-heres-whats-getting-cut">as my Intel Mac Mini will not receive any more operating system upgrades</a>, and although software for now continued to be released for both the Intel and Silicone chips, I felt one day the two-tier system would end and I would be unable to install new software. Initially, my plan was to start saving for the new Mac Mini, which were quite affordable by computer standards, but as I began to explore options for my Windows family members, I realised Linux might be an option for me too!</p> <h2 id="no-more-mac">No More Mac?</h2> <p>Aside from the impending hardware issues I would inevitably face, my Mac Mini has been bothering me a lot recently. I had to install a range of software at a baseline level for it to operate and function in a basic way I was happy with, in regards to not just functionality but also privacy and security. From <a href="https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice">Ice</a> needed to modify the task bar, <a href="https://objective-see.org/">to the various applications in the Objective-See suite</a>, and all these needed updating regularly and often reminded me via pop-ups - what, in the end, felt like incessant pop-ups. I felt like I was being barraged by them every time I turned on my Mac. Although I did update my software regularly (I promise!) it was just due to the sheer amount of software on the Mac that this turned into a near daily experience. The Mac Mini was becoming stressful and annoying to use.</p> <p>I initially believed I still needed my Mac though. I despised Windows, only using it for gaming, and did not believe enough of what I used my computer for was available on Linux. For example, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/automating-workflow/">I had a good routine set up using Affinity Photo and Hazel</a>, and I knew neither of these were on Linux. However, I reasoned I could de-bloat the Mac and use it just for <a href="https://www.affinity.studio/photo-editing-software">Affinity Photo</a> and <a href="https://www.noodlesoft.com/">Hazel</a>, perhaps viewed as a &ldquo;work machine&rdquo; and use Linux for more everyday and personal activities.</p> <h2 id="how-times-have-changed">How Times Have Changed</h2> <p>I have dabbled with Linux on-and-off for many years. Initially, I tried to use <a href="https://ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> as my daily driver back in around 2008, but struggled with limited software options. Since then, Linux was very much a secondary option - used on an old laptop or computer for basic use such as a media centre or light web browsing, and I had not paid much attention to the changes and advancements that were happening.</p> <p>For example, I was quite surprised when talking to someone on Mastodon that they were playing a <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/">Steam</a> game on their Linux computer, as the store page of the game listed Windows and Mac only. Although aware of Steam and their Steam Deck being a major driver of games becoming more compatible for Linux, I assumed this was for games officially listed, and did not know many games unofficially worked. In fact, spoiler: it later turned out more games in my Steam library ran on Linux than on Mac!</p> <p>Gaming was indeed a major priority of my family members, and so I did some simple research on Linux distributions (also known as distros) which were good for gaming, and I quickly came across <a href="https://bazzite.gg/">Bazzite</a> - a distro made for gaming! It comes with all sorts of tweaks, driver support and software ready to game on Steam, <a href="https://www.gog.com/">GOG</a>, <a href="https://store.epicgames.com/">Epic</a> and so on, as well as emulators for older gaming too and applications like <a href="https://usebottles.com/">Bottles</a> and <a href="https://lutris.net/">Lutari</a> to fill in the gaps. It was also an intriguing distro, as it said it was &ldquo;image based&rdquo; and the user can rollback at any time to an older snapshot if something breaks, with almost all software running containerised &ldquo;above&rdquo; the operating system, so applications are separated and cannot cause too much damage as a result. Well, as someone who was enjoying their time setting up their server in <a href="https://www.docker.com/">Docker</a> and knowing how important backups and restoring were, as well as how the &ldquo;data&rdquo; interacts with the Docker containers, this really interested me.</p> <h2 id="immutable">Immutable?</h2> <p>A quick look showed Bazzite stemmed from <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/">Fedora Atomic</a>, a series of <a href="https://linuxblog.io/immutable-linux-distros-are-they-right-for-you-take-the-test/">immutable</a> distros (depending on your favoured <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment">desktop environment</a>), with that key component where the programs and the operating system do not interact and everything is containerised. Applications run primarily in <a href="https://flatpak.org/">Flatpaks</a>, though you can give certain applications wider system access by installing through the <a href="https://ostreedev.github.io/ostree/introduction/">OSTree</a>, which then requires a reboot each time as the entire image of the operating system is build and loaded from at each boot - it is this you are restoring from when things go wrong, and OSTree applications are &ldquo;built into it&rdquo;. If there are applications not found in the OSTree or a Flatpak, it could most likely run in a <a href="https://distrobox.it/">Distrobox</a>, where a Linux operating system runs inside (such as Fedora 42) and in there any application that can run on, say, Fedora, either by the downloaded .rpm or through dnf in terminal, can now run on your immutable operating system.</p> <p>Alongside Fedora Atomic&rsquo;s distros, there was also <a href="https://universal-blue.org/">Universal Blue</a>, who, along with Bazzite, also offered <a href="https://getaurora.dev/">Aurora</a>, <a href="https://projectbluefin.io/">Project Bluefin</a> and <a href="https://projectucore.io/">uCore</a>, each serving a different purpose. It was Aurora that caught my eye, the goodness I&rsquo;d seen advertised in Bazzite but with a deeper focus on developing, with many tools pre-installed, especially when later running a simple command to enable Developer Mode.</p> <p>Deciding to go for this would be a big leap, as although I&rsquo;d heard of <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/">Fedora</a> before, as arguably one of the largest distributions, I&rsquo;d never used it myself, instead preferring distros based on <a href="https://archlinux.org/">Arch</a> or <a href="https://www.debian.org/">Debian</a>. Furthermore, I love to tinker around with things and customise them how I like - would being restricted to Flatpaks, the OSTree and Distrobox be enough for me? On the other hand, I wondered if a more simpler way of using a computer would be better for me - I highly doubted I&rsquo;d get as annoyed as I was getting with my Mac. Maybe simple was the way.</p> <h2 id="fedora-aurora">Fedora Aurora</h2> <p>However, I would not be installing any distro on my Mac Mini, I&rsquo;d leave that as the &ldquo;work machine&rdquo;. Instead, my eyes turned to my Windows PC, which I had build a few years ago for gaming - because it was looking increasingly likely that pretty much all my games would run on Linux. Installation was simple, I chose the NVIDIA download as that&rsquo;s the graphics card in I have, and everything went really swimmingly, including the command needed to install more software for development and installing the vast majority of my applications through the provided Bazaar Flatpak app-store - and so many games too!</p> <h3 id="issues">Issues</h3> <p>But there were some crunchy issues too. Although I did eventually manage to fix it, I took way longer than I ought to have trying to get my mouse&rsquo;s buttons reconfigured how I like. I also had to run my backup software inside a Distrobox, which took some time, but I got there in the end. The biggest issue was around my password manager, which simply refused to interact with my web browser <a href="https://floorp.app/">Floorp</a> - due to how they were both running in Flatpaks and unable to &ldquo;see&rdquo; each other. To overcome it, I had to use what was in the OSTree - thankfully my password manager, but not Floorp, and I had to resort to going back to <a href="https://www.firefox.com/">Firefox</a>. Not great, but okay&hellip; ish. I regularly had issues with the two &ldquo;seeing&rdquo; each other, even though they were both running at the operating system level, and had to re-link them every few days or so. I also weirdly could not get <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV">CalDAV</a> working in <a href="https://apps.kde.org/merkuro.calendar/">Merkuro</a> for calendar use or in <a href="https://useplanify.com/">Planify</a> for tasks, and this was frustrating, as it meant the only way I could see these entries was in <a href="https://www.thunderbird.net/">Thunderbird</a>, but I do not like the idea of my email, calendar and tasks all being in the same window, I like them all spaced out easy to glace at. I also could not get <a href="https://flathub.org/en/apps/net.codelogistics.webapps">Web Apps</a> to work, with nothing happening when I tried to enter the URL of the website (well, my services hosted on my server) I wanted to add.</p> <h3 id="benefits">Benefits</h3> <p>Still, there were no annoying pop-ups. No nagging. No mountains of software needed to be downloaded to create a decent baseline for working on. It felt like a breath of fresh air. I absolutely loved how I wasn&rsquo;t treated like an idiot, something I often felt with Apple restricting what I could and could not do. I didn&rsquo;t need Ice to rearrange my task bar, I didn&rsquo;t need <a href="https://shottr.cc/">shottr</a> for screenshots, I didn&rsquo;t need <a href="https://dockdoor.net/">DockDoor</a> for previews, and I didn&rsquo;t need <a href="https://bjango.com/mac/istatmenus/">iStats</a> for system monitoring, because these were all included - plus it was easy to add things that weren&rsquo;t, <a href="https://github.com/rxappdev/RememberWindowPositions">such as the script for windows to remember their positions</a>. Customisation is phenomenal - combined with the built-in option and <a href="https://github.com/tsujan/Kvantum/blob/master/Kvantum/INSTALL.md">Kvantum</a>, I&rsquo;ve been able to pretty much dunk my entire user interface in <a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/">Rosé Pine Dawn</a>, so everything is lovely and soft on the eyes, and tweaked the panels exactly how I like: no panels on my side screens, but a nice large dock-like panel at the bottom with my applications like on a Mac, and a nice thin panel at the top where my system tray and some widgets. In fact, I pinned some favourite widgets to the bottom panel as they act more like applications: calculator, weather, colour picker, sticky notes, clipboard contents, trashcan and <a href="https://kdeconnect.kde.org/">KDE Connect</a>.</p> <p>I used KDE Connect on my Mac Mini to connect to my Android phone, but it works so much better with full integration with <a href="https://kde.org/">KDE</a>, the chosen desktop environment for Aurora. Sending files and clipboards between the two is a breeze, and I love being able to remotely control the computer as well. Another bonus for KDE is <a href="https://apps.kde.org/dolphin/">Dolphin</a>, its file manager. With Mac Mini, to mount remote disks as integrated into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finder_(software)">Finder</a>, it looked like I&rsquo;d need to pay up for something like <a href="https://mountainduck.io/">Mountain Duck</a>, but Dolphin has added them in effortlessly, as well as having other great features like giving me the option to copy, move or link when something is dragged into another window, and I&rsquo;m finally able to use my delete key again! These factors, along with the incredible customisation options, have made me a massive fan of KDE, and it&rsquo;s unlikely now I&rsquo;ll look at other desktop environments like <a href="https://www.gnome.org/">GNOME</a> or <a href="https://system76.com/cosmic">COSMIC</a>.</p> <h3 id="but-then">But Then&hellip;</h3> <p>One day, as I was nearing the end of setting everything up, I go to launch a game on Steam I&rsquo;ve been enjoying recently, and it loaded like crap - incredibly slow with terrible graphics. After a lot of troubleshooting, it initially seemed Steam could no longer see my graphics card and was instead trying to render the graphics from the CPU instead. I tried everything to fix it, including different drivers, different deployments, different ways of running Steam, all sorts. But none of it worked. I was also quite frustrated: I thought this sort of thing wasn&rsquo;t supposed to happen, or, if it did, a fix would be pushed shortly. Maybe one did, but I couldn&rsquo;t see it as, inexplicably, there was a sort of &ldquo;repository drift&rdquo; and I could no longer access the OSTree or run <a href="https://docs.getaurora.dev/guides/basic-usage/">ujust</a> to get updates. I was baffled at how the operating system had become so broken so quickly with me doing absolutely nothing to it, aside from accept an update which was what began breaking everything. Sure, I could rollback to a snapshot before the cursed update, but I had spent nearly a month at this point trying to first fix the Steam issue before being hit with the repository one. In hindsight, I should have just rolled back straight away when Steam broke, and awaited a fix before updating again, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.</p> <p>Instead, I decided to accept defeat that my computer was borked and I couldn&rsquo;t fix it. A reinstall was the only option moving forwards. But I didn&rsquo;t have to use Aurora - after all, I compromised so much for its stability and that hadn&rsquo;t worked out, all those limitations I put up with for nothing. Instead, I initially went with <a href="https://get.opensuse.org/tumbleweed/">openSUSE Tumbleweed</a>, a rolling Linux distribution with KDE by default, and built-in snapshotting - so I could rollback if I ever made a mistake (and I&rsquo;d be better at this now!). It seemed like a good solutions, more openness with installation, but still with those safety nets in place. However, I struggled with NVIDIA drivers and then I just could not get the boot manager to work. Frustrated, and getting absolutely nowhere, I decided to just go with something simplier, maybe missing some fancy features, but looks like it will work: Fedora KDE.</p> <h2 id="fedora-kde">Fedora KDE</h2> <p>As I get audio to my DAC from my NVIDIA graphics card&rsquo;s <a href="S/PDIF">S/PDIF</a>, and the default drivers needed replacing with proprietary ones, but that was pretty much the only issue I faced. After that, I was able to start installing applications, re-configuring KDE as I like, and use it as a daily driver. Thankfully, the move to Fedora KDE fixed all the issues I was having on Aurora: Steam worked perfectly with my games and could see the NVIDIA graphics card, my password manager worked so much better and I was able to abandon Firefox, this time for <a href="https://librewolf.net/">Librewolf</a>, and even CalDAV began working in Merkuro and Planify, plus my backing up application worked straight away with the provided .rpm downloaded from their website, and Web Apps started to work!</p> <h3 id="software-setup">Software Setup</h3> <p>Speaking of software, and going back a bit to when I was on Aurora making the switch from Mac, although not all my software was available on Linux, I was able to make some great swaps, and arguably, some upgrades, as well as discovering new software along the way.</p> <p>Software that survived the move include more techie stuff like <a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a> to keep my files in sync across my devices locally, <a href="https://localsend.org/">LocalSend</a> to send all sorts across my network, and <a href="https://tailscale.com/">Tailscale</a> as the internal VPN, as well as other applications like <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora</a> for writing, <a href="https://triliumnotes.org/">Trillium Notes</a> for my note taking (which works better on Linux than it did on my Mac), <a href="https://signal.org/">Signal</a> for communication, <a href="https://github.com/jeffvli/feishin">Feishin</a> for music, and I even managed to get <a href="https://github.com/ryzendew/Linux-Affinity-Installer">Affinity working through this incredible script here!</a> I need to tackle a Hazel replacement next&hellip;! <a href="https://github.com/tfeldmann/organize">Organize</a>, maybe?</p> <p>Replacements from Mac include <a href="https://angryip.org/">Angry IP Scanner</a> instead of <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lanscan/id472226235">LanScan</a> for scanning my network, <a href="https://github.com/rxappdev/MouseTiler">Mouse Tiler</a> over <a href="https://www.lightpillar.com/mosaic.html">Mosaic</a> for window management, <a href="https://apps.kde.org/kate/">Kate</a> as my text editor (and honestly, a massive improvement over what I was using before), <a href="https://fishshell.com/">fish</a> instead of bash, <a href="https://swatch.gabmus.org/">Swatch</a> for colour palettes, as well as using the in-built colour picker, and <a href="https://www.betterbird.eu/">Betterbird</a> instead of Thunderbird for my email. I&rsquo;ve already mentioned Merkuro as my calendar application (replacing <a href="https://flexibits.com/fantastical">Fantastical</a>) and Planify (replacing <a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/reminders/welcome/mac">Reminders</a>), but these seriously as great improvements as well - now they work! New software entirely include <a href="https://infinipaint.com/">InfinitPaint</a> for whiteboards and doodling (my graphics tablet works great!), <a href="https://www.drawio.com/">draw.io</a> for diagrams, and I love how easy the built-in emoji picker is to use! I&rsquo;ve also used Web Apps to create native-looking applications of some of my self-hosted services that don&rsquo;t have apps. I tried this in my Mac, but the result was very laggy and I ended up resorting back to the web browser to access them, but Web Apps works so much better, and now Karakeep and Memos sit nicely in my task bar for easy access!</p> <p>The only downside was that the replacement for <a href="https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/search-with-spotlight-mchlp1008/mac">Spotlight</a> (or <a href="https://www.alfredapp.com/">Alfred</a>, as I was using), <a href="https://userbase.kde.org/Plasma/Krunner">KRunner</a>, can be a bit slow on opening. I&rsquo;m too used to pressing alt + space and immediately typing the application I wish to open, but there is a slight delay here, so often when I type in, say, tailscale, it&rsquo;ll come up as ilscale. However, I was recommended <a href="https://github.com/vicinaehq/vicinae">vicinae</a> on Mastodon, more of a <a href="https://www.raycast.com/">Raycast</a> replacement (something I had dabbled with for a day before going back to Alfred), and I am very happy with it! Not only is it faster, but looks beautiful and is able to use the Raycast extension store!</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>All of this is to say I&rsquo;m really glad I made the jump over from Mac to Linux. Although it was a bumpy ride to get to my destination, I think it was worth it. Everything is much faster, smoother and a lot less hassle! I am very happy with the improvements to my life moving has made, and I&rsquo;m really impressed at how Linux has developed over the past couple of decades.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/asmr/ Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/asmr/ <p>Autonomous sensory meridian response, better known as ASMR, is a bodily sensation which often feels like tingling. Although I do not experience this feeling, I enjoy relaxing to ASMR, finding it helps switch my brain off and rest.</p> <p>The following are my favourite ASMR channels, with a brief description of their content.</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Channel</th> <th>Description</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcDB-dzjhlZLMmJVL6eVTYQ">Ana Aster</a></td> <td>Non-verbal content, usually around three hours long, featuring numerous triggers using a variety of different tools, objects, and microphones.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@asmrtwix">Twix ASMR</a></td> <td>Visits various salons and spas across Japan and has her visits recorded by her sister. The videos are in softly-spoken Japanese with English subtitles.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@LaLekASMR">LaLek ASMR</a></td> <td>Gets massages, salon treatments and spa therapies across South East Asia, with most of the content being unspoken aside from a few minor pieces of conversation.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@asmr_beauty">ASMR Beauty</a></td> <td>Attends various therapeutic sessions in the UK ranging from manicures to colour consolations, from acupuncture to massages, often with lots of conversation and explanation by the practitioner.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@WhispersRedASMR">Whispers Red</a></td> <td>Creates cosy wide ranging content, including role-play, casual chatting, unscripted ASMR, and videos with various trigger objects.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ediyasmr">ediyasmr</a></td> <td>Videos have a soothing and safe space through meditations, reiki, tarot readings and more, with soft-spoken speech towards the viewer.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@CoromoSaraASMR">Coromo Sara</a></td> <td>Usually non-verbal, focusing instead on objects creating scratching, tapping, peeling or brushing sounds, with videos ranging between twenty minutes to over three hours.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@esteASMR">esteASMR</a></td> <td>Primarily visits beauty salons and spas primarily in South Korea, with the focus on these treatments and usually little talking aside from the initial introduction, though does provide her commentary in the subtitles.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@MoonlightCottageASMR">Moonlight Cottage ASMR</a></td> <td>Creates immersive and elaborate role-playing videos with an incredibly high production value, almost entirely in an historical setting, usually running between twenty minutes and one hour in length.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ReikiwithAnna">Reiki with Anna</a></td> <td>Anna performs reiki in these calming, relaxing, and encouraging videos, which create a cozy and comforting atmosphere as she speaks softly and occasionally utilises some ASMR techniques such as tapping and hand fluttering.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ShiliASMR">ShiliASMR</a></td> <td>The videos feature her undergoing various spa, massage and beauty treatments across Asia, ranging from the everyday normal to the strange and unusual. There is often minimal talking, though her thoughts are displayed in the subtitles.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@WhispersoftheWolfASMR">Whispers of the Wolf ASMR</a></td> <td>Blends together AMSR and reiki to create soothing videos helping to unwind and relax as she softly speaks, uses her hands, and sometimes objects, to perform her reiki.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@woodsoupgirlasmr">Wood Soup Girl ASMR</a></td> <td>Primarily focuses on non-talking videos where she pours and stirs wooden objects in water, creating a &ldquo;wood soup&rdquo;, but also occasionally releases other ASMR videos with tapping, scratching and brushing.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@SarahLavenderASMR">Sarah Lavender ASMR</a></td> <td>The videos feature her talking to the camera in a soothing and reassuring way helping the viewer to unwind with calming sounds and positive affirmations alongside the usual ASMR techniques.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@VitoASMR">Vito ASMR</a></td> <td>Combines various ASMR methods with numerous objects in a wide ranging set of non-verbal videos, which can run anywhere from forty minutes all the way past four hours.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@ASMRbyPAR">ASMR by P.A.R.</a></td> <td>Mixes ASMR with reiki and her soft, warm, nurturing nature to create calming and relaxing videos with a slight role-play aspect to them.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@IrmaLaDulceASMR">Irma La Dulce ASMR</a></td> <td>These role-play videos, normally over an hour log and usually with minimal and slow movements, have her soft and calming voice focusing her attention on the viewer.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TipoftheMoon">Tip of the Moon</a></td> <td>A channel that combines ASMR with reiki, featuring very soothing visuals and audio created by using crystals and hand movements. The videos are often over an hour long with the option to listen with or without added music.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@HolisticMysticYsaniaASMR">Holistic Mystic Ysania ASMR</a></td> <td>Combines all sorts, including using cards, sage, crystals, hand movements, singing bowls and speaking in light languages, to create a calming and relaxing environment.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TheHealingRoomASMR">The Healing Room ASMR</a></td> <td>Role-play videos usually featuring very soft vocals and slow hand movements, normally with a focus on taking care of the viewer, with options to listen with music, rain or with no added audio effects.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@theangelicalchemist">The Angelic Alchemist</a></td> <td>Creates lovely warm and comforting videos mixing together ASMR with reiki, usually with the point-of-view role-play aspect of the viewer resting in the video and being treated by Michaela.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@HuyanaBeauty">Huyana Beauty</a></td> <td>Is a professional beauty therapist, and showcases her skills on clients with a lovely music and lighthearted voice over describing what she is doing.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@TillYouSleepASMR">Till You Sleep ASMR</a></td> <td>Focusing on calming ASMR, her videos feature hand movements, whispers and various objects to help soothe the viewer and relax.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@madiskitchen">madi&rsquo;s witchy kitchen ASMR</a></td> <td>A wide range of videos, with some featuring the making of &ldquo;potions&rdquo; top-down, some directed to camera where the viewer is softly spoken to, and others focus on cooking.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@nickelcitymystic/videos">Nickel City Mystic ASMR</a></td> <td>Features reiki performed towards the viewer, using crystals, hand movements and sage, with a soft voice and calm movements, as well as options to watch with or without music.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@THELUNEINNATE">The Lune INNATE</a></td> <td>Reiki channel with dimmed soft lighting, with Jillian using hand movements or other objects, with her soothing voice, to help calm and relax the viewer.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@christinathemedium">Christina the Medium</a></td> <td>Brightly coloured reiki performed by Christina with her kind and friendly presence, using hand movements and various objects.</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@mermaid_of_the_moon_asmr">Mermaid of the Moon - ASMR</a></td> <td>A role-play spa focused channel, with perspectives of bottom-up and her towards the camera. Videos usually have options for non-talking or whispered, as well as added in music or rain sounds.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> https://jessicajournals.com/website/ Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/website/ <p>Here I have collected information about this website.</p> <h2 id="information">Information</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/another-website-revamp-2026/">Post about how this website was created here.</a></li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/manifesto-2026/">Post with this website&rsquo;s Manifesto here.</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="credits">Credits</h2> <ul> <li>Platform: <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a></li> <li>Theme: <a href="https://github.com/yihui/hugo-xmin">XMin</a></li> <li>CSS Graphics: <a href="https://css-pattern.com/">CSS Pattern</a> and <a href="https://css-shape.com/">CSS Shape</a></li> <li>Font: <a href="https://jacobxperez.github.io/lexica-ultralegible/">Lexica Ultralegible</a></li> <li>Profile Picture: <a href="https://picrew.me/image_maker/644129">makowka</a></li> <li>robots.txt: <a href="https://seirdy.one/robots.txt">Seirdy</a></li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/music-reviews-english/ Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/music-reviews-english/ <p>Here I have posted the names of English language albums I either recommend or were part of my &ldquo;Albums of the Year&rdquo; lists, what genre they are, and my favourite top three tracks. I&rsquo;ll rank them slightly, with them all worth checking out, though some more highly recommended than others:</p> <ol> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Gold</li> <li>Silver</li> <li>Bronze</li> </ol> <p>They have been initially posted in a random order, and then the newest entries added to the bottom.</p> <p>Opinions are, of course, my own, and I acknowledge that I have a bad taste in music, so I don&rsquo;t doubt other people will have different opinions to mine!</p> <div class="music-list-grid"> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="slayyyter-starfucker">Slayyyter: STARFUCKER</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Miss Belladonna</li> <li>Purrr</li> <li>Out of Time</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="mitski-the-land-is-inhospitable-and-so-are-we">Mitski: The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-1">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>When Memories Snow</li> <li>Star</li> <li>The Deal</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="glüme-main-character">Glüme: Main Character</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Electronic</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-2">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Child Actor</li> <li>Do Me A Favor</li> <li>Wedding Cake Shop</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="susanne-sundfør-blómi">Susanne Sundfør: blómi</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Folk</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-3">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>alyosha</li> <li>leikara ljóð</li> <li>blómi</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="madison-beer-silence-between-songs">Madison Beer: Silence Between Songs</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alt-Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-4">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Spinnin</li> <li>Envy The Leaves</li> <li>Showed Me (How I Fell In Love With You)</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="boygenius-the-record">boygenius: The Record</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alt-Rock</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-5">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>True Blue</li> <li>We&rsquo;re In Love</li> <li>Satanist</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="olivia-rodrigo-guts">Olivia Rodrigo: GUTS</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop-Rock</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-6">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>all-american bitch</li> <li>bad idea right?</li> <li>vampire</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="caroline-polachek-desire-i-want-to-turn-into-you">Caroline Polachek: Desire, I Want To Turn Into You</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alt-Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-7">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Welcome To My Island</li> <li>Sunset</li> <li>Smoke</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="the-jordan-nowhere-near-the-sky">The Jordan: Nowhere Near The Sky</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alt-Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-8">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>The Room</li> <li>Naked In The Sun</li> <li>Mmm</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="janelle-monáe-the-age-of-pleasure">Janelle Monáe: The Age of Pleasure</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Funk</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-9">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Float</li> <li>Water Slide</li> <li>Paid In Pleasure</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="corrine-bailey-rae-black-rainbows">Corrine Bailey Rae: Black Rainbows</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Experimental</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-10">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>A Spell, A Prayer</li> <li>Red Horse</li> <li>Put It Down</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="jack-river-endless-summer">Jack River: Endless Summer</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Alt-Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-11">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Lie To You</li> <li>Lie In The Sun</li> <li>Nothing Has Changed</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="ava-max-diamonds--dancefloors">Ava Max: Diamonds &amp; Dancefloors</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-12">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Dancing’s Done</li> <li>Get Outta My Heart</li> <li>Diamonds &amp; Dancefloors</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="carly-rae-jepsen-the-loveliest-time">Carly Rae Jepsen: The Loveliest Time</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-13">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Shy Boy</li> <li>Kamikaze</li> <li>Psychedelic Switch</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="zella-day-sunday-in-heaven">Zella Day: Sunday In Heaven</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2022</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-14">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Mushroom Punch</li> <li>I Don&rsquo;t Know How To End</li> <li>Radio Silence</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kim-petras-problématique">Kim Petras: Problématique</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-15">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Confession</li> <li>Born Again</li> <li>Problématique</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="allie-x-cape-god">Allie X: Cape God</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2020</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-16">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Fresh Laundry</li> <li>Sarah Come Home</li> <li>Susie Save Your Love</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="susanne-sundfør-ten-love-songs">Susanne Sundfør: Ten Love Songs</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2015</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-17">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Slowly</li> <li>Delirious</li> <li>Memorial</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="marina-froot">MARINA: FROOT</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2015</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-18">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Froot</li> <li>Savages</li> <li>Immortal</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="st-vincent-masseduction">St. Vincent: MASSEDUCTION</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2017</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-19">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Los Ageless</li> <li>Masseduction</li> <li>New York</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="lana-del-rey-norman-fucking-rockwell">Lana Del Rey: Norman Fucking Rockwell!</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2019</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-20">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Mariners Apartment Complex</li> <li>The greatest</li> <li>Venice Bitch</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="tove-lo-lady-wood">Tove Lo: Lady Wood</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2016</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-21">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Cool Girl</li> <li>Keep It Simple</li> <li>Lady Wood</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="rachel-stevens-come-and-get-it">Rachel Stevens: Come And Get It</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2005</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-22">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>So Good</li> <li>Funny How</li> <li>I Said Never Again (But Here We Are</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="torres-thistier">TORRES: Thistier</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2021</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-23">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Don&rsquo;t Go Puttin Wishes in My Head</li> <li>Thirstier</li> <li>Keep the Devil Out</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="halsey-if-i-cant-have-love-i-want-power">Halsey: If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2021</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-24">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>I am not a woman, I&rsquo;m a god</li> <li>You asked for this</li> <li>The Tradition</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="britney-spears-in-the-zone">Britney Spears: In The Zone</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2003</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-25">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Breathe on Me</li> <li>Everytime</li> <li>Toxic</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="hilary-duff-dignity">Hilary Duff: Dignity</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2007</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-26">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Stranger</li> <li>Outside Of You</li> <li>Dignity</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="carly-rae-jepsen-emotion">Carly Rae Jepsen: Emotion</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2015</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-27">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Gimmie Love</li> <li>Your Type</li> <li>I Didn&rsquo;t Just Come Here To Dance</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="marina-electric-heart">MARINA: Electric Heart</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2012</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-28">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Power &amp; Control</li> <li>Buy the Stars</li> <li>Fear and Loathing</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="demi-lovato-holy-fvck">Demi Lovato: HOLY FVCK</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2022</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-29">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>EAT ME</li> <li>29</li> <li>HOLY FVCK</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="dua-lipa-future-nostalgia">Dua Lipa: Future Nostalgia</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2020</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-30">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Love Again</li> <li>Levitating</li> <li>Hallucinate</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="madonna-confessions-on-a-dance-floor">Madonna: Confessions on a Dance Floor</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2005</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-31">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Hung Up</li> <li>Sorry</li> <li>Push</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="ashlee-simpson-autobiography">Ashlee Simpson: Autobiography</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2004</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-32">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Autobiography</li> <li>Undiscovered</li> <li>Pieces Of Me</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="lana-del-rey-chemtrails-over-the-country-club">Lana Del Rey: Chemtrails Over The Country Club</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2021</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-33">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Chemtrails Over The Country Club</li> <li>White Dress</li> <li>Wild At Heart</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="sophie-ellis-bextor-trip-the-light-fantastic">Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Trip The Light Fantastic</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2007</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-34">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Catch You</li> <li>If I Can&rsquo;t Dance</li> <li>If You Go</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="tove-lo-blue-lips">Tove Lo: BLUE LIPS</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2017</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-35">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>stranger</li> <li>disco tits</li> <li>cycles</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="no-doubt-return-of-saturn">No Doubt: Return of Saturn</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2000</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-36">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Comforting Lie</li> <li>Ex-Girlfriend</li> <li>Artifical Sweetener</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="jessie-ware-whats-your-pleasure">Jessie Ware: What&rsquo;s Your Pleasure?</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2020</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-37">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>What&rsquo;s Your Pleasure?</li> <li>Mirage (Don&rsquo;t Stop)</li> <li>Spotlight</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="mitski-be-the-cowboy">Mitski: Be The Cowboy</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2018</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-38">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>A Pearl</li> <li>Pink in the Night</li> <li>Remember My Name</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="torres-sprinter">TORRES: Sprinter</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2015</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-39">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Harshest Light</li> <li>Sprinter</li> <li>Strange Hellos</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="britney-spears-blackout">Britney Spears: Blackout</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2007</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-40">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Get Naked (I Got a Plan)</li> <li>Radar</li> <li>Heaven On Earth</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="ashlee-simpson-i-am">Ashlee Simpson: I Am</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2005</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-41">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>I Am Me</li> <li>Eyes Wide Open</li> <li>Coming Back For More</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="agnes-magic-still-exists">Agnes: Magic Still Exists</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2021</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-42">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>24 Hours</li> <li>Fingers Crossed</li> <li>Here Comes The Night</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="avril-lavigne-let-go">Avril Lavigne: Let Go</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2002</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-43">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>I&rsquo;m with You</li> <li>Losing Grip</li> <li>Things I&rsquo;ll Never Say</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="fka-twigs-magdalene">fka twigs: MAGDALENE</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Electronic</li> <li>2019</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-44">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>cellophane</li> <li>home with you</li> <li>mirrored heart</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kelly-clarkson-breakaway">Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2004</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-45">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Because of You</li> <li>Addicted</li> <li>Behind These Hazel Eyes</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="allie-x-collxtion-i">Allie X: CollXtion I</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2015</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-46">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Catch</li> <li>Prime</li> <li>Hello</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="carly-rae-jepsen-dedicated">Carly Rae Jepsen: Dedicated</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2019</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-47">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Julien</li> <li>Now That I Found You</li> <li>Real Love</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="rogue-traders-better-in-the-dark">Rogue Traders: Better In The Dark</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2007</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-48">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Throw Your Arms Around Me</li> <li>Childlike</li> <li>Better In The Dark</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kylie-minogue-disco">Kylie Minogue: DISCO</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2020</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-49">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Last Chance</li> <li>Say Something</li> <li>Miss a Thing</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="ingrid-michaelson-lights-out">Ingrid Michaelson: Lights Out</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2014</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-50">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Over You</li> <li>Time Machine</li> <li>Everyone Is Gonna Love Me Now</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="pnk-mssundaztood">P!nk: M!ssundaztood</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2001</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-51">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Don&rsquo;t Let Me Get Me</li> <li>Just Like a Pill</li> <li>Lonely Girl</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="marina-the-family-jewels">MARINA: The Family Jewels</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2010</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-52">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Mowgli&rsquo;s Road</li> <li>Oh No!</li> <li>Hermit the Frog</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="leona-lewis-i-am">Leona Lewis: I Am</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2015</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-53">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Thick Skin</li> <li>Thank You</li> <li>You Knew Me When</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="fefe-dobson-sunday-love">Fefe Dobson: Sunday Love</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2006</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-54">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Scar</li> <li>If I Was a Guy</li> <li>Don&rsquo;t Let It Go to Your Head</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="britney-spears-britney">Britney Spears: Britney</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2001</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-55">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Let Me Be</li> <li>When I Found You</li> <li>That&rsquo;s Where You Take Me</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="lana-del-rey-did-you-know-that-theres-a-tunnel-under-ocean-blvd">Lana Del Rey: Did you know that there&rsquo;s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-56">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>A&amp;W</li> <li>Paris, Texas</li> <li>Grandfather, please stand on the shoulders of my father</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="selena-gomez-rare">Selena Gomez: Rare</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2020</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-57">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>She</li> <li>Ring</li> <li>Dance Again</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="madonna-ray-of-light">Madonna: Ray of Light</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Electronic</li> <li>1998</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-58">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Frozen</li> <li>Ray of Light</li> <li>Drowned World / Substitute for Love</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="amy-studt-my-paper-made-men">Amy Studt: My Paper Made Men</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative</li> <li>2008</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-59">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Sad, Sad World</li> <li>Here Lies Love</li> <li>She Walks Beautiful</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kelly-clarkson-my-december">Kelly Clarkson: My December</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2007</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-60">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Never Again</li> <li>Irvine</li> <li>Judas</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="jessie-ware-that-feels-good">Jessie Ware: That! Feels Good!</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-61">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Pearls</li> <li>Begin Again</li> <li>Freak Me Now</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="avril-lavigne-under-my-skin">Avril Lavigne: Under My Skin</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2004</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-62">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Together</li> <li>Fall To Pieces</li> <li>My Happy Ending</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="the-veronicas-the-secret-life-of">The Veronicas: The Secret Life Of&hellip;</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2005</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-63">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>I Could Get Used To This</li> <li>Heavily Broken</li> <li>4ever</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="carly-rae-jepsen-the-loneliest-time">Carly Rae Jepsen: The Loneliest Time</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2022</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-64">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Beach House</li> <li>Surrender My Heart</li> <li>Talking to Yourself</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="leona-lewis-glassheart">Leona Lewis: Glassheart</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2012</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-65">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Glassheart</li> <li>Come Alive</li> <li>When It Hurts</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="ellie-goulding-higher-than-heaven">Ellie Goulding: Higher Than Heaven</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2023</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-66">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Cure For Love</li> <li>Let It Die</li> <li>Like A Saviour</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="allie-x-collxtion-ii">Allie X: CollXtion II</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2017</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-67">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Casanova</li> <li>Paper Love</li> <li>Old Habits Die Hard</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="dragonette-royal-blues">Dragonette: Royal Blues</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Electronic</li> <li>2016</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-68">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Let The Night Fall</li> <li>Royal Blues</li> <li>Darth Vader</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="poppy-am-i-a-girl">Poppy: Am I A Girl?</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2018</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-69">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Aristocrat</li> <li>Hard Feelings</li> <li>Am I A Girl?</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="billie-eilish-hit-me-hard-and-soft">Billie Eilish: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-70">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>CHIHIRO</li> <li>WILDFLOWER</li> <li>BLUE</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kali-uchis-orquídeas-parte-2">Kali Uchis: Orquídeas Parte 2</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>R&amp;B Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-71">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>¿Cómo Así?</li> <li>Te Mata</li> <li>Dame Beso // Muévete</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="charli-xcx-brat-and-its-completely-different-but-also-still-brat">Charli XCX: brat and it’s completely different but also still brat</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-72">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>365</li> <li>B2b</li> <li>Everything is romantic</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="magdalena-bay-imaginal-disk">Magdalena Bay: Imaginal Disk</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-73">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Vampire in the Corner</li> <li>Watching T.V.</li> <li>Cry for Me</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="suki-waterhouse-memoir-of-a-sparklemuffin">Suki Waterhouse: Memoir of a Sparklemuffin</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-74">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Big Love</li> <li>Supersad</li> <li>To Love</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="sofie-royer-young-girl-forever">Sofie Royer: Young-Girl Forever</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-75">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>I Forget (I’m So Young)</li> <li>Lights out baby, entropy!</li> <li>Sage Comme Une Image</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="ashe-willson">Ashe: Willson</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Folk Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-76">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Please don’t fall in love with me</li> <li>Dear Stranger,</li> <li>Pull The Plug</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="nessa-barrett-aftercare">Nessa Barrett: AFTERCARE</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-77">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>EDWARD SCISSORHANDS</li> <li>MUSTANG BABY</li> <li>DIRTY LITTLE SECRET</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="abi-carter-ghosts-in-the-background">Abi Carter: ghosts in the background</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-78">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>i wish i was a farmer</li> <li>maybe i loved you</li> <li>some people need drugssupe</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="aurora-what-happened-to-the-heart">AURORA: What Happened To The Heart?</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-79">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>My Name</li> <li>Starvation</li> <li>A Soul With No King</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="st-vincent-all-born-screaming">St. Vincent: All Born Screaming</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-80">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Broken Man</li> <li>Reckless</li> <li>All Born Screaming</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="rachel-chinouriri-what-a-devastating-turn-of-events">Rachel Chinouriri: What A Devastating Turn of Events</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Alternative Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-81">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Robbed</li> <li>My Everything</li> <li>The Hills</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="rachel-platten-i-am-rachel-platten">Rachel Platten: I Am Rachel Platten</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Adult Contemporary</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-82">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>I Know</li> <li>The River</li> <li>Bad Thoughts</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="sabrina-carpenter-short-n-sweet">Sabrina Carpenter: Short n’ Sweet</h2> <ul> <li>Platinum</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-83">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Espresso</li> <li>Coincidence</li> <li>Bed Chem</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="laufey-bewitched">Laufey: Bewitched</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Jazz Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-84">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Goddess</li> <li>Bored</li> <li>Second Best</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="bonnie-mckee-hot-city">Bonnie McKee: Hot City</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-85">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Forever 21</li> <li>Snatched</li> <li>Sleepwalker</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="ariana-grande-eternal-sunshine">Ariana Grande: eternal sunshine</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-86">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>we can’t be friends (wait for your love)</li> <li>i wish i hated you</li> <li>supernatural</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="willow-empathogen">WILLOW: empathogen</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Alternative Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-87">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>b i g f e e l i n g s</li> <li>pain for fun</li> <li>the fear is not real</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="lia-kuri-motherland">Lia Kuri: Motherland</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-88">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Highland</li> <li>Chagrin</li> <li>Poltergeist</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="nina-nesbitt-mountain-music">Nina Nesbitt: Mountain Music</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Folk Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-89">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Pages</li> <li>Parachute</li> <li>Anger</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="griff-vertigo">Griff: Vertigo</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-90">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Vertigo</li> <li>Cycles</li> <li>Hole In My Pocket</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="wallice-the-jester">Wallice: The Jester</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Alternative Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-91">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Manipulate</li> <li>Clown Like Me</li> <li>Heaven Has To Happen</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kacey-musgraves-deeper-well">Kacey Musgraves: Deeper Well</h2> <ul> <li>Gold</li> <li>Folk</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-92">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Jade Green</li> <li>Sway</li> <li>Cardinal</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="pet-shop-boys-nonetheless">Pet Shop Boys: Nonetheless</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-93">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Loneliness</li> <li>Why am I dancing?</li> <li>A new bohemia</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="taylor-swift-the-tortured-poets-department-the-anthology">Taylor Swift: The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-94">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Guilty As Sin?</li> <li>loml</li> <li>Robin</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="florrie-the-lost-ones">Florrie: The Lost Ones</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-95">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Kissing In The Cold</li> <li>Looking For Love</li> <li>I Took A Little Something</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="mxmtoon-liminal-space">mxmtoon: liminal space</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-96">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>elevator</li> <li>Snatched</li> <li>Sleepwalker</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kehlani-crash">Kehlani: CRASH</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>R&amp;B</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-97">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Better Not</li> <li>Tears</li> <li>8</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="flo-aaa">FLO: AAA</h2> <ul> <li>Silver</li> <li>R&amp;B Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-98">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Check</li> <li>On &amp; On</li> <li>Caught Up</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="beabadoobee-this-is-how-tomorrow-moves">beabadoobee: This Is How Tomorrow Moves</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-99">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Take A Bite</li> <li>Post</li> <li>Take A Bite</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="lizzy-mcalpine-older-and-wiser">Lizzy McAlpine: Older (and Wiser)</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Alternative Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-100">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Older</li> <li>Broken Glass</li> <li>Soccer Practice</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="halsey-the-great-impersonator">Halsey: The Great Impersonator</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Pop Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-101">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Lonely is the Muse</li> <li>Only Living Girl in LA</li> <li>Dog Years</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="linkin-park-from-zero">Linkin Park: From Zero</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-102">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Good Things Go</li> <li>Heavy is the Crown</li> <li>Two Faced</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="paloma-faith-the-glorification-of-sadness">Paloma Faith: The Glorification of Sadness</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-103">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Let It Ride</li> <li>How You Leave A Man</li> <li>Cry on the Dance Floor</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kelly-lee-owens-dreamstate">Kelly Lee Owens: Dreamstate</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Electronic</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-104">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Trust and Desire</li> <li>Love You Got</li> <li>Ballad (In The End)</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="raveena-where-the-butterflies-go-in-the-rain">Raveena: Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>R&amp;B Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-105">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Rise</li> <li>Water</li> <li>16 Candles</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="dua-lipa-radical-optimism">Dua Lipa: Radical Optimism</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-106">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Training Season</li> <li>Falling Forever</li> <li>Houdini</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kylie-minogue-tension-ii">Kylie Minogue: Tension II</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Dance Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-107">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Midnight Ride</li> <li>Good As Gone</li> <li>Someone For Me</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="remi-wolf-big-ideas">Remi Wolf: Big Ideas</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Alternative Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-108">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Wave</li> <li>Alone in Miami</li> <li>Toro</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="peggy-gou-i-hear-you">Peggy Gou: I Hear You</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Dance</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-109">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Lobster Telephone</li> <li>I Go</li> <li>Back To One</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="amy-allen-amy-allen">Amy Allen: amy allen</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Alternative Pop Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-110">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>darkside</li> <li>pillar</li> <li>even forever</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="kate-hudson-glorious">Kate Hudson: Glorious</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Alternative Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-111">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Glorious</li> <li>Talk About Love</li> <li>Not Easy To Know</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="tyla-tyla-">Tyla: Tyla +</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>R&amp;B Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-112">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Safer</li> <li>Priorities</li> <li>To Last</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="gwen-setfani-bouquet">Gwen Setfani: Bouquet</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-113">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Somebody Else’s</li> <li>Empty Vase</li> <li>Late To Bloom</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="pixie-lott-encino">Pixie Lott: Encino</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-114">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Somebody’s Daughter</li> <li>Midnight Trash</li> <li>Vintage</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="poppy-negative-spaces">Poppy: Negative Spaces</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-115">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>negative spaces</li> <li>halo</li> <li>push go</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="torres-what-an-enormous-room">TORRES: What an Enormous Room</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Alternative Rock</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-116">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Collect</li> <li>i got the fear</li> <li>Forever home</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="salute-true-magic">salute: TRUE MAGIC</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-117">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>saving flowers</li> <li>maybe it’s u</li> <li>softly</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="nilüfer-yanya-my-method-actor">Nilüfer Yanya: My Method Actor</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Alternative Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-118">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Ready for Sun (Touch)</li> <li>Method Actor</li> <li>Just A Western</li> </ul> </div> <div class="music-list"> <h2 id="allie-x-girl-with-no-face">Allie X: Girl With No Face</h2> <ul> <li>Bronze</li> <li>Electronic Pop</li> <li>2024</li> </ul> <h3 id="top-three-tracks-119">Top Three Tracks</h3> <ul> <li>Off With Her Tits</li> <li>Weird World</li> <li>Black Eye</li> </ul> </div> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/font-links/ Tue, 18 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/font-links/ <p>Links to fonts I found interesting.</p> <div class="library"> <ul> <li><a href="https://jacobxperez.github.io/lexica-ultralegible/">Lexica Ultralegible</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.oliviaking.com/inclusive-sans">Inclusive Sans</a></li> <li><a href="https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont">Atkinson Hyperlegible</a></li> <li><a href="https://opendyslexic.org/">OpenDyslexic</a></li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/adding-radio-to-an-ambient-music-server/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/adding-radio-to-an-ambient-music-server/ <p>Earlier this year, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/expanding-an-ambient-music-server/">I wrote about expanding my ambient music server</a>, using <a href="https://www.audiobookshelf.org/">AudioBookShelf</a> to play both podcasts and audio content downloaded from YouTube via <a href="https://github.com/kieraneglin/pinchflat">PinchFlat</a> - mostly relaxing music, guided meditations and ASMR sounds. In this post, I&rsquo;ll go into a recent addition to this setup: creating themed &ldquo;radio&rdquo; stations of what I downloaded from YouTube.</p> <h2 id="a-type-of-choice-paralysis">A Type Of Choice Paralysis</h2> <p>Since adding PinchFlat to my setup, I&rsquo;ve gathered a collection of all sorts of various sounds, including ASMR, nature and relaxing hums at various frequencies. The issue I soon encountered was that while these were nice, and I knew roughly what sort of sound I was intending to listen to, deciding exactly which file to play became a bit overwhelming. It reached a point where I spend more time choosing what to play than actually listening to it.</p> <p>Furthermore, I had also expanded into some more upbeat generic &ldquo;elevator&rdquo; type music, which relaxed my brain in a different way, and I found to be good focus music when undertaking a task as background music or simply when getting ready in the morning. This also suffered from my sort of choice paralysis after a few weeks.</p> <h2 id="ersatz-tv-for-radio">Ersatz TV (For Radio?)</h2> <p>I had previously considered running radio stations on my home network as an alternative to making playlists of shuffled songs with similar genres, where I could quickly dip in and out without much thought. But although I read up about applications like <a href="https://www.azuracast.com/">AzureCast</a>, they weren&rsquo;t really what I was after - such applications were designed to be actual radio stations streaming outwards to audiences. Also, a station would be running 24/7 and I felt that would be a waste to resources, especially if I was running multiple stations. So, I abandoned the idea.</p> <p>Earlier this week though, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1lsabl8/give_more_love_to_ersatztv/">I saw this thread on the /r/selfhosted subreddit</a>, with the original poster talking about setting up a local <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_television">IPTV</a> for their home using <a href="https://ersatztv.org/docs/intro/">Ersatz TV</a>, with themed &ldquo;TV stations&rdquo; created by streaming content from their video collection. They showed examples of a mixed British comedies channel, a dedicated Simpsons channel, a personalised MTV channel showcasing their favourite music videos, and so on. What&rsquo;s even better is that this software doesn&rsquo;t run 24/7, and only activates when someone starts streaming from a channel, and this can be emulated to stick to a strict schedule, where if you tune into an episode that started at 5pm at 5:10pm, you&rsquo;ll come into the stream with the episode already ten minutes in. Or, it can operate on a simple shuffle, which can be modified to start at the start of the content, or come in at a random time to really simulate the experience of just turning on a channel and just seeing what happens to be on.</p> <p>All this alone is extremely neat, and I was impressed not just with the software, but also how dedicated the original poster had been at setting everything up, curating those 750 music videos, creating TV channel icons, and even implementing commercials! Unfortunately for me, I will not be able to recreate such a fantastic setup with my current limited low-end hardware as my server is unable to transcode video and I don&rsquo;t believe HLS Direct/Direct Play is an option, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/1lsabl8/comment/n1mnuxa/">based on various posts I&rsquo;ve seen across the internet</a>. However, you know what needs minimal transcoding? Songs!</p> <p>Yes, alongside assigned libraries for TV Shows, Movies, Music and Other Videos, there is also an option for Songs, where instead of playing a curated selection of TV shows, Ersatz TV can play your selected music with a small aspect of transcoding where it generates an image on screen showing the names of the artist, album and song, cover art, and a blurred background based on the cover art. This, combined with how the stream only starts when you open it, not running 24/7, made me think I had found what I was looking for, overcoming my kind of choice paralysis: create themed &ldquo;radio&rdquo; stations based on what I&rsquo;ve downloaded from YouTube, and listen to them like this rather than from AudioBookShelf, because I&rsquo;m not picky to the exact file I wish to play, I just know the sort of sound/genre I want. But not only that, I could also make radio stations of genres of music I listen to casually, as I wanted when looking into AzureCast, such as the LoFi, FutureFunk and Vaporware music I downloaded from <a href="https://bandcamp.com/">BandCamp</a>.</p> <h2 id="setting-up">Setting Up</h2> <p>I found setting up the stations a tad complicated, so I&rsquo;ll explain here how I did it not just to share, but to remind me if I wish to add more radio stations in the future!</p> <p>For this example, I&rsquo;ll walkthrough the creation of my LoFi radio channel, using local audio files saved on the same disk (though integrations with <a href="https://jellyfin.org/">JellyFin</a>, <a href="https://www.plex.tv/">Plex</a> and <a href="https://emby.media/">Emby</a> also exist). But before we begin, we need to understand how Ersatz TV identifies and tags files, <a href="https://ersatztv.org/docs/user-guide/local-libraries/#songs-metadata">here is what the official documentation says</a>:</p> <blockquote> <h3 id="songs-metadata">Songs Metadata</h3> <p>Songs will have basic metadata pulled from embedded tags (artist, album, title).</p> <h3 id="songs-fallback-metadata">Songs Fallback Metadata</h3> <p>Songs will have a tag added to their metadata for every containing folder, including the top-level folder. As an example, consider adding a songs folder with the following files:</p> <ul> <li><code>Rock\Awesome Band\Awesome Album\01 Track 1.flac</code></li> <li><code>Rock\Awesome Band\Better Album\05 Track 5.flac</code></li> </ul> <p>Your songs library will then have two media items with the following metadata:</p> <ol> <li>title: <code>01 Track 1</code>, tags: <code>Rock</code>, <code>Awesome Band</code>, <code>Awesome Album</code></li> <li>title: <code>05 Track 5</code>, tags: <code>Rock</code>, <code>Awesome Band</code>, <code>Better Album</code></li> </ol></blockquote> <p>As a result, simply pointing Ersatz TV to either my BandCamp collection or to the downloaded YouTube content won&rsquo;t be very helpful later on when selecting which files play on which channel. Either I would have to manually organise track-by-track in Ersatz TV, or I can make my life easier from the start by creating a new directory solely for the purposes of these radio stations. Choosing the latter, creating a new folder titled &ldquo;IPTV&rdquo;, I organise my files into folders by genre and then either by artist or just having the files placed loose in the folder. For example:</p> <p><code>/IPTV/Music/LoFi/Sleepy Fish/</code> or <code>/IPTV/Music/Nature Sounds/</code></p> <p>By doing this, I can later run a search for <code>tag_full:&quot;LoFi&quot;</code> or <code>tag_full:&quot;Nature Sounds&quot;</code>and all the files in that folder will appear, making it easy to add everything in that folder to where I want it to be.</p> <p>So,your first step is to organise your files into genres if you&rsquo;re doing something like I am! After that, I installed Ersatz TV and then began properly:</p> <ol> <li> <p>Go to Media Sources and then Local. Press the pencil icon next to Songs. Add the path to the audio files. Mine was <code>/IPTV/Music</code></p> </li> <li> <p>Go to Media and then Libraries. Find the Songs library and press the &ldquo;refresh&rdquo; symbol next to the magnifying glass. Let it fully scan your files.</p> </li> <li> <p>Go to Media and then Songs to verify this worked. Your files should be there with metadata and cover art.</p> </li> <li> <p>Go to FFmpeg Profiles, and press on Add Profile.</p> </li> <li> <p>Although this is for audio, due to the generation of a screen showing the artist, album and track titles, as well as cover art, there are some video settings that are relevant here. To save on transcoding resources, I have mine set as followed, but if you have a more powerful machine, you may be able to increase these options, and you may also be able to offset transcoding to a graphics card by fiddling around the Hardware Acceleration setting.</p> <ul> <li>Name: Audio</li> <li>Thread Count: 0</li> <li>Preferred Resolution: 640x480</li> <li>Scaling Behaviour: Scale and Pad</li> <li>Video Format: h264</li> <li>Video Profile: high</li> <li>Video B-Frames [unticked]</li> <li>Video Bit Depth: 8-bit</li> <li>Video Bitrate: 500</li> <li>Video Buffer Size: 4000</li> <li>Video Hardware Acceleration: None</li> <li>Video Tinemap Algorithm: Linear</li> <li>Video Normalize Frame Rate [unticked]</li> <li>Video Auto Deinterlace Video [ticked]</li> <li>Audio Format: aac</li> <li>Audio Bitrate: 320</li> <li>Audio Buffer Size: 384</li> <li>Audio Channels: 2</li> <li>Audio Sample Rate: 48</li> <li>Audio Noramlize Loudness: Off</li> </ul> </li> </ol> <p>Press Add Channel.</p> <ol start="6"> <li> <p>Go to Channels and press on Add Channel. Give your channel a number and a name. You can also add other features like adding it to a group, and giving it a logo and watermark. I then changed the following settings:</p> <ul> <li>Progress Mode: Always</li> <li>Streaming Mode: HLS Segmenter</li> <li>FFmpeg Profile: Audio</li> </ul> </li> </ol> <p>Press Add Channel.</p> <ol start="7"> <li> <p>Go to Lists and then Collections. Press on Add Collection, give it a name, and then on Add Collection.</p> </li> <li> <p>You&rsquo;ll then be back at the Collections page. At the top of the screen, you will see a search bar. As I am making my LoFi collection and I already put all my LoFi music into a folder titled LoFi, I then typed this into the search bar: <code>tag_full:&quot;LoFi&quot;</code> and all my music I placed in that folder appeared.</p> </li> </ol> <blockquote> <p>Please note: This is case sensitive, you need to be exact - &ldquo;Lofi&rdquo; or &ldquo;lofi&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t work for me as my folder is &ldquo;LoFi&rdquo;!</p></blockquote> <p>When you see your files, and they&rsquo;re correct, press on the button top-right &ldquo;+ Add All&rdquo;. A pop-up will appear, press on (New Collection) and I selected my LoFi collection. I then pressed Add To Collection. You can verify if this worked by going back to Collections and pressing the pencil next to your collection, and all the files should load.</p> <ol start="9"> <li>Go to Scheduling and then on Schedules. Press on Add Schedule. I then had the following settings:</li> </ol> <ul> <li>Name: LoFi</li> <li>Keep Multi-Part Episodes Together [unticked]</li> <li>Treat Collections As Shows* [unticked]</li> <li>Shuffle Schedule Items [ticked]</li> <li>Random Start Point [ticked]</li> <li>Fixed Start Time Behaviour: Flexible</li> </ul> <p>If you wish for the tracks to start at their start, untick Random Start Point.</p> <p>When you are done, press on Add Schedule.</p> <ol start="10"> <li> <p>You&rsquo;ll then be at a new screen, press on Add Schedule Item. A lot of settings appear here, but I only needed to adjust one option. Where it says &ldquo;Type to search&hellip;&rdquo; under Collection, type in your collection name and select it when it appears. Then press on Save Changes.</p> </li> <li> <p>Go to Schedules and then Playouts. Press on Add Playout, select the channel you created back in step 2, and then the schedule you named in step 5. For me, both of these were called LoFi.</p> </li> <li> <p>And you are pretty much done!! Go back to Channels and you should see a little play button lit up next to your channel. When you press on it, a pop-up should appear and then after a little wait (depending on the power of your resources), the screen should change to show a graphic of the track playing, and you should be able to hear your audio! For more stations, just keep repeating these steps, adjusting the names throughout for as many stations as you desire, and of course, if you do have better hardware than I do, feel free to experiment with the FFmpeg settings to improve the stream&rsquo;s quality.</p> </li> </ol> <h2 id="clients">Clients</h2> <p>However, that play button is a preview, not designed for actually playing the radio stations. On that Channel page, there are two buttons at the top: M3U and XMLTV, here you can grab files and URLs to then import into clients of choice to play the audio. I&rsquo;ve found the simplest one to be <a href="https://www.videolan.org/vlc/">VLC</a>, where it immediately begins to play channel 1, though pressing the Playlist button gives you the option to change to other stations - as such, I&rsquo;d recommend making sure channel 1 is a relatively &ldquo;chill&rdquo; station if you removed the default Ersatz TV channel on channel 1 so you aren&rsquo;t blasted with loud music straight away! You can always change the channel number, as well as later add watermarks (need to be setup first elsewhere though) and channel logos, by pressing the pencil icon next to the channel on that Channels page.</p> <p>VLC is not perfect though. While fine on my computer, it does not like the screen being turned off on my Android devices, because although the generated graphic is great, I may not need it on all the time and would like the choice to save battery by having the screen off. This led to a bigger dilemma as this isn&rsquo;t actually a radio station, and VLC treats it as a video channel. I initially tried <a href="https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/apk/com.broscr.iptvplayer">IPTV Player from the IzzyOnDroid repository</a>, and although it has a lovely simple interface, playback nonetheless stopped when I turned my screen off. Digging around the Google Play Store, I came across <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.iptvremote.android.iptv">IPTV by Alexander Sofronov,</a> an app free with adverts, or paid to remove them. It again lays out the channels nicely after easily giving it my .m3u URL, and has a range of features including that to allow play in background, which continues playback when the screen is off!</p> <p>Otherwise, there is also the option to integrate the channels into JellyFin, Plex and Emby, and you can use their various clients to access your Ersatz TV channels, which may be a more preferable option depending on your existing setup. It&rsquo;s not something that interests me at this time, but I thought it was worth mentioning.</p> <h2 id="future">Future</h2> <p>One major downside to all this is that I cannot utilise my new music setup, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-setup-2025/">where music is streamed via UPnP on a Raspberry Pi through a DAC to improve audio quality</a>, so I have to play the music via Bluetooth, but even if I could use my DAC, Ersatz TV is compressing everything into .aac and a bitrate of 320. This isn&rsquo;t a major issue for the content from YouTube as they&rsquo;re already compressed, but I do feel it is a shame for the high quality .FLAC files downloaded from BandCamp.</p> <p>However, at the end of the day, although I would either love audio to be streamed in its original high quality in Ersatz TV or for there to be a new sort of dedicated radio version of Ersatz TV focused on audio delivery, I think the bigger point is that I am now actually listening to my BandCamp music more, and that&rsquo;s better than not listening to it at all, as what was happening before.</p> <p>Looking forward into what is actually possible, rather than my wish of better audio quality, there are great possibilities with this powerful software that I haven&rsquo;t even begun to tap into yet! Not only could I upgrade my hardware for a higher quality performance, but I could look into creating custom logos for each of my channels, and even go into creating audio clips to insert as audio idents - small audio clips that play between tracks on more traditional radio channels, usually announcing the name of the channel, telling the listener the channel&rsquo;s frequency, or delivering a tag line. Heck, you could even add in radio commercials, real or ficational! And although there is <a href="https://liam8888999.github.io/ErsatzTV-Filler/">ErsatzTV Filler</a> to supply great filler connect visually, such as news and weather reports, I am unsure if it&rsquo;s something I want to integrate into my audio based streams, I&rsquo;ll need to think it over more. For now, I&rsquo;m satisfied with my endless streams of ambient music, ASMR and nature sounds, and the bonus addition of selected genres of my BandCamp music also now more accessible!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/music-setup-2025/ Tue, 24 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/music-setup-2025/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation-march-2023/">In 2023, I wrote about how I reorganised my music setup</a>, focusing mostly on the software side of things, with which applications I was using to tag the music, organise within a library, and play. There have been a few changes to that setup since, as well as substantial hardware differences, so in this post, I&rsquo;ll go through my current music setup.</p> <h2 id="software">Software</h2> <p>I still use <a href="https://beets.io/">beets</a> to tag my music, <a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a> to operate the library, and <a href="https://www.symfonium.app/">Symfonium</a> to play it all. However, I have now migrated to a full Symfonium setup, so I do not play my music any other way. As such, I don&rsquo;t use <a href="https://github.com/jeffvli/feishin">Feishin</a> on my Mac Mini (as I had been) or <a href="https://hub.docker.com/r/ghenry22/substreamer">Substreamer Web</a> to access from a web interface.</p> <p>Before I move onto how I use Symfonium everywhere, considering how it is just an Android app, I also just wanted to say that I&rsquo;ve added <a href="https://github.com/gabehf/koito">Koito</a> to my setup, as a <a href="https://www.wired.com/2012/11/richard-jones-scrobbling/">music scobbler</a> to collect data on my listening habits as well as having a beautiful interface on displaying that data. I have it directly linked to Navidrome, so anything I play coming from the Navidrome server, regardless of the device or app, will count.</p> <h2 id="hardware">Hardware</h2> <p>In an upcoming post, I&rsquo;ll write about my current self-hosting setup, where I&rsquo;ve migrated to an upgraded server and no longer using my Raspberry Pi 4b. This has left my Raspberry Pi without a job, and while I looked at a few options, I had issues with them or they required additional hardware to get up and running. I may return to such ideas in the future, but for now, I saw this as a great opportunity to improve the hardware in my music setup.</p> <p>On my desk, my setup was to have audio from my Mac Mini playing through a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital-to-analog_converter">DAC</a> connected to powered speakers. However, this caused the performance of my Mac Mini to decrease, and I rarely streamed video for the same reason. As such, I had ended up playing music or streaming video on a cheap tablet connected to the powered speakers via a Bluetooth adapter. This worked, but I felt I wasn&rsquo;t getting the most out of the high quality music library.</p> <p>Next to my bed, I have almost the same set of powered speakers (I liked them and knew they were good!) - I say almost because they have Bluetooth built-in and is missing an external volume controller. I would just simply stream from the tablet to the speakers via Bluetooth, ignoring the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_connector">RCA</a> inputs entirely.</p> <h2 id="raspberry-pi--moode">Raspberry Pi + MoOde</h2> <p>I first decided to upgrade my desk setup, and use the Raspberry Pi as the device to play the music, which would then connect to the DAC and the powered speakers, rather than my Mac Mini. Initially, I had some incorrect thoughts: I first believed I needed the Pi to improve how it outputs audio, thinking I&rsquo;d have to buy an <a href="https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-audio-hats">audio HAT</a>, but a simple USB cable is sufficient to connect the Pi to the DAC. I also incorrectly believed I&rsquo;d need to abandon Symfonium as my music player of choice, as I was looking at running software like <a href="https://github.com/badaix/snapcast">Snapcast</a>, <a href="https://mopidy.com/">Mopidy</a> or some sort of <a href="https://lyrion.org/">LMS</a>. However, after some research, I realised if I instead ran <a href="https://moodeaudio.org/">MoOde audio</a>, and utilised its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play#AV_standards">UPnP</a> functionality, I can simply turn Symfonium into a remote and use it to instruct MoOde what music to play - all with full Symfonium functionality, including my Navidrome ratings, playlists and configured user interface to quickly access my favourites.</p> <p>As such, the end result looks very similar to my old in every day use, but rather than use my tablet to stream the audio via Bluetooth, I now &ldquo;stream&rdquo; it to MoOde. I use quotation marks there because the tablet isn&rsquo;t actually streaming - if I powered it off, the music will still play, because it is just a remote control, having instructed MoOde to play certain music from my Navidrome library.</p> <p>Getting MoOde running was incredibly simple. I found an old SD card, plugged it into a card reader on my Mac Mini, downloaded the image, and then set it up with the <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/">Raspberry Pi Imager</a>, meaning I could configure stuff like SSH, login credentials and WLAN details, as MoOde runs headless and on WiFi (unlike a previous experiment I tried with the Pi, which demanded to use Ethernet&hellip;). Once fully booted up, I simply went to the IP address, and after a few configuration tweaks, such as turning on the &ldquo;UPnP Client for MPD&rdquo; renderer and selecting the output device as my DAC, I opened up Symfonium, pressed the cast button, saw MoOde as a UPnP option, and heard my music play in glorious high quality after pressing it!</p> <h2 id="long-cable">Long Cable</h2> <p>Yay! But, playing music by my bed would still be in lower quality due to Bluetooth streaming from my cheap tablet. Obviously, I could recreate the same setup by getting a Pi and a DAC (though if I am starting again from scratch, I&rsquo;d likely buy a DAC HAT and bundle it and the Pi into one device), but even downgrading to a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and using an old SD card, I was looking at over £50 for the Pi, HAT, case, power supply, heatsink and shipping.</p> <p>After having a long think, lots of staring at the DAC and powered speakers, and trying to work out what could and could not be moved, I finally came to a solution: a really long cable. Well, that and the DAC on the desk.</p> <p>Basically, the DAC has two ways to output audio, RCA out the back, and 3.5mm out the front, with a headphones icon next to it - but both are just analog outputs that can be used however I wished. So, what I did with this new setup was simply gather a very long RCA-to-3.5mm cable I had stashed away, plug the RCA side into the powered speakers by my bed, run the cable under various rugs to conceal it, and connect to the 3.5mm front headphone slot in the DAC. The end result is that both outputs work at the same time, meaning I could have &ldquo;multi-room&rdquo; audio like this, but what I actually do is only turn on the set of speakers I wish to listen to, otherwise remaining off.</p> <p>Either way, the process of instructing which music to play is the same: Open up Symfonium (and can do so on tablet or phone), select MoOde, and then what I want to play. I don&rsquo;t even have to choose the speakers, as it is dependent on which speakers are turned on. This means when I move from my bed to my desk in the morning, all I need to do to swap the audio between the two areas is to just turn on the desk powered speakers, turn off the other set, and the music seamlessly continues at my desk, with no stopping and starting the music being played!</p> <h2 id="additionally">Additionally</h2> <p>Just to wrap up some random thoughts, in case you were wondering about video, this setup only involves the music streaming from MoOde. So, watching video on my tablet in bed hasn&rsquo;t changed as I just select Bluetooth mode on the powered speakers and it auto connects. If I wanted to watch video on my tablet at my desk, I can still use the old Bluetooth system, as the volume controller allows for the powered speakers to accept a second input, which overrides the default. As such, I now have the cable for the Bluetooth adapter nearby and I just plug it into this input slot if I wish to watch video. Also, the volume controller has not only the option for a second input, but also its own headphone output! So if I do actually want to listen to music (or video) via headphones at my desk, I can simply plug in my headphones to that slot.</p> <p>Furthermore, if I wanted to listen or watch something from the Mac Mini (I do think that is highly unlikely, but just in case), I currently also have a 3.5mm-to-3.5mm cable plugged into my Mac Mini, which rests next to the one from the Bluetooth adapter, and can plug the Mac Mini cable into the volume controller. However, the DAC has three inputs: USB, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSLINK">TOSLINK</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/PDIF">coaxial S/PDIF</a>, so I could connect the Mac Mini to the DAC as so: Mac Mini into USB-to-coaxial S/PDIF convertor, into S/PDIF-to-S/PDIF cable, into coaxial S/PDIF input. I don&rsquo;t have these though, so this setup would require purchasing all these, and due to the unlikelihood of needing audio from my Mac Mini, I&rsquo;m choosing to forgo for now.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Overall, I am very satisfied with the end result, and having done it all with bits and bobs I already had (here&rsquo;s to never throwing any old cables away!), rather than needing to purchase anything. I am so glad I can now fully appreciate the high audio quality of my music collection, be able to visually see it beautifully with the wonderful Symfonium app, as well as experience it across the two areas I spend most of my time at.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m currently living in temporary accommodation, but plan to dig out a old UPnP compatible AV receiver and accompanying speakers out of storage when I move and place it by a sofa, enabling me to (hopefully!) open Symfonium, and instead of selecting MoOde, choose the AV receiver, and then hear my music there too! Furthermore, if I ever live anywhere with more rooms, I am glad I can see a future path for expansion of my music setup by going back to that Raspberry Pi Zero W 2 idea - though I&rsquo;d also need to pay for more powered speakers!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/expanding-an-ambient-music-server/ Thu, 06 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/expanding-an-ambient-music-server/ <p>Last year, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/creating-an-ambient-music-server/">I wrote about creating an ambient music server</a>, because I had received a one year free trial to a service providing RSS podcast feeds of various ambient sounds, and wanted to archive the podcast &ldquo;episodes&rdquo; so I could continue to listen to them after the trial had ended.</p> <p>The process of doing this involved me first downloading the content of the feeds via <a href="https://github.com/lightpohl/podcast-dl">podcast-dl</a>, storing them in a dedicated <a href="https://www.plex.tv/">Plex</a> library, and playing via the cross-platform <a href="https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/">Plexamp</a> app.</p> <p>However, after some recent developments, I have since changed my setup and expanded a little bit, all of which I will go into today in this short post.</p> <h2 id="audiobookshelf">AudioBookShelf</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-january-2025/#migrated-(+-new)">As I wrote in my January 2025 update of my self-hosting setup</a>, I was now able to install more on my Synology NAS, <a href="https://mariushosting.com/synology-30-second-portainer-install-using-task-scheduler-docker/">thanks to Portainer and guides by Marius Hosting</a>, with <a href="https://www.audiobookshelf.org/">AudioBookShelf</a> being one of them to organise and play my messy collection of audiobooks I had accumulated over the years.</p> <p>Known as ABS, it also has an option to download podcasts via RSS feeds, and that&rsquo;s what I simply used to replace the previous setup as described in the previous post - I just added the RSS feeds in and left it to do its job. I no longer have to think about running podcast-dl or moving the files across, it&rsquo;s now all nicely running by itself on my NAS.</p> <p>But I had an idea while setting up the podcast feeds - wondering if I could get ABS to download RSS feeds of YouTube channels which specialise in relaxing music, guided meditations and ASMR sounds, converting them into audio files as they downloaded? No, ABS couldn&rsquo;t do that at all, but I really liked this idea&hellip;</p> <h2 id="pinchflat">Pinchflat</h2> <p>My thinking was to go back to how ABS is primarily for audiobooks, which are sourced elsewhere and then placed in accessible folders by the user for AudioBookShelf to index and play - so I could source the converted YouTube videos elsewhere, place them in a folder ABS has access to, and then have everything all in once place.</p> <p>After some more poking around Marius&rsquo;s website (as I knew I would want everything to run together on the same NAS), I liked the sound of <a href="https://github.com/kieraneglin/pinchflat">Pinchflat</a> the best: a service to subscribe, monitor, download and convert YouTube videos through an easy-to-use web GUI, with readable metadata and recognisable thumbnails, where I can point the downloaded folder straight into ABS to index. <a href="https://mariushosting.com/how-to-install-pinchflat-on-your-synology-nas/">I followed Marius and his guide again</a>, and everything was setup extremely easily. I created a profile for Pinchflat to process the files exactly as I wanted, added in a few channels, and then watched it as videos began downloading - and gradually appearing in ABS. Success!</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>I have not had this setup for very long, but at the moment, I have yet to encounter any issues. Not only has this been the best way to preserve the trial podcast files I wanted, but I now have many more calming sounds to easily access all in one place. All I&rsquo;m wondering now is do I become a full on data hoarder and set up a similar system for the videos of YouTube I want to keep forever&hellip;?</p> https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking-2025-update/ Wed, 05 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking-2025-update/ <p>Having made many posts about my search for a note taking system that&rsquo;s right for me, I will provide an update in this post about my current setup, even though my last update touching on the matter was only just last month!</p> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-january-2025/">In my previous post about my self-hosting setup as of January 2025</a>, I said this:</p> <blockquote> <p>&hellip;I can update that I use <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/octarine/">Octarine</a> (<a href="https://jessicajournals.com/octarine/">which I previously wrote about in a post here</a>) for all my note taking needs on desktop, with <a href="https://github.com/gsantner/markor">Markor</a> being used as a temporary way of accessing the data on Android, until a dedicated Octarine Android app is developed.</p></blockquote> <p>However! So much has changed in just a month&hellip;</p> <h2 id="octarine-to-blinko">Octarine to Blinko</h2> <p>Although I do like Octarine, I was finding it very cumbersome to view and edit my notes on my phone without a more native application (I was finding it hard navigating my notes via Markor), <a href="https://octarine.app/pricing">and when I saw a post that the Pro pricing would be $50 without a mobile app yet</a>, I decided I ought to look elsewhere.</p> <p>At around the same sort of time, I started seeing people talk about self-hosted <a href="https://github.com/blinko-space/blinko">Blinko</a>, a notes app that although does not have a native Android app, can be viewed as a progressive web application, which is also how I run it on my Mac, acting as a more native application though just loading up as a webpage. While I was initially hesitant of storing notes in a database app instead of having .md files I can actually see, I was reassured by the daily backup file easily downloadable and ability to export all the notes into .md files.</p> <p>Blinko is organised into two separate areas, which I&rsquo;ll go into in a moment. The Notes side was where I would, well, put my notes migrated over from Octarine. There are no folders for organisation, instead done via multi-level nestable tags, with the top level tag visible in the sidebar and lower tiers shown when clicked on - and as a nice bonus, can have emoji icons or any icon from the <a href="https://icon-sets.iconify.design/">Iconify database</a>! Additionally, notes can also be pinned to appear top of a tag page, there is also a search option to find notes, and a general Notes homepage where all the notes are shown.</p> <p>The notes themselves are written in <a href="https://www.markdownguide.org/">MarkDown</a> with an editor toolbar for easy formatting, and interactive elements like checkboxes can be fully used, great for to-do lists or TV watchlists. Notes can be interlinked with the Reference button, which creates a mini pop-up of the note being linked to. Notes can also store recordings and file uploads, as well as utilising a camera, with these also being available to access via a Resources section in the sidebar. Also in the sidebar are a Recycle Bin, Archived notes, Settings, and Analytics - where you can review your note and word count as well as a tags distribution pie chart, active days and a heat map of notes.</p> <p>Lastly, I want to mention that there is a neat feature where notes recently made are presented to you so you can review them, and that the options in the Settings page are extensive with lots to customise, including feature I have not touched on at all such as Spotify integration, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_sign-on">SSO</a> authentication, and the ability to setup <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_storage">object storage</a>.</p> <h2 id="memos-to-blinko">memos to Blinko</h2> <p>Onto the Blinko side, <a href="https://blinko.mintlify.app/how-to-use/blinko-or-note">I read the documentation</a>, so I knew Blinkos were more for temporary or initial thoughts, rather than something to be stored longterm in the Notes side, but I wasn&rsquo;t sure what purpose that would serve me. That was until I realised this was what <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-january-2025/#temporarily-removed">I was using memos for</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>At a whim, I randomly decided to one day reinstall Memos and see if I, <a href="https://github.com/mudkipme/MoeMemos">in combination with the Android app MoeMemos</a>, could use this as the bridge, where I could send myself links and notes to later review at my computer - and it works! I’ve had this setup going for a few weeks now, and I’m satisfied with the result. I acknowledge that I’m not fully utilising the potential of Memos, nor using it for its intended purpose, but it works for me!</p></blockquote> <p>But there was one issue: there was no native Android application that I could use to send my links into Blinko, unlike with memos. However, I then recalled many years ago using an application on my phone called <a href="https://github.com/Waboodoo/HTTP-Shortcuts">HTTP Request Shortcuts</a> where I used it to send information to&hellip; something, I wish I could remember what it was! But anyway, I reinstalled it and poked around with the documentation on Blinko about its API and with lots of trial and error, found a way to create a similar experience <a href="https://blinko.mintlify.app/settings/access-token">based off adapting these instructions setting up an access token for companion application Blinko Snap</a>:</p> <h2 id="http-request-shortcuts-setup">HTTP Request Shortcuts Setup</h2> <ol> <li>Install HTTP Request Shortcuts.</li> <li>Press on three dots to open the menu and press on &ldquo;Variables&rdquo;.</li> <li>Press the + symbol and then on &ldquo;Text Input&rdquo;.</li> <li>Enter <code>shared_text</code> as the &ldquo;Name&rdquo;.</li> <li>Tick &ldquo;Allow Receiving Value from Share Dialogue&rdquo; and then save it.</li> <li>Go back to the main screen and press on the + symbol.</li> <li>Press on &ldquo;Create from scratch&rdquo;.</li> <li>Name it as &ldquo;Blinko&rdquo;.</li> <li>Press on &ldquo;Basic Request Settings&rdquo;, and change to these settings: <ol> <li>Method: POST</li> <li>URL: <code>http://your-blinko-url:and-port/api/v1/note/upsert</code></li> <li>(For example: <code>http://128.0.0.99:1111/api/v1/note/upsert</code>)</li> </ol> </li> <li>Go back and press on &ldquo;Request Headers&rdquo;, press the + symbol and then change to these settings: <ol> <li>Header: Content-Type</li> <li>Value: application/json</li> </ol> </li> <li>Press &ldquo;OK&rdquo;, then go back and press on &ldquo;Request Body / Parameters&rdquo;. Change to these settings: <ol> <li>Request Body Type: Custom Text</li> <li>Request Body: <code>{ &quot;content&quot;: &quot;ABC&quot;, &quot;type&quot;: 0 }</code></li> <li>Where I have ABC, delete the text and then press on the variable button inside the box, it looks like: { }</li> <li>Select your &ldquo;shared_text&rdquo; variable, and it should then be inserted into within &quot;&quot; and coloured differently.</li> </ol> </li> <li>Go back and press on Authentication, change to these settings: <ol> <li>Authentication Method: Bearer Authentication</li> <li>Token: <code>[your &quot;Blinko Access Token&quot; from the Blinko settings page, it'll start with eyJ]</code></li> <li>(For example: <code>eyJ333d69ac79cf455abaf1c7eeb7</code>)</li> </ol> </li> <li>Go back, press on &ldquo;Response Handling&rdquo; and change to these settings: <ol> <li>On Success: Show a custom message</li> <li>Message: Done!</li> <li>On Failure: Show a detailed error message</li> <li>Display Type: Toast Popup</li> </ol> </li> <li>Go back, press on &ldquo;Trigger &amp; Execution Settings&rdquo;, and make sure &ldquo;Allow receiving files from share dialogue&rdquo; is ticked.</li> <li>Go back, and press the top-right tick-mark to save.</li> <li>To test, I went into my web browser (Firefox Focus), went to a random website and then pressed the Share button. Up pops a bunch of applications on the device, scroll, find and press on &ldquo;HTTP Shortcuts Send To&hellip;&rdquo;. If everything works correctly, a pop-up saying &ldquo;Done!&rdquo; Should appear and when you go to Blinko, the URL should be there as a new Blinko in your application.</li> </ol> <p>With all this, I migrated everything over to Blinko, with no need for memos or Octarine anymore.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ve been daily driving these changes now for a few weeks, and I am very happy with the outcome. Not only has my system of using Blinkos like memos from my phone to computer worked really well, but I also really like the Notes side too, although haven&rsquo;t even gone through all the settings yet to fully customise it! Although <a href="https://github.com/blinko-space/blinko-snap">Blinko Snap</a> is a nice mini companion desktop application for quickly sending quick notes into Blinko, I would still prefer a complete native Mac application, as well as a native Android app, as that&rsquo;s just what I prefer, but as replacements for Octarine and memos, I&rsquo;ve found this to be a great setup for my note taking - at least for now!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/aoty-2024/ Tue, 21 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/aoty-2024/ <p>With another year gone by (and I know I am quite late here!), I&rsquo;ll reflect on a year of great music by talking about the albums I listened to and list my three favourite tracks as tasters to the album. Although the top three tracks are unranked, the albums are ranked counting down to my favourite of the year.</p> <p>Aside from a few exceptions, the list is similar to last year&rsquo;s with it being exclusively of female vocalists, leaning heavily towards pop, and, of course, is just my personal opinion.</p> <p>However, unlike last year, I have dramatically increased the size of the list due to the sheer amount of music released in 2024. Not all of it is fantastic, but even in the lowly ranked albums, I found at least three songs worthwhile and that was my criteria for qualifying - were there at least three good songs that I liked?</p> <p>I&rsquo;ll post a list of just the names of the albums and artists at the end.</p> <h2 id="50-girl-with-no-face---allie-x">50: Girl With No Face - Allie X</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p>Being a longtime fan of Allie X, I was really looking forward to this album and I absolutely loved all the pre-released singles with this edgy 80s synth sound, but I did not really gel with the rest of the tracks. Other people seem to love the album though, so maybe it&rsquo;s just me!</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Off With Her Tits</li> <li>Weird World</li> <li>Black Eye</li> </ul> <h2 id="49-my-method-actor---nilüfer-yanya">49: My Method Actor - Nilüfer Yanya</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Pop, Rock</strong></p> <p>Another album with lots of positive reviews, but this also did not work with me. I don&rsquo;t think the soundscape really resonated with me, and I felt disconnected to it. But it&rsquo;s got a good vibe to it and I liked the more upbeat songs.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Ready for Sun (Touch)</li> <li>Method Actor</li> <li>Just A Western</li> </ul> <h2 id="48-true-magic---salute">48: TRUE MAGIC - salute</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Dance</strong></p> <p>I enjoyed this throwback to 2000s dance pop, reminding me of songs you would hear in Dance Dance Revolution games. It&rsquo;s great to play in one go, with good transitions between the songs, with my criticism being that it perhaps can sound a bit repetitive at times.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>saving flowers</li> <li>maybe it&rsquo;s u</li> <li>softly</li> </ul> <h2 id="47-what-an-enormous-room---torres">47: What an Enormous Room - TORRES</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock</strong></p> <p>I was not expecting to like much of this album as it initially felt a bit too experimental for my taste, but it really grew on me. I&rsquo;m a fan of TORRES&rsquo;s more mainstream rock music, enjoying previous albums <em>Sprinter</em> and <em>Thirstier</em> more, but there is something captivating that drew me in here.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Collect</li> <li>i got the fear</li> <li>Forever home</li> </ul> <h2 id="46-negative-spaces---poppy">46: Negative Spaces - Poppy</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Metal, Rock, Pop</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;m not usually a fan of Poppy&rsquo;s metal releases as they&rsquo;re too much for me, but aside from a few particularly heavy songs, I liked this album more than I thought I would. My favourite tracks are on the more poppier side, but I can listen to most of it without skipping!</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>negative spaces</li> <li>halo</li> <li>push go</li> </ul> <h2 id="45-encino---pixie-lott">45: Encino - Pixie Lott</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>I didn&rsquo;t know what to expect with this album, as it has been a while since Pixie&rsquo;s last album, but I think it&rsquo;s a solid pleasant pop album with a nice mix of touching ballads and upbeat hopeful songs.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Somebody&rsquo;s Daughter</li> <li>Midnight Trash</li> <li>Vintage</li> </ul> <h2 id="44-bouquet---gwen-stefani">44: Bouquet - Gwen Stefani</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Rock</strong></p> <p>I was not expecting to really like this album too much as I&rsquo;m more of a fan of Gwen&rsquo;s work in No Doubt than her solo efforts, but I thought this was a good release, mixing together an adult contemporary sound with aspects of country and pop.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Somebody Else&rsquo;s</li> <li>Empty Vase</li> <li>Late To Bloom</li> </ul> <h2 id="43-tyla----tyla">43: Tyla + - Tyla</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B, Pop</strong></p> <p>I wasn&rsquo;t blown away with this highly well received album, but I do enjoy its light and airy pop infused R&amp;B sound, and think Tyla&rsquo;s voice sounds incredibly beautiful. It&rsquo;s well worth a listen.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Safer</li> <li>Priorities</li> <li>To Last</li> </ul> <h2 id="42-glorious---kate-hudson">42: Glorious - Kate Hudson</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Pop, Rock</strong></p> <p>An eclectic sounding album with synths, upbeat pop, country aspects, dramatic ballads, and more standard adult contemporary pop-rock all mixed together, I found this to be surprisingly enjoyable. Kate&rsquo;s vocals are gorgeous and have a lovely depth to them, and I thought the lyrics are good too.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Glorious</li> <li>Talk About Love</li> <li>Not Easy To Know</li> </ul> <h2 id="41-amy-allen---amy-allen">41: amy allen - Amy Allen</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Pop, Rock</strong></p> <p>Songwriter to the stars, it&rsquo;s interesting to hear her own music. This soft pop-rock sound, with its occasional punchier moments, drew me in more than I expected, with its interesting lyrics and emotional vocal performance.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>darkside</li> <li>pillar</li> <li>even forever</li> </ul> <h2 id="40-i-hear-you---peggy-gou">40: I Hear You - Peggy Gou</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Dance, Pop</strong></p> <p>Another dance-pop throwback here, with this album inspired a bit more from house music and clubs than salute&rsquo;s <em>TRUE MAGIC</em>. I overall enjoy the album, though find there are a couple of slower tracks that don&rsquo;t really resonate with me.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Lobster Telephone</li> <li>I Go</li> <li>Back To One</li> </ul> <h2 id="39-big-ideas---remi-wolf">39: Big Ideas - Remi Wolf</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock, Pop</strong></p> <p>I think my bias towards more mainstream poppier rock sound is not more apparent than with this album, where I find myself instantly loving the three tracks most like this, and less connected to the rest, which have a more alternative and funky sound. It&rsquo;s been highly rated, so I know this is just me with the differing opinion!</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Wave</li> <li>Alone in Miami</li> <li>Toro</li> </ul> <h2 id="38-tension-ii---kylie-minogue">38: Tension II - Kylie Minogue</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p>As someone who thought <em>Tension</em> was fine, I enjoyed this much more and think it&rsquo;s a more solid release with less lows. It&rsquo;s still nothing groundbreaking, but I think it&rsquo;s a really enjoyable pop record with dance throwbacks from the 2000s, and <em>Midnight Ride</em> is one of my favourite songs of the year.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Midnight Ride</li> <li>Good As Gone</li> <li>Someone For Me</li> </ul> <h2 id="37-radical-optimism---dua-lipa">37: Radical Optimism - Dua Lipa</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p>Having loved the singles pre-released for this, and thoroughly enjoyed Dua&rsquo;s previous album <em>Future Nostalgia</em>, I had high expectations which were sadly not met. Perhaps my own fault for having such high expectations, but nonetheless, it&rsquo;s a perfectly fine pop and dance album with some really strong highlights.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Training Season</li> <li>Falling Forever</li> <li>Houdini</li> </ul> <h2 id="36-where-the-butterflies-go-in-the-rain---raveena">36: Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain - Raveena</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, R&amp;B</strong></p> <p>I really vibed with this light and dreamy R&amp;B, pop and guitar fusion, creating a lush atmosphere accompanied by her wonderful vocals. It&rsquo;s one of those album you can play in one sitting relaxing back and getting transported away with the gorgeous sound.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Rise</li> <li>Water</li> <li>16 Candles</li> </ul> <h2 id="35-dreamstate---kelly-lee-owens">35: Dreamstate - Kelly Lee Owens</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Dance, Pop</strong></p> <p>Speaking of getting transported away, I thought this wonderful electronic record really created an otherworldly atmosphere with dreamy vocals and clean production that reminded me of 2000s dance music at times.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Trust and Desire</li> <li>Love You Got</li> <li>Ballad (In The End)</li> </ul> <h2 id="34-the-glorification-of-sadness---paloma-faith">34: The Glorification of Sadness - Paloma Faith</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>Encapsulating a wide range of emotions following the breakdown of a long-term relationship, I really enjoyed the emotional lyrics and powerful vocal delivery of Paloma on this raw but still pop album.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Let It Ride</li> <li>How You Leave A Man</li> <li>Cry on the Dance Floor</li> </ul> <h2 id="33-from-zero---linkin-park">33: From Zero - Linkin Park</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Rock, Metal</strong></p> <p>I was interested in trying out Linkin Park&rsquo;s newest album following the appointment of a female vocalist, though a little hesitant if the sound would be too brash for me based on their past work. However, I really liked this record with only a couple tracks being too much for me!</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Good Things Go</li> <li>Heavy is the Crown</li> <li>Two Faced</li> </ul> <h2 id="32-the-great-impersonator---halsey">32: The Great Impersonator - Halsey</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Rock, Folk</strong></p> <p>Having loved Halsey&rsquo;s previous <em>If I Can&rsquo;t Have Love, I Want Power</em>, I was even more intrigued about this album before it came out, with Halsey releasing photographic recreations of various artists who inspired this record, and the wide ranging genres of the pre-released singles. An emotionally raw record, both lyrically and vocally, it could be too sad for some, but it really resonated with me.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Lonely is the Muse</li> <li>Only Living Girl in LA</li> <li>Dog Years</li> </ul> <h2 id="31-older-and-wiser---lizzy-mcalpine">31: Older (and Wiser) - Lizzy McAlpine</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Folk, Rock</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve not properly listened to Lizzy&rsquo;s work before, but found myself really into this release. It&rsquo;s a beautiful listen with heartbreaking lyrics, incredible production, and her emotive vocals. It is perfect at creating atmospheres, with light acoustic moments and dramatic build ups to resounding crescendos.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Older</li> <li>Broken Glass</li> <li>Soccer Practice</li> </ul> <h2 id="30-this-is-how-tomorrow-moves---beabadoobee">30: This Is How Tomorrow Moves - beabadoobee</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Rock</strong></p> <p>Not too familiar with beabadoobee, I randomly heard her single <em>Take A Bite</em>, and was instantly taken back to the pop-rock of the early 2000s with the likes of Michelle Branch, Hilary Duff or Natalie Imbruglia. The album carries this vibe throughout, verging at times towards the more lighter acoustic side of things.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Take A Bite</li> <li>Post</li> <li>One Time</li> </ul> <h2 id="29-aaa---flo">29: AAA - FLO</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B, Pop</strong></p> <p>I was highly anticipating this album as I really enjoyed the EPs previously released, especially <em>3 of Us</em>, but I did find myself wanting a bit more here in terms of lyricism from their unique perspective found on those other EPs. Nonetheless, it&rsquo;s great to see FLO achieving more mainstream success with their rebooted sound of girl groups from the late 1990s and early 2000s, and there are some gems in there with their silky vocals really shining through.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Check</li> <li>On &amp; On</li> <li>Caught Up</li> </ul> <h2 id="28-crash---kehlani">28: CRASH - Kehlani</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B</strong></p> <p>I had not listened to Kehlani before, but thought I would give this a go in attempts to widen my musical horizons this year, and I&rsquo;m really glad I did. It&rsquo;s a fantastic mix of R&amp;B, pop, and dark electronic moments, which all blend together seamlessly between the tracks. I had this on repeat when it came out, and it would be higher ranked if not for other releases edging it out.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Better Not</li> <li>Tears</li> <li>8</li> </ul> <h2 id="27-liminal-space---mxmtoon">27: liminal space - mxmtoon</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Folk, Alternative</strong></p> <p>Prior to this album, I occasionally listened to mxmtoon, liking her work, but not particularly invested in it. However, I was really taken in by this release with the growth in her overall sound, introducing more light folk/country into her music, coupled with her usual high standard of introspective and unique lyrics, as well as her beautifully light voice.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>elevator</li> <li>rain</li> <li>white out</li> </ul> <h2 id="26-the-lost-ones---florrie">26: The Lost Ones - Florrie</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>As a teenager of the 2000s in the UK, I spent time listening to the big pop hits of the day, by artists like Girls Aloud and Sugababes. It wasn&rsquo;t until later I learned most of these, and other assorted hits of the decade, were produced by the Xenomania team. It&rsquo;s a type of pop music production I absolutely love, with them producing my favourite Pet Shop Boys album <em>Yes</em>, the criminally short-lived career of Amelia Lily, and various tracks in between.</p> <p>This is all the say that I&rsquo;ve long been a fan of Xenomania member Florrie and her sporadic releases of EPs and singles of the past decade and a half. Her music perfectly embodies the sound I love, which comes across wonderfully in her debut album finally released in 2024. It has that perfect mix of pop, synth, light and shade, and catchiness. Well worth a listen.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Kissing In The Cold</li> <li>Looking For Love</li> <li>I Took A Little Something</li> </ul> <h2 id="25-the-tortured-poets-department-the-anthology---taylor-swift">25: The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology - Taylor Swift</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>As someone who enjoys the occasional Taylor song but never really a whole album, I was surprised by this release and think this is my favourite album by her. There are still some skips, but I do find the highs of the album (and by this I am referring to the extended Anthology edition) to be very good and worthy of repeated listens.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Guilty As Sin?</li> <li>loml</li> <li>Robin</li> </ul> <h2 id="24-nonetheless---pet-shop-boys">24: Nonetheless - Pet Shop Boys</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p>As a huge fan of the Pet Shop Boys, I was really looking forward to this album. It didn&rsquo;t disappoint, rather that there were just so many other good albums released this year! It&rsquo;s not too dissimilar from their previous album <em>Hotspot</em>, so while not as poppy as <em>Yes</em>, my favourite album by them, there is still a lot here I enjoyed.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Loneliness</li> <li>Why am I dancing?</li> <li>A new bohemia</li> </ul> <h2 id="23-deeper-well---kacey-musgraves">23: Deeper Well - Kacey Musgraves</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Folk</strong></p> <p>I began listening to Kacey following the critical acclaim of <em>Golden Hour</em>, and while I liked it and its successor <em>star-crossed</em>, I find this album to be her best so far. I really like the laid back folky vibes, which match her vocals beautifully, and it&rsquo;s become my perfect album for a lazy Sunday morning.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Jade Green</li> <li>Sway</li> <li>Cardinal</li> </ul> <h2 id="22-the-jester---wallice">22: The Jester - Wallice</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock, Pop</strong></p> <p>Going into this with no exceptions, having found Wallice one day on Reddit&rsquo;s Popheads subreddit, I was really drawn in by how theatrical the album can sound - mostly solid light rock music with occasional flares of synths or a orchestral instrument thrown in. Enjoyed all of this with no skips from me.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Manipulate</li> <li>Clown Like Me</li> <li>Heaven Has To Happen</li> </ul> <h2 id="21-vertigo---griff">21: Vertigo - Griff</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p>Coming to this a bit late with <em>vert1go vol. 1</em> and <em>ve2igo vol. 2</em> EPs being released over the past two years and me missing the full length album coming out a few months later, I eventually worked it all out and found this album to be a great progression in Griff&rsquo;s sound. I really enjoyed her vocals, her personal diaristic style lyrics, and the synths used in the songs&rsquo; instrumentation.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Vertigo</li> <li>Cycles</li> <li>Hole In My Pocket</li> </ul> <h2 id="20-mountain-music---nina-nesbitt">20: Mountain Music - Nina Nesbitt</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Folk, Pop</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve popped in and out of Nina&rsquo;s work since the start of her career, finding the deluxe version of her pop and R&amp;B second album, <em>The Sun Will Come Up, the Seasons Will Change &amp; The Flowers Will Fall</em>, to have been my favourite. However, this has surpassed it with a completely different sound. Her deeply personal lyrics are still there, but now accompanied by a light rock/folk infused sound, which create a perfect new backdrop for her work.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Pages</li> <li>Parachute</li> <li>Anger</li> </ul> <h2 id="19-motherland---lia-kuri">19: Motherland - Lia Kuri</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Dance, Pop</strong></p> <p>Stumbled across this randomly, I&rsquo;m stunned this is seemingly quite overlooked judged by the low amount of plays on streaming providers. It&rsquo;s a fantastic mix of sweet and soft vocals with garage/dance music in a deconstructed and experimental style, reminding me sometimes of BANKS or fka twigs. Highly recommended if you&rsquo;re into this sort of genre.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Highland</li> <li>Chagrin</li> <li>Poltergeist</li> </ul> <h2 id="18-empathogen---willow">18: empathogen - WILLOW</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Jazz, Rock, Alternative</strong></p> <p>I looked forward to this album as I loved its singles, and although I enjoyed the album tracks, I felt its shortness was a tad disappointing, with five tracks under two minutes long, and I felt could have had time spent on them to create amazing songs a minute or so longer. Nonetheless, I adore how this album sounds, with all the jazzy and experimental vibes working fantastically with Willow&rsquo;s voice, and lyrics that really spoke to me.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>b i g f e e l i n g s</li> <li>pain for fun</li> <li>the fear is not real</li> </ul> <h2 id="17-eternal-sunshine---ariana-grande">17: eternal sunshine - Ariana Grande</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>Ariana&rsquo;s albums tend to hit-or-miss for me, but this newest release is by far my favourite work by her. I&rsquo;m not skipping any songs, it sounds so complete with the songs transitioning beautifully between each other, and I also think her vocal work has great clarity. I was surprised I liked this as much as I did.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>we can&rsquo;t be friends (wait for your love)</li> <li>i wish i hated you</li> <li>supernatural</li> </ul> <h2 id="16-hot-city---bonnie-mckee">16: Hot City - Bonnie McKee</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p>Strangely, I recall listening to Bonnie&rsquo;s first album <em>Trouble</em> when it came out in 2004, and really liked the alternative pop-rock sound coupled with the interesting diary-like lyrics. But since then, she&rsquo;s worked as a songwriter for other artists, notably Katy Perry during the peak of her success. As such, when releasing her second album twenty years later, it sounds a lot more pop, with Bonnie herself describing it as having an &ldquo;eighties-Miami expensive prostitute vibe&rdquo;. It probably shouldn&rsquo;t rank as highly as it is, but I just really love how fun the album is, and recommend it if you too are longing for loud boppy pop songs of the early 2010s.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Forever 21</li> <li>Snatched</li> <li>Sleepwalker</li> </ul> <h2 id="15-bewitched-the-goddess-edition---laufey">15: Bewitched (The Goddess Edition) - Laufey</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Jazz, Pop</strong></p> <p>Cheating a bit here as Bewitched was released last year, but in my defence: I really do enjoy the new bonus tracks added, and I totally missed this album when it came out! I&rsquo;m not usually a fan of albums almost entirely comprising of ballads, but I love the old classic vibe of the project, with her vocals and the music meshing together beautifully often creating a dreamy soundscape, with the interesting addition of more modern lyrics.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Goddess</li> <li>Bored</li> <li>Second Best</li> </ul> <h2 id="14-short-n-sweet---sabrina-carpenter">14: Short n&rsquo; Sweet - Sabrina Carpenter</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve been listening to Sabrina&rsquo;s work since her first album many years ago, and was happy to see she finally broke through into the mainstream last year! I think this album does a great job at showcasing the witty and journalistic lyrics like in her past work like <em>Emails I Can&rsquo;t Send</em>, as well as bringing catchy bops like <em>Almost Love</em> and <em>Looking At Me</em>, found in both acts of her <em>Singular</em> albums. This really is a perfect encapsulation of her work.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Espresso</li> <li>Coincidence</li> <li>Bed Chem</li> </ul> <h2 id="13-i-am-rachel-platten---rachel-platten">13: I Am Rachel Platten - Rachel Platten</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Adult Contemporary, Pop</strong></p> <p>I enjoyed Rachel&rsquo;s last album <em>Waves</em>, and although it sounds quite different, taking on a more traditional pop ballad approach with aspects of adult contemporary light rock and hints of gospel, I liked this album much more than I thought I would, considering how the musical side of it is relatively standard. I think it&rsquo;s because the lyrics and vocal performance really draw me in, which is often sad and full of emotion, but also with the feeling of hope.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>I Know</li> <li>The River</li> <li>Bad Thoughts</li> </ul> <h2 id="12-what-a-devastating-turn-of-events---rachel-chinouriri">12: What A Devastating Turn of Events - Rachel Chinouriri</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock, Pop</strong></p> <p>I gave this a listen following lots of positive buzz after its release, and I can see why. This eclectic mix of Brit Pop and indie rock with some synths thrown in creates an interesting backdrop to Rachel&rsquo;s wonderful voice and lyrics which range from the emotional to the hilarious.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Robbed</li> <li>My Everything</li> <li>The Hills</li> </ul> <h2 id="11-all-born-screaming---st-vincent">11: All Born Screaming - St. Vincent</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve long been a fan of St. Vincent, but find her work a bit hit-or-miss. Some songs I absolutely love, and others I never listen to again. After finding her <em>Masseduction</em> to be her best work to date, and then not enjoying most of the follow-up <em>Daddy&rsquo;s Home</em>, I was unsure how this new album would go. However, it&rsquo;s now my new favourite of hers, with it sounding like the most solid and complete effort yet, with the music ranging from the angelic divine to the brash and violent, coupled with introspective lyrics and layers of emotion.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Broken Man</li> <li>Reckless</li> <li>All Born Screaming</li> </ul> <h2 id="10-what-happened-to-the-heart---aurora">10: What Happened To The Heart? - AURORA</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Pop, Alternative</strong></p> <p>I think this is a great progression of AURORA&rsquo;s music, having also enjoyed her previous album <em>The Gods We Can Touch</em>, with keeping her existing style with synths, with more careful use of instruments exactly where they&rsquo;re needed to create dramatic build ups or poignant moments, and the addition of more poppier electronic dance music, which pair beautifully with her dreamy light vocals.</p> <p>All together, there is this wonderful other worldly atmosphere created which carried me away, loving the slower more ballad-like songs and those more upbeat. Despite the wide range of genres touched on across the record, and differences in mood too with songs ebbing between light and dark, it still transitions between songs seamlessly and is perfect to listen to in one sitting.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>My Name</li> <li>Starvation</li> <li>A Soul With No King</li> </ul> <h2 id="09-ghosts-in-the-background---abi-carter">09: ghosts in the background - Abi Carter</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock</strong></p> <p>Having not heard of Abi before, I found this one day scrolling through the Popheads subreddit again and decided to give it a go. I enjoyed the whole album straight away, liking the interesting lyrics, the emotional vocals and the dark atmospheric feel of the music - it&rsquo;s a mix of quieter light rock, which can almost get dreamy at times, and louder more dramatic moments that drive home the emotion.</p> <p>Although it&rsquo;s a relatively short album, I find it quite captivating, and can easily listen to it all in one go. I was surprised by how much I like this album, because I don&rsquo;t think it&rsquo;s doing anything groundbreaking, but I think it does what it set out to do very well.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>i wish i was a farmer</li> <li>maybe i loved you</li> <li>some people need drugs</li> </ul> <h2 id="08-aftercare---nessa-barrett">08: AFTERCARE - Nessa Barrett</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>Another album found via Popheads, I wasn&rsquo;t initially loving this album, and even when I re-listen to it, I always find myself wondering why this album is ranked as highly as it is on my draft list - the first half isn&rsquo;t bad or anything, but I don&rsquo;t find it to be spectacular either.</p> <p>However, just as I start to reassess the album&rsquo;s placement, the second half hits and I find myself engrossed, knowing why I love this album. It has this dark pop, almost early Lana Del Rey style about it, with an electronic edge, and when it gets going, I struggle to place this album lower in the rankings as it becomes so immersive and carries me away. A really pleasant unexpected find.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>EDWARD SCISSORHANDS</li> <li>MUSTANG BABY</li> <li>DIRTY LITTLE SECRET</li> </ul> <h2 id="07-willson---ashe">07: Willson - Ashe</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Folk, Pop</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve been following Ashe for many years now, and I think she is getting better with each release. This is a beautifully emotive and journalistic album with ballads and punchier tracks, covering a range of topics filled with heart and pain in her distinct style that&rsquo;s been developing over her career.</p> <p>I had high expectations going into listening this for the first time, but they were met, and loved it straight away. I&rsquo;ve since found it hard to again choose just three songs to highlight as I don&rsquo;t skip any songs when I play it, I think the whole project is just brilliant and would have been ranked higher if not for such a strong year of releases elsewhere.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Please don&rsquo;t fall in love with me</li> <li>Dear Stranger,</li> <li>Pull The Plug</li> </ul> <h2 id="06-young-girl-forever---sofie-royer">06: Young-Girl Forever - Sofie Royer</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Alternative</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure how I came across this album, as I had not heard of Sofie Royer before, but I&rsquo;m glad I somehow did. With its mix of French, German and English, and synth-pop which reminded of vaporware at times as music from another era, I was initially a bit unsure what I was going to get on with this record.</p> <p>However, as the album progressed and reached possibly my favourite song of the year in <em>I Forget (I’m So Young)</em>, it steadily rose up my AOTY list until it reached sixth by the last song, where it stayed for the rest of the year. I really recommend it for those who may not usually be interested in pop music, as it has such a different take on the genre and I find it so interesting to listen to.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>I Forget (I’m So Young)</li> <li>Lights out baby, entropy!</li> <li>Sage Comme Une Image</li> </ul> <h2 id="05-memoir-of-a-sparklemuffin---suki-waterhouse">05: Memoir of a Sparklemuffin - Suki Waterhouse</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alternative, Rock, Pop</strong></p> <p>I liked a few songs off Suki&rsquo;s last album, <em>I Can&rsquo;t Let Go</em>, but I feel this new album is a significant step up. Taking my time to get around to listening to this, I was then surprised to find it was so much better: more immersive with the distorted rock sound, more interesting with the lyrics, and I became more carried away with the emotion in her beautiful voice.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s wide ranging with touching ballads, lighter Brit Pop efforts, and grungier epics. It&rsquo;s a great record to listen to from start to end with no skips, and that&rsquo;s made it difficult to pick my top three tracks because so many were contenders.</p> <p>The album also has quite a few ear worms. I&rsquo;ve often found my mind replaying various songs stuck in my head, and that&rsquo;s one of the reasons this album is so high up on my list, I keep coming back to it time and time again.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Big Love</li> <li>Supersad</li> <li>To Love</li> </ul> <h2 id="04-imaginal-disk---magdalena-bay">04: Imaginal Disk - Magdalena Bay</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p>Having listened to Magdalena Bay&rsquo;s first album once and never returning to it, I wasn&rsquo;t particularly awaiting their second album. However, after seeing it lauded across the internet, I gave it a go, and while not immediately gripped, it grew on me as the album went on, before then steadily rising up my AOTY list following repeated listens and catchy earworms getting caught in my head.</p> <p>I love creating playlists picking out my favourite songs from albums to listen to, but this is one of those albums where it feels like it&rsquo;s meant to be listened to in one sitting, and with how the songs easily transition between each other, I&rsquo;ve often not noticed when a song has ended and another begun if I&rsquo;m not paying enough attention. It&rsquo;s just such a wonderful listening experience.</p> <p>Along with the lovely light and emotive vocals, I love how varied the music is on the album - there are so many genres covered and different instruments used, it just feels so interesting and enjoyable to listen to, as it can sound at times like found media from the past and also like something from the future, somewhat similar to <em>Young-Girl Forever</em> in that respect.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Vampire in the Corner</li> <li>Watching T.V.</li> <li>Cry for Me</li> </ul> <h2 id="03-brat-and-its-completely-different-but-also-still-brat---charli-xcx">03: brat and it’s completely different but also still brat - Charli XCX</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Dance, Pop</strong></p> <p>Another popular choice landing on many end of year lists, I was eagerly anticipating this album as I loved <em>Von Dutch</em> and <em>B2b</em> as the singles leading up to <em>brat</em>&rsquo;s release. It took me a few plays to fully get into it, but I ended up playing something from <em>brat</em> daily - so much so Charlie XCX ended up as my most played artist of the year, much to my surprise.</p> <p>I initially had <em>brat</em> a few spots back in the list, but with the release of the accompanying remix album, and this creating a mega 35 track album on my music streaming provider of choice, I decided to also consider this as one whole album, and with the remixed additions of songs like <em>Sympathy is a knife</em>, <em>I might say something stupid</em>, <em>So I</em>, <em>Guess</em>, and <em>I think about it all the time</em>, it landed up third.</p> <p>Aside from the fantastic reimagining the remixes provide, I mostly just love how fun the album sounds: it&rsquo;s loud and unapologetic at times, but also peppered with moments of vulnerability and introspection. Lyrically, I feel a level of escapism at times I also get from last year&rsquo;s top album <em>STARFUCKER</em> by Slayyyter, and musically there are some similarities too. Both feature aspects of hyperpop and more mainstream pop, and while I struggled with most hyperpop in the past, I found myself really enjoying all aspects of this project.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>365</li> <li>B2b</li> <li>Everything is romantic</li> </ul> <h2 id="02-orquídeas-parte-2---kali-uchis">02: Orquídeas Parte 2 - Kali Uchis</h2> <p><strong>Genre: R&amp;B, Pop</strong></p> <p>I had not listened to Kali Uchis before this album, but heard some hype around it shortly after being released, so decided to give it a go. I was immediately drawn in by how deep, lush and immersive the music is, with the tracks seamlessly transitioning into each other, making it feel like an audio experience intended to be listened to as a whole. Her silky gorgeous vocals are backed up by a dreamy musical landscape, beautifully swaying between pop of the modern and more traditional, it&rsquo;s an album I keep returning to and playing from start to finish.</p> <p>Like with <em>Young-Girl Forever</em>, I was in two minds about including non-English albums on the list, and the vast majority of this album is in Spanish. However, I find this to be such an impressive piece of work and I think it has just enough English to justify its place on the list as something to recommend even if someone does not usually listen to non-English music.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>¿Cómo Así?</li> <li>Te Mata</li> <li>Dame Beso // Muévete</li> </ul> <h2 id="01-hit-me-hard-and-soft---billie-eilish">01: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT - Billie Eilish</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p>Released with no singles ahead of time, I listened to this the day it came out with no expectations, as I liked most of Billie&rsquo;s first album <em>When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?</em>, but only a couple from her second album <em>Happier Than Ever</em>. However, I was instantly captivated and enjoyed every moment of this album, on repeat for most of the year. <em>WILDFLOWER</em> in particular stood out and is a contender for my favourite song of year.</p> <p>Like with <em>Orquídeas Parte 2</em>, the songs here blend into each other creating a complete record where there are no skips but it also has stand out songs. I adore the soundscape of the album with the quiet sensitive moments and others filled with dramatic instrumentation, her beautiful vocals, and journalistic lyricism.</p> <p>I know this album is a clichéd choice as this is on many people&rsquo;s AOTY lists, but it has stayed atop of my AOTY list since it came out in mid-May with no other release able to dislodge it. I absolutely love it and was just simply blown away by it.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>CHIHIRO</li> <li>WILDFLOWER</li> <li>BLUE</li> </ul> <hr> <h2 id="full-list">Full List</h2> <ol> <li>HIT ME HARD AND SOFT - Billie Eilish</li> <li>Orquídeas Parte 2 - Kali Uchis</li> <li>brat and it’s completely different but also still brat - Charli XCX</li> <li>Imaginal Disk - Magdalena Bay</li> <li>Memoir of a Sparklemuffin - Suki Waterhouse</li> <li>Young-Girl Forever - Sofie Royer</li> <li>Willson - Ashe</li> <li>AFTERCARE - Nessa Barrett</li> <li>ghosts in the background - Abi Carter</li> <li>What Happened To The Heart? - AURORA</li> <li>All Born Screaming - St. Vincent</li> <li>What A Devastating Turn of Events - Rachel Chinouriri</li> <li>I Am Rachel Platten - Rachel Platten</li> <li>Short n&rsquo; Sweet - Sabrina Carpenter</li> <li>Bewitched (The Goddess Edition) - Laufey</li> <li>Hot City - Bonnie McKee</li> <li>eternal sunshine - Ariana Grande</li> <li>empathogen - WILLOW</li> <li>Motherland - Lia Kuri</li> <li>Mountain Music - Nina Nesbitt</li> <li>Vertigo - Griff</li> <li>The Jester - Wallice</li> <li>Deeper Well - Kacey Musgraves</li> <li>Nonetheless - Pet Shop Boys</li> <li>The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology - Taylor Swift</li> <li>The Lost Ones - Florrie</li> <li>liminal space - mxmtoon</li> <li>CRASH - Kehlani</li> <li>AAA - FLO</li> <li>This Is How Tomorrow Moves - beabadoobee</li> <li>Older (and Wiser) - Lizzy McAlpine</li> <li>The Great Impersonator - Halsey</li> <li>From Zero - Linkin Park</li> <li>The Glorification of Sadness - Paloma Faith</li> <li>Dreamstate - Kelly Lee Owens</li> <li>Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain - Raveena</li> <li>Radical Optimism - Dua Lipa</li> <li>Tension II - Kylie Minogue</li> <li>Big Ideas - Remi Wolf</li> <li>I Hear You - Peggy Gou</li> <li>amy allen - Amy Allen</li> <li>Glorious - Kate Hudson</li> <li>TYLA + - Tyla</li> <li>Bouquet - Gwen Stefani</li> <li>Encino - Pixie Lott</li> <li>Negative Spaces - Poppy</li> <li>What an Enormous Room - TORRES</li> <li>TRUE MAGIC - salute</li> <li>My Method Actor - Nilüfer Yanya</li> <li>Girl With No Face - Allie X</li> </ol> https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-january-2025/ Mon, 06 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-january-2025/ <p>It&rsquo;s been over a year since the past update and a lot has changed, so in this brief post, I&rsquo;ll update on the current status of my self-hosting setup, with what applications I have removed, added, and why.</p> <h2 id="removed">Removed</h2> <p>Starting with what I was paying for, although I like <a href="https://www.pikapods.com/">PikaPods</a> and <a href="https://www.pikapods.com/pods?run=umami">Umami</a>, I found I didn&rsquo;t use it enough to justify the cost, so I stopped using it a while ago. Maybe if I need a lot of analytics at some point, I will go back because I have no complaints with either.</p> <p>Moving onto my Raspberry Pi, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rest-of-2023-looking-at-2024/#self-hosting">I experienced a kernel panic and had to wipe the SSD attached to it</a>. This wasn&rsquo;t a major issue as everything backed up via Syncthing to various other devices in my network. However, it gave me a good reason to evaluate my setup and assess what I actually used.</p> <p>As such, I ended up permanently removing:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/sabre-io/Baikal">Baïkal</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma">Uptime Kuma</a></li> <li><a href="https://gotify.net/">Gotify</a></li> <li><a href="https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/">Paperless-ngx</a></li> <li><a href="https://homebox.readthedocs.io/en/main/">Homebox</a></li> </ul> <p>I also temporarily removed the following before later adding them back:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/BaldissaraMatheus/Tasks.md">tasks.md</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/usememos/memos">Memos</a></li> </ul> <p>Additionally, these were also later removed and replaced by other software:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/hay-kot/mealie">Mealie</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web">Calibre-Web</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding">linkding</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/TandoorRecipes/recipes">Tandoor</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="not-replaced">Not Replaced</h2> <p>For Baïkal, having the Raspberry Pi break made me realise it was too important to store calendar and to-do lists, so I started to use the CalDAV supported by my email provider for this function, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/to-do-lists/">as I previously wrote about in more detail here</a>.</p> <p>For Uptime Kuma and Gotify, I felt the amount of effort required to get everything all working and setup again was not worth it, as I realised I did not use these enough. I will say this though, I may use them in the future if I find myself needing to be alerted to critical services experiencing downtime, but that&rsquo;s not right now.</p> <p>For Paperless and Homebox, I had an unease of the files I was uploading into it being sunken into an unknowable pit to be lost forever, which sounds very dramatic, but was my feeling that I didn&rsquo;t feel quite safe with these important files not being readily accessible and difficult to locate. I know I do need a system for storing important information and having not digitised, but I&rsquo;m not yet convinced of the offerings currently out there in the state they&rsquo;re in. However, I may just need to revisit this area again and assess recent developments which may put my mind at ease a bit more.</p> <h2 id="temporarily-removed">Temporarily Removed</h2> <p>I removed tasks.md as I had no need for it, but recently brought it back into my setup as I wanted a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board">kanban board</a> to organise a project I am working on and I knew this was an easy and effective way of doing having one. I&rsquo;m pretty pleased with it, but I don&rsquo;t use it for much aside from needing to prioritise tasks in this project.</p> <p>Memos underwent a journey since I last <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking-2023-update/">mentioned in this post here about note taking</a>. I have completely changed my note taking setup and I actually ought to do another post it, but for now I can update that I use Octarine (<a href="https://jessicajournals.com/octarine/">which I previously wrote about in a post here</a>) for all my note taking needs on desktop, with <a href="https://github.com/gsantner/markor">Markor</a> being used as a temporary way of accessing the data on Android, until a dedicated Octarine Android app is developed. As such, I no longer use <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq</a> for notes and didn&rsquo;t need Memos, so didn&rsquo;t reinstall it.</p> <p>(Also, as an aside, I should add that <a href="https://blog.omnivore.app/p/details-on-omnivore-shutting-down">since Omnivore was brought out and an announcement made of it shutting down</a>, I also am no longer using <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a>, but have a replacement for Omnivore, that I will talk about later on&hellip;)</p> <p>However! I recently had to change my phone and doing so required me to reinstall <a href="https://signal.org/">Signal</a> on it, my messaging application of choice. But doing so, with its focus on privacy, meant I lost all my previous &ldquo;messages&rdquo; in my Notes To Self section, something I used extensively to send myself all sorts of things primarily from my phone to my computer to access at a later date - <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-june-2023/#new-and-shiny">something I previously spoke about using Gotify for as a replacement for Pushbullet</a>.</p> <p>At a whim, I randomly decided to one day reinstall Memos and see if I, <a href="https://github.com/mudkipme/MoeMemos">in combination with the Android app MoeMemos</a>, could use this as the bridge, where I could send myself links and notes to later review at my computer - and it works! I&rsquo;ve had this setup going for a few weeks now, and I&rsquo;m satisfied with the result. I acknowledge that I&rsquo;m not fully utilising the potential of Memos, nor using it for its intended purpose, but it works for me!</p> <h2 id="replaced">Replaced</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/recipe-management/">I wrote in a previous post about replacing Mealie and Tandoor here with RecipeSage</a>, and I am still happy with this setup. I&rsquo;m not sure when I came across <a href="https://www.stumpapp.dev/">Stump</a>, though probably found it on Reddit, but I am significantly happier using it to manage my electronic library of books and magazines compared to Calibre-Web, finding it so much easier to use and manage.</p> <p>With linkding, I wasn&rsquo;t intending to replace it, especially with <a href="https://hoarder.app/">Hoarder</a>, which I had previously encountered by ruled out due to concerns of how I was to back it up. But I stumbled across it again in the past couple of months and reconsidered it, particularly as a type of <a href="https://archivebox.io/">ArchiveBox</a>, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-july-2023/#what%E2%80%99s-next?">something I spoke about wanting previously here</a>, but had not got around to doing. However, as I poked around it (having setup a cron job to do the backing up for me), I realised I could store my bookmarks in it, and that I just liked the interface more than linkding. I&rsquo;m now able to more easily access various websites I have saved for all sorts of purposes on all platforms (<a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.hoarder.hoardermobile&amp;pcampaignid=web_share">thanks to the companion Android app</a>) and <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hoarder/">save with the browser extension</a> as well as via the sharing feature into the app on Android.</p> <h2 id="migrated--new">Migrated (+ New)</h2> <p>Originally, I had Stump installed on my Raspberry Pi because I was able to easily install and control it via Portainer and SSH&rsquo;ing into the device via Terminal on my Mac. However, I later realised this was not the best idea as I did not have a large hard drive connected, nor the resources to upgrade. But I do have my old <a href="https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm">Synology DiskStation NAS</a> where <a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a> is installed and plenty of room for my eBooks too.</p> <p>I was reluctant though in setting up Stump on my NAS <a href="https://mariushosting.com/how-to-install-navidrome-on-your-synology-nas/">because I had installed Navidrome via this guide</a>, and there was not one for Stump. I also felt uneasy trying to work it out myself as I was not used to working with Docker outside of <a href="https://www.portainer.io/">Portainer</a>. But when I came across <a href="https://www.audiobookshelf.org/">AudioBookShelf</a>, and wanted to install it to handle my handful of scattered audiobooks, <a href="https://mariushosting.com/how-to-install-audiobookshelf-on-your-synology-nas/">I saw that there was a guide for not only installing it on my NAS</a>, <a href="https://mariushosting.com/synology-30-second-portainer-install-using-task-scheduler-docker/">but one for installing Portainer!</a></p> <p>With that in mind, I first successfully installed Portainer and then AudioBookshelf according to the instructions, and then modified my existing Stump <a href="https://docs.docker.com/compose/">Docker Compose</a> setup in hopes of adapting it to work with Synology - and it worked! Happily, this means my NAS, correctly, now manages my media files, leaving my Raspberry Pi for everything else that doesn&rsquo;t require a lot of space.</p> <h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> <p>All in all, here is what my setup currently looks like:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><strong>Raspberry Pi</strong></th> <th><strong>Synology DiskStation</strong></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome">AdGuard Home</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.plex.tv">Plex</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.freshrss.org/">FreshRSS</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/photos">Synology Photos</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit">Libreddit</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.stumpapp.dev/">Stump</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search">Whoogle</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.audiobookshelf.org/">AudioBookshelf</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/pawelmalak/flame">Flame</a></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/usememos/memos">Memos</a></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/BaldissaraMatheus/Tasks.md">tasks.md</a></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://recipesage.com/">RecipeSage</a></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://hoarder.app/">Hoarder</a></td> <td></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> https://jessicajournals.com/web-browsers/ Wed, 23 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/web-browsers/ <p>Links to web browsers derived from Firefox.</p> <div class="library"> <ul> <li><a href="https://floorp.app/en">Floorp Browser</a></li> <li><a href="https://librewolf.net/">LibreWolf</a></li> <li><a href="https://zen-browser.app/">Zen Browser</a></li> <li><a href="https://duckduckgo.com/app">DuckDuckGo browser app</a></li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/fruit-sponge-cake/ Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/fruit-sponge-cake/ https://jessicajournals.com/strawberry-caramelised-vanilla-cake/ Wed, 09 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/strawberry-caramelised-vanilla-cake/ https://jessicajournals.com/email-providers/ Mon, 09 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/email-providers/ <p>Links to email providers which aren&rsquo;t Google, Microsoft or Apple.</p> <div class="library"> <ul> <li><a href="https://mailbox.org/en/">mailbox.org</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.zoho.com/mail/">Zoho Mail</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.startmail.com/">StartMail</a></li> <li><a href="https://tuta.com/">Tuta Mail</a></li> <li><a href="https://proton.me/">Proton</a></li> <li><a href="https://disroot.org/en">Disroot</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.fastmail.com/">FastMail</a></li> <li><a href="https://mxroute.com/">MXroute</a></li> <li><a href="https://purelymail.com/">PurelyMail</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.migadu.com/">Migadu Email</a></li> <li><a href="https://soverin.net/consumer">Soverin</a></li> <li><a href="https://posteo.de/en">posteo</a></li> <li><a href="https://nubo.coop/en/">Nubo</a></li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/end-of-weblogpomo-2024/ Fri, 31 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/end-of-weblogpomo-2024/ <p>As it is the final day in this year&rsquo;s month-long <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/weblogpomo-2024/">#WeblogPoMo2024</a>, I&rsquo;ve decided to write today&rsquo;s post reflecting on the month, what I liked about participating, what I struggled with, and what I would do differently if I join in again next year.</p> <h2 id="the-good">The Good</h2> <p>The best part of the challenge was having a huge incentive to actually sit down and write up posts. I felt an obligation that I had not done before, and I really felt it held me accountable to not give up. I&rsquo;m really glad as it has meant I have added dozens of new posts to the website, which has fleshed it out more and made it feel less empty. It&rsquo;s a good way to add a lot of content in a short space of time!</p> <p>Pushing myself to write daily has also meant that I expanded the scope slightly, writing about subjects not related to technology. I probably would not have written about some of the subjects I did as I would have thought they weren&rsquo;t relevant enough, but I am happy that when those days happened, when I was really struggling to find something to write about, I did turn away from technology and write about other stuff too, and I think it&rsquo;s made the website more personal. I feel more comfortable now in writing about myself more.</p> <h2 id="the-bad">The Bad</h2> <p>It was an overall positive experience, with the only downside really being that there were days where it was approaching the evening, and I had no idea what to write about that day. Although I had started the month strong, with lots of ideas, drafts and half-written posts, I had run out of plans by halfway.</p> <p>As such, I do worry some of the posts are of lower quality than others, and on reflection, I would often think about a post the next day and realise I had forgotten to add something relevant into it. For example, it was only the very next day when I remembered I had not written anything about how I use the second panel in Floorp or that I have the tabs changed to Tree Style <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/browser-setup/">in the post where I had written about my Browser Setup</a>. As a result, when I have some time, I will go back through the posts I&rsquo;ve made this month and see if there is anything else I have missed which I could later add in.</p> <h2 id="the-differently">The Differently</h2> <p>If there is another event next year and I decide to participate, I will have to be better at planning my posts and creating more drafts. <a href="https://weblog.anniegreens.lol/weblog-posting-month-2024">In the post talking about the idea of #WeblogPoMo2024, originator Annie Greens wrote</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>I encourage people to choose a guiding topic for the month, something that will help them feel propelled to post. It could be a loosely defined goal, perhaps you are learning something new and this would be a way to talk yourself through it on a daily basis, or post about progress.</p></blockquote> <p>This was probably a good idea, and one I may have to base my posts around next time. I&rsquo;m not sure what idea topic may be, I have some things which interest me and I would like to dive deeper into, but I am unsure on exactly what that is yet - but I have nearly a year to figure it out!</p> <p>However! It was on days where I had no plan that I wrote more easily about my personal life, and I think the website is better for it. So, I need to find happy medium where I have ideas at the ready, maybe a central theme, but also room for impromptu writing where I more freely express myself.</p> <p>Regardless, I am very chuffed with myself that I was able to post every single day, and although I&rsquo;m glad I am able to take a break now, I would highly encourage others to consider giving it a go if the event happens again next year as it can be a real motivator to get writing!!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/yuito-and-tusky/ Thu, 30 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/yuito-and-tusky/ <p>In my last post for <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/weblogpomo-2024/">#WeblogPoMo2024</a> before writing tomorrow about my overall thoughts of the month long challenge, I thought I should today, very briefly, write about <a href="https://github.com/accelforce/Yuito">Yuito</a>, the application I use to access Mastodon on my Android phone (I rarely use Mastodon on my desktop, something I will go into at the end), how I arrange my tabs and view content, and what I am hoping for in the future.</p> <h2 id="tusky">Tusky</h2> <p>When I joined Mastodon, I initially used <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.joinmastodon.android">the default Android app</a>, but was not too impressed. I then tried out <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/apps">a series of third-party applications</a>, and began using <a href="https://github.com/tuskyapp/Tusky">Tusky</a>. What I liked about it was how I could scroll between different aspects of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse">Fediverse</a>, such as notifications, lists, hashtags, home, direct messages, bookmarks, trending posts and trending hashtags. However, there was a limit as to how many could be used on Tusky, and I was annoyed I had to either merge some sections, or omit them altogether.</p> <p>I wanted more!!</p> <p>And although I now see Tusky has been updated to remove this limit, it was there when I was going through all this a couple of years ago, and and such&hellip;</p> <h2 id="tabs">Tabs</h2> <p>After some searching around, I came across a fork of Tusky, a Japanese developed app called Yuito. It adds a few different features, but most notably for me, an unlimited amount of tabs so I can slide through the Fediverse sideways to my hearts content, without being limited.</p> <p>I have my tabs currently set up like so:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Tab</th> <th>Contents</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Notifications</td> <td>I don&rsquo;t have anything filtered here, so I see everything relating to me.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>List 1</td> <td>A list of users who I used to share an instance with and wish to keep in close contact with.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>List 2</td> <td>A list of users I have never shared an instance with, but don&rsquo;t want to miss their posts.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Local</td> <td>Posts by fellow members of my current instance.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tending Posts</td> <td>Posts which are popular, picked up by my instance.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hashtags 1</td> <td>A feed for computing stuff, hashtags followed: FOSS, IndieWeb, Hugo, SelfHosting, Arch, KDE</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hashtags 2</td> <td>My feed for vegan things, hashtags followed: Vegan, PlantBased</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hashtags 3</td> <td>My &ldquo;pretty&rdquo; visual feed, hashtags followed: Mastodon, Fungi, LichenSubscribe, BloomScrolling</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hashtags 4</td> <td>Arts and crafts feed, hashtags followed: Pottery, Quilting</td> </tr> <tr> <td>List 3</td> <td>A list of bots I like to occasionally scroll through.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Home</td> <td>A massive feed of all the posts of all the people I follow.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Direct Messages</td> <td>I don&rsquo;t need to see my direct messages often, so I place this at the end.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h2 id="wishlist">Wishlist</h2> <p>My biggest issue with Yuito is how I cannot theme it, stuck using three non-customisable themes of Dark, Light and Black - I want some <a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/">Rosé Pine</a> up in here! If Tusky adds such an ability, I may jump back to it now I know they have unlimited tabs!</p> <p>I also wish there was a way to access Yuito/Tusky on my desktop, because although I did narrow down to three possibilities, the three web interfaces of: <a href="https://phanpy.social">Phanpy</a>, <a href="https://trunks.social">Trunks</a>, and <a href="https://elk.zone">Elk</a>, I found them to be lacking in all the features Yuito/Tusky has. I may one day revisit this and give those three another good try, but for now, if I must use Mastodon on my desktop, I just go to my instance and use it from there.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/relaxation/ Wed, 29 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/relaxation/ <p>In this post, I&rsquo;ll be discussing how I&rsquo;ve never found it easy to relax, what ways in the past worked, and what I am currently doing to try and unwind, something especially important to me at the moment as <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/ptsd/">I feel I am becoming more stressed due to increased sensitivity to PTSD triggers</a>.</p> <h2 id="naps-and-meditation">Naps and Meditation</h2> <p>My main issue with relaxing is that I struggle to turn down all the noise in my head, and if I am able to, I essentially turn into a potato. I end up not feeling better afterwards, instead feeling a combination of brain rot and fatigue. Naps, in particular, for some reason, always have me awaking feeling more tired and extremely dehydrated. As such, I know I need to seek out restorative rest, something that relaxes me in a more productive way than just simply emptying my mind and leaves me feeling crappy.</p> <p>Despite multiple attempts, I cannot meditate in a standard normal way. My mind just wanders too much, and I know that when that happens I should just &ldquo;bring my attention back to the breath&rdquo;, but when you find yourself doing this every ten seconds, it gets tiring and frustrating. Rather, when I do listen to meditative sessions, I&rsquo;m better at doing something else at the same time, such as filling in a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram">nonogram</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku">sudoku</a> puzzle.</p> <h2 id="asmr">ASMR</h2> <p>In contrast, watching <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASMR">ASMR</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reiki">Reiki</a> centred content on another screen has been much more relaxing. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/asmr/">As I wrote on my page linking to ASMR content</a>, I do not experience the tingling sensation often associated with these types of sounds and visuals, but rather I find it just generally calming. With videos heavily focused on sound, it does just sound nice and makes my brain feel like it is getting a massage. Some videos feature people getting wonderful spa treatments, and as someone unable to access or experience these, I can briefly live vicariously and imagine how lovely it would be if it were me getting that treatment.</p> <h2 id="reiki">Reiki</h2> <p>Other videos have the person directly talking to you, either in a role-play setting or just as themselves. In these videos, it&rsquo;s nice to feel someone sending you care, and I reach out for these videos when in distress as a means to calm down and make me feel better. Although I started watching such videos firmly in the ASMR genre, I have drifted into watching Reiki content where a lot of this personal attention of healing you is the focus of videos. I do not believe in Reiki, much less the idea that a video recorded two years playing back to me on YouTube is sending me healing energy to help cleanse my chakras or cutting the cords of energy vampires clinging on to me.</p> <p>However, I don&rsquo;t think I do need to believe to get a positive experience from watching the videos. Briefly suspending disbelief, playing pretend for twenty minutes that there is someone out there who sees you&rsquo;re going through a tough time and wants to help by speaking kind words softly and moving crystals or singing bowls or incense isn&rsquo;t the worst thing in the world. I often feel safe while watching these to let go of my emotions, slow my mind down a bit, and imagine how nice it would be if all this pseudoscience did work. It&rsquo;s the closest thing I actually do get to being more meditative.</p> <h2 id="other-options">Other Options</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ve also heard it say some gentle movement can be relaxing, and while I do yoga, I don&rsquo;t find it particularly enjoyable. I do yoga because I have very tight muscles and my body physically feels better after doing yoga, but I don&rsquo;t really like it. Then again, I don&rsquo;t like doing any form of exercise as it always completely exhausts me, I end up with a headache, and have never experienced the <a href="https://www.wellandgood.com/endorphins-and-exercise/">post-exercise endorphins high others speak of</a>. I do have a small bench for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Step_aerobics">step aerobics</a>, and I try to get a few minutes in each day to do at least some cardio, but not relaxing in the slightest. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/workflow-wellbeing/#hydration">I have started drinking herbals teas</a>, and while these are a good way to hydrate me, I don&rsquo;t find them to be a particularly relaxing tool.</p> <p>Before I had cats, I used to light incense and scented candles, <a href="https://www.rootsofbeing.com/incense-and-cats/">but stopped doing this can be dangerous to them</a>. I then moved my products into my bathroom for use during a bath, which I actually did find relaxing as I soaked with these dimmed lights, luscious scents, and some spa inspired music playing. However, I am currently living in a temporary location with no access to a bathtub, and I find showers to be extremely overstimulating and stressful, so I currently cannot find a way to bring this old source of relaxation back into my life.</p> <p>When I am able to move, I plan to try and make my space as relaxing as possible. I want calming colours, simplicity, and opportunities to treat and pamper myself. Hopefully it won&rsquo;t be much longer, but for now at least, I am glad I have YouTube videos to briefly take my mind to a safe and relaxing space.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/my-keyboard/ Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/my-keyboard/ <p>In today&rsquo;s post, I&rsquo;m going to be discussing my current keyboard, how I decided which one to get, which features I cared about, and why I felt I needed to change from a standard full sized membrane keyboards I&rsquo;d had most of my life.</p> <h2 id="beginnings">Beginnings</h2> <p>Growing up, I always used low quality keyboards, but when I went to university, I purchased a <a href="https://support.logi.com/hc/en-us/articles/360023305354-MK700-Technical-Specifications">Logitech MK700</a>, a nice wireless keyboard with a built-in wrist rest. To give it credit, it still actually works to this day, but as I was writing more and more when it came to my Master&rsquo;s degree, I found myself with ergonomic issues, notably that I was either bringing my right hand in at an angle to type, or that I then centred the letters section of the keyboard correctly to me, but then my mouse was too far away, and when I had to switch to using that, I was again creating aches and pains in my body.</p> <p>It was annoying, but I initially didn&rsquo;t know what to do. It was only when I began researching into building a Windows computer for a friend (a good ten years later after purchasing the MK700!) that I looked at accessories and saw a gorgeous looking keyboard on people&rsquo;s desks. I found out most were variations of a keyboard by <a href="https://www.duckychannel.com.tw/en/Keyboards">Ducky</a>, and although Ducky make keyboards in various sizes, the ones that interested me were much smaller. I learned these had names like TKL (<a href="https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/tkl-keyboard">ten keyless, usually meaning it does not have the numpad attached</a>) or 65%. Laughing at myself that I had simply never considered keyboards could be smaller, I then dove into the world I soon realised was called: Mechanical Keyboards.</p> <h2 id="mechanical-keyboards">Mechanical Keyboards</h2> <p>The difference between the keyboards I&rsquo;d always had and these mechanical ones is how the keyboards are built and function. <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/mechanical-vs-membrane-keyboards-advantages-disadvantages/">As described here</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Membrane keyboards are very simple in their design. They can basically be seen as a device composed of several layers. The bottom layer is a circuit board with connectors that trigger each key. Above that is a membrane made of a flexible material like rubber, with contact points for each key elevated by default.</p> <p>Finally, we have the actual keys sitting on top of the membrane. When a key is pressed, this squishes the membrane downwards, pressing the contact point to the circuit board and closing the circuit for that key. This allows the keyboard to register a keypress.</p></blockquote> <p>In comparison, a mechanical keyboard has every key connected to its own <a href="https://www.mechanical-keyboard.org/switch-types/">switch</a>, which, when the associated key is pressed, physically depresses into the circuit board with its stems triggering activation.</p> <p>Excited about how mechanical keyboards can be quite modular, as switches and <a href="https://switchandclick.com/ultimate-guide-to-picking-a-keycap-set-for-your-mechanical-keyboard/">keycaps</a>, in all sorts of shapes, materials and heights, can be replaced if there is a fault later on in life, and how it looked liked the variety in smaller sizes meant I could resolve my ergonomic issues, I decided to compile a wishlist for my ideal mechanical keyboard.</p> <h2 id="wishlist">Wishlist</h2> <p>Initially, my list was simple: I wanted it to be used either wired or wirelessly, in a smaller size, so either TKL, 65% or 75%, and obviously a British layout.</p> <p>Obviously as that is all I had ever known, and why would I, as a British person, use a keyboard that wasn&rsquo;t? But then I realised how limiting it would be if I did not compromise on this point. Hardly any keyboard used the <a href="https://switchandclick.com/ansi-vs-iso-layout/">British ISO layout</a>, and even less made compatible keycaps, or charged more for them as they were considered as an extra.</p> <p>However, I was already using my British ISO layout MK700, designed for Windows, on my Mac, and I had some minor issues with it already, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards#Apple_Macintosh_keyboards">as described in this Wikipedia article</a>:</p> <blockquote> <ul> <li>The <code>&quot;</code> and <code>@</code> keys are swapped.</li> <li>The <code>€</code> symbol is assigned to <code>⌥ Option+2</code> instead of the expected <code>⌥ Option+4</code>.</li> <li>The <code>#</code> symbol is assigned to <code>⌥ Option+3</code> instead of its own dedicated key.</li> </ul></blockquote> <p>As such, I might actually better benefit from using an ANSI American layout, as the <code>&quot;</code> and <code>@</code> keys are already swapped. I would have to get used to a differently shaped <code>enter</code> or <code>return</code> key, but I thought it would be worth it considering all the benefits.</p> <p>With that in mind, I then did some more research and decided I would also want a keyboard which <a href="https://www.keychron.com/blogs/news/hot-swappable">has the ability to hot swap switches</a>, as I do not have access to a soldering kit nor space to use one. I&rsquo;d also want a keyboard that could work with either <a href="https://drop.com/talk/137946/3-or-5-how-many-pins-does-your-switch-really-need">3-pin or 5-pin switches</a> to best future proof. RGB, all those pretty rainbow LED lights, would be nice, but not necessary, and I didn&rsquo;t mind what the initial keycaps or switches inside the keyboard would be, as I could always change these out at a later date. Lastly, it couldn&rsquo;t be too expensive.</p> <h2 id="my-keyboard">My Keyboard</h2> <p>In the end, I decided on the <a href="https://rkgamingstore.com/products/rk84-75-percent-keyboard">ROYAL KLUDGE RK84</a>, a 75% 84-key mechanical keyboard, that could be used wired or wirelessly, hot swappable with 3-pin or 5-pin switches, RGB, and was on sale at the time, so I got it for around £50 - not bad for everything I wanted!</p> <p>Interestingly, although I had decided on brown switches, or some sort of variety, <a href="https://techguided.com/red-vs-blue-vs-brown-mechanical-switches/">as they were described to me as a decent safe switch</a> when I was in the planning stage, I could only get this keyboard at the time on sale with blue switches - not a problem, as I knew I could always later buy my perfect switches. However, I&rsquo;ve become so used to my clicky blue switches that came with the keyboard, I haven&rsquo;t swapped them out! Same with the keycaps, as I had so many wonderful ones lined up, but I&rsquo;ve found myself perfectly satisfied with the default set.</p> <p>The keyboard also has a feature I had not considered, which is the ability of USB passthrough, where two USB ports are available to use on the keyboard itself, and so I have my mouse dongle plugged into one slot and my deskmat (also got on a cheeky sale at the time with an added coupon!) plugged into the other, saving my USB ports connected to my Mac for other purposes.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Overall, I&rsquo;m really satisfied with my keyboard. It&rsquo;s been perfect to use with minimal issues (I sometimes get a flashing &lsquo;P&rsquo; when switching between devices and it decides to stop working, but this is only occasionally and can be quickly resolved!), and I&rsquo;ve found I can type more extensively without aches and pain in my arms and back. I became used to the clicky sounds quite quickly and really like the tactile feedback from the switches, now struggling when using someone else&rsquo;s membrane keyboard as it can feel so squishy and unstable, making me unsure if I have pressed a key down correctly or not.</p> <p>As I said, although I have kept the default switches and keycaps, I love how I can change my keyboard up and make it look and feel completely different if I wanted to by changing these parts. I would highly recommend looking into a mechanical keyboard with hot swap capabilities if you are in the market for a new keyboard.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/pearcleaner/ Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/pearcleaner/ <p>Fully uninstalling applications on a Mac can be a bit difficult, simply dragging the .app file into your Trash and then emptying it usually leaves behind many files and folders, and if you try to reinstall later (perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling for the application to behave as brand new) the .app may try to reconnect with the old data.</p> <p>As such, users are normally recommended to install a program to remove all traces of applications when it comes time to uninstall. The most popular name I&rsquo;ve seen is <a href="https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/">AppCleaner</a>, a free application where you simply either drag and drop the .app file into to begin, or use the search feature to find it. Afterwards, a window pops out to the side listing the .app and any files or folders associated for you to approve for removal. It&rsquo;s a simple application, and as you can&rsquo;t go much wrong with it, I never saw a need to seek out alternatives - if it ain&rsquo;t broke, why fix it? Or change it?</p> <p>However, I recently came across <a href="https://reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1czjp1b/your_10_worst_mac_apps_and_extensions_which_you/l5jtsdu/?context=3">this comment on Reddit</a> instead recommending <a href="https://github.com/alienator88/Pearcleaner">PearCleaner</a>. Curious, I decided to install and see what could be built upon such a simple concept.</p> <p>After installation, you need to go through approving a few security permissions, and then you&rsquo;re presented with a clean two-pane window, with your applications listed to the left with an option to search. .app files can still be dropped into the right pane, otherwise it is where details of an .app appear listing the associated files and folders connected to the application you wish to remove.</p> <p>In a comparison using the <a href="https://github.com/allusion-app/Allusion">Allusion</a> application as our test subject for uninstallation (because it was high up alphabetically on my list!):</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th></th> <th><strong>AppCleaner</strong></th> <th><strong>PearCleaner</strong></th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><strong>Size Found:</strong></td> <td>230.2 MB</td> <td>230.4 MB</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Files/Folders Found:</strong></td> <td>4</td> <td>6</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure why PearCleaner found more items to remove, but it makes me feel more confident that it is doing a better job at removing as much as possible associated with an application at removal.</p> <p>PearCleaner also has additional features such as monitoring Trash for .app files moved in there, and basic theming, as well as optionally installing an extension for removal within Finder, and the ability to cleanup <a href="https://brew.sh/">Homebrew</a> installations too.</p> <p>As such, I&rsquo;ve decided to stick with PearCleaner over AppCleaner, and am glad someone suggested it as I would have ordinarily been stuck in my ways and just used what I always had used without seeing if something better was out there!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/ptsd/ Sun, 26 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/ptsd/ <p>Something that has been bothering me these past two weeks has been an increased sensitivity to sounds, which sets off my audible-based PTSD triggers. It has resulted in me feeling overall very anxious and unable to fully relax. My sleep has worsened, which has made me feel like I&rsquo;m more susceptible to these sounds affecting me, creating a loop where I need more sleep to be more resistant to them, but my anxiety is making my sleep worse.</p> <p>The sounds that affect me relate to cries, shouts and screams. I do not live alone, and in this shared household, often people are making all sorts of sounds. Sometimes they shout to each other because they can&rsquo;t be bothered to get up and walk to the person to chat, sometimes they make a short yelp &ldquo;scream&rdquo; when something surprises them, and laughter can sound like crying.</p> <p>No one does actually audibly cry. But despite that 99.99% rate of a similar sound through a muffled door is not a cry, 99.99% of the time my brain thinks it is. No matter the logic of the situation, that almost all the sounds that trigger me are not actually worrying, it doesn&rsquo;t matter. My brain automatically defaults back to that traumatic incident and I freeze in panic. My heart rate shoots up. I start breathing quickly. I stare blankly into the distance. My body freezes. My mind is in a panic as all the memories of that day flood back. Sometimes I cry. Nothing else happens until my brain can work out if the trigger was real or a false alarm.</p> <p>Of course, it&rsquo;s a false alarm. It always is. When I&rsquo;ve worked it out, I unfreeze and come back into my body, now full of emotion and crashing adrenaline. I often feel very sensitive afterwards and if I had a very bad trigger, I am often very tired and will only recover after a night&rsquo;s sleep.</p> <p>Headphones do not help. They can actually make things worse as they can further muffle sound, distorting it, and increase false alarms. There have been so many times where I have been simply listening to music, vibing away in a good mood, and then I think I hear a distant sharp yelping crying sound, and I&rsquo;m triggered.</p> <p>Blocking sound out entirely, through noise cancellation or earplugs, doesn&rsquo;t help either. I have a childhood memory of me around nine years old playing alone in the bathtub, and when I lifted my head out of the water I hear my Mum screaming at me. I couldn&rsquo;t hear as I was underwater at the time and I had not responded when she knocked, telling me it was time to come out and get dressed. With me not responding, she assumed something bad had happened to me, and then got mad at me for worrying her. It&rsquo;s something that&rsquo;s stuck with me and I can&rsquo;t dislodge. I now feel like I have to be able to hear everything, I don&rsquo;t want to get told off again. Even as an adult and that happening decades ago, I can&rsquo;t get past it and move on, I can&rsquo;t cope with the idea something yelling at me for my attention and me being unable to hear them. I have to be able to hear what&rsquo;s going on around me.</p> <p>Even when I&rsquo;m not experiencing triggers, this heightened state that I&rsquo;m in has resulted in just generally high levels of anxiety. I find myself feeling uneasy for seemingly no reason, and am getting frequent panic attacks. I&rsquo;m having to rely more and more on listening and watching various ASMR or reiki YouTube videos centred on calming down the body and mind. I&rsquo;m glad I have these resources available to me, but I wish I could just feel better.</p> <p>Frustratingly, I did manage to briefly recover from my PTSD. The incident happened in early 2019, and I felt like I had recovered by the end of 2021. But then a similar incident happened in late 2022, and the PTSD came back, now a double whammy with the effects of both events merging together into one.</p> <p>However, even two weeks ago was a better place for me, and I wish I could get back to just there where I experienced maybe a a few triggers a week, or even a mild one a day. Now, I&rsquo;m getting quite strong triggers several times a day, which is exhausting, if nothing else, and makes it hard to try different things to feel better as I have little energy to do so. Even things I enjoy quickly make me tired and I have to stop to rest.</p> <p>I keep telling myself though that I have come out of this before, and this difficult patch is just a patch, not a forever. I just have to get through this, ideally sooner rather than later. I hope next week is more peaceful.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/i-stopped-journalling/ Sat, 25 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/i-stopped-journalling/ <p>A couple of years ago, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/replacing-day-one/">I wrote a post</a> about migrating my journalling data away from popular application <a href="https://dayoneapp.com/">Day One</a>, and where I was planning to move it to. However, I have stopped journalling, and I&rsquo;ll go into why in this short post.</p> <h2 id="repetition">Repetition</h2> <p>As I spoke about in my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/threegoodthings/">post about using the daily hashtag #ThreeGoodThings</a> on Mastodon, I don&rsquo;t have an exciting life. Although spending a minute reflecting this as I write yet again about how a highlight of my day was listening to music or cuddling a cat is fine, it doesn&rsquo;t feel fantastic having to sit down at the end of the day and face writing that out in some sort of extended format. It was this repetition that slowly began to gnaw away at me, and I began to dread journalling in the evenings.</p> <h2 id="finch">Finch</h2> <p>Another thing that drew me away was using <a href="https://finchcare.com/">Finch</a>, which I have <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/to-do-lists/#finch">written</a> <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/mood-tracking/#finch">about</a> <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/subscriptions/#wellness">pretty</a> extensively at this point, but to quickly summarise, is an Android/iOS wellbeing application to improve your mental health through various activities, but centred around the idea of writing reflections throughout the day, and when you feel you need to. As such, I am writing about all sorts of random things at random times, prompted by the app, and I prefer answering these short questions than having to look at a blank page and struggle knowing what to write.</p> <p>For example, here are some standard questions I answer every day:</p> <ul> <li>What stood out most from your meals today?</li> <li>Are there any recurring themes in your dreams?</li> <li>How did your body feel when you woke up?</li> <li>What is something you can look forward to this week?</li> <li>What is impacting your energy today?</li> <li>What made you most excited today?</li> </ul> <p>I can cycle through the questions as well until I find one that resonates with me, and I also like how the questions are adaptive to the mood that I logged when I open the app, so on &ldquo;bad&rdquo; days the questions are more supportive and prompt gentle exploration of the low mood.</p> <p>Furthermore, the entries are assigned a sentiment, as either positive, neutral or negative, and these go towards how the day overall went when looking back on past days via the calendar. I also like how you can filter entries by certain aspects, so I can quickly see all the entries about a person, subject or location if need be.</p> <h3 id="drawbacks">Drawbacks</h3> <p>Of course, one negative aspect of Finch is how the data is locked in. I can create a .JSON exported backup, and the app encourages you to do so on a regular basis as no personal data leaves your device, so if it gets broken or stolen, there is no cloud from Finch to get your data back from. However, as for as I am aware, I&rsquo;m not currently sure if that data can be imported into a different application and useable.</p> <p>But I&rsquo;m not sure if I care. After all that hassle migrating my data away from Day One, I&rsquo;m not bothered if I lose access to the old entries. I know I don&rsquo;t care about reflecting back on those days right now. I do care about losing <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/finch/">my &ldquo;birb&rdquo; Nova</a> on Finch, but the actual entries? While it is interesting to look back at a glance, seeing which days or weeks were good or bad periods for me, I don&rsquo;t spend time meticulously reading past entries. In fact, I&rsquo;m not a huge fan of looking backwards, it&rsquo;s not somewhere that brings me joy, I often only feel distraught afterwards.</p> <h2 id="stopping">Stopping</h2> <p>Late last year, I found myself just skipping the notification prompting me to journal. In the New Year, I tried starting again, but quickly gave up only after a week or so. Since then, I still get a daily notification telling me it&rsquo;s time to journal, in hopes I would be inspired to do so, but it simply hasn&rsquo;t happened after nearly six months. So today, I&rsquo;m going to uninstall Joplin and remove the notification from Finch about journalling. Maybe one day I&rsquo;ll return, but for now, I feel better.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/so-about-webmentions.../ Fri, 24 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/so-about-webmentions.../ <p>A couple of days ago, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/linux-for-everyone/">as I was writing a post about Linux</a>, I went back to <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/linux-mint/">an old post of mine about Linux Mint</a> in order to grab the URL and check a few details. As I scrolled down to the bottom, I saw a section at the very end:</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>WebMentions</strong></p> <p><a href="https://indieweb.org/webmentions">What is a WebMention?</a> - <a href="https://webmention.io/your-site/webmention?target=https%3a%2f%2fjessicajournals.com%2flinux-mint%2f">Send a WebMention</a></p> <p>No WebMentions found.</p></blockquote> <p>And my eyes narrowed, because although I knew I had set up <a href="https://indieweb.org/webmention">WebMentions</a>, it not being something you do accidentally, it dawned on me that I could not remember the recent posts having this section at the end.</p> <p>So today I&rsquo;ll discuss what has happened here, and ponder if I want to actually fix it?</p> <h2 id="what-are-webmentions">What Are WebMentions&hellip;?</h2> <p>In efforts to create networked conversations between people using different pieces of software across the internet, WebMentions are a standard to more easily link back to and respond to posts, somewhat similar to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trackback">TrackBacks</a>.</p> <p>I implemented them as they were highly suggested to me, and I liked the idea of being able to create a little mini interconnected web of posts which refer and relate back to each other.</p> <h2 id="irregular-webmentions">Irregular WebMentions</h2> <p>When I rebuilt this website, I knew there would be some posts I would not want WebMentions on, such as the <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/about-me/">About Me page</a>, so I coded the <code>single.html</code> file like this to handle WebMentions:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-html" data-lang="html"><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ if .Params.article }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;WebMentions&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">h4</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>WebMentions<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">h4</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;https://indieweb.org/webmentions&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>What is a WebMention?<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> - </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">a</span> <span class="na">href</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;{{ .Site.Params.webmentionEndpoint }}?target={{ .Permalink }}&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Send a WebMention<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">a</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">br</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">script</span> <span class="na">src</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;&lt;/</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">id</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;webmentions-container&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">$</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nb">document</span><span class="p">).</span><span class="nx">ready</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kd">function</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">webmentionEndpoint</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">&#39;https://webmention.io/api/mentions.jf2?target=https://jessicajournals.com&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">$</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">getJSON</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">webmentionEndpoint</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="kd">function</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">data</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">webmentions</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">data</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">children</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">webmentions</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">length</span> <span class="o">&gt;</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kd">var</span> <span class="nx">html</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;ul&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">webmentions</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">forEach</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kd">function</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">mention</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">html</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;li&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">html</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;a href=&#34;&#39;</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="nx">mention</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">author</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">url</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&#34;&gt;&#39;</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="nx">mention</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">author</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">name</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;/a&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">html</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="s1">&#39; mentioned &#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">html</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;a href=&#34;&#39;</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="nx">mention</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">url</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&#34;&gt;&#39;</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="nx">mention</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">content</span> <span class="o">+</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;/a&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">html</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;/li&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">});</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">html</span> <span class="o">+=</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&lt;/ul&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">$</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;#webmentions-container&#39;</span><span class="p">).</span><span class="nx">html</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">html</span><span class="p">);</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">}</span> <span class="k">else</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">$</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;#webmentions-container&#39;</span><span class="p">).</span><span class="nx">html</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;No WebMentions found.&#39;</span><span class="p">);</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">});</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">});</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">script</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ end }} </span></span></code></pre></div><p>The key part here is <code>{{ if .Params.article }}</code> at the start. All that code only activates if the parameters of the post is set to &lsquo;article&rsquo;.</p> <p>I do this in the post&rsquo;s front matter, which has looked something like this:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="nt">title</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Linux For Everyone?&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">date</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="ld">2024-05-22</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">draft</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">false</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">tags</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s2">&#34;Linux&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;WeblogPoMo2024&#34;</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">categories</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s2">&#34;Basement&#34;</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>Notice how there is no parameter for &lsquo;article&rsquo;. In comparison, this is the front matter for the Linux Mint post:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="nt">title</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Linux Mint&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">date</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="ld">2022-04-15</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">draft</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">false</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">article</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">true</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">tags</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s2">&#34;Applications&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Setup&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Hardware&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Linux&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Mac&#34;</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">categories</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">[</span><span class="s2">&#34;Basement&#34;</span><span class="p">]</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>Somehow, I&rsquo;d simply somewhere along the way forgotten to add &lsquo;article&rsquo; as a parameter, and thus all the posts had defaulted to <code>article: false</code>.</p> <h2 id="fixing-it">Fixing It?</h2> <p>Fixing this issue would be a bit time consuming, but not difficult. I just have to go through every post I want to have WebMentions on, and add <code>article: true</code> to the front matter.</p> <p>However, do I want to have WebMentions on? Do I want to fix this issue?</p> <p>Particularly writing a lot this past month as part of <a href="https://weblog.anniegreens.lol/weblog-posting-month-2024">#WeblogPoMo2024</a>, I quite like the idea of just writing into the abyss. One component of IndieWeb is <a href="https://indieweb.org/POSSE">POSSE</a>: &ldquo;Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere&rdquo;, or as I incorrectly thought it stood for: &ldquo;Post Once, Share and Syndicate Everywhere&rdquo;. The notion is that instead of creating original content scattered across various different websites and platforms, you post it in once single place, and then share it everywhere.</p> <p>But I have not been doing that, not even for an event like #WeblogPoMo2024. I think this is because I am not personally comfortable with promoting myself, making posts on Mastodon linking back to my blog posts. I have a link to this website from my Mastodon profile, and I am comfortable with that, but I don&rsquo;t really want to alert my followers when I make a new post.</p> <p>As to why I have these different levels of comfortability, I&rsquo;m not sure. It may still link back to my mental health, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-mentally/">as I wrote in a post a couple of years ago</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>When I first started on the internet, I was extroverted, posting in various communities, making lots of online friends, and having various blogs over time. However, these all faded away over time, and as my mental health issues likely began, I withdrew more and more, telling myself no one wants to hear what I have to say, so I’ll say nothing.</p></blockquote> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure. But regardless, I have been happily writing away without noticing any feedback, and I&rsquo;m wondering about keeping it this way. Rather than go back to add <code>article: true</code> to the front matter, I may instead add <code>article: false</code>.</p> <p>However, because I have not really given WebMentions a proper opportunity to shine, I have decided to turn WebMentions on for all posts that should have had it on all this time. I&rsquo;ll see how this goes, and I can always go and turn them off again if I change my mind!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/migrating-to-endeavouros/ Thu, 23 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/migrating-to-endeavouros/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/linux-for-everyone/">In my previous post</a>, I spoke about running Linux and how it may not be for everyone, pointing to myself as someone who has Linux installed on their laptop, but not being used their day-to-day operating system, also known as a distro, on their desktop. However, I did not go into which distro I am currently using on my laptop, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/linux-mint/">having written in the past about using Linux Mint</a>. In this brief post, I&rsquo;ll go into which I left Mint, where I went to, and then why I&rsquo;ve now landed on <a href="https://endeavouros.com/">EndeavourOS</a>.</p> <h2 id="leaving-mint">Leaving Mint</h2> <p>When I last wrote about Linux on my laptop, a mid-2011 MacBook Air, I was using <a href="https://www.linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint</a>, and I was relatively satisfied with it, but as I became more adventurous and confident with computing and using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_emulator">terminal emulators</a>, I wanted to push myself to try something more challenging.</p> <h2 id="manjaro">Manjaro</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ve always been interested in <a href="https://archlinux.org/">Linux Arch</a>, but warned away due to it being too complex for the average user in casual conservation with others. However, there are off-shoots which purport to be more user-friendly, while still based on Arch. When I decided to make this change last year, the most popular option was <a href="https://manjaro.org/">Manjaro</a>, and I did initially find it more difficult, but happier with the choice over Linux Mint.</p> <p>However, my installation began to slowly feel like it was degrading. I had constant issues with upgrading and updating, needing to spend extensive time fixing errors regarding PGP keys. It also just slowed down and became buggy doing mundane tasks, often crashing when things became too much for it.</p> <p>A few months ago, when looking into fixing all these, or perhaps wiping and starting again, I often saw people online remark along the lines of &ldquo;why are you using Manjaro when you should be using EndeavourOS?&rdquo;</p> <h2 id="endeavouros">EndeavourOS</h2> <p>I looked it up, and it did seem many had moved on from Manjaro to EndeavourOS. As I was going to wipe my laptop anyway for a refresh, I thought I didn&rsquo;t have much to lose when it came to trying out EndeavourOS. I nervously decided to try out <a href="https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/">KDE Plasma</a> as my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desktop_environment">desktop environment</a>, unsure if my old laptop could handle it, but was pleasantly surprised that I have yet to face any issues with sluggishness!</p> <p>EndeavourOS is extremely customisable, and I was able to set <a href="https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont">Atkinson Hyperlegible</a> as a system-wide font, change all my icons to the gorgeous <a href="https://store.kde.org/p/2037657">BeautySolar</a>, and use <a href="https://github.com/ashbork/kde">Rosé Pine colours</a>, as well as <a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/themes/cursor/">Rosé Pine cursors</a>.</p> <p>Regarding applications, I did have to mash together the <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/">AUR</a>, <a href="https://appimage.org/">AppImage</a> and <a href="https://www.flatpak.org/">flatpak</a> to get all the applications I wanted, but they work quite seamlessly and haven&rsquo;t caused me issue so far.</p> <p>Overall, EndeavourOS is stable and enjoyable whenever I am on my laptop. Using it primarily for writing, coding and web browsing, I am quickly able to do all these things in a wonderful setting tailored to me. As with most Linux distros, it does not treat me as a child, unlike <a href="https://support.apple.com/macos">macOS</a> which gets upset with me if I try to install certain indie software or wish to customise something - EndeavourOS is a significantly more pleasant experience. If my favourite and important applications were available on Linux, I would move my daily operation to EndeavourOS as I like it so much. One can only hope more software developers create applications for Linux!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/linux-for-everyone/ Wed, 22 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/linux-for-everyone/ <p>Due to a recent announcement by Microsoft that they are adding a <a href="https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/retrace-your-steps-with-recall-aa03f8a0-a78b-4b3e-b0a1-2eb8ac48701c">Recall service to their Windows operating system</a>, <a href="https://www.techradar.com/computing/computing-security/windows-recall-sounds-like-a-privacy-nightmare-heres-why-im-worried">something that has worried people over privacy concerns</a>, <a href="https://uk.pcmag.com/ai/152443/useful-or-potential-spyware-microsofts-recall-feature-draws-regulatory-scrutiny">equating the idea to spyware</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKecRAZLDvU">people have wondered if Linux is a viable alternative to those unhappy with Windows</a>. In this more rambling post, I&rsquo;ll go into my thoughts on this matter.</p> <h2 id="am-i-one-to-talk">Am I One To Talk?</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ve long enjoyed using Linux, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/linux-mint/#linux-on-macs">having dabbled with them since the mid-2000s</a>. However, I have a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution">Linux distro</a> installed on an old mid-2011 MacBook Air which I use for light work, such as web browsing, writing and coding. My daily driver is my Mac Mini, used for the same, but also with other applications not found on Linux.</p> <p>As such, am I one to talk about all this, as someone who isn&rsquo;t using Linux on a daily basis?</p> <p>Well, I think I do have a perspective of someone who really wants to use Linux full time, but can&rsquo;t, and I know people who use Windows and I wouldn&rsquo;t dream of suggesting they migrate to Linux. As such, I am favourable towards Linux, and reasonably knowledgeable, but know it isn&rsquo;t for everyone, and that might be worth considering.</p> <h2 id="windows-by-default">Windows By Default</h2> <p>To begin, why does Windows have such domination? Ask the average person it&rsquo;s probably because it&rsquo;s all they&rsquo;ve ever known, and perhaps due to their applications. Maybe they&rsquo;ll also mention cost compared to an alternative in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS">macOS</a> (something I will go into later), and maybe ease of use.</p> <p>I think these four points are important to consider because these are genuine and acceptable barriers to entry when suggesting Windows users &ldquo;simply&rdquo; move elsewhere.</p> <h2 id="capability-and-capacity">Capability and Capacity</h2> <p>Firstly, people may not have the time, energy or ability to learn a new operating system. We do not know the individual circumstances of someone, but I&rsquo;ve nonetheless seen some people be derogatory towards those who complain about Windows, but did not move to Linux. This is not helpful for the wider community at large, it is off-putting and gives Linux an overall bad name. People are allowed to complain about something in hope that it will lead to improvement and positive change, and in some cases, it may be all that they can do. Sure, people can suggest Linux, but we should not be negative towards those who do not want to change to Linux because Windows is all they&rsquo;ve ever known.</p> <h2 id="applications">Applications</h2> <p>Secondly, while there are great alternatives for various Windows applications on Linux, and many applications are cross-platform, we should not kid ourselves and think there are perfect alternatives to every Windows application.</p> <p>I remember vividly trying <a href="https://www.gimp.org/">GIMP</a> as an alternative to <a href="https://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop.html">Adobe Photoshop</a> in the late 2000s and found it to be an excruciating experience. Every few years, I would try again, and quit in a fit of rage. However, when I tried <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/">Affinity Photo</a> for the first time a few years ago, I found migrating over to be significantly easier. Sadly, Affinity Photo is not on Linux and I do not accept GIMP to be a suitable alternative to Affinity Photo for me. As such, this one application alone has made it impossible for me to use Linux as my primary operating system.</p> <p>There will be over stories like these with various applications not found on Linux, and sure, we can suggest to the Adobe Photoshop user to try GIMP, but if they come back and say it did not work out for them, do not belittle them, as I have sadly seen and experienced, as not trying hard enough, or not wanting to sacrifice some aspects for &ldquo;the greater cause&rdquo; of using a Linux compatible application.</p> <p>And again, to make a similar point from earlier: people may not have the time, energy or ability to learn a new application. Simply telling people to change their entire workflow and understanding of an application may not be possible.</p> <p>Saying all that, I don&rsquo;t wish to be pessimistic. There have been great advancements in applications becoming cross-compatible, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/steamos">and thanks to Steam and their operating system running on Linux</a>, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/linux">gaming on Linux is increasingly popular</a>. So my advice is that if you are considering moving to Linux, write down a list of the applications you use, rank them in importance, and then investigate if it runs on Linux, and if not, look into alternatives - <a href="https://alternativeto.net/">AlternativeTo</a> is a good resource with their filters to easily identify applications that run on Linux. For example, I know of a Windows user who would have this as their list:</p> <ul> <li>Adobe Photoshop (alternative: GIMP)</li> <li>OBS (On Linux)</li> <li>Minecraft (On Linux)</li> <li>Roblox (No Alternative)</li> <li>Discord (On Linux)</li> <li>Open Office (On Linux)</li> <li>Firefox (On Linux)</li> <li>Thunderbird (On Linux)</li> </ul> <p>Depending on how they get on with GIMP, they may be able to move over to Linux, though they would lose access to Roblox. As this is a game, they may be willing to <a href="https://opensource.com/article/18/5/dual-boot-linux">dual boot their machine</a> so that Windows is used for gaming only. If they have time and ability, <a href="https://devforum.roblox.com/t/vinegar-the-better-way-to-run-roblox-on-linux/2224394">they may wish to try running Roblox via emulation</a>. Or, they may wish to stick with Windows. It&rsquo;s all about someone&rsquo;s individual circumstances, each situation is different and unique, we cannot apply broad strokes about what people can and cannot do when it comes to their computers.</p> <h2 id="cost">Cost</h2> <p>Thankfully, the vast majority of Linux operating systems, known as distros, are free, so cost would unlikely be an issue as to why someone would not move to Linux from Windows - it&rsquo;s cheaper than buying a Windows 11 key!</p> <p>But, and as an aside from the Linux talk, I have also seen some suggest a compromise to Windows users, what about a Mac? Perhaps an easier transition for some Windows users to make (<a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/apps-to-make-mac-look-like-windows/">with a plethora of applications and tweaks to recreate the Windows experience</a>), and much more likely to be able to use the same applications from Windows (though not all, there are still some gaps).</p> <p>However, I cannot see many willingly put a perfectly well functioning computer away and <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-mac/mac-mini">having to spend at least £650, to use macOS, for an entry level Mac Mini</a>, <a href="https://www.macworld.com/article/1677460/mac-mini-upgrade-hub-storage-ethernet-sd-card-ports.html">which has limited upgradability of internal parts</a>, and so the consumer may need to buy an entirely new machine if they want certain aspects upgraded later on. The appeal of Linux here is that it can be installed, likely for free, on an existing easily upgradeable Windows computer, and without purchasing dedicated hardware.</p> <p>Perhaps Macs are the right Windows alternative to you. They are for me. However, it again cannot be a simple swap for many, and may be a more viable option later on when that Windows user needs to upgrade their computer and could look at Macs instead, though that may not be the most cost effective option for them compared to similar hardware on a PC.</p> <h2 id="graphical-user-interfaces">Graphical User Interfaces</h2> <p>I know it is probably cliché at this point, but I am being very serious when I say this: it is unacceptable if the user has to use a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_emulator">terminal emulator</a> to achieve something in Linux.</p> <p>There may be those of us who are fine with using <a href="https://konsole.kde.org/">Konsole</a> or love using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_(macOS)">Terminal</a>, and I do! If I can install an application via <a href="https://brew.sh/">HomeBrew</a> in Terminal, I will! But interfacing with terminal emulators should be completely optional, and sadly I have had to use them to get, what I would deem, necessary tasks, done.</p> <p>Ease of use is extremely important. The average person does not want to open up that scary and unusual looking terminal application and enter in a series of commands they do not understand because someone online (hopefully trustful!) told them to. They want a graphical user interface where they can click buttons to install applications or configure their computer without too much fuss.</p> <p>Suggesting people simply learn how to use a terminal emulator, or that they should not feel uneasy entering commands, is not acceptable, and I hope by now I do not need to repeat myself as to why.</p> <h2 id="so-what-now">So What Now&hellip;?</h2> <p>Again, I don&rsquo;t want to be negative and dismissive of Linux. I wish I could use it in my everyday activities and I want more software developers like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif_Europe">Serif</a> to create Linux ports of their Windows and Mac applications. I love using my Linux laptop, and I want Linux to become more popular with more users choosing it. It is because I want these things to happen I feel I need to point out issues which could be improved to aid in new users migrating from Windows, and also not to leave a bad taste in the mouths of Windows users who currently cannot migrate (for whatever reason) and may choose never to because of negativity and poor behaviour they are experiencing from some in the Linux community shaming them.</p> <p>Suggest and offer help, but if that is declined or it just doesn&rsquo;t work out, that&rsquo;s fine, move on and hope situations change in the future, making it more possible for people to migrate, with the Linux community ready and willing to help out whenever that time comes.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/twitter-reddit-and-api/ Tue, 21 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/twitter-reddit-and-api/ <p>In 2023, changes were made at two of the biggest social media platforms, with first Twitter, and then Reddit, deciding to reduce free access to their <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API">application programming interfaces,</a> known as APIs. In this short post, I&rsquo;ll write about how these changes affect me and what I have done about it.</p> <h2 id="api">API</h2> <p>An API is merely a type of channel for communication, so one could create a mobile application, website, bot or whatever, and have it connect to a server to push data to or grab data from.</p> <p>In how this related to my use of Twitter on my Android phone, I used the third-party application of <a href="https://github.com/mariotaku/twidere">Twidere</a> which was significantly more customisable, faster, and removed the bloat of advertisements, useless features and that push towards the almighty algorithm. Twidere let me easily see the tweets of the users I was following, and not much else, just how I wanted it to be.</p> <p>Similarly, I used <a href="https://github.com/Haptic-Apps/Slide">Slide for Reddit</a> on my Android device to view my followed subreddits in an easier, cleaner and more customisable way, having started using third-party applications for Reddit because there was no official app when I began using Reddit. I then got used to using Slide, despite it going on a hiatus of active development a couple of years ago and missing many modern features.</p> <h2 id="twitter">Twitter</h2> <p>After Elon Musk&rsquo;s takeover of Twitter, many things began to change, and one of them was <a href="https://www.engadget.com/twitter-shut-off-its-free-api-and-its-breaking-a-lot-of-apps-222011637.html">the shutting down API access of various third-party applications like Twidere</a>. It was a strangely gradual process with Twidere being blocked immediate access, but not the more modern <a href="https://github.com/TwidereProject/TwidereX-Android">Twidere-X</a>, until that was blocked a few days later. I tentatively then moved to Japanese app Lagopus Lite, reluctant to purchase the full app in case it got blocked too, which it eventually did, and was then removed from the Google Play Store. However, I mostly use Mastodon these days, so losing access to third-party Twitter applications hasn&rsquo;t been as bad as I initially expected.</p> <h2 id="reddit">Reddit</h2> <p>A couple of months after Twitter announced their changes to their API, <a href="https://reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/12qwagm/an_update_regarding_reddits_api/">Reddit did something similar too</a>. Though the initial wording appeared to only affect for-profit entities or those scraping large amounts of data, such as LLMs, <a href="https://reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/12ram0f/had_a_few_calls_with_reddit_today_about_the/">developers of third-party applications were in communication with Reddit and being told their access would now need payment</a>.</p> <p>Not against the idea of paying for a third-party app and Reddit access if the price was reasonable, I knew I couldn&rsquo;t stay on the underdeveloped Slide, and instead needed to find a new app. Wanting to stay with something FOSS, I tried out the popular <a href="https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit">Infinity for Reddit</a>.</p> <p>Having moved from outdated Slide, it was refreshing to see a modern interface for using Reddit. I am able to customise the appearance to my favourite font of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkinson_Hyperlegible">Atkinson Hyperlegible</a> and theme of <a href="https://github.com/alvarosoaress/infinity-for-reddit?tab=readme-ov-file">Rosé Pine</a>, fully adjust how I navigate and read posts, and save select SubReddits for quick access.</p> <h2 id="build-you-own-infinity">Build You Own Infinity</h2> <p>However, after changes began to reduce free access to Reddit&rsquo;s APIs, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Infinity_For_Reddit/comments/14c2v5x/build_your_own_apk_with_your_personal_api_key_in/">the community came together</a> and created a pretty easy way to compile your own version of Infinity with your own API key - and very highly unlikely you will reach any limitations which would incur a cost. <a href="https://colab.research.google.com/drive/13AE8RvjnCfuBJGaACEqxeBIMo33_l-Sc?usp=sharing">Using this Google Colab script and following the instructions on screen</a>, I have been able to continue using Infinity with minimal issues ever since.</p> <p>It may seem initially a bit scary if you&rsquo;re not used to stuff like this, but it is well worth spending a bit of time working through the procedure considering how much better Infinity is compared to the default Reddit application, so I highly recommend it if you want to access Reddit via an Android device!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/to-do-lists/ Mon, 20 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/to-do-lists/ <p>Throughout the past decade or so, I have dabbled with using &ldquo;to do&rdquo; applications with limited success due to either a limiting feature set, nagware in free versions, or me simply forgetting about it. In this post, I&rsquo;ll go into apps and services I tried out in the past, what worked for me more recently, and where I am at now, having successfully implemented a functioning setup I use and don&rsquo;t forget about, as well as having a brief discussion on how I manage and access my calendars.</p> <h2 id="early-days">Early Days</h2> <p>Although a long time ago now, so the exact details are fuzzy, I do nonetheless remember using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wunderlist">Wunderlist</a>, <a href="https://todoist.com/">Todoist</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_To_Do">Microsoft To Do</a>, finding the latter most successful for me. Nothing too complicated here, just simply creating lists, filling them with tasks, and ticking them off when done.</p> <p>At the time, I didn&rsquo;t need reminders or reoccurring tasks, so this was enough for my use, though I later wanted to try out something more.</p> <h2 id="tasks">Tasks</h2> <p>I started with <a href="https://tasks.org/">Tasks</a>, probably the most popular Android FOSS application in this field. It&rsquo;s a clean application with the ability to use filters, tags and add notes to each corresponding task. However, I struggled to get this to sync at the time with all my devices, not understanding at the time how to get it on my desktop. As such, it remained something only on my Android phone, and I started to look elsewhere.</p> <h2 id="todotxt">todo.txt</h2> <p>I somehow came across <a href="https://github.com/todotxt/todo.txt">todo.txt</a>, probably through Reddit somewhere, and liked how it was a single, easy to read, file that I could keep easily in sync between my devices with <a href="https://syncthing.net/">SyncThing</a>. The premise is having tasks in a plain .txt file, with lines like:</p> <p><code>(A) write blog post +website @desktop due:2024-05-20</code></p> <ul> <li>(A) ranks the priority for the task</li> <li>The next section is the content of the task</li> <li>+website is the project or tag</li> <li>@desktop is the context</li> <li>And then it ends with the task&rsquo;s due date</li> </ul> <p>However, although aware its simple premise was a key feature, I was not drawn to having a text file open and typing out these lines every time I wanted to create or modify a new task.</p> <h2 id="sleek-and-simpletask">Sleek and SimpleTask</h2> <p>However, I did not have to! There are <a href="http://todotxt.org/">various applications</a> with a graphical user interface to aid in task management involving the todo.txt system. <a href="https://github.com/ransome1/sleek">Sleek</a> was my favoured desktop application as it had cross-platform compatibility on Linux and Mac. It nicely lays out the categories of priorities, projects and contexts, allow for filtering, and lists due dates. On Android, I used <a href="https://github.com/mpcjanssen/simpletask-android">SimpleTask</a>, which while not as attractive as Sleek, was functional in its purpose.</p> <h2 id="caldav">CalDAV</h2> <p>Although more targeted towards calendar use, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV">CalDAV</a>, a protocol to manage and sync calendar information, can also (dependent of the version used) handle tasks too. As a well established protocol, a significant benefit of using CalDAV was knowing pretty much all major calendar applications would work with it, though I was less sure about the tasks aspect.</p> <p>I was successful in setting this all up inside my <a href="https://nextcloud.com/">Nextcloud</a> installation on my Raspberry Pi server, with tasks working as well as calendars, though I experienced inevitable issues when the server went offline, or when I left my home network, as I do not want to expose my server publicly.</p> <p>(I have since become aware that I could use something like <a href="https://tailscale.com/">Tailscale</a> to safely connect to my home devices via a virtual private network!)</p> <p>Around this sort of time though, I migrated my email services to a new provider to save on costs, and was pleasantly surprised to see they also included CalDAV, CardDAV and WebDAV. Though not too interested in the latter two, I decided to give its CalDAV offering a go, and found it worked flawlessly. With more application support for CalDAV than todo.txt at the time, and wanting something nicer on my phone to manage my tasks, I migrated my to do lists over to CalDAV.</p> <h3 id="caldav-applications">CalDAV Applications</h3> <p>On my Mac, I&rsquo;ve integrated CalDAV simply through the Internet Accounts section in System Settings, and could access it through both the built in Calendar and Reminders applications. However, I was grandfathered into most features inside <a href="https://flexibits.com/fantastical">Fantastical</a> a few years ago through a bundle, and am using that for my calendar needs, though I am currently using an application I got for free a few months ago, <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/memento-modern-reminders/id1200227397">Memento</a>, to access my tasks.</p> <p>On my Android phone, I am using <a href="https://www.davx5.com/">DAVx5</a> to bring the CalDAV account into my device, and then <a href="https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar">Etar</a> for calendar use and Tasks (hello again!) for the to do lists. I like how I can use the widgets from Tasks on my home screen to quickly see my to do lists and check off tasks when completed, and enjoy the interface more than SimpleTask.</p> <h2 id="finch">Finch</h2> <p>Lastly, for a moment after Microsoft ToDo, I tried out the well acclaimed <a href="https://www.ticktick.com/">TickTick</a>, and while I felt restricted on the free tier, I liked how they had lists and tasks related to wellness and personal life, rather than just those related to work, study and productivity.</p> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/mood-tracking/#finch">I&rsquo;ve spoken before about using Finch</a>, a self-care app that while focused on journalling also has exercise, quizzes, relaxing music and goals. These goals have become a sort of to do list for my personal life, as doing healthy and restorative tasks are rewarded with currency for you to spend on improving the life of the finch you care for.</p> <p>Finch is unique as part of my setup I don&rsquo;t want to replace despite not being locally controlled (though no data leaves your device without your permission). However, I would be neglectful in writing this post if I didn&rsquo;t mention this significant part of my daily use of to do lists!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/browser-setup/ Sun, 19 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/browser-setup/ <p>Of all the applications I use most on my computer, I&rsquo;m probably most reliant on my web browser, having it open pretty much the entire time. In today&rsquo;s post, I&rsquo;ll be going into a brief history of my use of web browsers, and then explore my current browser setup with what add-ons I use and why.</p> <h2 id="beginnings">Beginnings</h2> <p>When I first began using the internet, I started on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer">Internet Explorer</a> and was inundated with the awful noisy pop-ups and flashy banner adverts of the 1990s, as well as toolbars that seemed to install out of nowhere. In 2005, a friend, more tech savvy than I was, then recommended I try out a new browser: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox">Firefox</a>. I was initially reluctant as I&rsquo;d only ever spent time on Internet Explorer, but after migrating everything over, it became my home for nearly two decade of how I browsed the internet. Yes, even as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome">Google Chrome</a> became significantly more popular, I had no desire to leave my trusty Firefox, only using Google Chrome when absolutely necessary for web development testing and the occasional broken website.</p> <h2 id="why-change">Why Change?</h2> <p>A couple of years ago, I began hearing people displeased with the data owner Mozilla was collecting and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20221013104259/https://chrisx.xyz/blog/yet-another-firefox-hardening-guide/">how difficult it was to configure the browser to be more private</a>. I then decided to explore other options, and saw <a href="https://librewolf.net/">LibreWolf</a> highly recommended as a fork of Firefox with these security hardening tweaks already preconfigured into it.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ve been using it for a while now, but then stumbled across a post on Mastodon which recommended a different Firefox alternative over LibreWolf, the oddly named: <a href="https://floorp.app/en/">Floorp</a>.</p> <p>Intrigued of this Japanese based fork, I installed it and migrated my data over again, and played around with the new features. In particular, I like how there is a button to reopen a closed tab, how there is a little sidebar which can create a pane running alongside the existing webpage open, how customisable it is with appearance, and Share Mode which hides all identifying information (bookmarks, add-ons, toolbars&hellip;) in the web browser - great for taking screenshots or sharing your screen.</p> <h2 id="add-ons">Add-Ons</h2> <h3 id="assorted">Assorted</h3> <p>Being very particular about how my web browsing experience goes, my most unusual choice here is probably <a href="https://github.com/nt1m/livemarks">LiveMarks</a>, as I never got over <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacements-firefox">Firefox removing Live Bookmarks</a>, and used them as a way to quickly read news headlines.</p> <p>Having been a BETA tester for <a href="https://duckduckgo.com/email/">DuckDuckGo&rsquo;s Email Protection service</a>, I still use it to create temporary email addresses when needed, and so use <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/duckduckgo-for-firefox/">DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials</a> less for privacy reasons, and more to easily insert these disposable email addresses in.</p> <p>I have TamperMonkey installed to run a couple of scripts for Neopets: <a href="https://github.com/diceroll123/NeoSearchHelper">NeoSearchHelper</a> and <a href="https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/479268-neopets-daily-quest-helper">Daily Quest Helper</a>, and <a href="https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding-extension">linkding extension</a> to save bookmarks to be self-hosted <a href="https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding">linkding</a> installation.</p> <h3 id="appearance">Appearance</h3> <p>In my hopes and aim to customise everything I can get my hands on into the <a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/">Rosé Pine</a> colour palette, I have <a href="https://color.firefox.com/">Firefox Color</a> installed to theme the browser itself, and then use <a href="https://add0n.com/stylus.html">Stylus</a> to change a website&rsquo;s appearance by modifying the CSS.</p> <h3 id="youtube">YouTube</h3> <p>I have <a href="https://sponsor.ajay.app/">SponsorBlock</a> installed to skip sponsor sections within YouTube videos, and <a href="https://dearrow.ajay.app/">DeArrow</a> to present alternative titles and thumbnails of videos, in hopes of trying to reduce the amount of clickbait I see on YouTube. I also had to install <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/youtube-enhancer-vc/">YouTube Enhancer</a> recently as I seemed to have been thrown into some sort of [A/B testing](A/B testing) where I could not stop videos autoplaying when logged into my account - but could when logged out. A helpful user on Mastodon recommended me this add-on as a means to forcibly turn off autoplay.</p> <h3 id="security">Security</h3> <p>Lastly, I have a few security add-ons, with much of the security now being handled by my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/adguard-home/">AdGuard Home DNS setup</a>. As such, I do not have an advertising blocker installed, though I used to use <a href="https://ublockorigin.com/">AdBlock Origin</a>. I use <a href="https://libredirect.github.io/">LibRedirect</a> to not only create auto redirects to my self-hosted frontends of <a href="https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search">Whoogle</a> and <a href="https://github.com/libreddit/libreddit">libreddit</a>, but to also view alternatives hosted elsewhere, such as Medium alternative <a href="https://scribe.rip/">Scribe</a>.</p> <p>I still use <a href="https://noscript.net/">NoScript</a>, though am hopeful my DNS filtering is preventing the worst offenders of trackers, but find it helpful for misbehaving websites which run better without all their scripts running.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/kde-connect/ Sat, 18 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/kde-connect/ <p>In this short post, I&rsquo;ll go into <a href="https://kdeconnect.kde.org/">KDE Connect</a>, which builds mini bridges between my Android phone and tablet, and my desktop Mac, although this did not take long to setup, it has become extremely useful in my day-to-day life!</p> <h2 id="why">Why?</h2> <p>When I used <a href="https://www.pushbullet.com/">PushBullet</a>, I really liked how I was able to send links between my devices and get notifications from my phone on my computer. However, I became disillusioned with it after they made changes a couple of years a go to the message limit, and looked into some alternatives.</p> <p>For a while, I used <a href="https://www.signal.org/">Signal</a> to just share things between devices with its &ldquo;Note to Self&rdquo; feature, and then I had <a href="https://gotify.net/">Gotify</a> fill this purpose. However, none of these supported more in-depth features, such as seeing notifications.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure how I found KDE Connect, but I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised if I simply stumbled across it browsing the <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/">F-Droid app</a>. It had even more features than PushBullet, such as sharing clipboard contents, finding mobile devices when I&rsquo;ve misplaced them, seeing the battery life of my mobile devices, and be notified of incoming calls as a notification on my Mac.</p> <p>I also installed KDE Connect on my tablet as a means to easily share passwords from my phone&rsquo;s password manager, which isn&rsquo;t installed on my tablet for safety reasons, and that alone has been worth this whole setup as typing out strong alphanumerical passwords with special characters was pretty time-consuming.</p> <h2 id="kde-connect">KDE Connect</h2> <p>I began by installing <a href="https://kdeconnect.kde.org/">KDE Connect</a> on the Android device via the <a href="https://f-droid.org/packages/org.kde.kdeconnect_tp/">F-Droid</a> app, which also keeps it up to date, but it is also available on the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.kde.kdeconnect_tp">Google Play Store</a>. It&rsquo;s quite a simple application to use, as it&rsquo;s mostly just setting permissions and everything up once, and then letting it run in the background.</p> <h2 id="soduto">Soduto</h2> <p>When it came to first setting up this process, I used a MacOS application called <a href="https://soduto.com/">Soduto</a>, either because the corresponding KDE Connect application was not yet available, or I simply wasn&rsquo;t aware of its existence, I can&rsquo;t quite remember! Either way, I think Soduto was suggested to me via a Reddit post, and it did what I wanted it to do, and was generally satisfied with it, despite a lack of development in recent years.</p> <h2 id="full-kde-connect">Full KDE Connect</h2> <p>However, when reinstalling my MacOS last year, I saw that <a href="https://community.kde.org/Plasma/Browser_Integration">although KDE Connect runs best when connecting to a Linux machine</a>, it can run with a few less features on <a href="https://kdeconnect.kde.org/download.html">Windows and MacOS</a>, though significantly more than Soduto. For example, when linking KDE Connect together with Soduto, I get these two options on my phone:</p> <ol> <li>Send files</li> <li>Send clipboard</li> </ol> <p>Whereas KDE Connect running on both devices has these options:</p> <ol> <li>Send Files</li> <li>Send clipboard</li> <li>Presentation mode</li> <li>Multimedia control</li> <li>Remote input</li> <li>Run Command</li> </ol> <p>While I have no need for Presentation Mode, being able to use my phone as a mouse and directly enter keystrokes by Remote Input, and control media and volume with Multimedia Control, have proved extremely useful. While I have yet to experiment fully with <a href="https://userbase.kde.org/KDE_Connect/Tutorials/Useful_commands">Run Command</a>, it seems it would be pretty powerful when configured.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>I often hear people talk positively about iOS and Mac devices connecting pretty fluidly between each other, and although KDE Connect may not be able to recreate that seamless process, I think when it comes to some functions, people on Linux, Windows and Android devices ought to give this a go. KDE Connect is free, easy to install, and aside from a few minutes initially approving various permissions on all the linked devices, is simple to use and pretty much a set-and-forget system.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/octarine/ Fri, 17 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/octarine/ <p>I like trying out new pieces of software, and saw a new Mac note-taking application promoted on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1clld8v/octarine_lightweight_private_markdown_notes/">/r/MacApps</a> recently. I thought I would give it a go, as it had many features that appealed to me - here are my thoughts!</p> <h2 id="what-is-it">What Is It?</h2> <p><a href="https://octarine.app/">Octarine</a> is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown">MarkDown</a> focused, local file, internal linking, folder based, template using, and Rust and Tauri written, note-taking application currently only available on MacOS. All of this appealed to me for different reasons.</p> <p>Firstly, since coming across it, I&rsquo;ve become fully converted to using MarkDown as much as I can in my everyday life. Secondly, I&rsquo;m quite sensitive about where my notes are and how easily I can access them. I&rsquo;ve tried applications before, usually self-hosted, I found that my notes are locked away in a database which is complicated to backup and difficult to migrate elsewhere. By having .md files easily accessible in Finder, I can not only simply back them up with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncthing">SyncThing</a> to other devices, but MarkDown&rsquo;s .md files can be used in other applications.</p> <p>Although internal linking is something I&rsquo;ve been interested in, <a href="https://maggieappleton.com/bidirectionals#bi-direction-linking-in-personal-digital-gardens">particularly how it related to digital gardens</a>, it is admittedly something I have yet to use extensively while taking notes - but maybe having the option here might make me try using more? I liked how I had that option, but also how I can just stick to a more traditional way of navigating my notes, by creating folders and assigning my notes accordingly.</p> <p>Similarly, although templates are not a feature I regularly use, I like how the option is there as it could could be a fast and simple way to input data in a standardised mechanism, and may become very useful in the future.</p> <p>Lastly, I have noticed how some applications on my Mac do run a bit sluggish, so was really intrigued by how this was not an <a href="https://www.howtogeek.com/330493/what-are-electron-apps-and-why-have-they-become-so-common/">Electron wrapped application</a>, how much better would it perform?</p> <h2 id="how-is-it">How Is It?</h2> <h3 id="features">Features</h3> <p>One of the features I like the most is the &ldquo;Daily Desk&rdquo;. While journal features, where a new dated page is created every day, can be found in <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> and <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq</a>, I really liked the simplicity that the calendar on the left sidebar was just solely for these daily entries and not for other notes, as well as how any tasks unfinished from the day before can be carried over to the next day with just one click. As such, I tend to now start my day by opening Octarine, migrating my previous tasks to the new day, and then add or remove throughout the day when tasks or ideas pop into my head, so it&rsquo;s become a mini to-do list of sorts.</p> <p>Octarine has the option to create different workspaces, so you can neatly separate notes into various different parts of your life, such as personal, work, a side project or whatever, and it&rsquo;s pretty quick to switch between them. This is again similar to how Obsidian and Logseq function with vaults and graphs, but I found it a smoother experience the jump between my workspaces.</p> <p>Additionally, I also like how you can insert code blocks with full syntax support, so I can store all my Docker Compose scripts, and the application is fast at updating files and folders if I have edited them or moved them around in Finder. The button to quickly see Recently Viewed files is handy to have, and although I have yet to properly link my notes together, having the graph as a visual means to view my notes is also quite neat.</p> <h3 id="sidebars">Sidebars</h3> <p>In <a href="https://getupnote.com/">UpNote</a>, I really liked how favourite notes can be pinned for quick access, and Octarine also has this feature, with the left sidebar being organised as such, from top-to-bottom:</p> <ol> <li>Workspace switcher</li> <li>Search</li> <li>Notes</li> <li>Daily Desk</li> <li>Templates</li> <li>Graph</li> <li>Attachments</li> <li>Settings</li> <li>A toolbar to organise the file tree below, buttons to create a new file and new folder, a button to refresh the workspace and another to collapse the file tree.</li> <li>Pinned notes individually listed</li> <li>File tree</li> </ol> <p>The right sidebar has three sections. The first states when the file you&rsquo;re viewing was created, when it was late updated, its reading time, word count, and then lists both the incoming and outgoing links (including all internal links, creating a sort of bidirectional linking system). The second section acts as a &ldquo;Table Of Contents&rdquo; where the headers are listed and can be clicked on to jump to a section within the file. Lastly, there is a Tags section, where all the tags in your Workspace are found, and can again be clicked on to list all files which have a certain tag within them.</p> <p>If it all sounds a bit much, the right sidebar can be hidden entirely, and the left sidebar can be compressed down to just show the icons. Though I actually want more, and wish the file tree in the left sidebar could be toggled to expand, alongside its current ability to collapse, or better yet a way to select which folder stay expanded while others stay closed until opened.</p> <h2 id="feature-requests">Feature Requests</h2> <p>Speaking of feature requests, I would love it if I could customise the folder icons to better differentiate between them, if some sort of web clipper could be created to quickly add content to my workspace, and a faster way to add hyperlinks - other MarkDown applications use command + K over highlighted text to add in a URL stored in the clipboard, but this just brings up a command bar with all sorts of options, though none to create a hyperlink.</p> <p>Other in demand features are on the horizon for the developer, such as applications for Windows, Linux and on mobile devices, theming and syncing.</p> <p>For syncing, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1clld8v/comment/l2x4h06">the developer has stated that they do not want to store our files on their server</a>, and so is looking into iCloud and Drive syncs, and there is a BETA feature to use Git Sync with GitHub and GitLab currently supported as means to back-up your files as well as access them elsewhere. However, as I use SyncThing, I wouldn&rsquo;t have an issue accessing my files outside my Mac as they would be an every device I have the application on. Though as there currently aren&rsquo;t Linux or Android versions, but use of Octarine is limited to my Mac. However, because the files are just .md they can be at least viewed in other applications, and am currently using Markor on my phone to read and do basic edits. Nonetheless, a fully featured Android application with all the lovely features would be highly appreciated.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Looking forward, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/1clld8v/comment/l2x4h06">the developer has stated</a> that everything we currently have in the application will remain free along with a few more additional features, though hopes to be financially supported through a Pro license which would contain custom theming, integration with other applications and services, automations and publishing. Of those features, custom theming, and hopefully the option to choose whichever font we want (<a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/">Rosé Pine</a> and <a href="https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont">Atkinson Hyperlegible</a> please!), appeal to me the most, though would be reluctant to participate in a subscription based system, especially as I would not be using features which would incur ongoing costs.</p> <p>Overall, I am really enjoying my experience with Octarine. The clean and simple interface is powerful enough to do what I want, without becoming too overwhelming as Obsidian or Logseq can become. I&rsquo;ve made comparisons to these throughout my post because they all base themselves on a system of having local files, but using a program to enhance how we read and write them. While it is indisputable that Obsidian and Logseq are the more advanced and customisable choices, I&rsquo;m really quite content with what Octarine is setting out to do because although the application is still in its infancy, and there are many features I would like added, so it may be too underdeveloped for some out there, I am very excited about the progress made so far.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/popcorn/ Thu, 16 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/popcorn/ <p>In this short food related post, I wanted to quickly go through my experience with one of my favourite savoury treats: popcorn!</p> <h2 id="why-popcorn">Why Popcorn?</h2> <p>Growing up, popcorn was something I would only eat at the cinema or very rarely have a bag of microwavable popcorn for a movie night at home. I&rsquo;ve always enjoyed savoury snacks and treats, and while getting popcorn stuck in my teeth is a pain to clean, the taste and texture is just something really appealing to me. Potato crisps can feel dense, and I think popcorn is healthier to eat!</p> <h2 id="popping-the-corn">Popping The Corn</h2> <p>When I was a teenager, I tried to cheaply make popcorn using kernels and oil in a hot pot over the stove, but the outcome was awful. I would often burn significant parts of the popcorn as well as somehow have too much oil in there and have it come out greasy.</p> <p>In my twenties though, I came across a (similar to this linked) <a href="https://fridaywereinlove.com/silicone-popcorn-popper/">silicone popper bowl</a> which purported a near perfect way to pop corn in the microwave. It worked really well, I put in the recommended amount of kernels, spritzed some spray oil in, added salt, gave it a shake, and then put it in the microwave running for a few minutes. Out came wonderfully popped corn, with no oily grease over them or burned!</p> <p>I used this methods for a few years, though I had two during this period as over time, the bowl would start to discolour and it eventually split at the top. It was while I was in the process of possibility getting a third one, I spotted a machine popcorn maker in the local supermarket. It was small and didn&rsquo;t look very good, but it made me consider the option of improving my process of popping corn. I looked online, but struggled to find a machine I liked, usually because they would not pop enough corn - I like eating large bowls of the stuff!</p> <p>However, I then found machine <a href="https://www.yabanohome.com/product/yabano-popcorn-machine/">similar to this</a>, where the kernels rotate on a heated plate to prevent burning. It also needed minimal oil, so it wouldn&rsquo;t get too greedy and oily, and it served more popcorn than the silicone bowl did! The one I purchased was on a great discounted sale, and, considering how often I use it, usually at least once a week, I think it was really worthwhile. I have yet to burn the popcorn, it is easy to empty and clean, and it tastes great!</p> <h2 id="flavourings">Flavourings</h2> <p>After I add my kernels and oil to the machine, I add a bit of table salt as well as freshly cracked black pepper. The choice of table salt is because I heard finer salt is better for these machines, whereas cracked black pepper creates a lovely spicy and heat that is more potent than in already grounded versions.</p> <p>Once popped, I add a sprinkling of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutritional_yeast">nutritional yeast</a> to add a nice nutty and savoury taste, paprika for a tiny bit of punch, and both garlic and onion powder as I love those flavours and think they go great with the popcorn. As such, I&rsquo;m not going for a super buttery or sweet type of popcorn, though I do know someone who adds just salt prior to the popping process, and then adds a sprinkling of powdered sugar afterwards, tossing the popcorn in a big bowl to help ensure good coverage. It is important to add the toppings as soon as possible after the popping has stopped as I have found they &ldquo;adhesive&rdquo; to the popped corn better.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/dbt/ Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/dbt/ <p>In my previous post, I talked about how I wanted to print off my DBT flash cards, I thought I should create a post discussing my thoughts about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy">dialectical behaviour therapy</a>.</p> <h2 id="cbt">CBT</h2> <p>When trying to improve my mental health following a decade of depression and anxiety, I had the most popular form of therapy - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy">cognitive behavioural therapy</a>, or CBT. But I found it to be an extremely distressing experience, and although the process began with optimism, I soon felt dread at starting a session as they would always end with me upset crying and with a sense that I was so broken I couldn&rsquo;t be fixed.</p> <p>This was because I was constantly told off for not doing the activities properly, and questioned if I did actually want to get better, despite me trying my absolute best. I tried so hard to do all sorts of exercises, but when I would do them honestly I gave responses they didn&rsquo;t like, or I said how difficult something was and told to just keep doing it anyway until it worked. It felt like they wanted me to gaslight myself and my emotions by pretending what I was feeling wasn&rsquo;t real, and that if I simply lied to myself enough, then that would be the new reality.</p> <p>So, I then figured out if I simply lied and said what they wanted to hear, I was then doing it right, and praised for now being cooperative. This only made things worse because it fed more and more into that idea of being unfixable - progress couldn&rsquo;t be made when I was authentic, so how could I ever become truly better?</p> <p>After my sessions ended, I came away more distraught and decided to admit defeat, that there was no possibility of getting better, and to instead find a way of coping with my issues rather than treat them.</p> <h2 id="dbt">DBT</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure how I stumbled across DBT, but I liked its approach of dealing with distress by not invalidating what I&rsquo;m feeling, but instead focusing on calming me down and making me feel better.</p> <p>DBT is broken down into four modules:</p> <ol> <li>Mindfulness</li> <li>Distress Tolerance</li> <li>Emotion Regulation</li> <li>Interpersonal Effectiveness</li> </ol> <p>There are further components within these modules, known as skills. I find browsing the <a href="https://dbt.tools/index.php">dbt.tools</a> to be a really helpful overview of these with the easy to use navigation and simple language. For example, it summarises these following skills:</p> <blockquote> <p><strong>How Skill:</strong> To live fully, DBT encourages us to be non-judgmental, mindful of the moment, and to focus on the desired outcome for each situation.</p> <p><strong>Radical Acceptance Skill:</strong> Radical acceptance is the complete and total acceptance of reality. This means that you accept the reality of a situation in your mind, heart, and body. You stop fighting against the reality and accept it.</p> <p><strong>Build Mastery Skill:</strong> You can build mastery by doing things you enjoy. Whether it is reading, cooking, cleaning, fixing a car, working a cross word puzzle, or playing a musical instrument. Learn as much as you can about the subject in order to be well versed. Discuss what you have learned and write about what you have learned. Practice these things to build mastery and in time, feel competent.</p> <p><strong>FAST Skill:</strong> The FAST skill is an important component for communication as it allows you to maintain your self-respect and requires you to be truthful about the problems (even if you are tactful about how you frame them) and not to sacrifice your values or integrity.</p> <p>be <strong>F</strong>air, no <strong>A</strong>pologies, <strong>s</strong>tick to Values, be <strong>T</strong>ruthful</p></blockquote> <p>I have the website on my phone as a PWA (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app">progressive web application</a>), so I can quickly access it when I feel the need to. But I also wanted something more physical to hold and flick through, so I also have the aforementioned flash cards, which feature similar content to the dbt.tools website. These, in combination with worksheets and audio I listen to about DBT, have helped me make progress towards better mental health. I&rsquo;m not told my feelings aren&rsquo;t true, or that I am doing an exercise or activity incorrectly simply because I&rsquo;m not doing it the way that is expected. Instead, solutions are presented to help with immediate distress as well as steps towards feeling better in the long-term, with these done in a much more positive mindset than the negativity I felt with CBT.</p> <h2 id="going-forward">Going Forward</h2> <p>While I still have issues with anxiety, my depression has drastically reduced in the past couple of years, and I think that is heavily connected to discovering that I am autistic, as the world and the difficulties I faced now make so much more sense, and that has led to a greater acceptance of who I am as a person. Nonetheless, I still refer back to DBT regularly, either when distressed or when in a good mindset and feel able to try improve my overall wellbeing. I think many aspects within DBT are beneficial for good wellbeing, and believe if I was taught them when growing up, I would have probably been better equipped with dealing with my emotions.</p> <p>That&rsquo;s not to say DBT may be a good fit for you, and similarly, you might have had a great experience with CBT. My wish is that people have greater choice when it comes to options for improving their mental health and wellbeing. It sadly feels that due to budget constraints, people are funnelled towards the cheapest option available and what is most commonly taught, rather than what may be actually most helpful.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/free-printing/ Tue, 14 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/free-printing/ <p>A couple of years ago, I purchased some <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy">DBT</a> flash cards, as I felt I needed something physical to flick through when in moments of distress. This was a digital purchase though, and I needed some way to get this .PDF file into the real world. So in this short post, I&rsquo;ll go into the process of printing these out essentially for free*, and might be something you could consider too.</p> <h2 id="etsy">Etsy</h2> <p>I purchased these from Etsy, who have a large market for all sorts of <a href="https://www.etsy.com/market/printables">&ldquo;printables&rdquo;</a> - flash cards, diaries, workbooks, colouring sheets&hellip;! While some of these are to be written in, my flash cards were full coloured and meant for regular handling, so an average black and white printer with average paper would not do.</p> <h2 id="free-printing">Free Printing*</h2> <p>Although my first instinct was to look at companies which specialise in custom printing, I quickly realised that many were geared towards the wholesale/business market, and the rest were quite expensive.</p> <p>However, in the United Kingdom at least, there are a plethora of services which offer to print your photos for free, in the hopes that they can entice you to perhaps spend a bit more on a photo book, higher finishes to the photos, or maybe something else entirely - how about your photos on wall art or on a mug?</p> <p>Such services include:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.freeprints.co.uk/">FreePrints</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.snapfish.co.uk/free-prints-app">SnapFish</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.photobox.co.uk/free-prints-app">PhotoBox</a></li> <li><a href="https://freesnaps.co.uk/">FreeSnaps</a></li> </ul> <p>However, you can just stick to the basic offering, and you can get your photos printed for free*</p> <blockquote> <p>*Though you must pay the delivery charge, which may become quite substantial. Shop around!</p></blockquote> <h2 id="prepping">Prepping</h2> <p>However, I am not sending off photos to be printed, and the .PDF that arrived for the DBT flash cards was presented by having four cards per sheet. I began the tedious process of saving screenshots of each card (using <a href="https://shottr.cc/">Shottr</a> and its &ldquo;Capture Area&rdquo; function), and then applying the screenshots to a fixed-sized document in <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/">Affinity Photo</a> to create uniformity between all the cards, to fit the standard size of 6x4 inches/15x10cm.</p> <p>Once I had all the cards in individual files, I was then able to submit them to the service of my choice, select a matte finish for better durability, and purchased for all under £5.</p> <h2 id="end-product">End Product</h2> <p>They arrived in about a week, and I&rsquo;m very happy with them! The card has a bit of heft about it, so I&rsquo;m never afraid it&rsquo;ll accidentally tear, the matte finish means they&rsquo;re easier to see and touch than with a glossy finish, the colours are vibrant, and all the text came out really clearly, with no blurriness.</p> <p>As such, if there is anything relatively small you wish to be printed out in colour and on decent card quality, it might be worth looking into these service as a cheap way for getting it done!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/mood-tracking/ Mon, 13 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/mood-tracking/ <p>While I can easily identify &ldquo;big&rdquo; emotions, like sadness, anger, anxiety and happiness, I do struggle a bit with naming more precise emotions, particularly when I feel uneasy and don&rsquo;t know why. It unsettles me as I feel less in control of my emotions and they overcome me. In this short post, I&rsquo;ll go into some of the mood tracking methods I&rsquo;ve tried over the years to help me better try to label an emotion.</p> <h2 id="nomie">Nomie</h2> <p>I started using <a href="https://nomie.app/faq/whats-different-between-nomie2-and-nomie3/">Nomie 3</a> a few years ago, and initially set it up to track all sorts of aspects of my life, such as food, sleep, stress, and activities as well as mood. However, I added too many trackers and after a couple of months of diligently tracking, I would find myself overwhelmed and back off.</p> <p>Each time a new version would come out, I would redownload, set everything up again, and tried, with my best intensions, to keep with it this time. However, the same issues of tracking too much kept arising. I did briefly try just tracking a couple of things, but felt I was not using the app to its full potential, which made me feel bad and I slowly began to associate the app with me not being able to stick to such a simple habit of tracking in the long-term.</p> <p><a href="https://nomie.app">Nomie shut down in early 2023</a>, but it was open-sourced, and a fork called <a href="https://www.dailynomie.com/">Daily Nomie</a> seems to be the new spiritual successor. It&rsquo;s not something I&rsquo;m thinking about returning to anymore, but if tracking many aspects of your life appeals to you, it might be worth checking out.</p> <h2 id="finch">Finch</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ve been using <a href="https://finchcare.com/">Finch</a> since Spring 2022 to improve my mental health with its method of writing reflections, as well as some extras like breath work, movement, mental health quizzes, and a plethora of exercises through its &ldquo;First Aid Kit&rdquo; to immediately help reduce distress.</p> <p>You&rsquo;re encouraged to visit the app regularly to take care of a <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/finch/">&ldquo;birb&rdquo;</a>, and there are notifications that appear throughout the day to check-in, which prompt you to rate how you feel out of five, as well as ask at the start how you feel for the day coming up, and at the end asking how your day has been. I am usually checking in with four out of five, as I feel better than neutral, but not elated.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s a handy basic system, as a low mood rating prompts the app to go through its &ldquo;First Aid Kit&rdquo;, and the writing prompts focus on improving your mood and addressing what is wrong. As this is all logged, it&rsquo;s also helpful to look back over the history and quickly see what days or weeks was I feeling low or feeling good, and what coincided with that. However, as to getting to the nitty gritty of emotions, that&rsquo;s not what it is designed to do.</p> <h2 id="how-we-feel">How We Feel</h2> <p>I tried many different apps at various times, some with a very wide selection of emotions and moods to select, but as I struggled to identify what I was feeling, I would usually default to simply stating the same few emotions over and over again.</p> <p>When I tried <a href="https://howwefeel.org">How We Feel</a> though, as I saw recommended to people on Mastodon, I found it was a different experience, as when I go to choose an emotion, dozens and dozens appear categorised into four sections with associative colours: High Energy Unpleasant (red), High Energy Pleasant (yellow), Low Energy Unpleasant (blue), and Low Energy Pleasant (green). When tapped into a section, you can freely swipe around the screen to explore the section in more details, or move over to another section. At the centre of the screen at any time is an emotion you&rsquo;re hovering over, and text appears at the bottom of the screen going into more detail as to what the emotion feels like.</p> <p>This is what I greatly appreciate, as I can take a moment and see if the text resonates with me, and if it doesn&rsquo;t I can just keep swiping around the mass of emotions until I do find one that feels more suitable.</p> <p>It isn&rsquo;t a flawless system though. I went through an extended phase of selecting &ldquo;tired&rdquo; at each check-in, which happens around morning, noon, late afternoon, and night. And while I was tired, I&rsquo;m not sure that is actually an emotion, and thought unless that really does overwhelm me, I should try to push myself to select a different emotion.</p> <p>Once an emotion is selected, you&rsquo;re then prompted to choose what was going on as you were experiencing that emotion:</p> <ul> <li>What was the activity?</li> <li>Who were you with?</li> <li>Where were you?</li> </ul> <p>Finally, you can write down a small journal entry to &ldquo;describe what might be causing you to feel [emotion]&rdquo;, with the option to include a voice memo and photograph if wanted. Or you can commit these two section entirely, and I choose not to add anything to the journal section as I don&rsquo;t want the app to know too much about me.</p> <p>You can then analyse your check-ins over different periods of time, with breakdowns of which emotions you feel most, how your mood generally was across the four check-in times and days of the week, and what you were most doing, who you were with, and where you were - with how you felt during these. All of this can be helpful in the same way Finch was in trying to help you identify patterns and reasons for your emotions, but I am most appreciative of just being able to stop four times a day, check-in with myself, and ask what emotion I am feeling at that time.</p> <p>Because the app is more extensive than what I just use it for, with the option to also track how many hours of sleep you got the night before and how that affected your mood, and short video pieces on emotions and instructions on how to do various mindful exercises, as well as the ability share your emotions with friends. I don&rsquo;t currently participate in any of these features, but I probably should watch some videos on emotions to increase my awareness of them, and the mindful exercises might be helpful too, I will have to try them one day.</p> <p>How We Feel is a free app for Android and iOS, supported by donations, so I think it might be worth a try if you&rsquo;re interested in any of the features I&rsquo;ve mentioned.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/threegoodthings/ Sun, 12 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/threegoodthings/ <p>When I first joined Mastodon, I came across a hashtag which seemed nice and a fun little activity to join in on every day: #ThreeGoodThings</p> <p>The concept is simple, just list three good things that happened in that day. On positive days, this can be easy, listing things like going on trips, eating tasty food or meeting great people. On more mundane days, things like seeing a nice sunset, wearing a favourite sweater or just getting out of bed and moving around more can be found.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m not exactly sure when I started joining in on using this hashtag at the end of the day, but I know I&rsquo;ve been doing it for well over a year now, not missing a day, becoming part of my evening routine where I wind down in bed, catch up on my Mastodon feed, play and post my daily Waffle Word Game play along, and then write up my three good things.</p> <p>They&rsquo;re usually of the mundane. I&rsquo;m normally just writing about cuddling my cats, cooking food, listening to music, and watching a TV show. But I nonetheless pause for a minute and replay my day back, trying to identify what about it was positive to write down.</p> <p>I post them with a content warning, so people have to click on it to read the list. I&rsquo;ve had people ask me why I do this, and while it can be because of the subject matter, it&rsquo;s actually because some see such posts as a form of toxic positivity, that I&rsquo;m perhaps painting an overly positive life or ignoring an objectively crap day and pretending it was good.</p> <p>While I understand such sentiments, and that&rsquo;s why I do add my content warnings, I honestly hope people don&rsquo;t think that&rsquo;s why I post to the hashtag every day. I do it as part of reflection, like a micro diary entry, and done publicly as some form of accountability, as well as to remind myself that even when I am feeling low or had a bad day, there are little things to hold on to - and they often are little. I watched a show I liked, I cuddled a cat, and I wore a comfy jumper. Having my mind focus on the negative isn&rsquo;t helpful for me, it&rsquo;s better when I&rsquo;m about to go to sleep to have the nicer memories of the day in my head. Even on days which were fine, not much really happens, so it&rsquo;s a similar three things.</p> <p>I post these for me, but I get likes on my toots, and sometimes a comment or question about what I&rsquo;ve posted, which is a nice starting point for conversation. I also occasionally get a reply from someone expressing how much they like seeing my toots, which is kind of them to say, and surprises me because they are often just so mundane and uninteresting. I see so many people on Mastodon living fuller lives, and while I&rsquo;ve long come to peacefully accept I&rsquo;ll not have lives like they do, I nonetheless believe my life isn&rsquo;t of interest to others and so I don&rsquo;t talk about it much as there really isn&rsquo;t much to say.</p> <p>So seeing people remark at enjoying my little mundane daily life updates, often featuring the same things, is both surprising and appreciative. I&rsquo;m glad these small toots are bringing something positive into the lives of others in some way.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/orders/ Sat, 11 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/orders/ <p><a href="https://shellsharks.com/chipotle">Even though it was created as a joke</a>, I liked the idea of creating a page listing a food order, so I&rsquo;ve made this to list all my favourite ones. Although I don&rsquo;t actually make food orders, this is what I would have based on restaurants nearby, made as a &ldquo;<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/fakeaway_recipes">fakeaway</a>&rdquo; at home for special occasions to share with others and eat over a couple of days.</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>🍕 Pizza</th> <th>🍔 Burger</th> <th>🍝 Pasta</th> <th>🍛 Indian</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Pan Crust</td> <td>Sesame Seed Bun</td> <td>Fusilli</td> <td>Naan</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tomato Sauce</td> <td>Chicken-Style Burger</td> <td>Green Pesto</td> <td>Pappadam</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mixed Peppers</td> <td>Fried Onions</td> <td>Chopped Olives</td> <td>Bhaji</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Red Onions</td> <td>Ketchup</td> <td>Sliced Sun-Dried Tomatoes</td> <td>Samosa</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Sweetcorn</td> <td></td> <td>Garlic Mushrooms</td> <td>Chana Dal</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mushrooms</td> <td></td> <td>Mince</td> <td>Dal Tadka</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Pineapple</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td>Saag Aloo</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td>Kalan Biriyani</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h2 id="no-cheese">No Cheese?</h2> <p>You may have noticed some items which usually have a cheese element to them don&rsquo;t have an equivalent. I&rsquo;m allergic to dairy, and anything that even tastes like cheese, even if it is 100% vegan, still makes me feel queasy! As such, no cheese of any kind on my burger or pizza!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/adguard-home/ Fri, 10 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/adguard-home/ <p>I spoke about how I didn&rsquo;t see adverts in <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/meow-tower/">Meow Tower</a> due to my installation of <a href="https://adguard.com/en/adguard-home/overview.html">AdGuard Home</a> in yesterday&rsquo;s post. Today, I&rsquo;ll briefly go into what more AdGuard Home can do, why I chose it over <a href="https://github.com/pi-hole/pi-hole">Pi-Hole</a>, and downsides I&rsquo;ve experienced.</p> <h2 id="blocking-trackers-and-advertisements">Blocking Trackers and Advertisements</h2> <p>In the past, I used to install a plethora of add-ons onto my web browsers for blocking trackers and advertisements, and just accepted some devices where this wasn&rsquo;t possible just had to have less protection. I also used to modify the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_(file)">hosts file</a> on my desktop and laptop with the list found at <a href="https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/">SomeoneWhoCares.org</a>, which gave some system-wide protection, but found it difficult to do this on my phone and tablet.</p> <h2 id="filtering">Filtering</h2> <p>When I first started on my self-hosting journey, one of the first reasons I encountered as a great reason to get a Raspberry Pi was to run Pi-Hole on it. A nifty piece of software, Pi-Hole turns a Raspberry Pi into a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_sinkhole">DNS sinkhole</a> which essentially acts like a middle-man viewing your internet traffic and filters out requests made by websites and software, and instead of serving you adverts or trying to track you, the request gets blocked and dumped.</p> <p>As you simply change your DNS settings in your devices to point towards the DNS sinkhole, available to change on the every internet connected device I have, no software is needed on the devices, so the filtering works in every app on phones or tablets without installing anything, and in all web browsers without needing to install add-ons, running faster and lighter as a result.</p> <p>There are services that can do this for you, either for free or for a charge. However, I would feel uncomfortable having all my traffic run through someone else&rsquo;s DNS, and depending on the service, you may not be able to configure the filtering just as you like.</p> <h2 id="adguard-home">AdGuard Home</h2> <p>However, I chose not to go with PiHole for the simple reason that I was starting out, and AdGuard Home was very easy to install with just a few commands, and then I just finished the rest of the setup via a web browser.</p> <p>I haven&rsquo;t needed to tweak much out of the box, but I added three popular blocklists (which is probably overkill!) to filter as much as possible, currently using:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://adguardteam.github.io/HostlistsRegistry/assets/filter_48.txt">HaGeZi&rsquo;s Pro Blocklist</a></li> <li><a href="https://adguardteam.github.io/HostlistsRegistry/assets/filter_27.txt">OISD Blocklist Big</a></li> <li><a href="https://adguardteam.github.io/HostlistsRegistry/assets/filter_33.txt">Steven Black&rsquo;s List</a></li> </ul> <p>Adding them is incredibly simple, a few clicks and you can just copy and paste in the URL of a list and then you&rsquo;re done! There is also a page to block specific popular services without needing such a list, such as Steam, TikTok, Instagram and many more, though I just use the blocklist feature for my filtering.</p> <h2 id="effectiveness">Effectiveness</h2> <p>It&rsquo;s actually quite scary how effective AdGuard Home has been. When you load up the homepage, you see statistics of how many requests have been made in the past twenty-four hours, how many were blocked, what the top queried domains were, and the most blocked domains, among other pieces of information.</p> <p>As I write this, my devices made nearly thirty-five thousand DNS queries, and AdGuard Home blocked 54% of them, preventing over half of the requests made!</p> <p>So, it works well. I don&rsquo;t see any advertisements, <a href="https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome?tab=readme-ov-file#comparison-limitations">outside of those listed by AdGuard Home</a> (sponsored content, YouTube and Twitch adverts), but sometimes the protection can affect how applications or some websites function.</p> <p>For example, it&rsquo;s usual in many mobile games to watch an advert to gain something in the game for free or reduce some sort of timer. In Meow Tower, watching an advert gives more clues in the puzzles and can be used to gain extra pencils, but none of this works with AdGuard Home turned on, as it correctly blocks the adverts from loading. I&rsquo;ve also had issues with some links on deal websites, where a deal is linked behind a middle-man tracker, and the whole thing breaks when clicked on, with the page refusing to load.</p> <p>However, I can usually decipher the broken URL to get the actual one, and although I have simply stopped using games or features inside games to watch adverts in exchange for something, I could always log into AdGuard Home and press the &ldquo;Disable Proaction&rdquo; button at the top to quickly toggle filtering off and on.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>As such, while I understand it isn&rsquo;t something everyone can do, I strongly recommend setting up some sort of DNS sinkhole, with Pi-Hole, AdGuard Home or any other similar piece of software, as it&rsquo;s been one of the best quality of life improvements I&rsquo;ve setup on my Raspberry Pi. It&rsquo;s wonderful having an internet experience with hardly any advertisements and knowing companies are tracking me significantly less.</p> <p>I understand there is an argument for ethical advertisements as a means for funding websites and journalism, but as a child of the 1990s and growing up in an age of adverts not only being extremely annoying popping-up with loud sounds, but were also a source of danger with viruses and endless redirects where you&rsquo;d end up on pornographic or scam websites, I&rsquo;ve just been burned too many times and don&rsquo;t like having things I did not consent to happen on my devices. I simply don&rsquo;t trust the internet enough.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/meow-tower/ Thu, 09 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/meow-tower/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/android-setup/">In yesterday&rsquo;s post</a>, I spoke about how I have setup my Android mobile phone, and some of the applications I use on it. I decided to separate out Meow Tower in particular, talking a little bit about how I find it to be a good mini distraction and break!</p> <h2 id="what-is-it">What Is It?</h2> <p><a href="https://boxcat.notion.site">Meow Tower</a> is a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonogram">nonogram</a> puzzle game, where cells are filled in to form a later pixelated image. Meow Tower adds cute graphics and a story, with goals of expanding the aforementioned tower to add more cats and gaining more information about them by unlocking stories and trinkets. The cats are all themed, with their rooms reflecting aspects of their personality, making scrolling through the tower visually fun as you see tea drinking aristocrat cat Eddy living in teal opulence compared to skateboard loving Milo living a floor down in her messy garage-type room, or with Morris underneath with his model train collection.</p> <h2 id="gameplay">Gameplay</h2> <p>The game uses pencils as a form of accessing the nonogram puzzles, with new pencils replenished every fifteen minutes, maxing out at eight. There are two modes, with Normal having a 10x10 grid and costing only one pencil to play, and Hard on a 15x15 grid with a two pencil cost.</p> <p>Completing a level with as little mistakes as possible gains you more tuna cans, which is the currency of the game. These can be spent on buying furniture for the cats living in your tower, on skins to change the game&rsquo;s appearance, or on the recently introduced Memory Cabinet, where you can unlock nostalgic items for the cats to place in their rooms.</p> <p>When you buy and place furniture, the cat living in that room starts to warm up to you, creating conversations you can respond to, developing a story aspect where the cats become more personable and have relationships with you.</p> <h2 id="cost">Cost</h2> <p>You can, of course purchase additional pencils and remove ads with in-app purchases, though with AdGuard Home running, I haven&rsquo;t spent anything on this game, and like how I have to wait before I play more levels or else I feel I&rsquo;ll just be blasting through the game.</p> <p>The only negative I do have is how a couple of cats are locked behind paywalls, with a time sensitive Christmas themed cat and a Picnic themed cat costing £12.49 each to unlock, a fee I find to be very expensive for what the game is, whereas I may have considered the cost if the cats were significantly cheaper.</p> <h2 id="why-i-play">Why I Play</h2> <p>I like the mind teasing aspect of the puzzles, trying to work out where to tap without getting any errors, and it&rsquo;s nice being able to just pop in every few hours for a quick break and play a couple of levels before returning back to whatever it was I was doing beforehand. It&rsquo;s a great little game to squeeze into a few minutes, and as the puzzles can be left mid-game and picked up at any time, it&rsquo;s very flexible too. I&rsquo;ve tried other nonogram games, but this is my favourite due to how the game handles solving the nonograms, with the tapping and grid completion done intuitively.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/android-setup/ Wed, 08 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/android-setup/ <p>I was late to the mobile phone game, content with my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod_Touch">iPod Touch</a> instead of an iPhone. However, I did eventually need to get a mobile phone, and landed up with a second-hand <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Lumia_950_XL">Microsoft Lumia 950 XL</a> on the cheap. Since then, and as that ecosystem was dying, I now use <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)">Android</a> and have not looked back, though my time on Windows Phone still influences my mobile phone setup today, which I will write about in more detail in today&rsquo;s post.</p> <hr> <h2 id="launcher">Launcher</h2> <p>One of the great benefits of Android is how easily it is to run <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS">FOSS</a> applications, and I would like to tell you which lovely FOSS launcher I use, but due to my brief, but extensive use on Windows Phone, I sought out a similar experience on Android, which led me to choosing <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ss.squarehome2">Square Home</a>, and not changing, even after all these years!</p> <p>Despite other mainstream launchers on Android, which utilise icons similar to those found on desktop computers, Windows Phone/Square Home is <a href="https://www.windowscentral.com/squarehome-2-another-highly-customizable-windows-phone-android-launcher">based on tiles</a>, and these can be static or dynamic, occupying every pixel of space on your home screen.</p> <p>I won&rsquo;t attach a screenshot of mine (although I do personally think it looks stunning!), but I can describe it as having widgets for weather (<a href="https://github.com/breezy-weather/breezy-weather">Breezy Weather</a>), calendar (<a href="https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar">Etar</a>), and my to-do lists (<a href="https://github.com/tasks/tasks">Tasks</a>), as well as folders for various apps and direct links to apps. I have managed to cram everything on my home screen into this one page, not scrolling downwards or to other pages. Instead, one swipe to the right reveals the app drawer, listing all the apps organised into relevant folders, which display the containing apps when tapped on. As such, my launcher runs only on these two pages: home screen and app drawer, with the app drawer the only page that scrolls.</p> <h2 id="icons">Icons</h2> <p>I have configured the Square Home tiles to be transparent with black lines separating them, revealing my wonderful dynamic background behind (<a href="https://github.com/muzei/muzei">Muzei</a>), and on top of these tiles are the <a href="https://github.com/Arcticons-Team/Arcticons">FOSS icon pack Arcticons</a>. Although the original Windows Phone titles featured flat white icons, I&rsquo;ve found the fine white lines in Arcticons look incredibly stylish, and due to the large size of the icon pack (9000+!), most of my apps are covered. If not, Square Home makes it easy to select a suitable replacement.</p> <h2 id="keyboard">Keyboard</h2> <p>It took me a while to find a keyboard I liked, and used an outdated <a href="https://github.com/openboard-team/openboard">OpenBoard</a> for a while before switching to a fork called <a href="https://github.com/Helium314/HeliBoard">HeliBoard</a>. I can adjust the size and colours as desired, it has good predictive text, and organised emojis, as well as a number of quickly accessible buttons such as accessing the clipboard, activating microphone (for when I cannot spell a word and spellcheck fails me), undo, redo and so on.</p> <h2 id="apps">Apps</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m a bit embarrassed as to how many apps I have installed on my phone, and it would take me a very long time to go through them all. So, I&rsquo;ll just highlight a few select apps I use on a regular basis.</p> <p>Aside from the applications mentioned above, I also use these, in no particular order:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Application</th> <th>Purpose</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://k9mail.app/">K-9 Mail</a></td> <td>Email</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/gsantner/markor">Markor</a></td> <td>Markdown Editor</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/accelforce/Yuito">Yutio</a></td> <td>Mastodon Client</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq</a></td> <td>Note-Taking</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://newpipe.app/sponsorblock/">NewPipe/SponsorBlock</a></td> <td>YouTube Client</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/browsers/mobile/focus/">Firefox Focus</a></td> <td>Internet Browser</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.signal.org/">Signal</a></td> <td>Communication</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/Docile-Alligator/Infinity-For-Reddit">Infinity for Reddit</a></td> <td>Reddit Client</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts</a></td> <td>Podcast Manager</td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.symfonium.app/">Symfonium</a></td> <td>Music Player</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> https://jessicajournals.com/anonymity-online/ Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/anonymity-online/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/neopets/">In my previous post about Neopets</a>, I talked a little bit about being identifiable:</p> <blockquote> <p>I used quite an identifiable username, which I do not mind within Neopets, but very reluctant to disclose outside of it as I shared this pseudonym across multiple online accounts. As such, this post is not a shrine where I will go into detail about my Neopets, as that is too identifiable.</p></blockquote> <p>Similarly, a topic I have seen <a href="https://social.lol/@flamed/112274380151080248">discussed on Mastodon</a> recently was anonymity online, <a href="https://kevquirk.com/what-about-anonymous-blogging">particularly when blogging</a>. Although I am unsure if I have any original thoughts to contribute to the conversation, particularly since I feel <a href="https://frills.dev/blog/240411-anon/">Frills already touched on many thoughts I share</a>, I thought I would nonetheless briefly clarify why I post anonymously.</p> <h2 id="growing-up-online">Growing Up Online</h2> <p>When I started using the internet as a child, things were much different in the 1990s. I remember many safety guides instructing us as children to not trust anyone and tell no one any identifiable information about who you are. At most would be a disclosure of a first name and the old &ldquo;ASL&rdquo; (Age/Sex/Location), to which I would respond as a thirteen year old with &ldquo;13/F/UK&rdquo;.</p> <p>As a result, seeing the Internet develop into more identifiable social media with full names and more precise locations as strange. Although I am no longer a child, I still feel conscious about my privacy and identity, and have never shared much information about myself online, likely due to these warnings drilled into my head as a child. As such, although I spent pretty much my entire online life anonymous, doing so wasn&rsquo;t done as a deliberate decision of &ldquo;let&rsquo;s do this and be anonymous!&rdquo; - I was merely continuing what I had always done. At least, it wasn&rsquo;t a conscious decision until I started this website.</p> <h2 id="jessica-journals">Jessica Journals</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ve lightly touched on this subject when it comes to my website in my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/about-me/">About Me page</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>The reason I like my accounts connected to this identity to be simply “Jessica” is because I am not comfortable yet in creating an identity that can be followed across the internet. For now, I’m just “Jessica” or “Jessica Journals” at a push.</p></blockquote> <p>This relates back to identities I have previously created (such as my Neopets username), and how it may reveal a bit too much about you if someone is able to cross-examine all accounts online with that same username, even if they don&rsquo;t individually disclose much.</p> <p>But, I could have created this blog with my real name as I had not used it elsewhere online, though aside from the nagging safety fears in my head from childhood arising and how having complete strangers know your full name is unlikely a good idea with creeps knocking around, I would also find writing under my real name to be very limiting.</p> <p>I am still exploring aspects of my identity, of who I am regarding many aspects of my life, including mental illness, neurodiversity and sexuality, and being able to explore aspects of myself that I have previously been unaware of in a more private setting, though within online communities, has been liberating and aided me in this experience. If I were writing under my real name, either here or on <a href="https://beige.party/@jessica">Mastodon</a>, I would be too worried of people I know in real life finding this blog and changing how they perceive me before I am ready to disclose to them, if ever at all.</p> <h3 id="actually-anonymous">Actually Anonymous?</h3> <p>Despite this, it could be argued if they found this website they would quickly identify me due to amount of information about myself that I have written about. I received a direct message on Mastodon a few months ago from a mutual asking about this sort of thing, about keeping things personal but anonymous at the same time.</p> <p>I responded saying:</p> <blockquote> <p>I don&rsquo;t have anything like a personal Facebook or Twitter, my online presence is very limited. However, I think, although my website is personal, because it is anonymous too, I&rsquo;d be surprised if someone I knew stumbled on it and thought it was me, particularly as I am not open to others about being autistic or asexual, so those aspects would likely dissuade them.</p> <p>So, not an issue, but I think if you&rsquo;re open about all aspects of your life, and you have online profiles everywhere, then I think your situation will be different to mine.</p></blockquote> <p>Perhaps I am naive in my thinking, but I feel comfortable with this balance of being able to express myself and talk to others about shared interests, and still feel a sense of safety that I am able to freely write without feeling like I can be traced back.</p> <p>The word &ldquo;feel&rdquo; is thus key here. It may not be accurate, but the comfortability of, well, anything, is often defined by how one feels - do you <em>feel</em> comfortable? And at the moment, I do feel comfortable with my level of anonymity.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/web-revival-links/ Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/web-revival-links/ <p>Links to interesting articles about the Web Revival movement and related web design.</p> <div class="library"> <ul> <li> <p><a href="https://pages.casa/">pages.casa</a></p> <ul> <li>A free web host for static websites under 1GB.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://nekoweb.org/">nekoweb</a></p> <ul> <li>An alternative to the popular NeoCities with additional features.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/">Motherfucking Website</a></p> <ul> <li>While I am a sucker for websites being pretty, I think this is important to keep in mind.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://tarneo.fr/posts/minimal_web/">Bringing Back the Minimal Web</a></p> <ul> <li>An article speculating what a better web may look like.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://thoughts.melonking.net/guides/introduction-to-the-web-revival-1-what-is-the-web-revival">Intro to the Web Revival #1: What is the Web Revival?</a></p> <ul> <li>Introduction to the Web Revival movement.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://delovely.neocities.org/writing/why">Why is your site like this?</a></p> <ul> <li>A type of Manifesto advocating for handcoded websites.</li> </ul> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://manuelmoreale.com/the-web-i-want">The web I want</a></p> <ul> <li>A short, but succinct, post about the author&rsquo;s ideal web.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/neopets/ Mon, 06 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/neopets/ <p><a href="https://girlknowstech.com/beginning-coding-career-neopets/">Like many women my age who started dabbling in HTML as a child or young teenager, I made my start on Neopets.</a> I remember first coding the pages of my pets (and not understanding image hosting, confused why an image appeared on my computer, but not on anyone else&rsquo;s!), then doing my user lookup, shop and guild pages I was part of.</p> <p>However, upon returning to <a href="https://www.neopets.com/home/index.phtml">Neopets</a> last year, after occasionally logging into my account every few years to make sure it stayed active, I&rsquo;ve not found myself coding much, instead spending around forty-five minutes a day simply enjoying my time there as I undertake a few tasks. Today, I&rsquo;ll go into my experience with Neopets and why I&rsquo;ve reintroduced it back into my life.</p> <h2 id="beginning">Beginning</h2> <p>I signed up to Neopets when I was eleven years old, and used my real date of birth by having my parents fax (!) a consent form over as I signed up. I&rsquo;m incredibly grateful for this as it has meant accessing my account over the years much simpler as I don&rsquo;t need to try and remember whatever fake date of birth many others would have put in on a whim as a child.</p> <p>However, as I was a child and didn&rsquo;t really know much, I used quite an identifiable username, which I do not mind within Neopets, but very reluctant to disclose outside of it as I shared this pseudonym across multiple online accounts. As such, this post is not a shrine where I will go into detail about my Neopets, as that is too identifiable.</p> <p>Though I can say before I recently adopted new Neopets and had my existing ones repainted or change species, that as a child, I was so fond of the colour purple (still am!) that I painted all four (which was the limit at the time) of my Neopets purple: <a href="https://wardrobe.jellyneo.net/rainbow-pool/?pet=aisha&amp;colour=purple">two Aishas</a>, <a href="https://wardrobe.jellyneo.net/rainbow-pool/?pet=peophin&amp;colour=purple&amp;emo=1&amp;show_as=default&amp;sort=1">one Peophin</a>, and <a href="https://wardrobe.jellyneo.net/rainbow-pool/?pet=chomby&amp;colour=purple&amp;emo=1&amp;show_as=default&amp;sort=1">one Chomby</a>. Although they have changed appearance, I didn&rsquo;t have the heart to swap them, and so, despite their quite terrible names, I&rsquo;m glad I still have these four I had as a child due to the strong emotional connection I have to them.</p> <h2 id="returning">Returning</h2> <p>I returned after seeing some people online talk about them coming back to Neopets, and I wanted to revisit it too. When I first joined, I was on there for multiple hours every day for many years. I was so invested in <a href="https://www.neopets.com/help/html1.phtml">coding</a>, <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=restocking">stocking up my shop</a>, chatting to people in my <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=guilds">guild</a>, designing my <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=neohome">NeoHome</a>, and of course, playing the <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=links">games</a>.</p> <p>Back in the day, finding free fun games to play was a great way to spend your time online, and I vividly remember extensively playing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash">Flash</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Shockwave">Shockwave</a> games on various websites. Neopets gave me not just games, but pets to care for, and whole world of lore and adventure, which I fully committed to when young.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure if returning is something deep like bringing joy to my inner child, or just something I find lighthearted and fun, but after coming back and trying out a few things, getting myself reacquainted to the website and all the changes that have happened since I left nearly two decades ago, I&rsquo;ve now found a good rhythm in spending time on Neopets.</p> <h2 id="today">Today</h2> <p>Despite having such an old account, I didn&rsquo;t come back to it with significant riches. Hardly anything in my <a href="http://www.neopets.com/safetydeposit.phtml">Safety Deposit Box</a> was worthy, my shop till was empty, and the economy had become so different - plus, playing games was a significant afterthought now.</p> <h3 id="food-club">Food Club</h3> <p>Having caught up with the modern Neopet communities on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/neopets/">Reddit</a>, <a href="https://discord.com/invite/neopets">Discord</a> and on <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/index.php">JellyNeo</a>, I soon realised a massive advantage to having an account as old as mine was to play <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=food_club">Food Club</a>, a betting game where a group of pirates compete in an eating competition. Despite being averse to gambling, due to the large amount of data third-party websites like <a href="https://neofood.club">NeoFood.club</a> have in plotting and planning bets, the risk is actually very minor. Since taking it up and using NeoFoodClub to place my bets, I&rsquo;ve made nearly 20,000,000 NeoPoints (the currency in Neopets, also known as NP) in profit, something eleven year old me would have found unimaginable as I struggled to get to a million!</p> <p>It&rsquo;s meant I&rsquo;ve been able to afford <a href="https://items.jellyneo.net/search/paint-brushes/">paint brushes</a> and <a href="https://impress.openneo.net/">clothes</a> for my Neopets, as well as the famed Laboratory Map.</p> <h3 id="the-laboratory">The Laboratory</h3> <p>Once you have acquired all the map pieces to <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=labray">the Laboratory</a>, you are able to zap a Neopet once a day, primarily in hopes of changing its appearance to something more desirable or unobtainable through other means. Though I am now happy with my Neopets, I have taken on adopting unwanted Neopets from the pound in hopes I can zap them into something more sought after, and then hand them over to a new owner. I&rsquo;ve already successfully done this a few times, changing basic Neopets into colours such as <a href="https://wardrobe.jellyneo.net/rainbow-pool/?pet=&amp;colour=elderlygirl&amp;emo=1&amp;show_as=default&amp;sort=1">Elderly</a>, <a href="https://wardrobe.jellyneo.net/rainbow-pool/?pet=&amp;colour=eventide&amp;emo=1&amp;show_as=default&amp;sort=1">Eventide</a>, and <a href="https://wardrobe.jellyneo.net/rainbow-pool/?pet=&amp;colour=zombie&amp;emo=1&amp;show_as=default&amp;sort=1">Zombie</a>.</p> <h3 id="battledome">Battledome</h3> <p>Another thing I was suggested to do was compete in the <a href="https://battlepedia.jellyneo.net/?go=beginners">Battledome</a>, something which I found daunting as a child. These days, there are guides to make it less scary, and I&rsquo;m now at a place where I have a Neopet highly trained and can battle without taking any damage or getting hurt, earning highly desirable prizes I can sell each day. I enjoy my daily routine of training the Neopet up and doing the amount of battles needed to max out the prize pool, even though training is getting increasingly expensive!</p> <h3 id="dailies-and-quests">Dailies and Quests</h3> <p>Speaking of a daily routine, while I remember trudging around Neopets as a child trying to make sure I visited all the pages I needed to for my freebies, I now have an account at JellyNeo and utilise their customisable page for doing your <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=dailies">&ldquo;dailies&rdquo;</a>.</p> <p>In my schedule, I visit numerous places I used to, like the <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=tombola">Tombola</a> and <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=fruit_machine">Fruit Machine</a>, as well as newer additions such as <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=trudys_surprise">Trudy&rsquo;s Surprise</a> and the <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=tdmbgpop">Discarded Magical Blue Grundo Plushie of Prosperity</a>. Though, the most significant addition has been the introduction of the <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=quest_log">Quest Log</a>, where you are given five tasks, each with their own reward, with 20,000 NP as a reward for doing all five. The tasks are quite simple, such as grooming, feeding or customising the appearance of a Neopet, playing a game, buying an item, or spinning a wheel. Completing these for an entire week earns you an extra prize, usually something highly desirable.</p> <p>Although I missed much of this happening, it appears there has been a significant issue with inflation in Neopets, with many items simply out of reach for the vast majority of users. For example, a <a href="https://items.jellyneo.net/item/18049/">Kadoatie</a> petpet (a pet for your pet) peaked in price at 65,000,000 NP in August 2023.</p> <p><a href="https://www.thegamer.com/interview-neopets-ceo-dominic-law-metaverse-inflation-neopia-john-legend-ambassador/">After new ownership took over at Neopets, changes were made to address such high prices</a>, and one method was to simply give these incredibly expensive items away for free through various events such as <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/neopets/comments/17fi6o1/all_2023_trickortreat_bag_locations_activites/">inside goodie bags handed out during special events</a>, or through the weekly prizes via the Quest Log. It&rsquo;s meant that I&rsquo;ve now gained two Kadoaties just by completing my quests every day, and the price has dramatically fallen to a low of just 240,000 NP in early April 2024.</p> <p>Undertaking these daily and weekly quests has made the game more fun, as I feel more able to purchase the items I want rather than have them locked away for only an exclusive few who can afford the cost, and it gives me an incentive to log on each day, making the whole Neopets experience part of my morning routine before I start any work activities.</p> <h2 id="what-else">What Else?</h2> <p>There are many things to do on Neopets that I am currently not partaking in. There are a sizeable amount of users who are focusing on completing their <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=stamps">stamp collection</a>, collecting <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=avatars">avatars</a>, purchasing for their <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=galleries">gallery</a>, feeding at the <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=kadoatery">Kadoatery</a>, taking part in <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=spotlights">competitions</a>, winning <a href="https://www.jellyneo.net/?go=trophies">trophies</a>, and all sorts. These aren&rsquo;t interests that currently appeal to me, but I like how there are various different things I can do on Neopets if I later want to try something else.</p> <p>For now though, I am happily spending a little slice of my day indulging in a bit of lighthearted nostalgia. Although you may not have been a Neopets user, and maybe the idea of Neopets doesn&rsquo;t appeal to you, I do wonder what else might be in your life you enjoyed younger, and if it, or something related to it, might be able to rejoin your life as you&rsquo;re older? I&rsquo;ve really enjoyed my time back on Neopets, I think it could be great if others were able to experience a small amount of daily joy too.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/workflow-wellbeing/ Sun, 05 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/workflow-wellbeing/ <p>I personally struggle with a few things while I work at home. I am unsure how much time I spend, which makes me underestimate the time and I feel guilty not working long enough, I fixate on the screen for too long which hurts my eyes and creates strains across my body, and I don&rsquo;t drink enough, which is overall unhealthy. But in this brief post, I&rsquo;ll go into a couple of applications which have helped improve my wellbeing, as well as some small asides.</p> <h2 id="toggl">toggl</h2> <p>For verification that I am indeed spending enough time working, I use <a href="https://toggl.com/">toggl</a> on its free plan to simply clock in and clock out when a work session begins and ends. I find it very validating to see what I have achieved at the end of the day as the counter increases on the menu bar, and don&rsquo;t feel pressured to work longer than I need to - also knowing how much of the work &ldquo;day&rdquo; is left when I am starting to get tired and have an aim to get to!</p> <p>I would prefer a local alternative, but struggled to find something free with the ease and tracking features of toggl.</p> <h2 id="hyperfocus-2">Hyperfocus 2</h2> <p>I saw <a href="https://hyperfocus.health/">Hyperfocus 2</a> recommended on Reddit, with users saving the free version is enough for encouraging breaks to help with eye strain and moving around more, which were the two issues I was struggling with the most when I came to fixating on the work.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s quite a simple piece of software on its free tier. Every twenty minutes, the screen blocks out (with a skip button for emergencies), and instructs you to look somewhere twenty feet away for twenty seconds. Then, the screen returns to normal and the countdown in the menu bar is reset. After an hour, instead of being promoted to look away, you&rsquo;re encouraged to take a five minute break, suggesting to stretch, get a drink or eat a healthy snack. Afterwards, the screen returns again with the countdown cycle reset for two more twenty second eye breaks and then another extended five minute break.</p> <h2 id="hydration">Hydration</h2> <p>It&rsquo;s during the five minute break that I get up, pop the kettle on, put a herbal tea bag in a cup, and then let it all stew, ready to drink at around the first eye break in twenty or twenty-five minutes time.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ve not historically been much of a tea drinker, but after attempts, year after year, to drink more water have spectacularly failed as I simply cannot stand its bland taste, though worried about alternatives with the impact natural sugars in fruit juices might do to my teeth, I decided to give cheap herbal teas a go.</p> <p>To my surprise, I took to it quite quickly, with the current selection in my rotation being:</p> <ul> <li>Peppermint</li> <li>Rooibos</li> <li>Chamomile</li> </ul> <p>I would love to try more, though the only others my local supermarket sell are fruit based, and I&rsquo;m not particularly fond of that idea. Regardless, I find that I am drinking much more than I used to - a cup an hour while working!</p> <h2 id="movement">Movement</h2> <p>After I have the tea settled, I begin using my tablet to do a quick session of chair yoga, already preconfigured before I started working. I use <a href="https://www.downdogapp.com/">DownDog</a> for just £20 a year due to signing up years ago on a good sale, which also includes exercise and meditation. I like using it as I can fine tune and tweak the practice to suit my needs, and able to easily stop if I run out of time. By using its chair yoga setting, I don&rsquo;t need to get to a mat, so have no excuses to not do a few stretches!</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Overall, with these small changes, I&rsquo;ve found myself more hydrated, more validated in my work, and that I move around more with less strain on my eyes and body after a day&rsquo;s work sitting at the computer.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/automating-workflow/ Sat, 04 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/automating-workflow/ <p>In further attempts to simplify life, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rest-of-2023-looking-at-2024/#simpler">as previously discussed here</a>, I have recently made changes to my freelancing workflow when using <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/">Affinity Photo</a> to automate the more mundane aspects which took up unnecessary time and focus. In this post, I&rsquo;ll go into which applications and settings I&rsquo;m using to achieve all this on my Mac.</p> <h2 id="start-up">Start Up</h2> <p>When beginning to work, I need to bring up three folders in Finder. Simply put, one with the files I&rsquo;m sourcing from (Files), another of a completed project to guide me (Base), and then a third of the new files I&rsquo;m creating so I can see if I am correctly matching the completed project and haven&rsquo;t missed anything (which has a changing image name).</p> <p>Initially, I used <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/folder-peek/id1615988943?mt=12">Folder Peek</a>, with its shortcuts to the working directory in the menu bar, as a quick way to load the folders up. However, as my process expanded with more applications coming into play, I needed a process to quickly load more than just folders.</p> <p>I stumbled across <a href="https://bunchapp.co/">Bunch</a> randomly in a Reddit post of someone asking a question I was also wondering: how do I load my folders and multiple applications all at once?</p> <p>Using a simple text file, I have the following saved as a .bunch file in the local Bunches directory:</p> <pre tabindex="0"><code class="language----" data-lang="---">--- title: Editing --- Affinity Photo %Finder - /path/to/directory/Work/[image name] - /path/to/directory/Work/Base - /path/to/directory/Work/Files </code></pre><p>Running the Bunch from the menu bar loads up Affinity Photo and the folders in Finder, pressing on it again closes everything. It&rsquo;s pretty powerful, as I could even configure it to open files or folders within Affinity Photo (as I accidentally did when I first created my .bunch file!). <a href="https://bunchapp.co/docs/bunch-files/">The documentation is extensive</a>, and I feel I have barely scratched the surface, though it does what I currently need it to.</p> <h2 id="saving">Saving</h2> <p>While in Affinity Photo, I am creating around six hundred images a day, and saving them used to be an annoying process of pressing <code>shift + option + command + S</code>, a complex keyboard command in itself, to open the Export screen, then click on Export, pressing down <code>command + V</code> to paste the preset file name I had earlier typed out and copied, added the correct number at the end, and then saved. If I made a mistake somewhere in that process, it would take even more time to correct it.</p> <p>So, in order to improve on this process I first configured my Logitech mouse, with customisable buttons in the <a href="https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/software/options.html">LogiOptions</a> software, to run those keyboard commands for me. A top button to the side of my thumb became opening the Export screen, and the lower one became paste.</p> <p>Better, but I still had to click on Export, well, actually, it turned out I could just hit Enter, which was faster, though I still had to add the number to the end of the file name manually each time while saving.</p> <p>I overcame the first issue by using Shortcuts, and after some trial and error, created this AppleScript to run inside it:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-applescript" data-lang="applescript"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">on</span> <span class="nb">run</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="nv">input</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nv">parameters</span><span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">tell</span> <span class="nb">application</span> <span class="s2">&#34;System Events&#34;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">tell</span> <span class="nb">application</span> <span class="nv">process</span> <span class="s2">&#34;Affinity Photo&#34;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nv">keystroke</span> <span class="s2">&#34;s&#34;</span> <span class="nv">using</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="nv">shift</span> <span class="nv">down</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nv">option</span> <span class="nv">down</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nv">command</span> <span class="nv">down</span><span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nb">delay</span> <span class="mi">1</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nv">keystroke</span> <span class="no">return</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nb">delay</span> <span class="mi">2</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nv">keystroke</span> <span class="no">return</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">end</span> <span class="k">tell</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">end</span> <span class="k">tell</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="no">return</span> <span class="nv">input</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">end</span> <span class="nb">run</span> </span></span></code></pre></div><p>And then configured to be used as a Quick Action with a random keyboard command not used elsewhere, which I then remapped my mouse&rsquo;s lower button by my thumb to activate. As such, I now just needed to move my thumb slightly to hit the button, and sit back a couple of seconds as the macro ran exporting and saving the file.</p> <h2 id="file-names">File Names</h2> <p>But what about the file names? The above method just saved everything as Untitled, and after just two files, a warning will appear saving there is already a file with that name in the folder. How is this system better?</p> <p>Alone, it isn&rsquo;t, but during this time, I became reacquainted with <a href="https://www.noodlesoft.com/">Hazel</a>, the automated file management application. It&rsquo;s another piece of powerful software which I have only uncovered the tip of, but already used in some very helpful ways, such as being able to mass rename files after realising I had made errors to some files. I then realised I could use it to automate the file naming process, allowing me to get on with the actual work.</p> <p>I do this by adding the folder I am saving to ([image name], but I&rsquo;ll call it Blue Moon for this example) to Hazel and create the following rule (which can be copied-and-pasted between folders):</p> <ul> <li>Name: Renaming</li> <li>If all of the following conditions are met</li> <li>Name is Untitled</li> <li>Do the following to the matched file or folder:</li> <li>Rename with pattern: Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version # extension</li> </ul> <p>The # is modifiable (as is the extension, but I didn&rsquo;t modify that), and set to the lowest increment, using numbers, and a double-digit number system.</p> <p>So, I begin a work session by making sure Hazel is running in the correct folder with the rule, I manually set the image name (Blue Moon, for example) and resolution (1920x1080 in example), and save the first image file manually into the correct folder so Affinity Photo knows for the rest of the session where that is. But after that, it&rsquo;s mostly just me getting on with the work, pressing the button near my thumb, and letting the automation do the rest.</p> <h2 id="end-result">End Result</h2> <p>As such, the process works as follows:</p> <ol> <li> <p>After I have completed the file in Affinity Photo, I press the button near my thumb.</p> </li> <li> <p>The AppleScript macro kicks in loading up the Export screen, verifying Export, and then saving the file as Untitled.</p> </li> <li> <p>Hazel then works automatically by seeing the new Untitled file in the watched folder, and quickly renames the file with the lowest number freely available.</p> </li> <li> <p>For example, the files will be created as such:</p> <ol> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 01</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 02</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 03</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 04</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 05</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 06</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 07</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 08</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 09</li> <li>Blue Moon - 1920x1080 - Version 10</li> </ol> <p>And so on and so on! All by pressing that one little button on my mouse and waiting a couple of seconds!</p> </li> </ol> <p>Renaming in Hazel for another resolution takes a few seconds, and I can easily take the time to reconfigure the setup for a new image name in a new folder as the previous finished set of images saves and backs up elsewhere.</p> <p>Overall, the new system has saved me so much time compared to how I used to do things, and I am getting significantly more done in my time than before. As such, it may be worth it to take an afternoon to have a look at your workflow and see if there are aspects you can delegate to being automated like this!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/mastodon-migration/ Fri, 03 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/mastodon-migration/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/community-and-technology/">In a previous post on mine from last year</a>, I wrote about how <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a> has given me a great sense of community, and I now feel significantly less alone online. However, I recently, yet again, changed where I call home on Mastodon. In this short post, I&rsquo;ll go into where I&rsquo;ve come from, deciding on where I went, and how I got there.</p> <h2 id="leaving">Leaving&hellip;</h2> <p>I didn&rsquo;t want to leave my existing server, <a href="https://cutie.city/about">cutie.city</a>, as I was happily set up there, loved my local feed, and enjoyed the large character limit and signifiant emojis. However, with Mastodon needing to be updated on a regular basis for security reasons, and having my admin absent the past few months, with these updates not being processed, I became a little nervous as to the future of my wonderful Mastodon home.</p> <p>I began looking elsewhere for a couple of weeks before I eventually moved, but it was seeing a mutual on another server making a migration as their server was closing down, that made me take the leap and decide to move as well.</p> <h2 id="where-next">Where Next?</h2> <p>Funny enough, where the mutual was leaving was one of the places I was looking at, so I had to reconsider that as an option!</p> <p>I knew I had a few requirements for my new home:</p> <ol> <li>Large character limit</li> <li>Lots of emojis</li> <li>Active admin for regular software updates</li> <li>Good moderation</li> <li>A kind culture</li> </ol> <p>I was also reluctant to go somewhere too big as I had become used to a small community, and didn&rsquo;t want to be somewhere that federated with Threads.</p> <p>After some consideration over a few servers, I ended up going where that mutual had also gone to: <a href="https://beige.party/about">beige.party</a>! I was thankfully accepted after submitting a request to join, and am now happily at the home of &ldquo;friendly weirdos&rdquo;, which is &ldquo;definitely probably not a cult&rdquo; 🙏</p> <p>My only issue so far is how my new profile does not correctly link back to these website as verified, with no green tick showing that the Jessica on beige.party is me, unlike when I was at cutie.city which instantly worked and verified me. I will need to continue investigating this further&hellip;</p> <h2 id="migration">Migration</h2> <p>Migrating to another server can seem scary, especially if not done before. However, the admin of cutie.city <a href="https://guide.cutie.city/the-fediverse/migrating-servers/">wrote a fantastic interactive guide on how to do this</a> which I highly recommend to make the process as smooth as possible, wherever you are moving to or from. I managed to migrate everything over between accounts in one morning, though there was quite an avalanche of notifications of people following as the migration took place - remember to turn these off before you begin!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/finch/ Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/finch/ <p><a href="https://finchcare.com/">Finch</a> is a self-care app with many feature, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/subscriptions/#wellness">I wrote about it briefly in this post here</a>. Here you will find screenshots of my birb Nova and the adventures she gets up to, as well as information about her personality!</p> <p>She is a glasses-wearing grey coloured birb who hatched on February 8 2022. She weighs 22g and is 9cm tall, with a wingspan of 23cm.</p> <p>Nova lives in Finchie Forest, and is currently visiting Rome. She has also been to:</p> <ul> <li>Paro</li> <li>Tokyo</li> <li>Sonoran Desert</li> <li>Alps</li> <li>Bali</li> <li>Maui</li> <li>Paris</li> <li>Serengeti</li> <li>Taipei</li> <li>São Paulo</li> <li>Reykjavík</li> <li>New York City</li> <li>London</li> </ul> <p>She has a number of micropets in the playland, including:</p> <ul> <li>Boopty the Spoopty</li> <li>Bean the Blobcat</li> <li>Oatmeal the Llama</li> <li>Subwoofer the Crogi</li> <li>Jelly the Melonberry</li> <li>Blizzard the Wizard</li> <li>Starry the Twinkle</li> <li>Sunny the Seedling</li> <li>Monsieur the Mouse</li> <li>Adrian the Tata</li> <li>Pinecone the Hedgie</li> <li>Beau the Duck</li> <li>Flutter the Flying Heart</li> <li>Sprocket the Owl</li> <li>Beepo the Beepbot</li> <li>Sophie the Seal</li> <li>Disco the Dachshund</li> <li>Pumpkin the Piglet</li> <li>Talon the Gryphon</li> <li>Parley the Parrot</li> <li>Aurora the Arctic Fox</li> <li>Mimi the Mushy</li> <li>Bongo the Gorilla</li> </ul> <h2 id="food">Food</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="food-favourites">Food Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/12787_3ff9839ad09874460b2c02b13887aa94e46943b28b988bc47fe04bfc1ce73b7a.png" alt="Nova dressed in rainbow striped workout clothes holding a water bottle. She waves with a large tub of honey behind her. She tries some Parisain honey and then remarks: &ldquo;Wow, bees are amazing cooks! I need to get this honey recipe from them, cheep!&rdquo;&quot;"> </p> <ul> <li>Affogato</li> <li>Cantaloupe</li> <li>Stinky Tofu</li> <li>Parisian Honey</li> <li>Croissant</li> <li>Kiwis</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="food-hates">Food Hates</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/56448_799ac1ffd2fb808b5789e2cc6ca9298c56e617b414caa9fa7825d9f16b84c0e3.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple wizard costume, complete with staff and wizard hat, alongside her micropet Blizzard the Wizard, a tiny polar bear also wearing a wizard hat. Nova looks confused, with a large piece of chugo cheese behind her. Nova gnaws on the chugo and remarks: &ldquo;Hmm, it doesn&rsquo;t have that much taste&hellip; And it&rsquo;s very hard to chew, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Cacio e pepe</li> <li>Ugali</li> <li>Dried Chugo</li> <li>Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich</li> <li>Grapes</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="food-likes">Food Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/97077_086e76ee25bbb762319447407354a6580449e48ab9c811e8d11b382b31ad4512.png" alt="Nova dressed in a watermelon style dress with a pineapple hat on and berry shoes, while holding a blue apple. She looks at you with a large eggplant behind her. She rolls an eggplant to you and remarks: &ldquo;What kind of birb laid this giant purple egg?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Potato Crisps</li> <li>Fries</li> <li>Mixed Nuts</li> <li>New York Pretzel</li> <li>Alpine Cheese</li> <li>Hot Spring Rye Bread</li> <li>Macadamia Nuts</li> <li>Blueberries</li> <li>Pão de Queijo</li> <li>Pepperoni Pizza</li> <li>Grilled Cheese Sandwich</li> <li>Eggplants</li> <li>Ice Cube</li> <li>Prickly Pear</li> <li>Plain Bagel</li> <li>White Pineapple</li> <li>Lemons</li> <li>Bread</li> <li>Cherries</li> <li>Corn</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="food-dislikes">Food Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/54333_afddc3cb576c886d447d296fac8e18bf632235b3b098389be9700c37818a8145.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple sporty outfit holds a football, and has Bean the Blobcat next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She looks disappointed, as a large breadfruit leans behind her. She peels the breadfruit and takes a bit, then remarks: &ldquo;Hmm, maybe it&rsquo;s just because I&rsquo;m not used to this texture, but I think l&rsquo;Il stick with real bread in the future, cheep.&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Plantains</li> <li>New York Pizza</li> <li>Onion Rings</li> <li>Baby Carrots</li> <li>Breadfruit</li> <li>Garden Salad</li> <li>Plantain Moqueca</li> <li>Cambuci Fruit</li> <li>Pancakes</li> <li>Celery</li> <li>Ema Datshi</li> <li>Peas</li> <li>Japanese Rice</li> <li>Watermelon</li> <li>Impossible Burgers</li> <li>Bali Mango</li> <li>Mushrooms</li> <li>Broccoli</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="desserts">Desserts</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="dessert-favourites">Dessert Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/42673_c8292d3576e269bd7ff3d885d403e801a1826b1f196a8750991650ba92e74e96.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple flower costume with a wrap around flower hood, and Subwoofer the Crogi next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She hugs a red heart with a happy look on her face, as a large pineapple leans behind her. She finishes off a pineapple cake in two bites and then remarks: &ldquo;Yum! How do they fit so much deliciousness into such a tiny cake, cheep?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Cinnamon Roll</li> <li>Jammie Dodgers</li> <li>Ladyfingers</li> <li>Chocolate Doughnut</li> <li>Peppermind Candy</li> <li>Gummy Bears</li> <li>Kulolo</li> <li>Pineapple Cake</li> <li>Cherry Shaved Ice</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="dessert-hates">Dessert Hates</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/81367_1acabd7f81132f2c791933ff75975d8ccc25d24d79e15372922c746d32b69446.png" alt="Nova dressed in a grey shark costume, holding a purple conch shell and wearing a purple snorkle, and has Adrian the Tata, a turtle, next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She looks pensive with large berries behind her. She gobbles down frozen açaí and then remarks: &ldquo;I think I ate that too fast&hellip; My head and beak feel like ice cubes, and I barely had time to taste anything, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Pound Cake</li> <li>Açaí Bowl</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="dessert-likes">Dessert Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/90253_f94b3079cad9adff6ab4db8c088a450807ae5ed699bfd5466faa162b247387db.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple monster costume holding a rice ball. She has a neutral expression on her face, with a large purple worm behind her. Nova bites one end of the gummy worm and stretches it as far as it can go, then remarks: &ldquo;Look, I just made it even longer! Now there&rsquo;s even more yummy gummy for me to enjoy, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Eccles Cake</li> <li>Popping Candy</li> <li>New York Cheesecake</li> <li>Cronut</li> <li>Cupcake</li> <li>Doughnut Hole</li> <li>Kleinur</li> <li>Jelly Beans</li> <li>Cotton Candy</li> <li>Tofu Pudding</li> <li>Dark Chocolate</li> <li>Chocolate Chip Cookies</li> <li>Fortune Cookies</li> <li>Popcorn</li> <li>Ice Cream Sundae</li> <li>Gummy Worms</li> <li>Strawberry Shortcake</li> <li>Flan</li> <li>Milk Chocolate</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="dessert-dislikes">Dessert Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/94898_d13e9efcdb59c36e910beef443e9559e4d111fa962a1477554e44799df9ecd37.png" alt="Nova dressed in a blue outfit with a yellow cat hood on and holding a pink mouse. She looks curious with a large mashmallow behind her. She eats the mashmallow and then remarks: &ldquo;I thought this would have a fluffier texture, but it&rsquo;s gooier than I thought. Maybe the missing ingredient is some cloud, cheep.&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Candy Corn</li> <li>Ice Cream Sandwich</li> <li>Haupia</li> <li>Marshmallow</li> <li>Vanilla Ice Cream</li> <li>Fruit Candy</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="drinks">Drinks</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="drink-favourites">Drink Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/32705_3c9fcf1743a94b40670d6bdbb7cc148ef2951c9a8875875321df9ac7da561211.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple flower themed outfit with a lei and holding a brown wooden ukulele, and Talon the Gryphon next to her. She looks curious, as a large drink is behind her. She is looking thoughtfully at a cup and a bucket, then remarks: &ldquo;These are kind of the same thing except for the size. How big does a cup have to grow before it turns into a bucket?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Vanilla Milkshake</li> <li>Juice</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="drink-likes">Drink Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/39413_1b998c6f7e52fdf2bdb3f30b1144a47e1d2b5cf3a7cfed1a5e0e8f79007ae880.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple and light blue princess costume, with a gold crown and holding a white decorated teapot. She has a neutral expression on her face, with a large glass of water behind her. Nova drinks up the sltzer water and lets out a small burp, then remarks: &ldquo;Hehe, that was my tummy&rsquo;s response to the bubbles&rsquo; hissing! It means, &lsquo;Thanks for letting me drink you, cheep!&rsquo;&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Appelsín Soda</li> <li>Sugarcane Juice</li> <li>Fruit Infused Water</li> <li>Mango Smoothie</li> <li>Butter Tea</li> <li>Seltzer Water</li> <li>Bubble Tea</li> <li>Root Beer Float</li> <li>Bali Coconut Water</li> <li>Iced Tea</li> <li>Instant Coffee</li> <li>Green Tea</li> <li>Milk</li> <li>Water</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="drink-dislikes">Drink Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/56043_43532038102d043ae261e3552331a272efc80aa2f65d15e5f830639f4ea3603e.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple sporty outfit holding a football, and Beau the Duck next to her. She looks neutral, as a large cup of tea is behind her. She is sipping slowly on a cup of tea, then remarks: &ldquo;What do you think is the best time of day to drink tea, cheep?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Icelandic Water</li> <li>Orange Juice</li> <li>Chamomile Tea</li> <li>Coconut Water</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="books">Books</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="book-favourites">Book Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/28763_24afc1a93e9a908fa76de8dcfeb406d9cd05cff66f8166ab5092926640dece8c.png" alt="Scene of Nova dressed in a pink top, green frog hood, blue jeans and green shoes as she hugs a heart while holding a carrot in Tokyo."> </p> <ul> <li>Pinocchio</li> <li>Tortoise and the Hare</li> <li>The Very Hungry Caterpillar</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="book-likes">Book Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/16430_7cb2006ff11534c6e53f4fa615858a63d08f18e7c0895137d12d440fc0d01d8e.png" alt="Scene of Nova dressed in her purple and white pajamas hugging a white teddy and a heart in her home, which is decorated in tan and brown walls and floor, with a green bed, green hanging lamp, green clock, purple door, purple picture, and a tall standing lamp."> </p> <ul> <li>Frankenstein</li> <li>Little Red Riding Hood</li> <li>The Gingerbread Man</li> <li>The Princess and the Pea</li> <li>The Ugly Duckling</li> <li>Cinderella</li> <li>The Three Little Pigs</li> <li>The Giving Tree</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="book-dislikes">Book Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/91055_ed75fe135e8643bb8f06ae13ae22757c8b1bffde5b9882f03b98ff36e4ba7005.png" alt="Scene of Nova dressed in a purple bear costume while walking with a red bag slung over her shoulder, alongside Boopty the Spoopty, a little ghost with a black witch hat on, in the Alps."> </p> <ul> <li>Winnie the Pooh</li> <li>Snow White</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="music">Music</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="music-favourites">Music Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/42793_7026c097e7c1ee566ccc9553c56662c372db71294580fe568783b075dc8636d8.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple flower themed outfit with a lei and holding a sundae as Adrian the Tata, a turtle, rests next to her. She is looking around, as a large musical note is behind her. She is humming the song Hips Don&rsquo;t Lie by Shakira, and remarks: &ldquo;What does it mean that your hips don&rsquo;t lie?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Fly Me To The Moon</li> <li>Hips Don&rsquo;t Lie, Shakira</li> <li>Baby, Justin Bieber</li> <li>Frosty the Snowman</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="music-likes">Music Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/74212_c828cc0e1bebe029f6240b8f7f643cf2b3a2e6aef23966be166eb3dba849a38a.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple wizard costume, complete with staff and wizard hat, alongside her micropet Blizzard the Wizard, a tiny polar bear also wearing a wizard hat. She sings with her eyes closed, with a large pig behind her. She agrees with something I said earlier, and remarks: &ldquo;It is catchy, cheep! And all the other parts of the song are pretty catchy too, like the oink oink here and the moo moo there, E-I-E-I-OHHHH, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Born This Way, Lady Gaga</li> <li>From The Start, Laufey</li> <li>Hokey Pokey</li> <li>Welcome To New York, Taylor Swift</li> <li>Don&rsquo;t Stop, Fleetwood Mac</li> <li>Bye Bye Bye, NSYNC</li> <li>Dancing Queen, ABBA</li> <li>Umbrella, Rhianna</li> <li>Wouldn&rsquo;t It Be Nice, The Beach Boys</li> <li>Shake It Off, Taylor Swift</li> <li>Old MacDonald</li> <li>Bananaphone</li> <li>How You Like That, Blackpink</li> <li>All The Small Things, Blink 182</li> <li>Call Me Maybe, Carly Rae Jepsen</li> <li>Thinking Out Loud, Ed Sheeran</li> <li>Baby Shark</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="music-dislikes">Music Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/58935_1e312123609658eb2d3fa0a2165724ba3d5b58255045747789ec91de72a85c0b.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple monster costume, with a purple dinosaur body, holding a rice ball. She looks directly at you, with a large music note behind her. Nova sings: &ldquo;Well you can tell by the way I use my walk, I&rsquo;m a woman&rsquo;s man, no time to talk&hellip; Wait, I&rsquo;m not sure that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m trying to say with my walk, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Yesterday, The Beatles</li> <li>Lose You To Love Me, Selena Gomez</li> <li>Stayin&rsquo; Alive, Bee Gees</li> <li>Royals, Lorde</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="movies">Movies</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="movie-favourites">Movie Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/75021_6702b33c83b87401d087a16d1c0c73f4e415cb875867b3f8a0288b6691abf486.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple flower costume with a wrap around flower hood, and Subwoofer the Crogi next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She looks very determined, as a large sword leans behind her. She is full of admiration for Mulan, and remarks: &ldquo;Men aren&rsquo;t the only ones who can do brave things, cheep! It takes a lot of courage to be a woman too!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>101 Dalmations</li> <li>Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back</li> <li>Rataouille</li> <li>Mulan</li> <li>Nightmare Before Christmas</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="movie-likes">Movie Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/33595_69fa5d7ccde0699a1f59a2e7d57807da447fe29dff3c2f975fe0d7ce82064780.png" alt="Nova dressed in a grey shark costume, holding a purple conch shell and wearing a purple snorkle, and has Adrian the Tata, a turtle, next to her. She looks curious, with a large shoe behind her. She remarks: &ldquo;I watched The Wizard of Oz, cheep! But why didn&rsquo;t Glinda the Good Witch just tell Dorothy right away to use the ruby slippers to get home?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Frozen II</li> <li>The Sword in the Stone</li> <li>The Sound of Music</li> <li>Inception</li> <li>Home Alone 2</li> <li>Monsters, Inc.</li> <li>E.T.</li> <li>Peter Pan</li> <li>Star Wars: Return of the Jedi</li> <li>Star Wars: A New Hope</li> <li>The Wizard of Oz</li> <li>Alice in Wonderland</li> <li>Shrek</li> <li>Jurassic Park</li> <li>Finding Nemo</li> <li>Frozen</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="movie-dislikes">Movie Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/96337_5e3ff7feaffcc4e22573a8a8d4352201a73f8ab0e61388abe54dc93f7696a80b.png" alt="Nova dressed in a red fox costume holding a carrot, with micropet Boopty the Spoopty, a small ghost wearing a black witch hat, next to her. She hold her wing up to her chin, with a large pig behind her. She remarks: &ldquo;It was too scary seeing her parents turn into piggies, cheep! What if YOU turned into a piggy too?!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Aladdin</li> <li>Stuart Little</li> <li>Matilda</li> <li>Mary Poppins</li> <li>Spiderman</li> <li>Toy Story</li> <li>Spirited Away</li> <li>Zootopia</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="tv">TV</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="tv-favourites">TV Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/43639_dfad2e5c01f2d0dc4b3f33fb3203ecd81d4ac37a1d7705322651d41ae3605217.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple spring themed outfit, with flower hood and bee-inspired striped top as she holds a matching pinwheel with . She looks happy with a large yellow bird behind her. She flaps her wings in excitement and remarks: &ldquo;Can we go to Sesame Street to visit them right now? I have a feeling me and Elmo would be best buds, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Kim Possible</li> <li>Foster&rsquo;s Home for Imaginary Friends</li> <li>Sesame Street</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="tv-likes">TV Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/51607_1e13b9749e1c6b24d5d6c4a0b7e9f6e30c772e6a937ec322aa100de1e92a33cb.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple flower costume with a wrap around flower hood, and Subwoofer the Crogi next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She looks curious, as a large door is behind her. She looks around with shifty eyes, and remarks: &ldquo;On Dexter&rsquo;s Laboratory there was a secret door under the rug&hellip; but I can&rsquo;t tell you about my secret lab, then it wouldn&rsquo;t be a secret anymore, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Dexter&rsquo;s Laboratory</li> <li>Hannah Montana</li> <li>The Fairly Odd Parents</li> <li>Steven Universe</li> <li>Courage the Cowardly Dog</li> <li>Blues Clues</li> <li>House</li> <li>Ninja Turtles</li> <li>Tom &amp; Jerry</li> <li>Airbender</li> <li>Spongebob</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="tv-dislikes">TV Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/Iceland.png" alt="Scene of Nova waving as she is dressed in a purple steampunk themed outfit, with Sprocket the Owl next to her, in Iceland."> </p> <ul> <li>Doctor Who</li> <li>Sailor Moon</li> <li>Sonic the Hedgehog</li> <li>Over the Garden Wall</li> <li>Adventure Time</li> <li>Looney Tunes</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="toys">Toys</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="toy-favourites">Toy Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/9352_01f992ad543b80450573bc9d080c7eaf20883331b6ec1e0b33c9c54846aa5eaa.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple flower themed outfit with a lei and holding a brown wooden ukulele, and Talon the Gryphon next to her. She looks around, with a large monkey is behind her. She remarks: &ldquo;I heard some kids talking about playing on monkey bars, cheep! Is that like a chocolate bar for monkeys? I didn&rsquo;t know chocolate bars were for playing!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Barrel of Monkeys</li> <li>Building Blocks</li> <li>Bubbles</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="toy-hates">Toy Hates</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/80028_592815e573a3b8001c5846e20dd7c27d67a977934d17f0eb2e283588c841069e.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple wizard costume, complete with staff and wizard hat, alongside her micropet Blizzard the Wizard, a tiny polar bear also wearing a wizard hat. Nova has a blank expression on her face, with a large piece of modeling clay behind her. Nova shapes the clay into some blobs and remarks: &ldquo;I have a lot of creative ideas in my mind, but when I squish the clay, it doesn&rsquo;t look anything like what I pictured in my head, cheep..&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Modeling Clay</li> <li>Kites</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="toy-likes">Toy Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/39696_4127cd50bb9e70b61bce2e7cf0cc2c378159962b2f7de5507eb88ef09227d3f2.png" alt="Nova dressed grey adventuring outfit with a purple hat and holding a mini Nova doll. She also has Flutter the Flying Heart next to her. She looks very happy, with a large train behind her. She is putting together pieces of a woodern track for a toy train, then remarks: &ldquo;Choo, choo, cheep!! The train is getting ready to depart soon!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Stuffed Animals</li> <li>Rubber Band Ball</li> <li>Rubik&rsquo;s Cube</li> <li>String Telephone</li> <li>Toy Train</li> <li>Dino Toy</li> <li>Magic Wands</li> <li>Crystal Balls</li> <li>Yo-Yo</li> <li>Magic 8-Ball</li> <li>Karaoke</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="toy-dislikes">Toy Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/7852_f424f626aeadd18bd5f9a0a4d48f821a8de194bc7369205a75b826e2c3614956.png" alt="Nova dressed in a grey polka dot dress with a yellow cat hood and yellow shoes. She looks curious with a large nesting doll behind her. She remarks: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a little spooky to see dolls inside each other like this. Do some people like collecting spooky things?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Barbie Doll</li> <li>Lego</li> <li>Nesting Dolls</li> <li>Balloons</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="games">Games</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="game-favourites">Game Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/5304_cc030b05b5c30ad68a57e0bd352867be5fd39e2f24277002c9b6038c833e508e.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple tropical beach outfit holding a sundae, and has Talon the Gryphon next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She looks determined, with a large hand behind her. She puts a wing out, but I cannot really tell what shape it is, she remarks: &ldquo;You put out rock? Mine is paper, since that&rsquo;s the easiest shape for my wing to make. I win, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Rock Paper Scissors</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="game-likes">Game Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/89706_e5c635a6191affc323c3c509d2438085fa0e6ca7881c997b49ba9f7579923b79.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple swimming outfit with floaties and holding a pink conch shell. She also has Flutter the Flying Heart next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She waves and looks happy, with a large car behind her. She is about to play Mario Kart, and then remarks: &ldquo;If you drive over a banana peel, you spin way out of control! Banana peels on the road are dangerous, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Musical Chairs</li> <li>Duck Duck Goose</li> <li>Matching Game</li> <li>The Sims</li> <li>Donkey Kong</li> <li>Pokémon</li> <li>Mario Kart</li> <li>Mahjong</li> <li>Claw Machine</li> <li>Pac-Man</li> <li>Crossword Puzzles</li> <li>Snakes and Ladders</li> <li>Word Search</li> <li>Super Mario</li> <li>Operation Board Game</li> <li>Checkers</li> <li>Cards</li> <li>Chess</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="game-dislikes">Game Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/44759_01cf2dc15c014e934e501df0ed2434a01666dcbd99e764fe378e2c567bb6b741.png" alt="Scene of Nova dressed in a brown and orange adventuring outfit and holding a small cactus plant in a pot in the Serengeti. She also has another birb next to her, they are pink and wearing a heart inspired outfit. Both are walking with red bags slung over their shoulders, with each also walking with their own Flutter the Flying Heart."> </p> <ul> <li>Angry Birds</li> <li>Jigsaw Puzzle</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="items">Items</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="item-favourites">Item Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/97823_36b21a3951b2e6675389d6bd177ba378bb075d3b89dc238eaf34858fa10b60f2.png" alt="Nova dressed in a red fox costume holding a carrot, with micropet Boopty the Spoopty, a small ghost wearing a black witch hat, next to her. She looks curious with a large magnifying glass behind her. She remarks: &ldquo;So is this a key for tiny books, cheep?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Magnifying Glass</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="item-likes">Item Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/2501_f37b506079d33c93286e2cd612713ea81c0e2f3cca68432517b0684ed36f8c92.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple dragon costume holding a purple mini harp, and has Bean the Blobcat next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She looks curious, with a large map behind her. She remarks: &ldquo;Come look for buried treasure with me! What do you think we&rsquo;ll find, cheep?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Drum</li> <li>Treasure Map</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="item-dislikes">Item Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/85844_bd82b4bbf7aa879bc8292e39947b643f8f8c6725b2537b514852146220f544d1.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple sporty outfit holds a football, and has Bean the Blobcat next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She hugs a heart, with a large candle behind her. She starts sweating after staying near a candle too long, then remarks: &ldquo;Phew&hellip; this mood lighting is a little TOO warm for me, cheep. Are there any more gentle mood lights?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Candle</li> </ul> </div> <h2 id="activities">Activities</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="activity-favourites">Activity Favourites</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/45106_98fec4911a65edfd77bdc47ba5b258d34b6f0aca3286271e793b6e0e944abbde.png" alt="Nova dressed in a bright orange, yellow and pink fruit inspired outfit, with a melon headpiece, berry shoes, and holding an ice lolly. She directly towards you with a large horse behind her. She remarks: &ldquo;Today I rode in a carriage that was pulled by a horse, cheep! I never knew horses could drive!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Horse and Carriage Ride</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="activity-hates">Activity Hates</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/17493_39b060c867d584ca1a879bfd4c5e80ef547483a96d0459557aa03f806f7c213d.png" alt="Nova dressed in a 90s style purple and white musical themed outfit holds a boombox, and has Subwoofer the Crogi next to her. She looks curious, with a large moon behind her. She is thinking about the moon and remarks: &ldquo;Why does the moon keep following us every night, cheep? Doesn&rsquo;t it have its own places to be?&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Moon Watching</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="activity-likes">Activity Likes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/33045_9db29c3996f571f2b19eb1238e7011701dc3f6056117ea2fd1acafd11bea0f0e.png" alt="Nova dressed in a brown and orange adventuring outfit and holding a small cactus plant in a pot. She also has Flutter the Flying Heart next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She waves and looks happy, with a large bath tub behind her. She jumps into a bubble bath and splashes around, then remarks: &ldquo;You&rsquo;re right, this is way more fun than a regular bird bath, cheep!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Playground Slide</li> <li>Three Legged Race</li> <li>Northern Lights Viewing</li> <li>Snorkeling in Maui</li> <li>Escape Room</li> <li>Samba Dancing</li> <li>Bubble Bath</li> <li>Balloon Safari</li> <li>Alpine Skiing</li> <li>Tokyo Hot Springs</li> <li>Cloud Watching</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="activity-dislikes">Activity Dislikes</h3> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Finch/1795_bce78db145507a607454808f8e32138480a2c5aac0d63b5851205ee67634a15c.png" alt="Nova dressed in a purple sporty outfit holds a football, and has Bean the Blobcat next to her, with multicoloured confetti scattered around her. She looks disappointed, as a large kite leans behind her. She comes back from kitesurfing and remarks: &ldquo;I think I was too light to stay on the kite surfboard, cheep&hellip; I almost flew away! I want to learn to fly, but not like THAT!&rdquo;"> </p> <ul> <li>Double Decker Bus Ride</li> <li>Yoga</li> <li>Kitesurfing</li> <li>Hot Air Balloon Ride</li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/website-update-may-2024/ Thu, 02 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/website-update-may-2024/ <p>In this short post, I&rsquo;ll briefly discuss changes made to the backend of the website which will make updating it much simpler.</p> <h2 id="ftp">FTP</h2> <p>When I started making websites, I relied on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ftp">FTP</a> as the means to update them, before switching to mostly using a web interface while using <a href="https://wordpress.org/">Wordpress</a>. As such, when I moved away from Wordpress, I naturally returned to FTP as it was what I knew. However, despite considering myself as quite interested in this sort of thing, I was behind the times with how websites, particularly websites generated via static site generators, were now more likely deployed, and it was not by FTP.</p> <p>My workflow was to make changes locally, build using <code>hugo</code> in terminal, log into my FTP server via <a href="https://filezilla-project.org/">Filezilla</a>, navigate to the appropriate folder, and then upload the files. I began to find this process cumbersome and time consuming, and started finding it to becoming a barrier to updating the website as often as I would have liked. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rest-of-2023-looking-at-2024/#simpler">With my new mantra of the year trying to keep life more simple</a>, I looked into how to simplify this process.</p> <h2 id="git">git</h2> <p>The obvious solution was using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git">git</a>, something I was completely unfamiliar with, but aware of. I took an afternoon to read various guides on how to host websites on <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>, how changes are easily pushed there, and finally how the website gets updated.</p> <p>The first part was easy, make an account at GitHub, create a repository and upload the files, generated again by using <code>hugo</code>, to it.</p> <p>However, most use git via a command-line interface, and I did manage to set it all up in Terminal on my Mac desktop and my Linux laptop, but, being a newcomer to git, I also downloaded <a href="https://desktop.github.com/">GitHub Desktop</a> and found it very easy to commit changes as well as push online. Significantly easier than the hassle of using FTP, and, with my next step, I would also no longer need to use <code>hugo</code> to build.</p> <h2 id="cloudflare">Cloudflare</h2> <p>Trying to run my websites on as much as a shoestring budget as possible, I purchase my domains using <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/">Cloudflare</a> as they <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/dns/what-is-cloudflare-registrar/">do not add a markup</a>. This meant configuring these domains to use another Cloudflare service, <a href="https://pages.cloudflare.com/">Cloudflare Pages</a>, was incredibly simple. <a href="https://developers.cloudflare.com/pages/framework-guides/deploy-a-hugo-site/">Following this guide</a>, I was quickly able to link Cloudflare with the corresponding GitHub directory, instruct it to use the <code>hugo</code> build command, and then leave it alone. All I do now is create my changes locally in applications like <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora</a>, commit and push using GitHub Desktop, and then wait a minute for Cloudflare to process the update.</p> <p>There are some limits to the free plan, such as 500 builds/updates a month, but I do not find myself reaching anywhere near this, or any other limits placed at this level.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s an incredibly simple process with almost all the barriers removed, creating an experience more like I had with Wordpress and its web interface, and it enables me a simpler experience of creating content for my website - I only wish I had tried it sooner!</p> <h2 id="removed">Removed</h2> <p>This has, however, meant a farewell to <a href="https://uberspace.de/">UberSpace</a>, as I no longer need their services. However, I still nonetheless highly recommend them if their services meet your needs. Furthermore, as Cloudflare also offer <a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/web-analytics/">free privacy respecting website analytics</a>, I no longer need to use <a href="https://www.pikapods.com/">PikaPods</a> to host <a href="https://umami.is/">Umami</a>. Again though, I still highly recommend PikaPods due to their low costs and ease of use hosting a series of software, as well as Umami for their no-fuss interface. I have some credit left in my PikaPods account (because running Umami was so cheap!), and am looking into what I might try out for fun to later pursue!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/weblogpomo-2024/ Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/weblogpomo-2024/ <p>While on Mastodon, I stumbled across <a href="https://social.lol/@prami/112322333271394126">this toot by @Prami</a>, linking to <a href="https://weblog.anniegreens.lol/weblog-posting-month-2024">this blog post</a> by <a href="https://anniegreens.lol/">@anniegreens</a>, detailing a proposal for owners of personal blogs to post, &ldquo;ideally daily&rdquo;, between the 1st and 31st of May 2024!</p> <p>I immediately loved the idea and retooted it, not expecting to participate myself, but after a couple of days mulling it over, I have felt inspired to try giving it a go! I&rsquo;m not sure how successful I&rsquo;ll be, considering that this is significantly more writing than I have been doing, but I&rsquo;m starting with this first post on day one in hopes I&rsquo;ll be able to keep up with ideas and writing!</p> <p>My main concept for the month is to continue writing about my experiences with technology, as I already have some ideas here, but I&rsquo;m also going to try and expand my thinking a bit to grow this website beyond just posts related to technology.</p> <p>Wish me luck, and feel free to participate if you also feel inspired!!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/blogging-resources/ Fri, 26 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/blogging-resources/ <p>In my journey of setting up this webiste, I came acrossed plenty of blogging platforms which interested me, as well as some guides I read on setting up websites in Hugo and Jekyll specifically. Here I have collected it all, which can be very useful when I see people on Mastodon ask for blog platform advice!</p> <h2 id="platforms">Platforms</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://lmno.lol">lmno.lol</a></li> <li><a href="https://bearblog.dev/">Bear Blog</a></li> <li><a href="https://mataroa.blog/">Mataroa</a></li> <li><a href="https://bloggi.co/">Bloggi</a></li> <li><a href="https://ghost.org/">Ghost</a></li> <li><a href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress.org</a></li> <li><a href="https://write.as/">Write.as — A place for focused writing.</a></li> <li><a href="https://telescope.ac/">Telescope</a></li> <li><a href="https://blot.im/">Blot</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.bludit.com/">Bludit</a></li> <li><a href="https://withknown.com/">Known</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="hugo">Hugo</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a></li> <li><a href="https://acanalis.github.io/post/concepts-of-hugo/">Concepts of Hugo</a></li> <li><a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/hugo-static-site/">How To Build a Blazing Fast Static Site With Hugo</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/SchumacherFM/wordpress-to-hugo-exporter">wordpress-to-hugo-exporter</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="jekyll">Jekyll</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a></li> <li><a href="https://refinedmind.co/obsidian-jekyll-workflow">Obsidian Jekyll workflow</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.dominicsayers.com/recipe_markup/">Using Jekyll to markup a recipe</a></li> <li><a href="https://maximevaillancourt.com/blog/setting-up-your-own-digital-garden-with-jekyll">Setting up your own digital garden with Jekyll</a></li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/creating-an-ambient-music-server/ Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/creating-an-ambient-music-server/ <p>I was recently given a free one year trial to a premium podcast feed which specialised in getting you to sleep. It features bedtime stories for adults and children, reads royalty-free literature, and also provides eight-hour mixes of ambient music, including ASMR rain, gentle piano playing, coffee shop background noise, binaural sounds, and so on.</p> <p>While being read to doesn&rsquo;t help me get to sleep, and nor does ambient music actually, I do like listening to various long looped sounds to help me focus during the day and help me unwind at nights. So, as I poked around the podcast feed, liking what I was hearing, I had an idea of archiving these eight-hour mixes to continue listening after the trial has ended, and I&rsquo;ll go into detail how in this short post.</p> <h2 id="downloading">Downloading</h2> <p>First thing was to download the &ldquo;episodes&rdquo; from the podcast feed. A quick web search pointed me in the direction of <a href="https://github.com/lightpohl/podcast-dl">podcast-dl</a>, a command line method which promised to download in bulk, in .mp3, and with the title in the file name for easy identification.</p> <p>It was surprisingly simple, having already installed <a href="https://nodejs.org/en/">node.js</a>, all I needed to do was install podcast-dl in Terminal with my initial command of listing the RSS feed and where to download the files to, go through a couple of prompts, and then run it again: <code>sudo npx podcast-dl --url https://example.com/RSS --out-dir /path/to/directory</code></p> <h2 id="playing">Playing</h2> <p>Next, I would want to play these files, and have them while at my desktop working and on my phone while I unwind at night. I already have a <a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a> server setup, but was reluctant to mix it up with these ambient tracks, and setting up something entirely new, such as a <a href="https://jellyfin.org/">Jellyfin</a> server, wasn&rsquo;t too appealing either. Instead, I looked at my existing <a href="https://www.plex.tv/">Plex</a> setup and decided to create a new library in there just for the ambient music, label it as such, and then have it available to access via its cross-platform <a href="https://www.plex.tv/plexamp/">Plexamp</a> app.</p> <p>The end result works really well, I am able to quickly search for a specific sound experience or just scroll through the tracks until one catches my eye. It plays quickly on either of my devices, with the Plexamp being fully featured in showing tracks recently played, recently added, and also my personal ratings for them, making it easy to identify tracks I liked and those I could skip over for now. On the desktop as well, Plexamp can be run quite small and unobtrusively, and looks beautiful too with the theming taking colours from the track&rsquo;s artwork.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Overall, I would suppose such a process would work with any podcast which provides an RSS feed to access the episodes, and may be useful for archiving favourite shows outside of your usual podcast manager. For me, knowing these were eight-hour long tracks I wanted to keep, I knew simply having them downloaded to my phone was not going to work in the long-term, and am glad they sit in a centralised placed ready for streaming to whatever device Plexamp can run on, though also happy these are just .mp3 files and can be moved to another platform at any time, without a vendor lock in.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/button-wall/ Thu, 11 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/button-wall/ <p>Links to websites I&rsquo;ve come across and liked!</p> <blockquote> <p>Inspired by the <a href="https://fri11s.neocities.org/links/">button wall by Frills!</a></p></blockquote> <div class="button-wall"> <nav> <ul> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://dyani.bearblog.dev/" style="color: #677d48;">little pond</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://seirdy.one/" style="color: #000000;">Seirdy's Home</a></li> <li style="background-color: #000000;"><a href="https://maya.land/" style="color: #FCEBDB;">maya.land</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://sleepydev.neocities.org/" style="color: #892CE2;">sleepy dev</a></li> <li style="background-color: #181617;"><a href="https://fri11s.neocities.org/" style="color: #F0CBDD;">Frills</a></li> <li style="background-color: #fff6f6;"><a href="https://jasm1nii.xyz/" style="color: #5a5463;">jasmine's journal</a></li> <li style="background-color: #ffe8ec;"><a href="https://bechnokid.neocities.org/" style="color: #a70555;">Bechno Kid's Hideout!</a></li> <li style="background-color: #0D191A;"><a href="https://sadgrl.online/" style="color: #B4E61D;">sadgrl.online</a></li> <li style="background-color: #E1CCDD;"><a href="https://32bit.cafe/" style="color: #000000;">32-Bit Cafe</a></li> <li style="background-color: #11060f;"><a href="https://melonking.net/" style="color: #ffff00;">Melon King</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://lazybones.neocities.org/" style="color: #000000;">lazybones</a></li> <li style="background-color: #170414;"><a href="https://lostletters.neocities.org/" style="color: #ff7add;">Lost Letters</a></li> <li style="background-color: #D7F3DB;"><a href="https://xandra.cc/" style="color: #13746F;">the museum of alexandra</a></li> <li style="background-color: #1f2c39;"><a href="https://maria.town/" style="color: #ffffff;">maria</a></li> <li style="background-color: #D8EEFF;"><a href="https://www.bikobatanari.art/" style="color: #516d8a;">bikobatanari</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://melankorin.net" style="color: #000000;">melankorin.net</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FCEDF9;"><a href="https://amorphophalex.neocities.org/" style="color: #437AA2;">potion lab</a></li> <li style="background-color: #fdc6d3;"><a href="https://hillhouse.neocities.org/" style="color: #a33254;">hill house</a></li> <li style="background-color: #ffeae1;"><a href="https://pastelhello.com/" style="color: #4B2C4E;">pastel hell</a></li> <li style="background-color: #F3F3F3;"><a href="https://nenrikido.neocities.org/" style="color: #3D03FC;">NENRIKIDO</a></li> <li style="background-color: #F6EFA6;"><a href="https://www.thefrugalgamer.net/" style="color: #000000;">The Frugal Gamer</a></li> <li style="background-color: #E4D7DE;"><a href="https://daintye.co/" style="color: #000000;">daintyeco</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFE5E9;"><a href="https://softheartclinic.neocities.org/" style="color: #000000;">soft heart clinic</a></li> <li style="background-color: #241c2d;"><a href="https://starrs.neocities.org/tinyspace/" style="color: #E4CAED;">a tiny space</a></li> <li style="background-color: #fffff7;"><a href="https://mooeena.neocities.org/" style="color: #471536;">Moo Like A Goat!</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://keysklubhouse.com/" style="color: #b702fc;">Key's Klubhouse</a></li> <li style="background-color: #274ac7;"><a href="https://hekate.neocities.org/" style="color: #FFFFFF;">Hekate</a></li> <li style="background-color: #ecd575;"><a href="https://cepheus.neocities.org/stars/" style="color: #a53626;">cepheus</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://allyratworld.com/" style="color: #823354;">AllyRat World</a></li> <li style="background-color: #f8fbf3;"><a href="https://aegi.neocities.org/" style="color: #d23a48;">Aegi's Cafe</a></li> <li style="background-color: #191B26;"><a href="https://10kph.neocities.org/" style="color: #DFDEDE;">kirsten@earth</a></li> <li style="background-color: #ff9eda;"><a href="https://pinkvampyr.neocities.org/" style="color: #000000;">Pinkvampyr</a></li> <li style="background-color: #fef8f6;"><a href="https://thecozy.cat/" style="color: #a76046;">thecozy.cat</a></li> <li style="background-color: #FFFFFF;"><a href="https://auxiekitty.neocities.org/" style="color: #E9247F;">AUXIEKITTY</a></li> <li style="background-color: #04010D;"><a href="https://solaria.neocities.org/" style="color: #FFB448;">solaria’s webspace</a></li> </ul> </nav> <br> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/recipe-management/ Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/recipe-management/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rest-of-2023-looking-at-2024/#self-hosting">With the recent kernel panic in my Raspberry Pi</a>, I had to reinstall and setup the applications once again for my self hosted server. This, combined with a desire to <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rest-of-2023-looking-at-2024/#simpler">simplify my life</a>, has meant some changes to how to manage my recipes, and I&rsquo;ll go through the changes in this short post.</p> <h2 id="initial-setup">Initial Setup</h2> <p>I go into more detail of my setup in previous posts, starting with <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#mealie">this section on Mealie</a>, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#nextcloud-cookbook">this one on Nextcloud Cookbook</a>, and <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-june-2023/#overview">an update here on moving from Nextcloud Cookbook to Tandoor</a>.</p> <p>However, the brief summary is that my setup was using <a href="https://tandoor.dev/">Tandoor</a> to quickly access my favourite recipes, and <a href="https://mealie.io/">Mealie</a> used to store various recipes that had caught my interest over the years, but not yet got round to actually cooking them. And I was planning for all this to continue following the reinstallation of these applications after my server died.</p> <h2 id="tandoor">Tandoor</h2> <p>However, reinstalling Tandoor following the kernel panic was a disaster, and I could not get either my saved Docker Compose file working, nor any guide online working either. I was able to reinstall Mealie though, and I began to consider if I really wanted Mealie to keep hundreds of old recipes I had found throughout the years over the internet. Was I, instead, just using a search engine to find a recipe I wanted and ignoring this database?</p> <h2 id="mealie">Mealie</h2> <p>Yes, I was. So, with seeing little point of keeping it, and realising removing an application would also simplify my life, I decided to give up on Tandoor, wipe the Mealie database, and start again with importing just the select few recipes I had used, enjoyed and wanted to keep for future use.</p> <p>And it was going well, I enjoyed using the Android companion application <a href="https://github.com/kirmanak/Mealient">Mealient</a>, and my Mealie installation was more responsive with less recipes. However, I tried to log in one day, and was told my password was wrong. I tried various old versions from my password manager, as well as the two default logins Mealie provides, and nothing worked.</p> <p>Not a big deal, I have all the recipes backed up, and I manually saved the URLs again just in case, so I wiped the installation and reinstalled it from my saved Docker Compose file. But it didn&rsquo;t work. I tried following a guide online and found it was incredibly difficult. I tried installing both V1 and V2, and neither worked.</p> <p>Frustrated, I considered going back to Tandoor, but also struggled with its installation process for some unknown reason - I had installed both these applications before, why weren&rsquo;t they working now?!</p> <h2 id="alternatives">Alternatives</h2> <p>I began looking elsewhere, first considering <a href="https://github.com/GourmandRecipeManager/gourmand">Gourmand</a>, with <a href="https://tournant.zimbelstern.eu/">Tournant</a> as a companion Android app. But then quickly realised it wouldn&rsquo;t run on my Mac, as it is a Linux only application.</p> <p>At this point, I was really just looking for something simple that worked, though was put off by the high costs of <a href="https://www.paprikaapp.com/">Paprika</a> needing to be purchased for each operating system, and <a href="https://mela.recipes/">Mela</a>, though working on my Mac, would not work on my Android device.</p> <p>Trying and failing to get Mealie or Tandoor working yet again, I seriously considered dealing with the headache of installing Nextcloud solely for the purpose of its <a href="https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/cookbook">Cookbook application</a>, and then stumbled across&hellip;</p> <h2 id="recipesage">RecipeSage</h2> <p>Initially, I tried out the <a href="https://recipesage.com/#/welcome">free hosted version of RecipeSage here</a> to see if it was worth the hassle of trying to install it, and despite it not having a dedicated Android application (instead accessible on mobile devices as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app">Progressive Web Application</a>), I found it really easy to use, lightweight, and easy to backup and restore.</p> <p>Happy with what I saw, I looked into its <a href="https://github.com/julianpoy/RecipeSage-selfhost">self-hosted version</a>, and was glad to see a Docker Compose file provided. To my amazement, although it took a while to deploy, RecipeSage worked first time perfectly on my Raspberry Pi! I was able to quickly set up an account, log in, and easily import the recipes backed up from the hosted version.</p> <p>Fingers crossed nothing breaks now!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/rest-of-2023-looking-at-2024/ Mon, 29 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/rest-of-2023-looking-at-2024/ <p>2023 was overall a good year in terms of exploring who I am, gaining new skills, and trying to adapt to the world around me as an autistic person. However, as the year was coming to an end, I faced health issues which restricted my energy and resulted in many things taking a backseat. This website was one of them, as I had little capability to keep it up to date.</p> <p>In this long and rambling post, I&rsquo;ll look back on the year gone, and forward to 2024.</p> <h2 id="socially">Socially</h2> <p>I became significantly more social online, making sure to post something to Mastodon every day, and check my feeds responding to people I follow. I have greatly appreciated the community I have found there, and believe it vital to feeling less isolated and alien, as I&rsquo;ve finally met people who are similar to me and don&rsquo;t judge me for being different. The support I get from emotional posts is encouraging and advice has been so helpful. As someone who didn&rsquo;t have any such connections with others in early 2022, I&rsquo;ve come a long way.</p> <h2 id="mentally">Mentally</h2> <p>I hope I&rsquo;m able to stay social as the year goes on, though I&rsquo;ve recently had issues with low mood making me want to retract and be quiet. I am working on overcoming this, as I tell myself I have worth and deserve to take up space, but it&rsquo;s harder believing that. It&rsquo;s also resulted in a loss of some interests, and I have no motivation to keep up a daily journal as I have done the past couple of years. I am still fully attending to my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/finch/">Finch birb Nova</a> though, have recently sorted out my <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behaviour_therapy">dialectical behaviour therapy</a> (DBT) cards, and am enjoying doing chair yoga as an alternative to yoga on a mat.</p> <p>Although I don&rsquo;t believe in it, I&rsquo;ve found great comfort in watching reiki videos on YouTube, which make me feel more grounded and calm, with the ASMR-like soothing music and speech, coupled with supportive and healing language. I find it&rsquo;s been more helpful than meditation, as the process of &ldquo;sending light&rdquo; to various parts of my body creates a more interesting visual for my brain than simply sitting there getting bored or counting my breaths, which has always felt weird.</p> <h2 id="ventures">Ventures</h2> <p>I wanted to achieve more with the online store, but health issues limited my energy levels needed to work on it. I have begun the process of adding a new line to the store, but it is cumbersome and taking a lot of time. I also need to update old lines as some marketplaces have modified their standards, and I want to open a Mastodon account for the business to help with promotion and increase sales.</p> <h2 id="themes">Themes</h2> <p>I don&rsquo;t like New Year resolutions, and find <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVGuFdX5guE">this CPG Grey video</a> from a couple of years ago to be significantly more appealing. Rather than making a set goal, try to think of a theme that will prompt and push you towards making the changes you wish to see in your life. I much prefer this method as someone who struggles with health and energy levels as I cannot commit to doing X amount across Y days, as I don&rsquo;t know if I&rsquo;ll literally be able to do so.</p> <p>In the video, it is suggested to find a word that resonates with you (if you want to read more about themes, <a href="https://lostletters.neocities.org/2023/12/07/year-of-accountability">lost letters has a blog post here</a> about their chosen theme), and I&rsquo;ve had two which have sparked something inside me.</p> <h3 id="healthier">Healthier</h3> <p>One is quite stereotypical in that I want to be healthier. Diet wise, I think I eat pretty healthily and am satisfied with my weight, so my area of concern is fitness and general health. I tend to get ill easily, always feel tired, and my body can become weak for seemingly no reason. I&rsquo;m not sure what to do about that exactly as I&rsquo;ve been to the doctors and there is apparently nothing wrong with me, and I know exercise won&rsquo;t necessarily resolve these issues.</p> <p>However, despite my absolute hatred of exercise, having never experienced the famed &ldquo;endorphin rush&rdquo; most do, I get the benefits of stretching and feel better after doing some yoga. Though unable to do yoga every day, by having the theme narrative rather than a goal one, I am kinder to myself and instead look for opportunities to do yoga when faced with a choice.</p> <p>Similarly, I have a step platform in my room, and though feel no obligation to spend X amount of minutes on it across Y days, I am finding myself spending a minute or two here and there stepping on and off it when the opportunity arises, and when my health permits, because I am aware of my theme of wanting to be healthier.</p> <h3 id="simpler">Simpler</h3> <p>The other word that resonated with me was &ldquo;simpler&rdquo;. I want my life to be simpler, less complicated, and thus allows me to dedicate time and energy elsewhere. This is a bit harder to achieve, as there isn&rsquo;t really anything concrete I can point to and change, but that&rsquo;s why I like it as a theme rather than a goal. It&rsquo;s about facing decisions, pausing, and asking myself if there is a simpler way of doing this?</p> <p>It&rsquo;s also meant that when faced with a difficulty, I&rsquo;ve stopped and tried to work out if it has to be this way, is there a simpler way I could be doing this? So, this has caused me already to reorganise my phone apps to be less complicated, moved furniture and objects around so finding things is less of a hassle, and streamlined by self-hosting set-up.</p> <h4 id="self-hosting">Self-Hosting</h4> <p>Well, I didn&rsquo;t initially plan to simplify my server, but after my Raspberry Pi became non-responsive one day, and plugging it into a monitor showed a kernel panic, I had to wipe the drive and start again. I had everything backed up, but it made me rethink what was I actually using, how I was using it, and could it be simpler? I&rsquo;ll make a more formal post listing the changes I&rsquo;ve made, but I already feel better with less applications to maintain.</p> <h3 id="joy">Joy</h3> <p>As well as simpleness, I&rsquo;ve also embraced the aspect of the <a href="https://konmari.com/what-is-konmari-method/">Marie Kondo method</a> of asking myself if something, anything, &ldquo;sparks me joy&rdquo;. This has resulted in me unsubscribing from various newsletters, leaving some Discord servers, and followed less people on social media, because, no, those did not spark me joy.</p> <p>In another way, in DBT, one of the tenants is to &ldquo;accumulate positives&rdquo;, doing positive things that build up. As such, I&rsquo;ve been trying to do things I find joyful and identify where I find joy.</p> <h4 id="neopets">Neopets</h4> <p>Just as I became unwell at the end of 2023, I saw people on Mastodon talking about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neopets">Neopets</a>, and I logged back into my dormant account I created in 2001. I&rsquo;ve since had a lot of joy spending about an hour each day doing my dailies, playing food club, getting rewards in the battledome, and zapping pound pets to make them more desirable for adoption. I don&rsquo;t really have any long term goals as I already have my dream pets, but just popping in and doing these small things every day is enjoyable enough.</p> <h4 id="events">Events</h4> <p>Looking back at the year and where I found joy, it was often with special events that punctuate something different from the usual day-to-day.</p> <p>I watch <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest">Eurovision</a>, and its semi-finals, every year, but as it was the first time in over two decades to be in the UK, I decided to really throw myself into it with scorecards, bingo, and spending time preparing snacks and clothes for the shows. I vividly feeling happier than I have done at past Eurovisions and wishing that feeling would never fade. As such, if possible, I will make sure to celebrate Eurovision again like this in the future.</p> <p>While I cannot manufacturer a Eurovision all year round, and having such events all the time would likely reduce the effectiveness of it being special, I am still keeping an eye out for events to occupy my attention and have something to look forward to. In early January, I watched <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_PDC_World_Darts_Championship">darts</a> for the first time and really enjoyed it, and am writing this blog post up while having <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Africa_Cup_of_Nations">AFCON</a> in the background. So, while not having dedicated time towards these events, finding ways to incorporate them into my free time has been enjoyable.</p> <h4 id="cooking">Cooking</h4> <p>Christmas is also something I always enjoy every year, and do dedicate time and energy towards making it a good time of the year. I think it&rsquo;s because I get to combine a few things I like together, watching corny movies, listening to fun music, and doing lots of cooking.</p> <p>I wish I could spend more time cooking and baking, but with just me to feed, me not eating lots of food, and being economic by batch cooking for a few days at a time, I only end up cooking around twice a week. Maybe I need to find a way to cook more as it really does bring me a lot of joy and it&rsquo;s a shame I can&rsquo;t do it more.</p> <h2 id="lastly">Lastly&hellip;</h2> <p>Despite being happy with this website, I do have an urge to go simpler with it, reducing its size, and being as plain as possible. However, as I was writing this, I saw <a href="https://library.xandra.cc/long-live-webpages/">this post by Xandra</a> enthusing about webpages, not just blogs, and how they contribute towards a richer internet, and it made me rethink about simplifying this website. It reminded me how I do like such parts of my website, including the pages on my birb Nova, my &ldquo;shrine&rdquo; to Glitch, and all my musical reviewing and rating content. As such, I&rsquo;m going to, hopefully, not feel any need to redesign the website any time soon!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/aoty-2023/ Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/aoty-2023/ <p>In this post, I&rsquo;ll republish my thoughts on my top twenty Albums Of The Year, which I originally shared on Mastodon in late December.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ll be listing the albums, a mini review of each, and my three favourite songs (in no order) to listen to as tasters of each album.</p> <p>The list exclusively features female vocalists, leans heavily towards pop, and, of course, is just my personal opinion.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ll post a list of just the names of the albums and artists at the end.</p> <h2 id="20-the-loveliest-time---carly-rae-jepsen">20: The Loveliest Time - Carly Rae Jepsen</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p>A B-Sides album of cuts that didn&rsquo;t make The Loneliest Time, but there are still some good bops here. Most songs have a funky, synthy or power-pop feel to them, and you may enjoy it a lot.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Shy Boy</li> <li>Kamikaze</li> <li>Psychedelic Switch</li> </ul> <h2 id="19-diamonds--dancefloors---ava-max">19: Diamonds &amp; Dancefloors - Ava Max</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p>I thought this album was a significant improvement from her debut album, and really enjoyed this more complete piece of work. There are still a couple of tracks I skip, but the high points of the album make it worth checking out if you&rsquo;re into pop music. I&rsquo;m looking forward to her next album!</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Dancing&rsquo;s Done</li> <li>Get Outta My Heart</li> <li>Diamonds &amp; Dancefloors</li> </ul> <h2 id="18-problématique---kim-petras">18: Problématique - Kim Petras</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p>A &ldquo;lost&rdquo; album that dropped randomly on a Tuesday night, this was supposed to be Kim&rsquo;s debut, but scrapped in favour of Feed The Beast. I personally significantly prefer this album with its inspirations of house and disco. Though this isn&rsquo;t the most groundbreaking album, it&rsquo;s pretty cohesive, fun, and worth checking out for pop fans.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Problématique</li> <li>Confession</li> <li>Love Ya Leave Ya</li> </ul> <h2 id="17-endless-summer---jack-river">17: Endless Summer - Jack River</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alt-Pop</strong></p> <p>I stumbled on this randomly, but have really enjoyed this solid no-skip album of pop that reminds me of the late 90s and early 00s at times with synthy guitars and light airy vocal delivery. A really fun record I think people would like.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Lie To You</li> <li>Lie In The Sun</li> <li>Nothing Has Changed</li> </ul> <h2 id="16-the-good-witch---maisie-peters">16: The Good Witch - Maisie Peters</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>A really strong lyrically driven album which paints so many stories with her great vocal delivery. It&rsquo;s admittedly not an album I massively connect to, but I can&rsquo;t deny how good it is, and I think pop fans should give it a listen.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>BSC</li> <li>Run</li> <li>Coming Of Age</li> </ul> <h2 id="15-zig---poppy">15: Zig - Poppy</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alt-Pop, Rock, Industrial</strong></p> <p>Probably my most anticipated album of the year, having loved all the singles, it sadly did not live up to my excitement, which may be more of a me problem than an issue with the album. Not saying all the album tracks aren&rsquo;t as good as the singles, but I loved the dark pop, hints of industrial/metal and electronic approach of the singles, and wished more album tracks packed the same punch. Still recommend trying out as there are some gems here.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Church Outfit</li> <li>Motorbike</li> <li>The Attic</li> </ul> <h2 id="14-black-rainbows---corrine-bailey-rae">14: Black Rainbows - Corrine Bailey Rae</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Experimental, Jazz, Electronic, Rock</strong></p> <p>I got round to listening to this album late, and while it took me a couple of listens to warm up to it, the record grew on me. As always with Corrine, her vocals are gorgeous, but by experimenting with electronic and rock, raw emotion is heard on the higher tempo tracks, and gives more dimension to her music. It&rsquo;s a really interesting album, and I hope she continues in this direction.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>A Spell, A Prayer</li> <li>Red Horse</li> <li>Put It Down</li> </ul> <h2 id="13-the-age-of-pleasure---janelle-monáe">13: The Age of Pleasure - Janelle Monáe</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Funk, Reggae</strong></p> <p>It&rsquo;s actually a bit hard to pick three favourite songs from this album as the songs are mixed into one another, so it&rsquo;s best listened to as one complete piece of work, rather than as an album with individual tracks on it. I think this is why this is my favourite Janelle album, I really love how it feels like a musical experience, with great reggae and funky vibes connecting everything together, making it really enjoyable to listen to.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Float</li> <li>Water Slide</li> <li>Paid In Pleasure</li> </ul> <h2 id="12-nowhere-near-the-sky---the-jordan">12: Nowhere Near The Sky - The Jordan</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alt-Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p>Another album I stumbled across randomly, and was instantly taken in, with its production invoking both darkness and dreaminess, emotive vocals, and the general sense of pop done in a more mature way. I really love this album, and it would be higher if it weren&rsquo;t for other albums muscling their way in as I later listened to them!</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>The Room</li> <li>Naked In The Sun</li> <li>Mmm</li> </ul> <h2 id="11-desire-i-want-to-turn-into-you---caroline-polachek">11: Desire, I Want To Turn Into You - Caroline Polachek</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alt-Pop, Electronic</strong></p> <p>I liked a few tracks from Caroline&rsquo;s last album Pang, but I find this to be more accessible with no-skips, though still showcasing off her eclectic and experimental styles, as well as her beautifully crystal clear vocals that shine in every song. Many music critics rated this as one of the best albums of the year, and I would recommend this even to those who aren&rsquo;t fans of pop music.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Welcome To My Island</li> <li>Sunset</li> <li>Smoke</li> </ul> <h2 id="10-did-you-know-that-theres-a-tunnel-under-ocean-blvd---lana-del-rey">10: Did you know that there&rsquo;s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd - Lana Del Rey</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Americana</strong></p> <p>Another critically acclaimed album, Lana&rsquo;s newest album features some incredible highs, though I find myself skipping a couple of tracks, and prefer her Norman Fucking Rockwell album. However, because the highs are so high, it&rsquo;s placed above other albums on my list, with its lush production, gorgeous vocals, and lyrics which paint such vivid imagery.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>A&amp;W</li> <li>Paris, Texas</li> <li>Did you know that there&rsquo;s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd</li> </ul> <h2 id="09-guts---olivia-rodrigo">09: GUTS - Olivia Rodrigo</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop-Rock</strong></p> <p>As someone who only liked a couple of tracks from Olivia&rsquo;s first album, and didn&rsquo;t really get all the hype, I found myself completely gripped by this album. I think it&rsquo;s a fantastic throwback to the pop-rock music I grew up listening to in the early 00s, with a great sense of fun on the upbeat tracks. I also enjoy the more emotionally driven songs too, with vampire up there as one of my favourite tracks of the year.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>all-american bitch</li> <li>bad idea right?</li> <li>vampire</li> </ul> <h2 id="08-the-record---boygenius">08: The Record - boygenius</h2> <p>Genre: Alt-Rock</p> <p>Yet another popular pick by music critics this year, it surprisingly took me a while to get to listening this, considering how I&rsquo;m a fan of the three artists&rsquo; individual solo work. But when I did finally listen, I was instantly drawn in by the lyricism, which painted such vivid stories, among with the gorgeous production which carries me away while I listen. I&rsquo;m glad this is getting acclaimed, and hope this leads to their solo efforts getting more popular too, as they&rsquo;re all so talented.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>True Blue</li> <li>We&rsquo;re In Love</li> <li>Satanist</li> </ul> <h2 id="07-silence-between-songs---madison-beer">07: Silence Between Songs - Madison Beer</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Alt-Pop</strong></p> <p>I enjoyed much of Madison&rsquo;s last album, but see she&rsquo;s become significantly more mature on this record, creating a sound as if combining Lana Del Rey and Billie Eilish together, with stunning production, powerfully emotional vocals, and really relatable lyrics. It features two of my favourite songs of the year, in Spinnin and Envy The Leaves, with the latter quite possibly my absolute favourite. Highly recommend, and would be ranked higher if not for a couple of skips.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Spinnin</li> <li>Envy The Leaves</li> <li>Showed Me (How I Fell In Love With You)</li> </ul> <h2 id="06-blómi---susanne-sundfør">06: blómi - Susanne Sundfør</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Folk</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;ve long been a fan of Susanne, though my favourite album of hers is the one-off synth pop masterpiece Ten Love Songs. Although this album sounds completely different, her exceptional vocals and lyricism remains, with alyosha competing with Envy The Leaves as my favourite song of the year, though the vast majority of the album is beautiful and compelling. I say the vast majority as there are a couple of songs I admittedly skip, but this is worth checking out as there are some incredible gems here.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>alyosha</li> <li>leikara ljóð</li> <li>blómi</li> </ul> <h2 id="05-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-midwestern-princess---chappell-roan">05: The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess - Chappell Roan</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop</strong></p> <p>I wasn&rsquo;t too excited when first listened to this album, and didn&rsquo;t put it down on my draft list. Then one song, Pink Pony Club, became stuck in my head, and as I went go revisit it, the album as a whole slowly grew on me, resulting in it rising up this list. We&rsquo;re lucky we&rsquo;re at the end of the list as this would keep getting higher if given a few more days!</p> <p>Similarly to Olivia Rodrigo&rsquo;s GUTS, I really love how much fun there is on the upbeat tracks, but how incredibly emotional others can be, all tied together with amazing storytelling and strong vocals. I hope Chappell becomes more popular as this really is a brilliant album and I cannot believe it isn&rsquo;t as popular as GUTS, as I think this is superior.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Red Wine Supernova</li> <li>Pink Pony Club</li> <li>My Kink Is Karma</li> </ul> <h2 id="04-that-feels-good---jessie-ware">04: That! Feels Good! - Jessie Ware</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance, Disco</strong></p> <p>I thought Jessie&rsquo;s previous album, What&rsquo;s Your Pleasure?, was one of the best releases of its year, and wasn&rsquo;t sure how she could follow up such an incredible album. Amazingly, she managed to do it with this fun and sultry no-skip dancey funky record, feeling brighter and more confident than her last album.</p> <p>It also provides another contender for song of the year, with the last two/two and a half minutes of Begin Again being absolute perfection. Highly recommend, even for those who don&rsquo;t usually listen to pop music.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Begin Again</li> <li>These Lips</li> <li>Freak Me Now</li> </ul> <h2 id="03-main-character---glüme">03: Main Character - Glüme</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Electronic, Pop</strong></p> <p>An album I stumbled across, but instantly hooked from the very beginning. This is a sort of concept album about when Glüme growing up as a child actress, and it does such a great job at that storytelling, at bringing you in. I also love the music in the album, it feels unsettling at times with melodies that stop and start, dramatic insertions of seemingly random sounds, and her emotional vocal delivery.</p> <p>Despite this, it is very cohesive as a whole, because, like The Age of Pleasure, it is one of those albums that ought to be listened to as one continuous piece, rather than focusing on individual tracks. Overall, the sound is electronic mixed with aspects of dark pop, though one of my favourite songs off the record, Wedding Cake Shop, reminds me a lot of vapourwave/mallsoft. Well worth a listen for something a bit different.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Child Actor</li> <li>Do Me A Favor</li> <li>Wedding Cake Shop</li> </ul> <h2 id="02-the-land-is-inhospitable-and-so-are-we---mitski">02: The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We - Mitski</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Americana, Country, Folk</strong></p> <p>Been a fan of Mitski for a while now, though often picking out select favourite songs off an album, and never enjoying a whole record cohesively, but I absolutely love this entire album. The folksy country approach carries throughout, being a perfect sound to complement her lyrics and voice, both of which I felt were so strong and powerful, full of emotion.</p> <p>Critically acclaimed, with a streaming hit of My Love Mine All Mine, I can see why this has been a popular album of the year pick online, and I&rsquo;m glad Mitski seems to be getting more mainstream recognition. It&rsquo;s the album I would recommend to family to listen to if asked about my album of the year, I can&rsquo;t see too many people hating it.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>When Memories Snow</li> <li>Star</li> <li>The Deal</li> </ul> <h2 id="01-starfucker---slayyyter">01: STARFUCKER - Slayyyter</h2> <p><strong>Genre: Pop, Dance</strong></p> <p>For my actual favourite album of the year, I am, on the one hand, surprised not to see it on a single list anywhere mentioning good albums of the year. This is because I think this is a significant improvement from this artist&rsquo;s previous work, with higher production values, and a clearer direction over image and sound.</p> <p>Not having heard any singles, I went into this album more so I could just know I gave it a try before moving on, but I completely bought into its narrative immediately, which is funny as I&rsquo;m not sure there is not a single line in the whole album I relate to or resonates with me. But that is why it&rsquo;s so good, it&rsquo;s such a bold and confident album, I&rsquo;m utterly sold on what it&rsquo;s doing, with this easily being my most played albums of the year, being a go-to record I&rsquo;ve turned to day-after-day. The first pick in the top three tracks is probably my most played of the year, and an absolute all-time favourite now.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s also doing something I don&rsquo;t hear much of in today&rsquo;s music. It doesn&rsquo;t take itself seriously, it&rsquo;s fun, over-dramatic and incredibly camp, and while I can think of a couple of names doing similar sort of projects, this is the most successful attempt I&rsquo;ve heard.</p> <p>So, on the one hand, surprised it&rsquo;s not mentioned anywhere, but on the other hand, I think I do know why it&rsquo;s been ignored. Probably because publications, even those specialising in pop, are being too snobbish about it.</p> <p><strong>Top three tracks:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Miss Belladonna</li> <li>Purrr</li> <li>Out of Time</li> </ul> <hr> <h2 id="full-list">Full List</h2> <ol> <li>STARFUCKER - Slayyyter</li> <li>The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We - Mitski</li> <li>Main Character - Glüme</li> <li>That! Feels Good! - Jessie Ware</li> <li>The Rise and Fall of a Midwestern Princess - Chappell Roan</li> <li>blómi - Susanne Sundfør</li> <li>Silence Between Songs - Madison Beer</li> <li>The Record - boygenius</li> <li>GUTS - Olivia Rodrigo</li> <li>Did You Know That There&rsquo;s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd? - Lana Del Rey</li> <li>Desire, I Want To Turn Into You - Caroline Polachek</li> <li>Nowhere Near The Sky - The Jordan</li> <li>Age of Pleasure - Janelle Monáe</li> <li>Black Rainbows - Corinne Bailey Rae</li> <li>Zig - Poppy</li> <li>The Good Witch - Maisie Peters</li> <li>Endless Summer - Jack River</li> <li>Problematique - Kim Petras</li> <li>Diamonds &amp; Dancefloors - Ava Max</li> <li>The Loveliest Time - Carly Rae Jespen</li> </ol> https://jessicajournals.com/another-website-revamp-2023/ Mon, 25 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/another-website-revamp-2023/ <p>Although it has not been long since <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/website-revamp-2023/">my previous website revamp</a>, I was recently inspired by fellow users on Mastodon and their various websites based on the <a href="https://yesterweb.org/">YesterWeb</a> and <a href="https://indieweb.org/">IndieWeb</a> movements. In this post I&rsquo;ll go into why such movements have resonated with me, the principles I wish to implement in this website, and what changes I have made.</p> <h2 id="web-10">Web 1.0</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-technically/#web-10">I&rsquo;ve spoken previously about wanting something simpler when it comes to websites</a>, and how I admire the resurgence of such websites via places such as <a href="https://neocities.org/browse">Neocities</a>. As someone who grew up online making and visiting such websites, this era means a lot to me and has very high levels of nostalgia.</p> <p>However, I have been reluctant to revert back to such a system due to difficulties in streamlining website creation - writing in Markdown and publishing via Hugo have become comforts I do not wish to let go of.</p> <p>Furthermore, although I loved my DIVs and iFrames back in the day, I have since come to question the accessibility of such elements, as well as the heavy load of images without alt text, and how many of these types of websites fail to load properly on phones, a device which may be all someone has to connect to the internet.</p> <p>As such, if I were to create a website inspired by those in the 1990s and 2000s, I&rsquo;d have to make a few changes and try to make a hybrid with the modern day conveniences and awareness of accessibility, alongside the fun and feel of those retro websites.</p> <h2 id="indieweb">IndieWeb</h2> <p>I&rsquo;d also want to incorporate some <a href="https://indieweb.org/principles">principles</a> and <a href="https://spec.indieweb.org/">standards</a> of IndieWeb too, with standards seeming like a good idea to create some sort of agreed upon non-proprietary protocols which can be used in various ways to understand information, <a href="https://indieweb.org/formats">rather than APIs</a>.</p> <p>Regarding principles, I&rsquo;d like to think I am already abiding by many of them, such as owning my data, making the data public for humans, documenting, and modularity, as well as aiming for good design and user experience. But I could do better, I wanted to try and make a more conscious effort to aim for as many principles as possible.</p> <h2 id="theme">Theme</h2> <p>So, I wanted to a website which adhered to both Web 1.0 and IndieWeb aspects, but was accessible and built on the back of the handy Hugo system I&rsquo;ve been using for the past year. As such, I decided to look for a theme as minimal as possible and then slowly build from it.</p> <p>There were quite a few options in the <a href="https://themes.gohugo.io/">Hugo theme directory</a>, but I was pleased with the first result I tried, <a href="https://github.com/yihui/hugo-xmin">XMin</a>. This simple theme comes in at just 130 lines of code, and thus provides the basics of a functional website that I was looking for, something easy to edit as the code cannot be too convoluted.</p> <p>I am very satisfied with the theme, and I&rsquo;ve learned a lot about Hugo, HTML and CSS having to implement tweaks in to achieve the website I want.</p> <h3 id="sadgrls-layout-builder">Sadgrl&rsquo;s Layout Builder</h3> <p>A significant alteration to the theme was merging it with a DIV based layout generated using <a href="https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/">Sadgrl&rsquo;s layout builder</a>, choosing a header, footer, navigation bar, top bar, and one sidebar. I wanted to do this in an attempt to further bring the overall website design back to the style of Web 1.0, which featured DIVs extensively. As such, through the merger, the website has become significantly less XMin, and more based on the coding by <a href="https://sadgrl.online/">Sadgrl</a>.</p> <h3 id="tweaks">Tweaks</h3> <p>While I greatly appreciate the clean code as a fantastic starting point to develop a website, it nonetheless means I needed to spent time adding features in I wanted the website to have. At the top of my list were Mermaid diagrams, a Table of Contents, and dates indicating when the post was last modified.</p> <p>In the end, here were the following tweaks made and links to the guides I read:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Feature</th> <th>Credit</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Mermaid Diagrams</td> <td><a href="https://navendu.me/posts/adding-diagrams-to-your-hugo-blog-with-mermaid/">Navendu Pottekkat</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Table of Contents</td> <td><a href="https://codingreflections.com/blog/hugo-table-of-contents">Coding Reflections</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Image Captions</td> <td><a href="https://sebastiandedeyne.com/captioned-images-with-markdown-render-hooks-in-hugo/">Sebastian De Deyne</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Last Edited Date</td> <td><a href="https://makewithhugo.com/add-a-last-edited-date/">Make With Hugo</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Full RSS Feed</td> <td><a href="https://www.rockyourcode.com/til-how-to-create-full-text-rss-feed-for-hugo/">Rock Your Code</a></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Other changes were made reading <a href="https://gohugo.io/documentation/">Hugo&rsquo;s documentation</a> or through <a href="https://www.w3schools.com/">W3Schools</a>.</p> <p>I have also added permalink anchors to the front of headers 2 and 3 to help with easy linking within posts. Unfortunately, I cobbled this together bit-by-bit with numerous pieces scattered across the internet and I regrettably can no longer identify, or find through search, the original sources I need to credit.</p> <h2 id="css">CSS</h2> <p>As a starting point, <a href="https://github.com/oxalorg/sakura">I took the Sakura Vader CSS by oxalorg</a>, and modified it to change certain aspects, as well as to use the <a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/">Rosé Pine</a> Moon colours.</p> <p>You may ask, Rosé Pine? <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/website-revamp-2023/#colours">What happened to Catppuccin</a>?</p> <p>Well, I still do like <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/catppuccin">Catppuccin</a>, but I wanted something warmer and friendly for the colour scheme. Not knowing where to find such a theme, I began searching though those with pre-existing Hugo syntax highlighting, <a href="https://xyproto.github.io/splash/docs/">and stumbled across Rosé Pine</a>. To my relief, they have a fully fledged website with a palette, making it easy to custom edit the CSS.</p> <p>However, as I was finishing up on the CSS, I realised how much I wanted the user to be able to switch between a light mode and dark mode, and saw this as an accessibility issue. I was initially deterred as I had struggled immensely with getting Mermaid diagrams to change between a light or dark mode. But with this website rebuild, I found no issue at all in getting the Mermaid diagrams to change colours depending on theme. I did hit a snag in getting the website to &ldquo;remember&rdquo; the chosen theme while navigating the website, but this was fixed with help from <a href="https://codyhouse.co/blog/post/store-theme-color-preferences-with-localstorage">this guide here about Local Storage API</a>.</p> <p>It was when messing around with a toggle mechanism to switch between the two themes I had made for light and dark modes did I come across the dropdown method, and then wondered about creating more themes for the user to choose from. From here, I then brought back Catppuccin Mocha as an alternative dark theme, and added monochrome light and dark themes too as options. I would have written the CSS differently if I had known I was eventually going to add multiple themes - I&rsquo;ll do better in the next rebuild!</p> <p>I wanted to add the Catppuccin light theme known as Latte, but struggled making it compliant to WCAG AA standards to the point of unsuitability. I also had to make changes to the colours involved in the light Rosé Pine Dawn variant to be compliant, but these were less severe.</p> <p>To replace the lack of an additional light theme to counter Catppuccin Mocha, I did try looking at alternative options elsewhere, but most other themes were dark, such as Dracula, or also had light modes which failed WCAG AA standards. One day, I would like to try and craft my own accessible light theme, but that&rsquo;s for another day. Also, if I have made any mistakes with my colours, please let me know via Mastodon as I tried to check every element, but I may have made a mistake and missed something by accident.</p> <h3 id="other-changes">Other Changes</h3> <p>One aspect I could not work out how to change depending on theme was the syntax, which is decided outside of the CSS, and so I settled on using the built-in &ldquo;Rose Pine Moon&rdquo; theme, with no modifications, across all themes.</p> <p>The background image is rendered via CSS, and is a slight modification of <a href="https://projects.verou.me/css3patterns/#cross">&ldquo;Cross&rdquo; from the CSS3 Patterns Gallery</a>. The background of the header image is also from the same website, <a href="https://projects.verou.me/css3patterns/#zig-zag">&ldquo;Zig-Zag&rdquo; by eCSSpert</a>.</p> <p>I changed the font to <a href="https://brailleinstitute.org/freefont">Atkinson Hyperlegible</a>, after reading <a href="https://cutie.city/@rune/110747789521952713">discussion about it on Mastodon</a>. I have never appealed to fonts designed for easier reading, such as <a href="https://opendyslexic.org/">OpenDyslexic</a>, as I often found them actually harder to understand. However, Atkinson Hyperlegible is not only easy for me to read, but I like how to looks as well - a win-win!</p> <h2 id="whats-missing-whats-new">What&rsquo;s Missing? What&rsquo;s New?</h2> <p>I chose not to implement the icons from Font Awesome, instead preferring emojis which should have inbuilt decent alt-text, and have not included any <a href="https://cerovac.com/a11y/2021/09/sticky-and-fixed-elements-may-cause-huge-accessibility-problems/">&ldquo;sticky&rdquo; elements after reading this article about accessibility</a>.</p> <p>The biggest addition has been the added content, expanding the focus of this website from just blogging to also including many aspects of my life, such as recipes and image, as well as repurposing the <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/bookmarking-system/#link-garden">briefly lost Link Garden</a> into a more curated space for links.</p> <p>To accommodate the new content, and as a means of adding a level of whimsy and fun to the website, I&rsquo;ve organised the content into rooms inside a house:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/lounge/">Lounge</a> - Personal Life</li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/dining-room/">Dining Room</a> - Music</li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/kitchen/">Kitchen</a> - Food</li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/library/">Library</a> - Documentation</li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/bedroom/">Bedroom</a> - Wellness</li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/basement/">Basement</a> - Technology</li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/attic/">Attic</a> - Yesteryear</li> <li><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/garden/">Garden</a> - External Stuff</li> </ul> <p>We&rsquo;ll see how successful such an idea is, but I like it for now!</p> <h3 id="standards">Standards</h3> <p>Although I managed to add the IndieWeb standards of <a href="https://microformats.org/wiki/h-entry">h-entry</a> and <a href="https://microformats.org/wiki/h-card">h-card</a>, I found the documentation to integrating some aspects a little sparse and difficult. As such, my end result looks very cobbled together and I&rsquo;ve probably made errors along the way.</p> <p>I felt this in particular with <a href="https://indieweb.org/webmention">WebMentions</a> to create cross-site conversations, which has been added to the bottom of all blog-type posts, but I found little information on exactly how to get it functioning and displaying. So, I&rsquo;ve again made an attempt, and hope it works.</p> <p>I was also interested in implementing parts of the <a href="https://schema.org/">Schema standard</a> where relevant, to add even more structured data to my website, and I hope to have successfully managed to add the <a href="https://schema.org/Recipe">Recipe schema</a> for <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/rooms/kitchen/recipes/">my recipes in the Kitchen</a>. I also implemented it for music reviews using the <a href="https://schema.org/MusicRecording">MusicRecording schema</a>, but then decided against in-depth reviews, so removed it. Although I am not sure if I have done this well enough as I&rsquo;m not sure how to test it, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/schema-on-hugo/">I wrote a post here on how I&rsquo;ve tried to implement it</a>.</p> <h3 id="button-wall">Button Wall</h3> <p>In a lot of web revival websites, there is a resurgence of button walls. While I do personally like this, I am concerned how this relates to my desire to stay accessible, as mountains of images, perhaps with flashing and/or low contrasting graphics, does not feel inclusive to all. I could mitigate some of this by enacting code to pause the animation and write my own alt text for each button, but this this still didn&rsquo;t feel right.</p> <p>However, I came across a great idea when browsing the neocities website of a fellow member of my Mastodon instance, <a href="https://fri11s.neocities.org/links/">Frills</a>. She manually made many of the &ldquo;buttons&rdquo; based on colours grabbed from the website linking to and rendering these through text, I loved this approach as it should remove issues with needing alt text as well as all the issues with animation. So I adapted my code to follow a similar method of using text and colours from the website to make a button, and ran all the colours through a checker making sure they at least comply to a &ldquo;AA Normal&rdquo; standard. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/button-wall/">The end result can be found here</a>.</p> <h3 id="other">Other</h3> <p>I&rsquo;ve also added a robots.txt file <a href="https://seirdy.one/robots.txt">copying Seirdy&rsquo;s</a>, in hopes of dissuading unwanted bots, followed Bechno Kid&rsquo;s <a href="https://bechnokid.neocities.org/resources/tut_statuscafefeed">tutorial here</a> on embedding updates from Status Cafe, fleshed out the <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/about-me/">About Me page</a>, and added more information to the <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/">Homepage</a>.</p> <h3 id="buymeacoffee">BuyMeACoffee</h3> <p>Lastly, I am trying out <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jessicajessica">BuyMeACoffee</a> as a way for readers to donate to me if they wish. This is completely optional, but any donations would be greatly appreciated and help towards the hosting and domain fees for the website, as we all hate advertisements!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking-2023-update/ Sun, 24 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking-2023-update/ <p>I&rsquo;m not 100% sure where or when I last left an update on my note taking situation, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything-again/">with this post about reorganising everything again likely being my most recent update</a>, but I thought I ought to make a new post with where I am now, and the findings I&rsquo;ve made trying out some other applications.</p> <h2 id="flatnotes">Flatnotes</h2> <p>I first mentioned Flatnotes in a <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-june-2023/#new-and-shiny">previous Self Hosting update</a>, and wasn&rsquo;t convinced by it. I initially tried it as I liked the idea of having .md files rendered, which made for simple backups without a database, and how this was accessible through a web browser. But my feelings from that self hosting update proved the stay the case, and I found myself not enjoying the format, instead preferring a more structured system and navigation. However, I can see it appealing to others, so it might be worth a go if you want everything flat and organised by tags and searches.</p> <h2 id="memos">Memos</h2> <p>I wrote about Memos in July <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-july-2023/#memos">within another self hosting update post,</a> and although it went against my personal rule of favouring .md files over databases, there were so many features I liked, I really wanted to give it a shot, particularly since I could sync Memos with Logseq as a type of &ldquo;back up&rdquo;.</p> <p>However, the syncing had issues and then when Docker inexplicably one day caused half the containers to fail, I suddenly found myself disconnected from the notes - which of course included all the docker-compose files for those containers.</p> <p>I managed to restore the containers with no data loss, but it was a huge sign that this wasn&rsquo;t worth all the hassle, despite how lovely the app and web interface were, alongside the unique navigation system which worked surprisingly well for me.</p> <h2 id="where-from-here">Where From Here?</h2> <p>Well, my mind of course reverted back to <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq</a> and <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a>, but I was having some issues here as well. For some reason, Obsidian, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything-again/#obsidian">which I was using for notes</a>, wasn&rsquo;t playing nice with Syncthing, and the Notes folder was always marked as &ldquo;Out Of Date&rdquo; for some reason. With Logseq, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything-again/#logseq">the syncing between it and Omnivore</a> also had errors which made no sense and I could not fix. However, I then had an idea, could I swap them around?</p> <h3 id="logseq">Logseq</h3> <p>I began by creating a new graph in Logseq, <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/logseq">installed the Catppuccin theme</a>, and then created index pages to link and organise the notes into faux categories, like this for my &ldquo;Food&rdquo; section:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="l">Index.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">├── Food.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│ ├── Grocery Shopping.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│ ├── Meal Ideas.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│ ├── Food Tips.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│ │ ├── General Food Tips.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│ │ ├── Preservatives.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│ │ └── Sauces.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="l">│ └── Recipe Ideas.md</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>I found I prefer making notes in bullet lists, and so Logseq works well in this regard, though I do still feel that I am not utilising Logseq to its full potential. However, I feel reassured I have the raw MarkDown files which are portable anywhere, and easy to back up and restore, working perfectly with Syncthing to distribute the graph and its files across my devices, and useable on my Android phone through <a href="https://github.com/logseq/logseq/releases">Logseq&rsquo;s app</a>.</p> <h3 id="obsidian">Obsidian</h3> <p>Over on Obsidian, I created a new vault, <a href="https://github.com/omnivore-app/obsidian-omnivore">installed and setup the Omnivore plugin</a>, and also <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/obsidian">added its Catppuccin theme</a>. After a few tweaks, I managed to get the articles synced, and I am happy with the output, where the articles are organised into folders based on dates of when I initially saved the article, and then the article is listed within it with its title, a link to read on Omnivore, a link to read the original, and extracts of highlighted text alongside any notes I wrote. <a href="https://docs.omnivore.app/self-hosting/self-hosting.html">In lieu of a fully self hosted version of Omnivore</a>, I at least feel better using this service with Obsidian backing up vital details, and happy these are all also <a href="https://obsidian.md/mobile">accessible though an Android app</a>.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/schema-on-hugo/ Sun, 24 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/schema-on-hugo/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/another-website-revamp-2023/">While undergoing my website rebuild</a>, I experimented with implementing two standards from <a href="https://schema.org/">Schema.org</a>: <a href="https://schema.org/MusicRecording">MusicRecording</a> and <a href="https://schema.org/Recipe">Recipe</a>. While I decided against including the former, I think explaining how they can be used within a Hugo setup may be helpful for others, so I have attempted a little tutorial here trying to walkthrough how I got the MusicRecording Schema integrated with Hugo, and then show the working code I have for the Recipe standard.</p> <h2 id="why-schemaorg">Why Schema.org?</h2> <p>The schema creates a form of structured data which is understandable by machines, and so for example, recipes can be rendered in other applications or web pages as they can understand the standard, as opposed to inputting the same information outside of the standard and not being able to be included via rich snippets or populating special sections of search engine results.</p> <h2 id="musicrecording">MusicRecording</h2> <p>For me, I wanted to display a few aspects:</p> <ul> <li>Artist Name</li> <li>Album Title</li> <li>Genre</li> <li>Release Date</li> </ul> <p>Doing this requires three parts:</p> <ol> <li>Inputting the information we want to include.</li> <li>Making this information understandable for machines.</li> <li>Making this information visible for readers.</li> </ol> <h3 id="front-matter">Front Matter</h3> <p>This begins by setting parameters within the post&rsquo;s <a href="https://gohugo.io/content-management/front-matter/">front matter</a>:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">title</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Album Title&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">artist</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Artist Name&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">release_date</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="l">YYYY-MM-DD</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">genre</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Genre&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">music</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">true</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>I have also added <code>music: true</code> which will be utilised later to tell Hugo if it should render the following JavaScript in a particular post.</p> <h3 id="javascript">JavaScript</h3> <p>Next, we need to get the Schema working:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-javascript" data-lang="javascript"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="nx">script</span> <span class="nx">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">&#34;application/ld+json&#34;</span><span class="o">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@context&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;http://schema.org&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@type&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;MusicAlbum&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;name&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Title }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;byArtist&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@type&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;MusicGroup&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;name&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.artist }}&#34;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">},</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;datePublished&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Date.Format &#34;</span><span class="mi">2006</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">01</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">02</span><span class="s2">&#34; }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;description&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.description }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;genre&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.genre }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;releaseDate&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.release_date }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="err">/script&gt;</span> </span></span></code></pre></div><p>As you can see, I&rsquo;m using the parameters set in the front matter to populate the JavaScript and the Schema standard through the curly brackets.</p> <h3 id="singlehtml">single.html</h3> <p>The <code>single.html</code> file determines how your posts will be rendered on your Hugo website. You will need to modify it to add the Schema information in, and to render the front matter into the post, if desired.</p> <p>You can create a .js file and then have your <code>single.html</code> import it in, but I had huge issues trying to get this to work, so I decided to include the script directly in the file, as so:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-javascript" data-lang="javascript"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">{{</span> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="nx">isset</span> <span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Params</span> <span class="s2">&#34;music&#34;</span> <span class="p">}}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="nx">script</span> <span class="nx">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">&#34;application/ld+json&#34;</span><span class="o">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@context&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;http://schema.org&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@type&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;MusicAlbum&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;name&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Title }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;byArtist&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@type&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;MusicGroup&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;name&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.artist }}&#34;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">},</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;datePublished&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Date.Format &#34;</span><span class="mi">2006</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">01</span><span class="o">-</span><span class="mi">02</span><span class="s2">&#34; }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;description&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.description }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;genre&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.genre }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;releaseDate&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.release_date }}&#34;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="err">/script&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">{{</span> <span class="nx">end</span> <span class="p">}}</span> </span></span></code></pre></div><p>Through <code>{{ if isset .Params &quot;music&quot; }}</code>, I set it so if the post has the parameter of &ldquo;music&rdquo; set to &ldquo;true&rdquo;, then it would load the script. If &ldquo;music&rdquo; is not set to &ldquo;true&rdquo;, the code will not load.</p> <h3 id="rendering">Rendering</h3> <p>We can modify the <code>single.html</code> further thought to display the parameters we set for the reader to see. This is more of a HTML/CSS thing, and depends on how you want your website to look, but here is how I setup mine quite basically:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-html" data-lang="html"><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ if isset .Params &#34;music&#34; }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;music&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">span</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;artist&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>{{ .Params.artist }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">span</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Released: {{ .Params.release_date | dateFormat &#34;2006&#34; }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Genres: {{ .Params.genre }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Rating: {{ .Params.rating }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ end }} </span></span></code></pre></div><p>As you can see, I used multiple curly brackets, relating back to the parameters previously set, into HTML, but again, only if the &ldquo;music&rdquo; parameter is set to &ldquo;true&rdquo;.</p> <p>The end result is that I can type out a review of a music album as normal in any markdown editor, and it renders underneath this custom HTML within the <code>{{ .Content }}</code> section in the <code>single.html</code> file.</p> <h2 id="recipe">Recipe</h2> <p>The process is quite similar again for Recipe, and I assume for any other standards found on the Schema website, but I will quickly run through my Recipe setup that is being used currently on the website, which includes the following pieces of information:</p> <ul> <li>Ingredients</li> <li>Instructions</li> <li>Yield</li> <li>Description</li> </ul> <p>I also wanted to include difficulty and a rough time, which I did, but these are outside of the standard and so would not be understood by machines.</p> <p>I should also add that the <a href="https://schema.org/Recipe">Recipe standard is extensive</a>, and if you wish to run a fully featured recipe website with precise prepare, cook, and total times, as well as provide nutritional information, I recommend adapting the following code to include these aspects.</p> <h3 id="front-matter-1">Front Matter</h3> <p>Combining my own custom parameters with those applicable to the Schema standard, the relevant front matter for <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/peanut-butter-cookies/">my Peanut Butter Cookie recipe</a> looks like this:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">title</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Peanut Butter Cookies&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">recipe</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">true</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">description</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;This very simple recipe makes thirty-six small cookies!&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">ingredients</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;150g Vegetable Margarine&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;100g Smooth Peanut Butter&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;200g Soft Brown Sugar&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;200g Plain Flour&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">instructions</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;Step 1: Preheat to 180° Celsius in a conventional oven, or 160° Celsius in a fan oven.&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;Step 2: Mix everything together in a bowl, forming a dough.&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;Step 3: Create thirty-six small balls and place them on prepared baking trays.&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;Step 4: Bake for around eleven minutes or until golden brown.&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span>- <span class="s2">&#34;Step 5: They will still be soft when you take them out of the oven, so leave them to rest for a few minutes as they harden up before eating.&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">recipeYield</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Thirty-Six Small Cookies&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">difficulty</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Simple&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">time</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s2">&#34;Short&#34;</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p><code>title</code> is standard to Hugo, <code>difficulty</code> and <code>time</code> are custom made by me, and <code>recipe: true</code> is used later to determine if the corresponding JavaScript will be loaded, but all other parameters here fit Schema&rsquo;s Recipe standard, and the entire recipe is entered via the front matter.</p> <h3 id="javascript-1">JavaScript</h3> <p>The JavaScript in my <code>single.html</code> file looks like this:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-javascript" data-lang="javascript"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">{{</span> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="nx">isset</span> <span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Params</span> <span class="s2">&#34;recipe&#34;</span> <span class="p">}}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="nx">script</span> <span class="nx">type</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">&#34;application/ld+json&#34;</span><span class="o">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@context&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;http://schema.org&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;@type&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;Recipe&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;name&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Title }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;description&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.description }}&#34;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;recipeIngredient&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="p">{{</span> <span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Params</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">ingredients</span> <span class="o">|</span> <span class="nx">jsonify</span> <span class="p">}},</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;recipeInstructions&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="p">{{</span> <span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">Params</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">instructions</span> <span class="o">|</span> <span class="nx">jsonify</span> <span class="p">}},</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s2">&#34;recipeYield&#34;</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s2">&#34;{{ .Params.recipeYield }}&#34;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="err">/script&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">{{</span> <span class="nx">end</span> <span class="p">}}</span> </span></span></code></pre></div><h3 id="rendering-1">Rendering</h3> <p>And here is the relevant HTML in the <code>single.html</code> file to render the parameters:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-html" data-lang="html"><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ if isset .Params &#34;recipe&#34; }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;recipe&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Yield: {{ .Params.recipeYield }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Difficulty: {{ .Params.difficulty }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Time: {{ .Params.time }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ end }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">[...] </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ if isset .Params &#34;recipe&#34; }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">blockquote</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>{{ .Params.description }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">blockquote</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;ingredients&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">h4</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>Ingredients:<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">h4</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ with .Params.ingredients }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ range . }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>{{ . }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ end }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ end }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">div</span> <span class="na">class</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">&#34;instructions&#34;</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ with .Params.instructions }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ range . }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span>{{ . }}<span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">li</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ end }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> {{ end }} </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">ul</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">div</span><span class="p">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">{{ end }} </span></span></code></pre></div> https://jessicajournals.com/glitch/ Thu, 21 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/glitch/ <p>Glitch was a browser based video game launched in 2011 and closed in 2012. The game featured activities such as completing quests, growing plants and cooking food, and there was a levelling up system in place where skills were gained, upgrades earned, and achievements to aspire towards. There was also a trading aspect, where products grown or crafted could be sold for currants, the currency of Glitch. I was a BETA tester of Glitch joining September 2011, and enjoyed my short time there, getting 313 achievements,102 skills, and 101 upgrades.</p> <p>Thankfully, despite closing over ten years ago, the website is still up as a type of memorial, with the <a href="https://www.glitchthegame.com/encyclopedia/">encyclopedia</a>, <a href="https://www.glitchthegame.com/friends/search/">user profiles</a>, and <a href="https://www.glitchthegame.com/public-domain-game-art/">game files</a> freely available to access. To get a sense of what Glitch was like, <a href="https://www.glitchthegame.com/snaps/recent/">I suggest scrolling through the images uploaded to this &ldquo;Snaps&rdquo; section</a>.</p> <p>Due to making most resources of Glitch becoming public domain, there are a few forks/remakes which aim to keep the game alive. Notable ones are <a href="https://www2.childrenofur.com/">Children of Ur</a>, <a href="http://www.elevengiants.com/">Eleven</a>, and <a href="https://www.oddgiants.com/">Odd Giants</a>. Although I have not played any of them, Odd Giants appears to be regular updated and is sustained through Patreon, and I may one day try it out.</p> <p>Below, for preservation purposes, I have copied over details of my avatar I used to play Glitch with, as well as some saved pictures.</p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Glitch/c15481ec6ba1aa5d0dd208882f82e349_1353063894_172.png" alt=""> <figcaption>A screenshot of my most recent avatar. A cartoon of a white woman walking towards the left, and seen from her left side. She has orange/blonde hair up in a ponytail with a pink headband which has a pink and blue fabric flower attached to it. She wears black shoes, black-and-white checkerboard stockings, a dark teal skirt which is longer at the back, a green shirt with black vest on top, a purple and black plaid jacket, and a polka dot bowtie in purple and blue.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Glitch/431f749f3e4a87b0e631c4acc21febf9_1313278576_172.png" alt=""> <figcaption>An older screenshot of my avatar. A cartoon of a white woman walking towards the left, and seen from her left side. She has orange/blonde hair up in a ponytail. She wears black sandals with multicoloured striped stockings, a long tiered horizontally striped rainbow dress, and a blue undershirt with long sleeves and orange binding.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Glitch/6fb121c7efce38c782dcdfd5c1670c09_1353063367_172.png" alt=""> <figcaption>An even older screenshot of my avatar. A cartoon of a white woman walking towards the left, and seen from her left side. She has orange/blonde hair up in a ponytail, but is obscured slightly by a cardboard box worn as a hat, with a metal antenna poking out the top, akin to ones found on older television sets. She wears a costume of a vintage light blue train with cream accents and dark red wheels.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/Glitch/LHV3UG1OIP03T08_1353022611.jpg" alt=""> <figcaption>A screenshot of my cartoon home and garden. It is set in a forest with tall pine-like trees, with a sunset and mountains in the distance. There are various objects in the garden, including a Firefly Swarm, 3 Jellisac Growths, 3 Mortar Barnacles, a Peat Bog, a Dirt Pile, 15 Herb Garden plots, and 15 Crop Garden plots. There is also a house, which looks like a the face of a brown pug dog wearing sunglasses, wearing a sandwich as a hat, and has its mouth open with a long tongue as the entrance.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <hr> <h2 id="statistics">Statistics</h2> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="skills">Skills</h3> <ul> <li>Potionmaking III</li> <li>Nudgery I</li> <li>Transcendental Radiation II</li> <li>Furnituremaking II</li> <li>Metalworking</li> <li>Fiber Arts II</li> <li>Fiber Arts I</li> <li>Fox Brushing</li> <li>Woodworking</li> <li>Furnituremaking I</li> <li>Mining IV</li> <li>Mining IV</li> <li>Arborology V</li> <li>Tinkering V</li> <li>Mining III</li> <li>Bureaucratic Arts II</li> <li>Herbalism III</li> <li>Potionmaking II</li> <li>Piety I</li> <li>Martial Imagination</li> <li>Levitation</li> <li>Meditative Arts III</li> <li>Potionmaking I</li> <li>Tincturing</li> <li>Distilling</li> <li>Blockmaking</li> <li>Tinkering IV</li> <li>Fuelmaking</li> <li>Alchemy II</li> <li>Engineering I</li> <li>Smelting</li> <li>Focused Meditation</li> <li>Transcendental Radiation I</li> <li>Refining II</li> <li>Teleportation V</li> <li>Teleportation IV</li> <li>Botany</li> <li>Herbalism II</li> <li>Intermediate Admixing</li> <li>Soil Appreciation V</li> <li>Arborology IV</li> <li>Tinkering III</li> <li>Penpersonship I</li> <li>Soil Appreciation IV</li> <li>Animal Kinship VII</li> <li>Croppery III</li> <li>Herbalism I</li> <li>Bog Specialization</li> <li>Master Chef II</li> <li>Croppery II</li> <li>Crystallography I</li> <li>Jellisac Hands</li> <li>Eyeballery</li> <li>Cocktail Crafting II</li> <li>Croppery I</li> <li>Teleportation III</li> <li>Remote Herdkeeping</li> <li>Animal Kinship VI</li> <li>Animal Kinship V</li> <li>Herdkeeping</li> <li>Soil Appreciation III</li> <li>Arborology III</li> <li>Animal Husbandry</li> <li>Grilling II</li> <li>Teleportation II</li> <li>Blending II</li> <li>Refining I</li> <li>Alchemy I</li> <li>Tinkering II</li> <li>Light Green Thumb III</li> <li>Teleportation I</li> <li>Saucery II</li> <li>Cocktail Crafting I</li> <li>Arborology II</li> <li>Animal Kinship IV</li> <li>Meditative Arts II</li> <li>Master Chef I</li> <li>Saucery I</li> <li>Cheffery III</li> <li>Cheffery II</li> <li>Grilling I</li> <li>Meditative Arts I</li> <li>EZ Cooking II</li> <li>Animal Kinship III</li> <li>Arborology I</li> <li>Mining II</li> <li>Soil Appreciation II</li> <li>Gasmogrification</li> <li>Bubble Tuning</li> <li>Spice Milling</li> <li>Fruit Changing</li> <li>Element Handling</li> <li>Light Green Thumb II</li> <li>Bureaucratic Arts I</li> <li>Mining I</li> <li>Blending I</li> <li>Tinkering I</li> <li>Cheffery I</li> <li>Animal Kinship II</li> <li>Soil Appreciation I</li> <li>EZ Cooking I</li> <li>Light Green Thumb I</li> <li>Animal Kinship I</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="upgrades">Upgrades</h3> <ul> <li>Better Blockmaker</li> <li>Overachiever I</li> <li>Fit for a King Ill</li> <li>Bristling Bonus</li> <li>Potato Hoocher</li> <li>Fit for a King II</li> <li>Gassier Harvest</li> <li>Fit for a King I</li> <li>Get Out of Hell Free Card</li> <li>Strong Smelter</li> <li>Making Metal</li> <li>Add 0.20 To Your Quoin</li> <li>Multiplier</li> <li>Energy Tank + 20</li> <li>Creative Blending</li> <li>Bonus Tool From Spare Parts</li> <li>Tree Hugger III</li> <li>Get Out of Hell Free Card</li> <li>Get Out of Hell Free Card</li> <li>Manic Mining II</li> <li>Levitate Longer</li> <li>Twinsies II</li> <li>Peaty Expectations</li> <li>Beaker Genius</li> <li>Grain Hoocher</li> <li>Spellbound Spindle</li> <li>Rube&rsquo;s Favorite</li> <li>Cooking Learning Speed IV</li> <li>Wondrous Weave</li> <li>Add 0.10 To Your Quoin Multiplier</li> <li>Tree Hugger II</li> <li>Alchemy Learning Speed IV</li> <li>Heavy Petting</li> <li>Happy Herd</li> <li>Super Elemental Shake</li> <li>Unlearning Ability</li> <li>Energy Tank +50</li> <li>Super Refinery</li> <li>Tinker Time</li> <li>Harvesting Fool</li> <li>Bubble-licious</li> <li>Sharper Blades</li> <li>Barnacular Drops</li> <li>Tempered Steel</li> <li>Energy Tank +100</li> <li>Industrial Learning Speed IV</li> <li>Levitate with Style</li> <li>Fuel Efficiency</li> <li>Resilient Grill</li> <li>Add 0.50 To Your Quoin</li> <li>Multiplier</li> <li>Master Assembler</li> <li>Bigger Crop Bonus</li> <li>Transcendental Radius I</li> <li>Add 0.20 To Your Quoin Multiplier</li> <li>Corn Hoocher</li> <li>Big Crop Bonus</li> <li>Stronger, Saucier Pan</li> <li>Potent Potions</li> <li>Elemental Shake</li> <li>Beaker Geek</li> <li>Special Herbs</li> <li>Refinery</li> <li>Happy Animals</li> <li>Seedy Powers</li> <li>Twinsies I</li> <li>Metal Rock Expert</li> <li>Hoe Down</li> <li>Overachiever I</li> <li>Compound Interest</li> <li>Spicy Times</li> <li>Tree Hugger I</li> <li>Manic Mining I</li> <li>Animal Learning Speed I</li> <li>Intellectual Learning Speed III</li> <li>Industrial Learning Speed III</li> <li>Alchemy Learning Speed II</li> <li>Animal Learning Speed I</li> <li>Gathering Learning Speed III</li> <li>Growing Learning Speed III</li> <li>Increase your Brain Capacity by 4</li> <li>Cooking Learning Speed III</li> <li>Animal Learning Speed III</li> <li>Intellectual Learning Speed I</li> <li>Alchemy Learning Speed I</li> <li>Snapshottery</li> <li>Alchemy Learning Speed III</li> <li>Increase your Brain Capacity by 5</li> <li>Industrial Learning Speed I</li> <li>Increase your Brain Capacity by 4</li> <li>Intellectual Learning Speed II</li> <li>Gathering Learning Speed I</li> <li>Increase your Brain Capacity by 3</li> <li>Industrial Learning Speed I</li> <li>Gathering Learning Speed II</li> <li>Growing Learning Speed I</li> <li>Growing Learning Speed II</li> <li>Cooking Learning Speed II</li> <li>Cooking Learning Speed I</li> <li>Increase your Brain Capacity by 1</li> <li>Add 4.20 To Your Quoin Multiplier</li> <li>Energy Tank +520</li> <li>Walk Speed I</li> <li>Walk Speed II</li> <li>Walk Speed III</li> <li>High Jumper I</li> <li>High Jumper II</li> <li>Baby Triple Jump</li> </ul> </div> <div class="finch-card"> <h3 id="achivements">Achivements</h3> <ul> <li>Junior OK Explorer</li> <li>Senior OK Explorer</li> <li>Rambler, Third Class</li> <li>Rambler, Second Class</li> <li>Rambler, First Class</li> <li>Wanderer</li> <li>World-Class Traveler</li> <li>Beginner Decoctifier</li> <li>Chowhound</li> <li>Junior Dough Puncher</li> <li>Senior Dough Puncher</li> <li>Seasoned Scullery Sleuth</li> <li>Able Chopper</li> <li>Fine Mincer</li> <li>Nice Dicer</li> <li>Silver Cleaver Award</li> <li>Master Whacker</li> <li>Decent Hash Slinger</li> <li>Pretty Good Griddler</li> <li>Grease Monkey</li> <li>Saute Savant</li> <li>Sizzler Supreme</li> <li>Butterfly Whisperer</li> <li>Brazier Apprentice</li> <li>Grill Jockey</li> <li>Master Carbonifier</li> <li>Killer Griller</li> <li>Broil King</li> <li>Rolling Boiler</li> <li>Roux Guru</li> <li>Gravy Maven</li> <li>Super Saucier</li> <li>A-1 Saucier</li> <li>1-Star Cuisinartist</li> <li>2-Star Cuisinartist</li> <li>3-Star Cuisinartist</li> <li>4-Star Cuisinartist</li> <li>5-Star Cuisinartist</li> <li>Golden Ladle Award</li> <li>Dedicated Meataterian</li> <li>Hardcore Carnivore</li> <li>Silver Gristle Award</li> <li>Eggy Wegger</li> <li>Local Yolkel</li> <li>Gastro-gnome</li> <li>Glutton for Nourishment</li> <li>Bonbon Vivant</li> <li>Noted Epicure</li> <li>Promising Lush</li> <li>Hollow Leg Award</li> <li>Certified Boozehound</li> <li>Superior Mixologist</li> <li>Middling Mixologist</li> <li>Mediocre Mixologist</li> <li>Blendmaster</li> <li>High Speed Commingler</li> <li>Pulse, Frappe, Mix &amp; Blend</li> <li>Gem Collector</li> <li>Bubble Collector</li> <li>Musicblock DB Collector</li> <li>Musicblock DG Collector</li> <li>Musicblock DR Collector</li> <li>Musicblock XS Collector</li> <li>Gas Collector</li> <li>Spice Collector</li> <li>Fruit Collector</li> <li>Spice Examiner</li> <li>Mad Gasser</li> <li>First Emblem of Alph</li> <li>First Emblem of Cosma</li> <li>First Emblem of Friendly</li> <li>First Emblem of Grendaline</li> <li>First Emblem of Humbaba</li> <li>First Emblem of Lem</li> <li>First Emblem of Mab</li> <li>First Emblem of Pot</li> <li>First Emblem of Spriggan</li> <li>First Emblem of Tii</li> <li>First Emblem of Zille</li> <li>Super-Sized Sycophant</li> <li>Piggy Nibbler</li> <li>Pork Fondler</li> <li>Swine Snuggler</li> <li>Hoochmeister</li> <li>Aftershock Award</li> <li>Firetongue Award</li> <li>Nervous Belch Award</li> <li>Protein Time!!!</li> <li>Cheesemongerer</li> <li>Basic Bean-Grower</li> <li>Whiz-Bang Plantifier</li> <li>So-So Sower</li> <li>Amateur Agronomist</li> <li>Not-So-Grim Reaper</li> <li>Ace Propagationist</li> <li>Mulcher</li> <li>Better-Than-Average Mulcher</li> <li>Novice Precipitator</li> <li>Second-Rate Rainmaker</li> <li>First-Rate Rainmaker</li> <li>H2Oh! Award</li> <li>Superior Irrigationist</li> <li>Golden Watering Can</li> <li>OK Hewer</li> <li>Creditable Delver</li> <li>Serious Scrabbler</li> <li>Master Blaster</li> <li>Pennypincher</li> <li>Moneybags</li> <li>Lovable Skinflint</li> <li>Fine Friend</li> <li>Good Buddy</li> <li>Jolly Good Chap</li> <li>Gumflapper</li> <li>Chatterbox</li> <li>Competent Windbag</li> <li>Decent Citizen</li> <li>Pretty Good Samaritan</li> <li>Noble Philanthropizer</li> <li>Un-Confounded Compounder</li> <li>Really Un-Confounded Compounder</li> <li>Fertilivert</li> <li>Dragon Chaser</li> <li>Entry-Level Admixificator</li> <li>Mid-Level Admixificator</li> <li>Apprentice Lepidopteral Manipulator</li> <li>Practical Lepidopteral Manipulator</li> <li>Master Lepidopteral Manipulator</li> <li>Basic Larva Lover</li> <li>Intermediate Larva Lover</li> <li>All Right Hatcher</li> <li>Best Nester</li> <li>Hen Hugger</li> <li>Hen Hugger Deluxe</li> <li>Hen Hugger Supremalicious</li> <li>The Hugginator</li> <li>Bacon Biter</li> <li>Ham Hocker</li> <li>Pork Petter Extraordinaire</li> <li>3rd Rate Piggy Hash Slinger</li> <li>2nd Rate Piggy Hash Slinger</li> <li>Bubble Tea Aficionado</li> <li>Bubble Coaxer</li> <li>Novice Fruit Metamorphosizer</li> <li>Spice Intern</li> <li>Gas Dabbler</li> <li>Effervescence Consultant</li> <li>Intermediate Fruit Metamorphosizer</li> <li>Assistant Spice Manager</li> <li>Executive in Charge of Spice Reformatation</li> <li>Participant Award - Bean Division</li> <li>Egg Enthusiast</li> <li>Good Bubble Farmer</li> <li>Entry-Level Fruit Tree Harvester</li> <li>Novice Spice Collector</li> <li>Occasional Gas Fancier</li> <li>Bean Counter</li> <li>Egg Poacher</li> <li>Better Bubble Farmer</li> <li>Mid-Management Fruit Tree Harvester</li> <li>Intermediate Spice Collector</li> <li>Hobbyist Gas Fancier</li> <li>Bean Counter Pro</li> <li>Egg Aficionado</li> <li>Second-Best Bubble Farmer</li> <li>Overpaid Executive Fruit Tree Harvester</li> <li>Advanced Spice Collector</li> <li>Dedicated Gas Fancier</li> <li>Master Overlord of the Spice Dominion</li> <li>OK-But-Needs-Improvement Tree Hugger</li> <li>Amateur Bean Tree Fondler</li> <li>Egg Plant Coddler</li> <li>Rookie Bubble Tree Cuddler</li> <li>Newbie Fruit Tree Pettifier</li> <li>Tentative Petter</li> <li>Sprout Stroker</li> <li>Decent Tree Hugger</li> <li>Not-Quite-Pro Bean Tree Fondler</li> <li>Supreme Egg Plant Coddler</li> <li>Mid-Level Bubble Tree Cuddler</li> <li>Better-Than-Mediocre Fruit Tree Pettifier</li> <li>Confident Petter</li> <li>Bush Whacker</li> <li>Getting-There Tree Hugger</li> <li>Professional Bean Tree Fondler</li> <li>Chief Bubble Tree Cuddler</li> <li>Masterful Fruit Tree Pettifier</li> <li>Heavy Petter</li> <li>Shrub Snuggler</li> <li>Extremely Promising Tree Hugger</li> <li>Definitely-Much-Better Tree Hugger</li> <li>Finally-Pretty-Good Tree Hugger</li> <li>Rainmaking Noob</li> <li>Junior Irrigationist</li> <li>Water Wings</li> <li>OK Soaker</li> <li>Beginner Drizzler</li> <li>Little Squirt</li> <li>Better-Than-Lousy Douser</li> <li>About Average Irrigationist</li> <li>Senor Sprinkles</li> <li>Super Soaker</li> <li>Big Splasher</li> <li>Wet William</li> <li>The Dampinator</li> <li>The Saturator</li> <li>Super Duper Soaker</li> <li>The Hydrophile</li> <li>Mayor of Sprayerville</li> <li>Fledgling Crest Collector</li> <li>Significant Insignia Collector</li> <li>Novice Novitiate</li> <li>So-So Supplicator</li> <li>Major Player</li> <li>Minor Refiner, Green Class</li> <li>Fine Refiner, Green Class</li> <li>Pretty Fine Refiner, Green Class</li> <li>Minor Refiner, Blue Class</li> <li>Fine Refiner, Blue Class</li> <li>Pretty Fine Refiner, Blue Class</li> <li>Minor Refiner, Red Class</li> <li>Fine Refiner, Red Class</li> <li>Pretty Fine Refiner, Red Class</li> <li>Exceptionally Fine Refiner, Red Class</li> <li>Minor Refiner, Shiny Class</li> <li>Fine Refiner, Shiny Class</li> <li>Pretty Fine Refiner, Shiny Class</li> <li>Stalker, Non-Creepy Designation</li> <li>Glitch Train</li> <li>Tinker Trainee, Kitchen Division</li> <li>Assistant to the Mending Manager, Kitchen Division</li> <li>Executive Flunky, Tinkering Ops</li> <li>Chief of Tinkering Operations</li> <li>Special Agent, Tinkering Ops</li> <li>Homesteader</li> <li>Big Spender</li> <li>El Big Spenderino</li> <li>Moneybags Magoo</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Alph</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Cosma</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Friendly</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Grendaline</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Humbaba</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Lem</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Mab</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Pot</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Spriggan</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Tii</li> <li>Spent First Emblem of Zille</li> <li>Emblems Trophy</li> <li>Firefly Whistling</li> <li>Card-Carrying Qualification</li> <li>You Have Papers!</li> <li>Musicblock BB Collector</li> <li>Starter for Tinsmithery</li> <li>Bounder, Untenured</li> <li>Leapist</li> <li>Groddle Forest Completist</li> <li>Groddle Meadow Completist</li> <li>Shimla Mirch Completist</li> <li>Chakra Phool Completist</li> <li>Jethimadh Completist</li> <li>Alakol Completist</li> <li>Bortola Completist</li> <li>Ilmenskie Caverns Completist</li> <li>Ilmenskie Deeps Completist</li> <li>Uralia Completist</li> <li>Kajuu Completist</li> <li>Andra Completist</li> <li>Baqala Completist</li> <li>Zhambu Completist</li> <li>Choru Completist</li> <li>Amateur Decrustifier</li> <li>Decrustifying Enthusiast</li> <li>Semi-Pro Decrustifier</li> <li>Slime Harvester</li> <li>Re-Peater</li> <li>Wood Wacker</li> <li>Interested Party</li> <li>Subwayfarer</li> <li>Unlicensed Teleporter (G Class)</li> <li>Twinkle-Toed Trap Triggerer</li> <li>Haughty Culturist</li> <li>Mixed Herbalist</li> <li>Aggressive Agrarian</li> <li>Ix Completist</li> <li>Ascended</li> <li>Beta Cherub</li> <li>Beta Seraph</li> <li>Beta Ophan</li> <li>Xalanga Completist</li> <li>Kalavana Completist</li> <li>Muufo Completist</li> <li>Tamila Completist</li> <li>Besara Completist</li> <li>Salatu Completist</li> <li>Pollokoo Completist</li> <li>Callopee Completist</li> <li>Aranna Completist</li> <li>Pumpkin Carver</li> <li>Candy Muncher</li> <li>Candy Snaffler</li> <li>Mini Tricksy-Treater</li> <li>Minor Tricksy-Treater</li> <li>Major Tricksy-Treater</li> <li>Naraka Completist</li> <li>Moonshiner</li> <li>Rumrunner</li> <li>Licensed To Brush Foxes</li> <li>Humble Bragger</li> <li>Self-sufficientiser</li> <li>First Eleven</li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/communication/ Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/communication/ <p>This is my attempt at &ldquo;<a href="https://pronouns.cc">pronoun pages</a>&rdquo; which can be found online. It will list the language I would like people to use when communicating with me.</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Names</th> <th>Pronouns</th> <th>Descriptions</th> <th>Honorifics</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><strong>Preferable:</strong> Jessica</td> <td><strong>Preferable:</strong> She/Her</td> <td><strong>Preferable:</strong> Woman</td> <td><strong>Preferable:</strong> [none]</td> </tr> <tr> <td><strong>Acceptable:</strong> Jess</td> <td></td> <td><strong>Preferable:</strong> Person</td> <td><strong>Acceptable:</strong> Ms.</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td></td> <td><strong>Preferable:</strong> Friend</td> <td><strong>Acceptable:</strong> Comrade</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td></td> <td><strong>Acceptable:</strong> Dude</td> <td><strong>Dislikes:</strong> Miss</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td><strong>Dislikes:</strong> Ma&rsquo;am</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> https://jessicajournals.com/assorted-technological-resources/ Thu, 14 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/assorted-technological-resources/ <p>Some links to resources about technology I have found interesting and useful.</p> <h2 id="hardware">Hardware</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://pcpartpicker.com/">PCPartPicker</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.logicalincrements.com/">Logical Increments</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="macos">MacOS</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://dosdude1.com/software.html">dosdude1&rsquo;s Personal Web Server</a></li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-resources/ Thu, 14 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-resources/ <p>Links to interesting stuff I&rsquo;ve found in my time about self-hosting!</p> <h2 id="general">General</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted/blob/master/README.md">awesome-selfhosted</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/mikeroyal/Self-Hosting-Guide">Self-Hosting-Guide</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="platforms">Platforms</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://yunohost.org/">YunoHost</a></li> <li><a href="https://homelabos.com/">HomelabOS</a></li> <li><a href="https://cloudbox.works/">Cloudbox</a></li> <li><a href="https://sandstorm.io/">Sandstorm</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.pikapods.com/">PikaPods</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="portainer">Portainer</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://docs.portainer.io/start/install-ce">Install Portainer CE</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/Lissy93/portainer-templates">400+ 1-click Portainer app templates</a></li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/manifesto/ Mon, 04 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/manifesto/ <p>In this post, I&rsquo;ll elaborate on the thinking behind the recent website revamp, and stating more explicitly the theory and principles which influenced my decisions in how the website should function and why. As such, it is a post less on the technical side of things, and more on the philosophy.</p> <h2 id="a-manifesto">A Manifesto?</h2> <p>Yes, I initially found the wording of such a post a little peculiar, however, after seeing many use the term, I decided to adopt it for this post too: a statement of intent.</p> <p>Here are similar documents some I&rsquo;ve come across:</p> <p><a href="https://seirdy.one/meta/site-design/">Site design standards</a>, <a href="https://maya.land/internet/">the internet</a>, <a href="https://solaria.neocities.org/manifesto">Manifesto</a>, <a href="https://sadgrl.online/cyberspace/internet-manifesto">Internet manifesto</a>, <a href="https://bechnokid.neocities.org/about/manifesto">Manifesto</a>, <a href="https://l-chan.neocities.org/manifesto">My Manifesto</a>, and <a href="https://charinusraps.neocities.org/pages/writing/articles/2023-07-11-Manifesto">We Are Not At A Crossroads</a>.</p> <p>I also think this critique of such manifestos is also worth reading: <a href="https://hellokittygirl.neocities.org/articles/manifestothoughts">my thoughts on neocities manifestos</a>.</p> <h2 id="content">Content</h2> <p>In this section, I&rsquo;ll be focused on the content of my website and what I hope it achieves and represents, because the content is at the heart of any website. It does not matter how a website looks or behaves if there is poor quality content once the user accesses it.</p> <h3 id="learning-in-public">Learning In Public</h3> <p>When I was looking into digital gardens, one narrative stood out: <a href="https://www.swyx.io/learn-in-public">Learning In Public</a>. That being that we should be sharing our progress on whatever it is we do, because it helps us and helps others. For me personally, I&rsquo;ve been trying to do this as a means to battle my perfectionism, make mistakes and change course in public, and realise nothing bad happens as a result.</p> <p>As such, this is the main ethos I would like my content to represent, how I write about things changing, my thinking about these changes, and possibilities next. My posts are partly logs, and partly an article.</p> <h3 id="user-experience">User Experience</h3> <p>I&rsquo;ll go into this a bit more in the Accessibility section, but as something which affects all my visitors, I want to have a user experience which can be considered as pleasant. I don&rsquo;t want them to have to worry about slow pages or if their data will be eaten up. I don&rsquo;t want the content to be degraded by obnoxious pop-ups, annoying adverts, or the content just being nonsensical through SEO bloat.</p> <p>The first part is more technical, but I do think it is also philosophical as it is something I am seeing people - good and nice people on the Web Revival boat, choosing to create websites which are slow and eat up data with little to no consideration of the user. These are often off-set with declarations that &ldquo;this is my website for me to express myself&rdquo; and that &ldquo;my website was made for me and not you&rdquo;.</p> <p>I understand such sentiments, but do worry not only about the accessibility aspect I will discuss in the next section, but about a mentality that an exclusionary web is fine, and it&rsquo;s okay to exclude some people as long as the web administrator is happy. It&rsquo;s not a stance I am personally content with, and would feel saddened if a user had such a poor experience on my website that they were unable to access my content.</p> <p>The next point goes to essentially capitalism. SEO bloat creating poor content to make you click on a page which will then load up a bunch of adverts and a pop-up begging you to sign up to the newsletter so you will be notified when new content is out so you can back to the website to see more adverts. Me saying this is nothing groundbreaking or interesting, but I wanted to clearly state my distain for such websites, and how these websites are ruining the user experience browsing the internet. No one likes these websites, and yet we have to put up with them. Because money.</p> <p>Even if you do install an ad-block, and I also highly recommend setting up a custom DNS if you are able (mine is an absolute life changer), that does little to the pollution of websites creating poor quality content to trick search engines to displaying their websites higher up the results. It often feels like the best place to actually find answers, advice and information these days is sadly on Reddit, which brings me to&hellip;</p> <h3 id="closed-silos">Closed Silos</h3> <p>My content is here on this website. I also have a <a href="https://cutie.city/@jessica">Mastodon account</a> where I talk more casually, and a <a href="https://status.cafe/users/jessica">Status Cafe</a> where I post quick updates on my life.</p> <p>My content is not behind a barrier, such as a Facebook page which requires you to login to see more information, nor hidden away somewhere like Discord where you again have to join the server to access the data. Reddit has great content, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Reddit_API_controversy">but the recent changes to API access and the removal of moderators from their own communities by staff</a>, have shown how this content was never ours to begin with. The keys to the data are being held by someone else, and they can restrict and cut off access as they please.</p> <p>I am personally annoyed at how my favourite applications will eventually stop working with Reddit due to API changes, but I am more annoyed at how the website with the most &ldquo;real&rdquo; content on the internet is at risk of disappearing.</p> <p>This website may one day vanish. I host it via <a href="https://uberspace.de/en/">UberSpace</a>, and if they do not get paid, the website gets deleted, though I could looks into archival methods so the website will live on via somewhere like the <a href="http://wayback.archive.org/">WayBack Machine</a>. However, I write almost all of the website in Markdown, and I have been able to re-write this website a few times now, but all the content has been able to move pretty easily between the versions as those .md files rarely need changing. I can pretty much take these small files anywhere with me and republish elsewhere with little difficulty. Thus, I do not see my content as being stuck in one place, which is important to me.</p> <p>Furthermore, I have an <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/index.xml">RSS feed</a> which automatically updates whenever the website does, which means my content can be viewed outside of my website and via an RSS reader of your choice instead, truly existing outside of any silo.</p> <p>Lastly, I also want to break silos even more by embodying a <a href="https://thoughts.melonking.net/thoughts/every-site-needs-a-links-page-why-linking-matters">movement where it is encouraged to keep interlinking across the internet and not have your website be a dead end</a>. I want my posts to have <a href="https://manuelmoreale.com/i-hate-internal-linking">many links for your to read or follow up from</a>, and I also want you to know about websites I like and people I&rsquo;ve found interesting.</p> <h3 id="expression">Expression</h3> <p>Finally in this section, I&rsquo;ll be boring and state that my content is an expression of who I am. I intend to write to be informative, hoping someone somewhere stumbles across something I&rsquo;ve linked to or said, and find that help them in their life. However, that content has to first be relevant to me, and I won&rsquo;t be writing about stuff I don&rsquo;t care about.</p> <h2 id="accessibility">Accessibility</h2> <p>I take accessibility seriously. I never used to, but after spending time with people who experience the web differently, I realised how important it was to make my website become more inclusive. <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/seesboy/719933727206227968">As best put here</a>, &ldquo;an inaccessible web is not a free web&rdquo;, and while fighting the good fight against Web 3.0 and corporations is neat and all with our handmade unique websites, how effective are they if we leave people behind due to our design decisions?</p> <h3 id="colours">Colours</h3> <p>Although I knew I wanted to lean into the <a href="https://rosepinetheme.com/palette/">Rosé Pine palette</a>, I had to make sure the combinations I used, and in what ways, met at least <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) AA Normal</a>, and I used <a href="https://colourcontrast.cc/">Colour Contrast Checker</a> to help check these. I also did this with the other themes I later added. If I do have a combination below these standards, please let me know via Mastodon.</p> <p>Having an appropriate colour contrast is important as if the contrast is poor, it may be excluding people with some visual impairments. <a href="https://www.whocanuse.com/">WhoCanUse</a> has examples of how certain colour combinations may appear to people with certain impairments. Plus, accessible colour contrast can be fun, <a href="https://randoma11y.com/">RandomA11y</a> has many bright and colourful ideas.</p> <h3 id="access">Access</h3> <p>I wanted the website to be accessible, literally able to access, on mobile devices, screens with various display sizes, and functional via using zoom. Sadly, I&rsquo;ve seen Web Revival websites which break when zoomed in or on mobile devices, or even in smaller desktop window sizes. This is a problem not just for accessibility, where some may need to make text larger to view more comfortably, but this also affects those on older hardware with smaller screen sizes and many people who simply do not have a desktop or laptop, and can only access the internet via a mobile device.</p> <p>I also did not want force people into using certain web browsers only to access this website. As such, it has been tested on Manjaro Linux and Mac OS, and on Firefox, Librewolf, Brave, Vivaldi, Chrome, and Safari. I have yet to test on a Windows machine or on Edge due to a lack of current access, though will test as soon as that changes.</p> <h3 id="images">Images</h3> <p>I have tried to make sure all images have alt text to visually describe them, and to blur any animated graphics until hovered over so as to not trigger people with visual sensitivities. Emojis have been favoured as <a href="https://unicode.org/emoji/charts/full-emoji-list.html">emojis have inherent &ldquo;alt text&rdquo; via their unicode origins</a>, whereas the implementation of icons, like those from Font Awesome, <a href="https://fontawesome.com/v4/accessibility/">require further work to be accessible</a>.</p> <h3 id="consistency">Consistency</h3> <p>I have tried to create consistency for the user so all links are the same colour, except the links in the Table of Contents which mirror the headers instead to help the user know which of those links are linked to what type of header. I tried to make sure all links are bolded, except those within long texts as this may make the reading experience more difficult, though all links of any kind are underlined, and the underline is not used anywhere else.</p> <p>I have tried to standardise font sizes, though I may have made a few errors along the way, I am trying to fix these whenever I encounter them. I&rsquo;ve also made sure the layout doesn&rsquo;t change and stays consistent between pages.</p> <h3 id="text">Text</h3> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/another-website-revamp-2023/#css-and-ros%C3%A9-pine">Alongside compliant colour contrasts and a font I think helps with readability</a>, I have also tried to make sure I&rsquo;ve written using either CamelCase or pascalCase to assist screen readers, and tried to make links more descriptive by explaining them, though I may have made mistakes and missed chances to correct them, but will rectify these if found.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not saying my website perfectly follows my own manifesto. I&rsquo;m sure it doesn&rsquo;t, I&rsquo;m sure there are mistakes I have made, but my intent is to try to be better and try to create a website as best as I can to adhere to the principles in this manifesto.</p> <p>I do think with some reflection, others might be able to do something similar. I&rsquo;m hoping this manifesto won&rsquo;t just be a case of naval-gazing, or simply a document to hold myself accountable, I hope others may read it and see what steps they can take to think about the user visiting their website.</p> <p>I know that a lot of Web 1.0 had loud graphics with clashing colours and was an assault on the eye at times - surely a tribute to that era, an era that wasn&rsquo;t inclusive, has to remain this way to be fitting of the time? Well, I would argue that both can be done with some compromises, and the spirit can remain.</p> <p>Graphics can be compressed to reduce size and given alt text for screen readers, colours checked for decent contrasts, and animations paused or blurred until the user acts to activate them. Layouts can be built to be responsive to screen sizes, even those with multiple DIVs: <a href="https://sadgrl.online/projects/layout-builder/">Sadgrl&rsquo;s layout builder</a> has the option for two sidebars alongside a main DIV, and they collapse down accordingly to all fit neatly inside smaller screens.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m not one to seek out controversy, I want us all to be happy and have fun, but I think this sort of thing is important. Just a few small steps may greatly improve access to our websites and welcome our users to them rather than appear as hostile experiences which feel exclusionary and discriminatory against those with certain disabilities, impairments and sensitivities.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/writing-links/ Mon, 14 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/writing-links/ <p>Links to all sorts of resources relating to writing.</p> <h2 id="general-writing">General Writing</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://amir.rachum.com/capturing-thoughts/">Stop Missing Out on Your Own Ideas</a> <ul> <li>As someone who does a great deal of thinking, but not a lot of writing, I&rsquo;ve found articles like this a good reminder to note take more and more.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://dynomight.net/lists/">How I learned to stop worrying and structure all writing as a list</a> <ul> <li>I found this article really helpful with so much of the writing I do, ranging from in academia when writing drafts to writing for this website.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h2 id="digital-gardens">Digital Gardens</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://maggieappleton.com/garden-history">A Brief History &amp; Ethos of the Digital Garden</a> <ul> <li>A pretty neat overview of Digital Gardens and the thinking behind them.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/09/03/1007716/digital-gardens-let-you-cultivate-your-own-little-bit-of-the-internet/">Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet</a> <ul> <li>A perspective of Digital Gardens which verges with aspects of the Web Revival movement.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://tomcritchlow.com/2018/10/10/of-gardens-and-wikis/">Of Digital Streams, Campfires and Gardens</a> <ul> <li>Article about the different types of information we consume, and how this relates to Digital Gardens.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://dev.to/swyx/digital-garden-terms-of-service-ljd">Digital Garden Terms of Service</a> <ul> <li>Although focuses on Digital Gardens, this is a Manifesto of sorts with thinking I like to keep in mind.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://hapgood.us/2015/10/17/the-garden-and-the-stream-a-technopastoral/">The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral</a> <ul> <li>Probably the first article I read about Digital Gardens, and their benefits.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://maggieappleton.com/bidirectionals">A Short History of Bi-Directional Links</a> <ul> <li>All about bi-directional links.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h2 id="zettelkasten">Zettelkasten</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.zettlr.com/post/what-is-a-zettelkasten">&ldquo;Wtf is a Zettelkasten?&rdquo;</a> <ul> <li>A great all-round guide.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://binnyva.com/zettelkasten/">An Interactive Introduction to Zettelkasten</a> <ul> <li>Seeing the method in practice.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://zettelkasten.de/posts/collectors-fallacy/">The Collector’s Fallacy</a> <ul> <li>As someone who falls into the collector trap, I&rsquo;ve found this article important to keep in mind.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/about-me/ Wed, 09 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/about-me/ <p>I&rsquo;ve been online since the 1990s, but had waves of different identities and anonymity I have taken throughout my time. You can read more about why I created this <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-mentally/">website here</a>, but essentially I was dragging myself out of a long period of depression and hoping writing would help.</p> <p>Since then, I have made discoveries about myself, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/the-rest-of-2022/">as written about here</a>, and opened up significantly on Mastodon, finding a fantastic community of people I talk to every day. As such, I have gradually become more confident with showing who I am to the rest of the world and no longer hiding.</p> <p>Well, not hiding too much. The reason I like my accounts connected to this identity to be simply &ldquo;Jessica&rdquo; is because I am not comfortable yet in creating an identity that can be followed across the internet. For now, I&rsquo;m just &ldquo;Jessica&rdquo;.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ve posted below some information about my identity and my interests, I&rsquo;ll update this page if/when anything changes.</p> <p>You may also be interested in my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/now/">Now page here</a> which quickly lists what is currently going on and interesting me in my life.</p> <p>I also have my <a href="https://beige.party/@jessica">Mastodon account here</a>, <a href="https://justmytoots.com/@jessica@beige.party">a page here at JustMyToots</a> to see my feed without boosts, and <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/communication/">a communication page here</a> listing language I like and dislike when talking to and about me.</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Identity</th> <th>Tech</th> <th>Music</th> <th>Food</th> <th>Politics</th> <th>Media</th> <th>Sport</th> <th>Games</th> <th>Aesthetics</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Female</td> <td>FOSS</td> <td>J-Pop</td> <td>Cooking</td> <td>Green</td> <td>Star Trek</td> <td>Football</td> <td>The Sims 4</td> <td>Typography</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Mid-Thirties</td> <td>Self-Hosting</td> <td>J-Rock</td> <td>Baking</td> <td>Left-Wing</td> <td>The Orville</td> <td>LUFC</td> <td>Bloons TD6</td> <td>Fonts</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Neurodivergent</td> <td>HTML</td> <td>K-Pop</td> <td>Plant Based</td> <td>Peace</td> <td>Red Dwarf</td> <td>FPL</td> <td>Football Manager</td> <td>Brutalism</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Asexual</td> <td>CSS</td> <td>City Pop</td> <td>Vegan</td> <td>Development</td> <td>Studio Ghibli</td> <td>MotoGP</td> <td>Minecraft</td> <td>Cottage Core</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder</td> <td>Hugo</td> <td>Mallsoft</td> <td></td> <td>Solar Punk</td> <td>Drag Race</td> <td>Snooker</td> <td></td> <td>Vaporwave</td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>Home Automation</td> <td>Italo Disco</td> <td></td> <td>Sociology</td> <td>Taskmaster</td> <td>Darts</td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>Privacy</td> <td>Eurovision</td> <td></td> <td>Urban Planning</td> <td>Alan Partridge</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>Accessibility</td> <td>The Pet Shop Boys</td> <td></td> <td>Sustainability</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>Linux</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td></td> <td>Mechanical Keyboards</td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> https://jessicajournals.com/kinder-world/ Thu, 27 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/kinder-world/ <p>In <a href="https://www.playkinderworld.com/kinder-world">Kinder World</a>, you grow plants through twice daily acts of self-care, such as naming emotions, breathing exercises or gratitude entries.</p> <p>Here are screenshots and descriptions of my current plants:</p> <center> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Luke.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Luke is a Monstera Deliciosa with six green leaves and one leaf half green and half white. Luke sits in a brown mushroom style pot, with three lines on it representing a face.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Darwin.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Darwin is a Monstera adansonii with ten green leaves and two green leaves tipped in gold and silver. Darwin is in a smiling cream pot with a couple visible light gold clouds on it, and a brown dragon wrapped around.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Harold.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Harold is a Pink Princess with four pink leaves, two leaves mostly deep green with pink specks, a pink leaf with deep green specks, and a white leaf with a quarter deep purple. Harold is in a content and relaxed pink lotus style pot resting on a light green lily pad.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Stephan.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Stephan is a Calathea Orbifolia of four striped green and light green leaves, and has a large leaf with two large yellow stripes. Stephan is in a pot designed as a small white bunny with a moon and night sky graphic above its head.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Liam.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Liam is in a blue pot designed like a frog, with a blank expression, sitting in a white ceramic bowl with blue floral details painted on it. The numerous Pink Princess leaves are bunched together, with most having deep green specks on them, and one leaf being deep purple.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Alvin.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Monstera Deliciosa Alvin has six large green leaves with one leaf blotched in pink. Alvin sits in an orange and yellow pot designed to look like a mushroom, with a large moustache and two dots representing eyes.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Francis.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Francis is a Monstera adansonii in a blue pot which looks like a bowl full of water, and has an orange goldfish outside blowing bubbles. Francis has numerous dark green leaves, though one leaf tipped in a pinkish silver colour.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Ollie.png" alt=""> <figcaption>A Calathea Orbifolia called Ollie, with three large striped green and light green leaves, and one large leaf coloured red with white stripes. Ollie sits in an orange pot designed in a cute style with little wings and a winking smiley face, as it rests on a cloud with two stars.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/KW/Peter.png" alt=""> <figcaption>Peter is a Calathea Orbifolia with three large striped green and light green leaves, and one large leaf coloured in iridescent blue and white stripes. Peter&#39;s pot is light brown and has a white cat resting behind, with its eyes closed and a smile on its face, as the cat&#39;s tail wraps around the pot and a leaf covers the top of its head.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> </center> https://jessicajournals.com/keyboard-links/ Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/keyboard-links/ <p>Links to informational websites about mechanical keyboards.</p> <div class="library"> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.mechanicalkeyboards.com/switches/">Mechanical Keyboard Switches</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.keycaps.info/">Keycaps.info</a></li> <li><a href="https://switchandclick.com/">Switch and Click</a></li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/old-graphics/ Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/old-graphics/ <p>Although I do not make graphics anymore, these were an important part of my early life online where I frequently made pixel art - though I was never that good at it! Nonetheless, here live the graphics I found on old hard drives dating as far back as 2003!</p> <h2 id="quilting-bee">Quilting Bee</h2> <p>The Quilting Bee was a collaborative pixel art project where members would patch together squares of pixel art to form a quilt. <a href="https://lostletters.neocities.org/quilt/">You can read more about it here</a>. Sadly, all the patches I collected from the quilting bee have been lost to time, but I do still have the original patch and my attempt, from 2003.</p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/QB/beepatch.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>Pixel art stylised as a patch to be used in a patchwork, there is a little bee saying The Q Bee as it hovers in a sky with clouds and a rainbow.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/QB/froggietrade.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>Pixel art stylised as a patch to be used in a patchwork, it is of a little green frog sitting on a lily pad against a deep blue background.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <h2 id="dollz">Dollz</h2> <p>Dollz originally came from The Palace, a type of online graphical chatroom. I used to make dollz on there in exchange for my own room on a server. I believe I have lost all of the dollz from this time, but I do still have many dollz I made after I left The Palace and joined dolling forums. Here are some of the ones I made in 2003 and 2004.</p> <blockquote> <p>I apologise for not crediting the base authors, I unfortunately do not have them saved</p></blockquote> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/Blue.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll in a deep blue dress with black hair in an bun hanging down.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/mon.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned brown haired pixel doll wearing purple patterned flares, with a matching top and headband. She holds a purple fan and is blinking slowly.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/bryans.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned short auburn haired pixel doll in a Christmas themed outfit, wearing a Santa hat, red long sleeved jumper, dark green mini skirt, and black knee-high boots, holding her left index finger to her mouth.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/contestdolldress.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned long haired blonde pixel doll wearing a light blue dress and chunky pale blue shoes. Judging by the file name, this apparently was a contest entry.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/denimlong.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>Despite not wearing glasses, I think this is a pixel doll of me, light skinned with long brown hair wearing blue flared jeans, a dark blue top, and a light denim jacket, with my hands on my hips.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/halloweendoll.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll wearing a Red Devil halloween costume, with black shoulder length hair.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/hbs.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll with the words Happy Birthday Sis! across the middle. She is wearing a pale purple floor length gown and has black hair tied back. I&#39;ve never had a sister, so I assume I made this for a friend.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/Jennie.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll with shoulder length purple hair and outfit consisting of drop top, shorts, leg warmers and shoes. According to the file name, she might be called Jennie.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/karate.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned brown haired pixel doll has her hair tied back, and wears a karate outfit with an orange belt. I assume this is me due to the hair colour, glasses, and how I used to go to karate classes.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/Winter.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>Another pixel doll of me, with large jean flares, a blue crop top, purple bobble hat, and a long purple scarf. My hair is in a reddish brown bob.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/mermaid.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll stylised as a mermaid, with long blue hair, crop top, tail, and see-through veil from above her mouth down to her neck.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/minidoll.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll with a flipped out brown style, brown top, pink mini skirt skirt, and black knee length boots.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/punkie.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>I remember this was one of my first efforts at pixelling dolls. A light skinned pixel doll holding a microphone in one hand and fist bumping with the other. She has long pink hair, and wears a pink crop top, pink shoes, and black flares.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/purpleishdoll.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll with knee high purple boots, a lilac mini skirt, and dark lavender crop top. She has her light lavender hair up in a very messy curly bun.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/sallira.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>One of my later efforts, probably using the PaintShop Pro that came free with my Dad&#39;s printer purchase. This long brown haired light skinned pixel doll with a floating red orb above her right hand, which is casting a red glow on her body. She is wearing red flares and a red crop top with long flowing sleeves. According to the file name, she might be called Sallira.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/strzzie.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll with long light blue hair, a red top, brown jeans, and brown shoes. According to file name, she might be called Strzzie?</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/toddler.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A pixel doll who looks like a toddler. She is light skinned, sitting on the ground with long brown hair, pink trousers, and a yellow top with a link heart on it.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/waterbabe.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>An alien style pixel doll with light green skin and hair, and iridescent wings. She is barefooted and wears a drop knee length skirt and a brown crop top.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/winklove.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A light skinned pixel doll wearing a white crop top, brown jeans, and blue sneakers. Her purple hair is up in a messy bun. She is also wearing glasses, earrings and a silver belt with a star hanging off it.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/lufc.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A pixel doll of me, light skinned and brown haired, wearing tracksuit bottoms, sneakers, and a blue top with the Leeds United emblem on it, my favourite football club.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/dollz/Zarlini.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A pixel doll with blue boots, pink socks, purple fishnet stockings, dark teal shorts, and a red top. She has bright coloured pom-pom earrings, and rainbow coloured shredded belt. Her red hair has purple beads in it and is up in a bun. According to the file name, she might be called Zarlini.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> <h2 id="blinkies">Blinkies</h2> <p>The first foray into animated images was through the creation of blinkies, and here are a couple I made back in 2003. Because these are animated, I have these blurred by default for those who have photosensitive epilepsy, on desktops you can hover over them, or tap on them if on mobile, to remove the blur.</p> <div class="animated"> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/blinkies/Jessica.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>A fast red blinkie with my name Jessica, as a heart runs across the top with a smiley face inside. The animation moves from left-to-right and lights up my name in black before flashing a couple of times and then repeats.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> </div> <div class="animated"> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/blinkies/fillangel.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>I remember joining a popular forum when I was a young teenager, and when it was relaunched, I got the name username Angel. This was the blinkie I made that was attached to the posts we made: A blue blinkie with the word Angel. The word fills up and empties down in white in a loop.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> </div> <div class="animated"> <p> <center> <figure> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/images/blinkies/starlightblinkie.gif" alt=""> <figcaption>I sadly cannot recall the story behind this. A slowly animated blinkie with the word Starlight and a small dark blue star at the end. The letters are in light blue circles, and they changes to a lilac-blue colour as the animation runs left-to-right, flashing at the end, before repeating.</figcaption> </figure> </center> </p> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-july-2023/ Fri, 21 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-july-2023/ <p>In another classic post by me where I give an update to a post which I only wrote not too long a go, I will be writing about the current status of my self hosting setup, the VPS, PikaPods, my thoughts on what&rsquo;s next, and trying out a new note taking application.</p> <h2 id="vps">VPS</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/the-fediverse/#self-hosting">As I mentioned previously, I was trying out a VPS</a>, initially to self host <a href="https://calckey.org/">Calckey</a> and <a href="https://pixelfed.org/">Pixelfed</a> instances, but the idea didn&rsquo;t work out, and so then <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-june-2023/#new-and-shiny">used it to self host other applications</a>, including <a href="https://umami.is/">Umami</a>, <a href="https://privatebin.info/">PrivateBin</a>, and I also dabbled with <a href="https://gitea.com/gitea">Gitea</a> since then.</p> <p>I found myself not using PrivateBin or Gitea enough, though liked Umami knowing basic information about my visitors across my websites, such as how many, if any, were visiting!</p> <p>However, paying for a VPS just for Umami didn&rsquo;t feel like it was worth it, and I deleted the VPS shortly before the trial expired.</p> <h2 id="why-vps">Why VPS?</h2> <p>I never actually explained in my previous posts why I was using a VPS instead of my Raspberry Pi for some of these services. The reason is that while I enjoy self hosting, I would not claim to be good at it.</p> <p>My setup is run off the default <a href="https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/">Raspberry Pi OS</a> installation with <a href="https://www.docker.com/">Docker</a> and <a href="https://www.portainer.io/">Portainer</a>, as well as <a href="https://tailscale.com/">Tailscale</a> to connect via VPN when outside of my LAN. I don&rsquo;t want to expose my Raspberry Pi or my LAN to the internet for security and safety reasons. While the system could be fortified to make everything secure, I am not knowledgeable enough or confident enough that I will do a good enough job.</p> <p>As such, public facing services, such as Calckey, Pixelfed, Umami, PrivateBin, and Gitea were always going to be on a different system, and a different network, than my private facing services. And because of this, I do not feel comfortable setting up Umami on my Raspberry Pi.</p> <h2 id="pikapods">PikaPods</h2> <p>I stumbled across <a href="https://www.pikapods.com/">PikaPods</a> ages ago when looking for somewhere to create a managed Mastodon instance - and while PikaPods do not offer this as a service, <a href="https://www.pikapods.com/apps">they do manage other &ldquo;self hosted&rdquo; applications</a>, including <a href="https://www.pikapods.com/pods?run=umami">Umami</a>, and for a decent price too.</p> <p>For just Umami, PikaPods estimate a monthly cost of just $1.2 + tax, and they offer a free $5 of credit for trying the platform out. Depending on what exactly it is you wish to run, such a setup may be cheaper than via a VPS, not to mention easier.</p> <h2 id="whats-next">What&rsquo;s Next?</h2> <p>For now, I think the insights Umami provide are worth the low price to PikaPods.</p> <p>However, I would ideally like a second Rapsberry Pi with <a href="https://yunohost.org/">YunoHost</a> installed, and use that for public facing services such as Umami, with YunoHost&rsquo;s OS taking care of the <a href="https://yunohost.org/en/security">security setup for me</a>. However, with the <a href="https://www.makeuseof.com/why-are-raspberry-pis-so-expensive/">high price of the Raspberry Pi at the moment,</a> I&rsquo;m not sure when, if at all, this idea will ever happen.</p> <p>As to what is next for self hosting, I&rsquo;m interested in trying out <a href="https://archivebox.io/">ArchiveBox</a>, evermore so in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210715-the-online-data-thats-being-deleted">an era where data and information seems to be disappearing off the internet</a>, and <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2023/07/01/reddit-and-twitter-the-new-giants-of-anti-social-media/">walls are being built around data that was previously easy to access</a>.</p> <h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> <p>I&rsquo;ll end this post with an overview if where my self hosting setup is currently at:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Raspberry Pi</th> <th>Synology DiskStation</th> <th>PikaPods</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome">AdGuard Home</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a></td> <td><a href="https://umami.is/">Umami</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/sabre-io/Baikal">Baïkal</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.plex.tv">Plex</a></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/photos">Synology Photos</a></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/hay-kot/mealie">Mealie</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.freshrss.org/">FreshRSS</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web">Calibre-Web</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit">Libreddit</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search">Whoogle</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma">Uptime Kuma</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://gotify.net/">Gotify</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/">Paperless-ngx</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://homebox.readthedocs.io/en/main/">Homebox</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding">linkding</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/BaldissaraMatheus/Tasks.md">tasks.md</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/pawelmalak/flame">Flame</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/TandoorRecipes/recipes">Tandoor</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/usememos/memos">Memos</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Not much has changed outside of those that were on the VPS, but I decided that Flatnotes wasn&rsquo;t for me, and instead tried Memos.</p> <h2 id="memos">Memos</h2> <p>I have nothing particularly bad to say about Flatnotes, I just don&rsquo;t think its flat file structure was for me where I couldn&rsquo;t easily see how the files were organised.</p> <p>Memos, on the other hand, has the tags (which I use as categories for organisational purposes) quickly visible, as well as a nice layout to scroll through the notes, shortcuts, and calendar view. It feels like a place where I can both quickly write down a scrappy note, and keep some information in the long-term.</p> <p>The downside is that while it was support for Markdown, it does not use Markdown files, and instead runs within a database. I wanted to move away from databases due to concerns over data backups, <a href="https://github.com/EINDEX/logseq-memos-sync">but I found a plugin for Logseq</a> which syncs it with Memos, essentially creating a backup that way as I can then save the pages <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq</a> creates.</p> <p>It is a bit of a clunky process, and I hope the developers of Memos create an in-built process for quickly and easily exporting the notes. However, I like Memos enough (<a href="https://memos.moe/">and how there is a great Android app)</a> to keep with it, hoping my clunky process doesn&rsquo;t break down and I lose everything!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/accessibility-links/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/accessibility-links/ <p>Links to helpful resources I have stumbled across regarding accessibility, mostly focused on web design and colours.</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://sleepydev.neocities.org/posts/Web%20accessibility-%20for%20people%20or%20profit%3F">Web Accessibility: For people or profit?</a></li> <li><a href="https://yourdevilfriends.art/accessibility.html">tips and tricks for web accessibility</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.a11yproject.com/checklist/">Checklist - The A11Y Project</a></li> <li><a href="https://a11y.jenn.dev/posts/bare-bones-cheatsheet/">Jenn&rsquo;s Bare Bones Accessibility Cheatsheet</a></li> <li><a href="https://cardsforhumanity.frog.co/">Cards for Humanity</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.accessguide.io/">Access Guide</a></li> <li><a href="https://theultimatemotherfuckingwebsite.com/">A Field Guide to Web Accessibility</a></li> <li><a href="https://colourcontrast.cc/">Colour Contrast Checker</a></li> <li><a href="https://randoma11y.com/">RandomA11y</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.whocanuse.com/">WhoCanUse</a></li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/design-resources-links/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/design-resources-links/ <p>Links to various resources I&rsquo;ve previously used in projects.</p> <h2 id="illustrations">Illustrations</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://undraw.co/">unDraw</a> <ul> <li>Free to use illustrations to use in projects.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://openmoji.org/">OpenMoji</a> <ul> <li>Open-source emojis.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://pictogrammers.com/library/mdi/">Material Design Icons</a> <ul> <li>Free and open-source icons.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h2 id="stock">Stock</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://unsplash.com/">Unsplash</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.pexels.com/">Pexels</a></li> <li><a href="https://pixabay.com/">Pixabay</a></li> <li><a href="https://barnimages.com/">Barnimages</a></li> <li><a href="https://gratisography.com/">Gratisography</a></li> </ul> <h2 id="typography">Typography</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://forkaweso.me/Fork-Awesome/">Fork Awesome</a></li> <li><a href="https://fonts.coollabs.io/">coolLabs Fonts</a></li> <li><a href="https://fontjoy.com/">Fontjoy - Generate font pairings in one click</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.fontsquirrel.com/">Font Squirrel</a></li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/peanut-butter-cookies/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/peanut-butter-cookies/ https://jessicajournals.com/privacy-links/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/privacy-links/ <p>Links to guides on improving your privacy online and on your devices.</p> <div class="library"> <ul> <li><a href="https://www.privacytools.io/">Privacy Tools</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.privacyguides.org/en/">Privacy Guides</a></li> <li><a href="https://someonewhocares.org/hosts/">Using a Hosts File To Make The Internet Not Suck (as much)</a></li> </ul> </div> https://jessicajournals.com/quiche/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/quiche/ https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-download-from-bandcamp/ Fri, 07 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-download-from-bandcamp/ <p>In this short post, I&rsquo;ll go into a tool I recently came across in downloading your collections from BandCamp, and why I enjoy the music this platform has to offer.</p> <h2 id="why-bandcamp">Why BandCamp?</h2> <p>A genre of music I particularly enjoy is VapourWave and its various sub-genres, including MallSoft and Future Funk. However, often due to the plunder-phonics nature many tracks have, whole discographies can be excluded from streaming platforms such as TIDAL and Spotify. As such, one of the best ways to access this music is via BandCamp.</p> <p>An added bonus is that most of this plunder-phonics music is free, or under a &ldquo;Name Your Price&rdquo; system, though you need to pay $1 for the music to be added to your collection, which enables you to stream that music from within their app. Otherwise, you can download the music for free in a wide range of formats, including FLAC.</p> <p>Another reason I enjoy the music from BandCamp are the regular sales artists and music labels run, where entire discographies can be on sale for as little as a couple of dollars. In this case, not only is the music is added to your collection to access on demand, but it&rsquo;s a great way of creating a large music collection, whereby the music can then be imported into a music application, such as Navidrome or Plexamp, and create a Spotify or TIDAL like experience.</p> <h2 id="downloading">Downloading</h2> <p>When downloading free or anything under a dollar, you&rsquo;ll need to download the music, be it an album or single, individually. A small price to pay considering the music is free or extremely cheap. But for music you&rsquo;ve paid more for, you can use tools to download your collection all in one go, rather than on a piece-by-piece basis.</p> <p>In my online searching, I came across a few including the Window application <a href="https://github.com/Otiel/BandcampDownloader">BandcampDownloader</a>, the Grease/Tamper Monkey script <a href="https://github.com/RyanBluth/Bandcamp-Greasy">Bandcamp-Greasy</a>, and the Python based command line operated <a href="https://github.com/easlice/bandcamp-downloader">bandcamp-downloader</a>. I chose bandcamp-downloader as I am on a Mac, and I feel more confident in using the command line now. I easily managed to install it and configure to download to a chosen directory and in the FLAC format with the following command, replacing the terms <code>USERNAME</code> and <code>/path/to/directory/</code> accordingly:</p> <p><code>./bandcamp-downloader.py USERNAME -d /path/to/directory/ -f flac</code></p> <p>And then the downloads slowly started to trickle in, all zipped up underneath directories with the artists&rsquo; name. As such, the music still needs unzipping, but that was the case when downloading manually as well, and then music can be organised however you like.</p> <p>I like how I can run it the leave it to do all the work in the background with me needing to monitor it or it be too intrusive as I work on something else, but the other two options may be more suitable if you prefer to work with a graphical interface and aren&rsquo;t too comfortable with the command line.</p> <h2 id="onwards">Onwards</h2> <p>While I would like it if BandCamp offered a more streamlined method of downloading the music you&rsquo;ve purchased, I am pleased with bandcamp-downloader as it will also check existing files in the directory and skip over those already downloaded, making it handy to run whenever you collection grows to just grab the newest additions. However, this would also require leaving the files unzipped in their place for this to work, which wouldn&rsquo;t be too much of a bother if you have the space for dormant files, and just copy the zips elsewhere to then be unzipped and added into your music library, though space may be a luxury you do not have.</p> <p>As such, while I feel this system works well for me as someone who thankfully has the hard drive space to store these zips, others may need to be more careful when downloading their collections so as to not download duplicates, and may require using a different tool.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/community-and-technology/ Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/community-and-technology/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/the-fediverse/">In my post about the Fediverse</a>, I spoke much about self-hosting my own Calckey and Pixelfed instances, and talked about an intriguing website in <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-june-2023/">my recent post about self-hosting</a>. In this more rambling post, I&rsquo;ll discuss my thoughts about that website, Fediverse instances, Web 1.0, and the role technology plays amongst them all.</p> <h2 id="omglol">omg.lol</h2> <p>A month or so ago, I stumbled across a toot suggesting the services of <a href="https://home.omg.lol/">omg.lol</a> to another user looking for a place to blog. I found the website unlike anything I&rsquo;ve seen elsewhere. On the face of it, it&rsquo;s just a simple subdomain for $20 with DNS modifications and email forwarding, but there is significantly more to offer, and then verges more into an entire community.</p> <p>Isolated, you get a profile page, a Now page, a statuslog, photo hosting, and a blog, as well and access to an API, a pastebin, proof system, and URL shortener. Some features can be connected to the larger community, such as a communal Now page, and there is also a shared IRC and Mastodon instance.</p> <p>For $20, it doesn&rsquo;t seem like a bad deal to get all that - most blogging platforms would charge more than that a year alone, and a .com domain is around $10. Plus, it&rsquo;s all wrapped together in a single space with good documentation and, of course, a fun subdomain.</p> <p>But it is access to that subdomain, not a domain you own, and you&rsquo;re paying for a service which may disappear. If you set your online life around omg.lol and it closes one day, everything linking to example.omg.lol will break.</p> <p>However, I do love this idea. Technically, it&rsquo;s genius to bundle up a bunch of smaller services, make them easy to access and understand, and distribute them to the masses in a fun brand. Community wise, I am drawn in by the shared omg.lol name amongst its members, how many of services are communal, and, of course, its purpose built IRC and Mastodon instance.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s not something I would join due to being able to replicate many of its desired services and be more customisable to me, but something I would suggest to others who may want to dabble with some of the services being offered, but not set up and maintain them, particularly if they were looking for some social aspects too.</p> <h2 id="community">Community</h2> <p>I recently came across a toot I had mixed feelings about. It stated that Mastodon wasn&rsquo;t an RSS feed, it was a place for communication, so we should stop just following each other for the sake of it, and instead start creating conversations.</p> <p>My feelings were mixed as I do have a small confession to make: I was one of the first users to join Twitter - but never posted. I still use that account to this day, sixteen years later, but again, not to post on. I instead do use it as an RSS feed, reading interesting tweets by others and keeping up with modern society, culture and news.</p> <h2 id="mastodon">Mastodon</h2> <p>On Mastodon, however, I do use the platform as social media, liking and boosting interesting toots, replying to people, and writing my own toots. I&rsquo;ve found it incredibly vital and important to my mental health, having been socially isolated online for many years following bad experiences of being judged, and deciding it was easier and safer to step back and observe rather than participate.</p> <p>As such, my view on social media has changed over the years. For the longest of time, particularly on Twitter, I saw a very ugly side of social media - one of bullying, unrealistic expectations, and curated lifestyles. I recently read a toot which said something along the lines of how they liked Mastodon because it celebrated ordinary people, and I completely agree. The experience is the best I have faced, and for me, it is largely due to it being about ordinary people and their daily lives, forming connections with them, and ultimately feeling less alone.</p> <h2 id="cutiecity">cutie.city</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/the-fediverse/#calckey---self-hosted">As I previously mentioned</a>, I decided against staying on a self-hosted Calckey instance, and have chosen my new home in Mastodon on the <a href="https://cutie.city">cutie.city</a> instance. I&rsquo;m very happy with my choice, enjoying the local feed and my fellow members, as well as the <a href="https://guide.cutie.city/cutie-city/custom-emoji/">enormous amount of emojis</a> and great active admin.</p> <p>Of course, being federated, I have lists of users I&rsquo;ve met on previous instances and follow them to see what they&rsquo;re getting up to every day. That&rsquo;s the beauty of the Fediverse, I&rsquo;m able to still be part of a close knit community even though many of us are now spread around across many different servers.</p> <h2 id="webrings-and-web-10">WebRings and Web 1.0</h2> <p><a href="https://cutie.city/@Quenby/110595419402503703">It was actually a recent toot by one of my fellow cuties</a> that made me remember an old fashioned way of creating community back in the days of Web 1.0 - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring">WebRings!</a></p> <p>I spoke previously about the efforts of places like <a href="https://neocities.org/">Neocities</a> leading the charge of <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-technically/#neocities">bringing back Web 1.0</a>, and WebRings are also used there extensively, as well as generally interconnecting between similar websites created there. It&rsquo;s another example of technology being used to create a greater sense of community I feel we&rsquo;ve lost, ironically (?), in the age of social media dominance.</p> <p>While I haven&rsquo;t coded Web 1.0 style in many years, I have still saved every single website I&rsquo;ve made, and so do have my old Web 1.0 websites coded and saved, which could, I guess, be uploaded and reused today, and may be access to another community I share many interests with. My only concern is how these websites function through an accessibility lens, I would want to research more before spending too much time to the idea.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Regardless though, I think technology can aid in creating a great sense of community. Of course, it may be more difficult for some minorities, and I am reminded of someone I spoke to recently who said they struggled to find others online similar to them as they weren&rsquo;t interested in subcultures popular amongst people in their demographic. However, with platforms such as Mastodon and the resurgence of WebRings, as well as the decline in popularity of services such as <a href="https://www.techradar.com/opinion/discord-twitter-reddit-and-tumblr-have-something-in-common-and-its-not-good">Twitter and Reddit due to recent changes</a>, I am hopeful we are moving towards a web more interconnected with others and built on grounds more personable, rather than a corporate web driven by algorithms, advertisements and animosity.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-june-2023/ Fri, 09 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/self-hosting-june-2023/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-self-host/">In a previous post made last year</a>, I spoke about how I self host, and the applications I have chosen. Since then, changes have been made, and I thought it would be interesting to do a quick update to see what has stayed, what has been replaced, and what has been removed, following briefly up on <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/the-fediverse/">my most recent post</a> where I have set up a VPS to dabble with, as well as touching on a new Now page I have recently added to this website.</p> <h2 id="overview">Overview</h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Raspberry Pi</th> <th>Synology DiskStation</th> <th>VPS</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome">AdGuard Home</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome</a></td> <td><a href="https://umami.is/">Umami</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/sabre-io/Baikal">Baïkal</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.plex.tv/">Plex</a></td> <td><a href="https://privatebin.info/">PrivateBin</a></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a></td> <td><a href="https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/feature/photos">Synology Photos</a></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/hay-kot/mealie">Mealie</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://www.freshrss.org/">FreshRSS</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web">Calibre-Web</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit">Libreddit</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search">Whoogle</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/louislam/uptime-kuma">Uptime Kuma</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://gotify.net/">Gotify</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/Dullage/flatnotes">Flatnotes</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://docs.paperless-ngx.com/">Paperless-ngx</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://homebox.readthedocs.io/en/main/">Homebox</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding">linkding</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/BaldissaraMatheus/Tasks.md">tasks.md</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/pawelmalak/flame">Flame</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> <tr> <td><a href="https://github.com/TandoorRecipes/recipes">Tandoor</a></td> <td></td> <td></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Over the past year, I have replaced <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/dashboards/">Dashy with Flame</a>, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything-again/">Wallabag with Omnivore</a>, and <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation-march-2023">Airsonic with Navidrome</a>, as well as replacing my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/bookmarking-system/">Link Garden with linkding</a>. I&rsquo;ve also removed Home Assistant and Nextcloud entirely, and expanded the functionality of Syncthing.</p> <p>I like Home Assistant, but as I am currently in between living arrangements, almost all my smart home tech has been packed away, and it seemed pointless to keep in installed when almost nothing worked. Furthermore, <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/#compare-installation-methods">I&rsquo;d prefer running the Operating System over the Container method</a>, so hoping for a cheap way to do that on a dedicated device later down the road.</p> <p>As for Nextcloud, I broke apart its functions as to why I used it, and got separate apps to serve those purposes instead. As such, its calendar services were replaced with Baïkal, my favourite recipes are now housed within Tandoor, and its image manager with Synology Photos (I&rsquo;ll write a post about image management later). I was pushed to do this as while I was thinking around elsewhere (I&rsquo;ll write about this too), I essentially broke Nextcloud and then came to realise I&rsquo;ve probably outgrown it now.</p> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/dashboards/#flame-again">As I touched on recently in my post about dashboards</a>, I now map my Docker volumes outside for easy access to the data within, and use Syncthing to sync the data to a remote device, which then in turn is backed up with file versioning onto my Synology DiskStation.</p> <h2 id="new-and-shiny">New and Shiny</h2> <p>I have plans to make more in depth posts of the new stuff I am self hosting, but a quick fire summary is that:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Application</th> <th>Purpose</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Uptime Kuma</td> <td>My Plex installation likes going offline, and this was a good way to monitor when that happens. Furthermore, my Synology DiskStation has been switched off accidentally by others before, and this lets me know when it happens.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Gotify</td> <td>No point in having Uptime Kuma if I can&rsquo;t then be alerted to downtimes. Notify pushes notifications about Uptime Kuma, and I&rsquo;m also using it as a replacement for Pushbullet in sending stuff between my mobile device and my desktop.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Flatnotes</td> <td>Still not 100% satisfied with my notes set up as Syncthing complains of my notes within Obsidian being out of sync all the time. Not really sure about this though either, as I do miss seeing folder structures, but we&rsquo;ll see.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Paperless-ngx</td> <td>Inspired by getting a receipt for a product I needed to not lose, I finally setup a digital way to store all my paperwork!</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Homebox</td> <td>And if I&rsquo;m storing data on the product&rsquo;s paperwork, I should also store information on the product itself! I intend to catalogue all my possessions once my living arrangements have settled down, and use Homebox to do it.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Media Tracker</td> <td>I&rsquo;ve long enjoyed the <a href="https://hobiapp.com/">Hobi</a> app, but this self-hosted alternative with much more media to track looks interesting. I wish it had an Android app though for easy access.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Umami</td> <td>Since switching all my websites to static site generators, I&rsquo;ve been in the dark about how many visitors they actually get. I do love this GDPR compliant, no cookie consent banner, and privacy respecting anonymous analytics piece of software, though as it is on a VPS as it connects outside of my LAN, we&rsquo;ll see if I keep it after using my free credits.</td> </tr> <tr> <td>PrivateBin</td> <td>I&rsquo;m very tempted to write quite a strange and meandering post about a recent website I discovered which sparked a lot of inspiration within me, but for now I&rsquo;ll just say I encountered the website using a paste bin, and I thought about it for myself. Not used it yet, but if I ever need to share anything text-based, I know what I can use!</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Of those, Uptime Kuma, Notify, Paperless-ngx and Homebox are likely to stay, with Flatnotes and Media Tracker being tested, and Umami and PrivateBin a bit up in the air due to (eventual) ongoing costs.</p> <h2 id="now">Now</h2> <p>Adjacently, (and again inspired by the website I just mentioned), <a href="https://nownownow.com/about">I also have created a Now page</a>, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/now/">showcasing what I am currently interested in, enjoying, and working on</a>, and wonder if I should also create a &ldquo;Now Self-Hosting&rdquo; page, listing the applications and services currently being self-hosted, much like this post is doing. Then again, I do like the idea of regular update posts, as well as those more in depth like with dashboards, bookmarks and music organisation. Regardless, this post could be considered as a Now update for what I self-host!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/the-fediverse/ Fri, 26 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/the-fediverse/ <p>Since Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/05/social-media-centralism-fediverse/674041/">there has been a significant rise in popularity of Fediverse applications and services</a>, with <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a> being the most prominent of them. In this rambling and disjointed post, I&rsquo;ll go into my experiences with the Fediverse, the accounts I have, dabbling in selfhosting my own services, and various positives and negatives of them.</p> <h2 id="fediverse">Fediverse?</h2> <p>As described by <a href="https://fediverse.info">Fediverse.info</a>:</p> <p><em>&ldquo;The Fediverse (a portmanteau of &ldquo;federation&rdquo; and &ldquo;universe&rdquo;) is an ensemble of federated (i.e. interconnected) servers that are used for web publishing (i.e. social networking, microblogging, blogging, or websites) and file hosting, but which, while independently hosted, can communicate with each other.&rdquo;</em></p> <p>Some names you may have heard of could be Mastodon, <a href="https://pixelfed.org/">Pixelfed</a>, <a href="https://writefreely.org/">WriteFreely</a>, <a href="https://joinpeertube.org/">Peertube</a>, <a href="https://bookwyrm.social/">Bookwyrm</a>&hellip; the list goes on and on!</p> <h2 id="beginning">Beginning</h2> <p>Firstly, when I initially began this blog, I looked at the many options available, and stumbled across WriteFreely but ruled it out, instead favouring the <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo static site option</a>. However, as time has gone on and my interest in the Fediverse has increased, I&rsquo;ve dabbled with WriteFreely one and off. I like its simplicity alongside its federation, as well as how easy it is to write and publish new posts. However, it goes somewhat against my recent approach to my data, in that I do not have direct access to the files. Mind you, there is the ability to easily export them in plain text to be used elsewhere, but a part of me still feels uneasy about it, which also goes with my uneasiness of having a running database and possibilities of security failures. Sure, WriteFreely is hardly the behemoth of <a href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress</a> and I&rsquo;m sure is much more secure, but bad memories of WordPress do make me think twice about using WriteFreely over my pretty safe and low stress setup of Hugo and static sites.</p> <p>Lastly, because my website is more than just a blog, I also utilise aspects such as tables, <a href="https://mermaid.js.org/">Mermaid diagrams</a> and like using Table of Contents for easy navigation around my posts, but these are aspects that don&rsquo;t appear or render in pretty poorly, which make moving to WriteFreely unworkable. Recently, the lead developer of WriteFreely <a href="https://write.as/blog/8-years-of-write-as">wrote about wanting to spent more time working on it</a>, which may lead to more features being added? It&rsquo;ll be interesting to keep an eye on it to see where it goes.</p> <h2 id="social-media">Social Media</h2> <h3 id="mastodon">Mastodon</h3> <p>I actually joined Mastodon in Spring 2022 under a different name, but it was quite quiet back then, and I didn&rsquo;t find people or communities I felt I could talk to. When the great Twitter exodus of November 2022 happened though, Mastodon became significantly more populated with all sorts of different people, which made it more appealing to join and stick around.</p> <p>I am generally satisfied with my time on Mastodon, I use Yuito on my phone as my primary access to Mastodon, but have struggled to find a good application to use on my desktop, or rather, an identical one. The thing is, I love how my time of Mastodon is set up via <a href="https://github.com/accelforce/Yuito">Yuito</a>, and I dislike having to interact with it in a different way. So, I just don&rsquo;t access it on my desktop, which is a shame as there are times I would like to.</p> <p>Additionally, I dislike the lack of customisation. As much as I like Yuito, I wish I could view it themed with <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/catppuccin">Catppuccin Mocha Green</a>, and Mastodon natively isn&rsquo;t able to do this either as a user - <a href="https://battlepenguin.com/tech/using-custom-css-with-mastodon/">only the administrator has the ability to add new themes</a>.</p> <h3 id="pixelfed">Pixelfed</h3> <p>Around Spring 2022, I also tried out Instagram alternative Pixelfed. While it was pleasant enough, I didn&rsquo;t find much use for it until, again, there were more people around to enjoy it with. As such, I tried again after the Fediverse became more popular, but came to realise it still wasn&rsquo;t for me, with my biggest issues around the lack of an official Android app,</p> <p>Nothing against Pixelfed, but my three main issues were:</p> <ol> <li>Lack of an official Android app.</li> <li>Feeling uneasy over data ownership. For some reason, the relationship I have with my photographs and images felt more personal than my words, and I felt strange at the notion of having these hosted on someone&rsquo;s server. This could be remedied with self hosting Pixelfed, something that ought not to be too complicated via something like YunoHost, but I would need a VPS for this sort of thing, and finding one cheap enough with the required resources might be difficult.</li> <li>Why Pixelfed as well as Mastodon? There felt something natural about posting images either on their own or alongside text to my followers, and I felt a bit strange at the idea of separating the content apart, even though that is what people do with Twitter and Instagram. However, I&rsquo;ve never used Instagram, so it&rsquo;s a new prospect for me having a dedicated place just for photos.</li> </ol> <p>Since abandoning the idea of Pixelfed though, some things have changed. The first being that Pixelfed are making an official Android app, and secondly that my thoughts have shifted more.</p> <p>Regarding data ownership, I am more interested than ever before in having control over my data rather than it be in the hands of an individual who may be hit by a bus one day, or simply decide to lose interest and close the their server down. Further, maybe having a single place for the photos is a neat idea, and if I do use Pixelfed, I could just retoot them from the main account for my followers to see.</p> <h3 id="calckey">Calckey</h3> <p>I wanted to try out <a href="https://calckey.org/">Calckey</a>, a fork of <a href="https://misskey-hub.net/en/">Misskey</a> and an alternative to Mastodon, due to the added features, such as easily installable custom themes, use of Markdown, and Antennas - a bit like following a hashtag. I opened an account on a large instance, and found it an intriguing, albeit loud and excitable, place. It made me think that if I were to take ownership of my data and self host my own services, maybe I&rsquo;d skip Mastodon, and go straight to Calckey.</p> <h2 id="self-hosting">Self Hosting</h2> <p>I began ruling out self-hosting on my own hardware: I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to secure it well enough with my limited knowledge and I worried about falling foul of some sort of obscure rule with my ISP. Instead, I&rsquo;d need to use a VPS, and run <a href="https://yunohost.org">YunoHost</a> on top of it as software to help secure and maintain the services.</p> <p>However, on a 2GB VPS I found on special offer (monthly fee of £1), Pixelfed installs via YunoHost, but I cannot create a user, and it&rsquo;s not enough RAM for Calckey to install. I canceled and then found another VPS for £3.50 a month providing 4GM of RAM, and that worked. I was able to install and both services, as well as setup object storage for free to help with traffic and storage.</p> <p>Unfortunately, I was not able to get Pixelfed 100% working correctly, and after days of troubleshooting, had to give up. However, I initially didn&rsquo;t find this worrying me as I&rsquo;d spent nearly two weeks on Calckey at this point, and wondered if I needed a separate space as Calckey had a gallery built in, as well as a small storage drive.</p> <h3 id="calckey---self-hosted">Calckey - Self-Hosted</h3> <p>Although I found it difficult and bumped into many obstacles, I eventually got Calckey up and running. I installed custom Catppuccin themes, setup custom relays, imported all my data, configured my layout, and even loaded in some custom emojis. My thoughts after using it for a couple of weeks are:</p> <h4 id="positives">Positives:</h4> <ul> <li>Custom themes (Catppuccin everywhere!)</li> <li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app">Progressive Web Application</a> means my viewing experience is the same on any device</li> <li>Antennas are amazing</li> <li>The deck layout is easily configurable to show as many &ldquo;pages&rdquo; as I want, with access to various lists and Antennas just a swipe away</li> <li>Love how you can give different reactions to posts</li> <li>Usernames are clearly displayed and outgoing links have a mini preview, which makes for a nicer viewing experience</li> </ul> <h4 id="negatives">Negatives:</h4> <ul> <li>Progressive Web Application is very buggy and laggy, often refusing to load content and spinning endlessly</li> <li>Muting users doesn&rsquo;t mute them in lists when people you follow boost or reply to the muted user</li> <li>All replies appear in lists as well as the original post, and when someone makes a thread, the main post reappears over and over again as the replies are added, it really clogs up the viewing experience and it gets annoying really quick</li> <li>When seeing a reply, the original post cannot be quickly reacted to, and had to be clicked on and loaded before presented with options such as to like or reply to it, which slows down interaction</li> <li>No way to quickly bookmark a post, requiring a couple of taps to get there</li> <li>No editing posts on the YunoHost version, though you would expect this update to arrive eventually</li> </ul> <h2 id="what-now">What Now?</h2> <p>So, instead of Calckey, I guess I could try self-hosting Mastodon or one of its forks, but I&rsquo;d want to stay within YunoHost&rsquo;s catalogue for easy maintenance, and they don&rsquo;t support the Glitch fork which allows for easier modifications. As such, I&rsquo;ve decided to join someone else&rsquo;s Mastodon server. Of course, the issue of this is data ownership again, it&rsquo;ll be in another&rsquo;s hands like before. All I can aim to do is backup my data weekly, and pick an active server which looks nice, stable and in for the long run, finding a community to call home in the Fediverse rather than do it alone.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/eurovision-2023/ Sat, 20 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/eurovision-2023/ <p>In something completely different, I&rsquo;ll repost my thoughts I wrote on my Calckey server about Eurovision 2023. I decided to put it all here rather than on the micro blog because, well, this isn&rsquo;t a micro sized post!</p> <h2 id="semifinal-1">Semifinal 1</h2> <p>Overall, I thought the show was fantastic. I thought the presenters were great, I loved the postcards, the intervals acts were good, and the skits in between weren&rsquo;t cringy like they can be. I also thought everyone did a good job remembering this isn&rsquo;t the United Kingdom&rsquo;s Eurovision, and instead featured Ukraine prominently.</p> <p>As someone who deliberately doesn&rsquo;t hear the entries until they are performed at Eurovision, I was a tad underwhelmed at the acts. This was made even more clear when we had that amazing performance from Alyosha and Rebecca Ferguson during the interval, with the staging used to its fullest, I feel most acts didn&rsquo;t best utilise what the arena had to offer.</p> <p>I was also struggling to pick my top ten to go through to the final as some acts were very underwhelming, and I found myself unenthusiastically letting a couple through qualification. I was stunned watching Azerbaijan&rsquo;s entry as the nation usually has a tendency to take #Eurovision very seriously and end up actually overproducing its acts, but the song and performance were incredibly forgettable, and I&rsquo;m not surprised they failed to qualify. Latvia were another lowlight for me for the same reasons, though I do think it had a good moment in there somewhere? Netherlands were also equally disappointing. Malta and Ireland were a bit better, I think Malta had a good instrumental but were let down by lyrics and a performance that was too busy when zoomed in, and I think Ireland&rsquo;s song is decent but the performance was missing something.</p> <p>For the ten I wanted to qualify to the Eurovision final, and above Malta and Ireland, I would rank Switzerland, Czechia and Israel. Switzerland was a bit cliche but was overall fine. Czechia was a bit up and down for me in parts, but it had a charm I liked and thought it was interesting. I do not personally believe Israel should be in the contest, and did not watch Eurovision in 2019 when it was hosted in Israel. If I were to base it solely on the music, I would say Israel desevered to qualify, but the song is a hodgepodge of about five different songs mushed into one only lasting three minutes - it was a bit of a mess at times. If I exclude Israel, I think I would have Ireland qualify and hope they improve their performance.</p> <p>Norway and Serbia would be my next step up. I think Norway have a good song, but her vocals got lost a bit on the stage, hopefully it&rsquo;s something that can be mixed better in the final. Serbia&rsquo;s entry was very strange, but I quite liked its presence and its alternative sound, not sure what it was about, but I thought it was intriguing.</p> <p>Croatia and Finland were then my next favourites, in a category that became known as &quot;weird, but enjoyable&quot;, though I&rsquo;ll give Finland the edge here as I think it is a more cohesive song. Both great performances with catchy parts, and gave the essence of strange Eurovision the contest is known for. I had a big, albeit baffled, smile on my face while watching them both.</p> <p>Next is the top three, though I am unsure on order. Sweden comes to mind as perhaps third place. I thought the staging was amazing and her performance was captivating, though I often struggled to hear her lyrics and thought her vocals were also overwhelmed by the music at times, so I hope the final will be mixed a bit better along with Norway. Second probably goes to Moldova, as it simply had no faults. The vocals were great, the extra performers on stage were used brilliantly, everyone&rsquo;s hair and costumes were spot on, the song was catchy and interesting, and everything moved together seamlessly. I guess my favourite of the night was Portugal. I thought her vocals and stage presence were incredible and the song really good, with the extra performers blending in perfectly to elevate it all, and great styling all around.</p> <p>I wouldn&rsquo;t be surprised though if the winner isn&rsquo;t in this semifinal. Although I like the top three a lot, I&rsquo;m not sure if the special magic needed to win Eurovision is in there. Maybe Sweden if the vocals get cleared up, but I&rsquo;m not sure. I&rsquo;m looking forward to watching the next semifinals on Thursday to hear the other half of acts for the first time. I&rsquo;ll next go and listen to the tracks of semifinal 1 rather than hear them as live performances. It&rsquo;ll be interesting if any song I eliminated is better, such as Ireland, and if the vocals are clearer for Norway and Sweden. All in all, I had a blast watching it last night, bringing so much fun and joy into my life!</p> <h2 id="semifinal-2">Semifinal 2</h2> <p>I thought the entries were pretty disappointing overall, with me not really wanting to bother voting for any. I will say that since listening to the studio versions of the entries, some have grown on me (including a couple I eliminated on the night), but the whole point of Eurovision is that live performance, which is why I don&rsquo;t listen to the entries until they perform because it really does change things.</p> <p>On the night, I thought the poorer acts were Romania, San Marino, Georgia, Denmark, Greece and Iceland. Romania was disjointed, unappealing on the stage, and I couldn&rsquo;t really hear the vocals and lyrics clearly. Georgia struggled in her vocal performance, I thought it was too pitchy and I didn&rsquo;t enjoy it at all. Greece was uninteresting and I thought the staging was poor. I again struggled to make out what Denmark was saying, thought the whole thing was a bit flat, and didn&rsquo;t like the layered vocals in the chorus which were autotuned. I have nothing against autotune in music, but for a live performance, it felt off putting.</p> <p>I didn&rsquo;t like San Marino or Iceland at all on the night. San Marino felt all over the place and didn&rsquo;t connect through the TV. Iceland had bad staging too, I don&rsquo;t think her choreography worked whatsoever on that giant stage. I think she tried to compensate with high energy, but it came across as too much and over the top to me, I found it a bit cringy to watch. However, listening to these two back, based on the studio version alone, I quite like them and would have them qualify to the finals. On the night though on that #Eurovision stage, both were near bottom.</p> <p>In a step above them, and thus qualifying through to the finals for me were Albania and Armenia. Albania the better song of the two, but both improved as the performance went on. There was nothing too wrong with Albania, and I liked its staging, but not very memorable. Armenia was too slow to get going, but had one of the best stage settings of the night with the changing light effects. Cyprus, Estonia and Lithuania had a collection of ballads, with Lithuania my favourite of the three. All were fine, but nothing special. Cyprus had a decent performance. Estonia improved as she went on. Lithuania would probably be better if more had been invested into utilising the stage better and given better outfits to improve the performance.</p> <p>Austria is interesting because while I liked how it brought something different to the semifinal, as well as liking its staging and musical structure of the song, it came across a bit strangely to me, like it was a bit like that meme with the girl putting a bag of frozen peas on its head, I guess maybe trying too hard to be kooky? It&rsquo;s a shame, because listening to the song back, I appreciate more the lyrics in the second half of the song about how badly musical artists are paid. Maybe I&rsquo;m just taking it too seriously and need to lighten up!</p> <p>Next is Poland, one of the few songs of the night that sounded &quot;normal&quot;. It&rsquo;s fine again and nothing special, but I appreciated how she and her backup dancers performed on the stage, and I had a good beat to it. Belgium was my third favourite, I liked the throwbacks to nineties dance club music, and loved the performance on stage with the dynamic graphics and great dancers, but I didn&rsquo;t feel too excited about it. However, he really could sing and I could make out what he was saying! Australia is my second, I loved the energy throughout and thought how they did the staging was pretty good. Where they go a bit nu-metal is a tad disjointed to the rest of the song, but the overall structure was great and it&rsquo;s pretty catchy. Enjoyed his vocals and lyrics. Slovenia were my favourite of the night because I thought they performed it well live and I liked the song. I will say that they probably could have used the stage better, as it felt like that performance could be on any stage in the world, it didn&rsquo;t best utilise what Eurovision had to offer.</p> <p>I enjoyed both of the Eurovision musical interval acts, and again think the three presenters did a great job, perhaps better than on Tuesday night. I am really curious about the six entries I haven&rsquo;t seen or heard from yet, hoping they may have that magical song that wows me to want to win Eurovision. However, looking at the set list for the final, it actually has a nice mix of songs and so should be a good night of fun! I&rsquo;m really looking forward to it again, though slightly saddened that it&rsquo;ll all be over by Sunday! It&rsquo;s been a fun week obsessed with Eurovision and I&rsquo;ll miss it!</p> <h2 id="final">Final</h2> <p>I thought the overall production was done incredibly well, though I would have liked one of the musical intervals acts to have been more Ukrainian centred - I get we&rsquo;re in Liverpool and it&rsquo;s a great city, but the UK didn&rsquo;t win Eurovision. I also thought someone who lost out on the night was Graham, who wasn&rsquo;t needed on stage with the three excellent preexisting hosts, and wasn&rsquo;t missed in the commentary box either with Mel being really funny doing his job. Don&rsquo;t get me wrong, Graham wasn&rsquo;t bad at all, he did nothing wrong, but I think was outshined by others last night.</p> <p>I scored all the acts during last night&rsquo;s #Eurovision final, and then ranked them in order from 1st to 26th:</p> <ol> <li>Finland</li> <li>Moldova</li> <li>Sweden</li> <li>France</li> <li>Slovenia</li> <li>Portugal</li> <li>Belgium</li> <li>Poland</li> <li>Norway</li> <li>Italy</li> <li>Estonia</li> <li>Croatia</li> <li>Lithuania</li> <li>Austria</li> <li>Cyprus</li> <li>Ukraine</li> <li>Australia</li> <li>United Kingdom</li> <li>Serbia</li> <li>Switzerland</li> <li>Czechia</li> <li>Albania</li> <li>Armenia</li> <li>Germany</li> <li>Israel</li> <li>Spain</li> </ol> <p>In hindsight, I would change my Eurovision rankings slightly, and did find it difficult to decide some placements.</p> <p>What was not difficult was Spain. I was initially optimistic as they had really interesting staging as the song began, but something went wrong as it kept going. I found it unpleasant to listen to and didn&rsquo;t like the structure. I wouldn&rsquo;t want to listen to that again. I tried listening to the studio version but turned it off halfway, it&rsquo;s really not for me. Israel had a significantly worse performance than on semifinal 1. She went off-key a couple times, she seemed less confident, and had a lot less polish. Germany had a decent chorus that I liked, and they gave plenty of energy, but I thought the song was too disjointed and I didn&rsquo;t personally like the screaming parts.</p> <p>I thought Armenia actually improved on their semifinal performance with better vocals, but compared to other acts tonight it struggled. I just wish it was a better song getting to the latter parts sooner. Albania had a very similar performance to their semifinal. Nothing wrong with them, just better acts out there. Same with Czechia and Switzerland really, though I think they had slightly better performances.</p> <p>And this is where I reach the point I would have changed my Eurovision rankings a bit. I think I ranked Serbia too low and the United Kingdom too high. Maybe swapping them around, or even lowering the United Kingdom beneath Czechia and Switzerland. Serbia&rsquo;s semifinal and final performances seemed similar to me, but I think the song and performance were better than the United Kingdom now I think about it again today. The United Kingdom struggled with weak vocals, particularly at the start where I couldn&rsquo;t hear her properly, and I was disappointed in the lack of dancing for a dance song. I get she&rsquo;s singing, but Poland had a good balance of the right amount of dancing while not affecting her vocals, for example. Australia were a bit disappointing as he also struggled with weak vocals at the start, though he improved as he went on, and I do like the song, it&rsquo;s grown on me a lot since the semifinals. If he had started stronger, Australia would be higher ranked.</p> <p>Ukraine were next in my rankings. It was perfectly fine, maybe a tad bland? It sounded better in the studio version than it did live, but I think it is hard for a song like that to get a huge stage presence to carry it. Cyprus sounded the same compared to the semifinals. It&rsquo;s also fine, but nothing special. I thought Austria did much better in the final, and I scored them higher as a result. The vocals were stronger and clearer so I could understand them better. I also think they were more confident on the stage.</p> <p>It was a bit difficult trying to separate Lithuania and Estonia, and I eventually ended up wedging Croatia in between! Lithuania and Estonia could easily swap positions, as I thought both had improved performances and are somewhat similar. Croatia sadly weren&rsquo;t as good as before. It felt like they&rsquo;ve had a bit too much fun in between shows, and weren&rsquo;t able to give the same energy and level of performance.</p> <p>Italy gave a solid performance with interesting staging, good vocals, and a nice song. I don&rsquo;t actually remember too much about it this morning, but I liked it last night! I thought Norway had an improved performance by having improved vocals, and I could understand her better. Poland and Belgium both had very similar performances to the semifinals, so I still liked them a lot.</p> <p>Portugal was a disappointment, I thought she had less energy and took longer for her vocals to reach their best. As such, she slipped down my rankings. Maybe I was a tad biased at ranking Slovenia so high as I had drawn them in the #Mastovision sweepstakes draw by @Kitty@metalhead.club as the song on its own isn&rsquo;t anything amazing as I listen to the studio version, but I thought the actual performance on the #Eurovision stage was really good fun and better than what they did in the semifinals, they gave such great energy. I really enjoyed France, I loved the staging and structure of the song, and also thought her vocals were superb. After the disappointment of Portugal, France gave me what I wanted!</p> <p>I&rsquo;m going to skip Sweden here and discuss them next alongside Finland as these two were the major talking points of #Eurovision.</p> <p>I placed Moldova second because it still really delivered and was just as engaging as before, with the backup singers even better in the final. I&rsquo;m not sure why others didn&rsquo;t rank Moldova highly as they gave great vocals, energy, staging and song. I loved it.</p> <p>So, Sweden and Finland. I ranked Sweden third because although I thought her vocal performance had improved and I could hear her better compared to the semifinals, it just wasn&rsquo;t as good as Moldova for me which was a more complete perfect package. It certainly wasn&rsquo;t as good as Finland. I didn&rsquo;t see much wrong with Finland in the semifinals, but wow! They had somehow significantly improved for the final and I loved it so much more. Plus, I got goosebumps from the fantastic crowd chanting cha cha cha, I could feel how electric the atmosphere was in the arena. I had a giant smile on my face throughout and it instantly became my favourite with the magic I was looking for in my winner.</p> <p>In my opinion, no one else came close to the excitement created by Finland, which I think is why many people are disappointed that Sweden won. In comparison, Sweden just didn&rsquo;t have that magical presence that Finland had, nor the immense love from the crowd you could feel through the screen. I think the fact Sweden won the vast majority of jury votes and Finland winning the vast majority of public votes is a concern, and not only shows a significant divide of opinion between the two, but also causes drama as there are now accusations of rigging, bias and snobbery from the juries who have &quot;robbed the people&rsquo;s choice&quot;. Something probably has to change or else fans may become very resentful.</p> <p>Nonetheless, I significantly enjoyed my week of Eurovision! Not just the three shows, but also loving the accompanying content put out by the BBC, and the general involvement from the British public. It&rsquo;s felt so special, I&rsquo;ve been a huge fan of Eurovision for many many years now, and it&rsquo;s been the best one yet as a fan, and I am gutted it&rsquo;s over for another year.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/bookmarking-system/ Fri, 12 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/bookmarking-system/ <p>I touched on bookmarks twice in previous posts. The first was with <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#bookmarks">storing interesting stuff</a>, and how I didn&rsquo;t have a good system, which led to me trying out <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#raindropio">Raindrop.io</a>, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#shiori--shaarli">Shiori and Shaarli</a>, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#nextcloud-bookmarks">Nextcloud Bookmarks</a>, and then <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#logseq">Logseq</a>. I was happy with my Logseq setup, but later decided to switch my approach to a <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything/#link-garden">Link Garden</a>. Which I was satisfied with, and I do like having a public repository of sorts for my bookmarks. However, I recently became reacquainted with <a href="https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding">linkding</a>, and it&rsquo;s got me thinking&hellip;</p> <h2 id="linkding">linkding</h2> <p>I had dabbled with linkding, a self hosted bookmark manager, as well as its contemporary <a href="https://www.linkace.org/">LinkAce</a>, for no more than a few minutes in the past before deciding it wasn&rsquo;t for me.</p> <p>Then I came across a post on Reddit where someone in the comments responded with how using the <a href="https://github.com/Fivefold/linkding-injector">linkding injector</a> was a game changer, as it means bookmarks don&rsquo;t get forgotten. How?</p> <p><em>&ldquo;When searching on a search engine the search term is also sent to your linkding instance and results are added in a new box in the sidebar right to the search engine results.&rdquo;</em></p> <p>As such, a search for &ldquo;contrast checker&rdquo; will bring up search results, as well as a box to the side featuring any saved bookmarks which match that term too. Quite exciting! Furthermore, there is a way to configure <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/ch.rmy.android.http_shortcuts/">HTTP Request Shortcuts</a> on Android, to allow saving bookmarks easily on the go, complete with tagging too! Lastly, it&rsquo;s also very easy to backup with buttons to easily export and import the bookmarks.</p> <p>Initially, what I have done is clean up my clogged bookmark toolbar by adding and tagging them into linkding, but while this is nice, that&rsquo;s where most of my temporary bookmarks were, not the ones I intended to keep in the long term.</p> <h2 id="link-garden">Link Garden</h2> <p>Instead, the permanent links were in the Link Garden, created by organised Markdown files and deployed through <a href="https://www.mkdocs.org/">MkDocs</a>. But having them reappear alongside search results, as well as easy inputting via not only the Android shortcut, but also <a href="https://github.com/sissbruecker/linkding-extension/">the web browser extension</a>, plus being able to assign a link with multiple tags for quick searching, has made me rethink things.</p> <p>As nice as the Link Garden is, I think it&rsquo;s already going to enter an early retirement in favour of going full in on linkding as a bookmark manager. I&rsquo;m going to start the process of gradually migrating my saved links within the Link Garden over, and then close it down.</p> <h2 id="a-side-note">A Side Note&hellip;</h2> <p>I cannot recall where I read this recently, but I came across someone online (probably on Mastodon), talking about how we need to be less curated when we talk online, in that we do not discuss failures and the journey of processing enough, instead focusing on the successes and the end results.</p> <p>Although it is almost quite comical how many changes I have made to storing my bookmarks (been through Firefox, Raindrop, Nextcloud Bookmarks, Logseq, MkDocs, and now linkding), I think it&rsquo;s important to document how people get to places and why. Although I have ended up making yet another change to improve my setup, others may find somewhere else along my journey was exactly what they wanted, and by showing my changes in thinking out loud in public, people are able to do this.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s also part of me overcoming issues with perfectionism. I&rsquo;ve long had issues with hiding mistakes and having to be perfect, or else feeling like a failure. By being open about changing my mind, not getting it right first try, I am hoping will lead to a better mentality. I also agree with that person I read online that normalising talking about journeys, about what went wrong, and changing our minds is a positive thing for the internet as a whole. Life is messy, our thinking processes are messy, we shouldn&rsquo;t pretend that they&rsquo;re not!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/micro-blog-update/ Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/micro-blog-update/ <p>As I mentioned in my recent posts, I had a test Micro Blog up to archive some toots from my Mastodon account, but I had only recently managed to populate it with the vast majority of my Public toots. In this short post, I&rsquo;ll go into my thinking behind the whole endeavour, what the test was like, and why I changed it.</p> <h2 id="toots">Toots?!</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-archive-toots/#micro-blog">Before I begin, I recommend reading the previous post about the process of archiving my toots and why!</a></p> <h2 id="micro-blogging">Micro Blogging</h2> <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microblogging">The concept of micro blogging is not a new one</a>, and was of course popularised with Twitter, though I understand many do not view it as a micro version of a blog. Alternative to Twitter <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a> launched in 2016, and <a href="https://micro.blog/">Micro.blog</a> came a year later more focused on the blogging aspect.</p> <p>I was never a significant Twitter user, and saw no need in short form posts, so micro blogging was something I was aware of, but not interested in. However, since becoming an avid Mastodon user, and as I described in the linked post at the top of this, I wanted to preserve my toots from Mastodon, and reformatting them into a micro blog sounded like a good way to do it.</p> <h2 id="neofeed">Neofeed</h2> <p>As I was one day scrolling through the Hugo themes website (as you do!), I came across this really interesting theme called <a href="https://github.com/victoriadrake/neofeed-theme">Neofeed</a>. I liked the idea because it looked like a lo-fi version of Twitter, a simple layout designed for short form posts, and I also liked how it linked back to the original toot on Mastodon as well as who you replied to.</p> <h2 id="importing-the-toots">Importing The Toots</h2> <p>As explained previously through the archiving process, I ended up with dozens of .md files, each being of a toot made on Mastodon. I copied these over into the <code>posts</code> folder within the <code>contents</code> folder of the Hugo website running Neofeed.</p> <p>However, I did not like how these posts were displayed, seeing them crunched up as many of my toots are of more than one line.</p> <p>As such, while I was mostly micro blogging on Mastodon, I wasn&rsquo;t always micro blogging, and these longer toots didn&rsquo;t translate well when on Neofeed. I wasn&rsquo;t sure what to do, as changing the theme would mean losing the nice linking back features, though I realised the imported toots in my new system of archiving them lost that feature anyway. As such, I decided to look elsewhere for a simple theme for the toots.</p> <h2 id="anubis">Anubis</h2> <p>The micro blog would only display posts of text - no code, mermaid diagrams, about page, tag page&hellip; nothing except the text of toots. As such, it really didn&rsquo;t need much more. So, my requirements were:</p> <ul> <li>Very lightweight</li> <li>Minimal dependences</li> <li>Easily configurable CSS</li> <li>Light and Dark modes</li> <li>No landing page</li> </ul> <p>And I quickly found <a href="https://github.com/mitrichius/hugo-theme-anubis">Anubis</a> to be a perfect match! I was very quickly able to reconfigure the light and dark modes to fit my favourite <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/catppuccin">Catppuccin theme</a>, remove elements I didn&rsquo;t want, and have a Read More button there for longer toots.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Although not an exciting journey, I am pleased that my micro blog is now fully functional and looking really neat, as well as being super fast! I think if any one uses Mastodon extensively, particularly if they are mostly posting text based toots, I would recommend they give an archive a try, and use Hugo as a means to view the archived toots in a meaningful way. As Hugo can run locally, and its output being static web pages, you don&rsquo;t even have to make this archive public if you didn&rsquo;t want to, instead having it stored locally for you to navigate whenever you want.</p> <p>I personally like the idea of it being public, reflecting a more personal me on Jessica Journals, alongside the me that writes these longer blog posts about various things in more depth, not often reflecting on the day-to-day me.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-archive-toots/ Fri, 14 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-archive-toots/ <p>The Mastodon server I use recently experienced some technical issues, which we could all still talk to each other on the local feed (and our toots seem to be reaching people outside of our instance), we could not see toots incoming, and our notifications were also broken.</p> <p>But, as we could still access our data, many of us backed ours up using the Export function from the preferences section on a web browser. However, once we have our data, what can be done with it? In this post, I&rsquo;ll go through the process of how I archive my toots using my Mac.</p> <h2 id="toots">Toots?</h2> <p>Before I begin, I should explain for those unaware, that <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a> is a federated alternative to Twitter, and toots are the name given to the alternative of Tweets - however, many prefer posts or notes instead. I like using toots, but do alternate between that and posts. For clarity here, I&rsquo;ll be using &ldquo;toots&rdquo; for the microblogging messages on Mastodon, and &ldquo;posts&rdquo; for Hugo blog posts that come from .md files.</p> <h2 id="micro-blog">Micro Blog</h2> <p>Many wanted a back up in case we needed to migrate to a different instance, but I have long wanted to create an archive of my toots in case the instance went offline, or the admin decided to turns on automatic deletion of toots after a certain amount of time in order to save space.</p> <p>I created a test <a href="https://microblog.jessicajournals.com/">Micro Blog</a> containing some copied-and-pasted toots a few months ago, and while I was happy with the end result, the actual process of getting to it was slow and cumbersome due to the process of copying and pasting toot-by-toot.</p> <p>Spurred on by the technical issues of my instance, I decided to have another look at what could be done with the outbox.json file I extracted from the exported archive.</p> <h2 id="scripts">Scripts</h2> <p>A started with a web search and some scripts came up, but I ran into multiple errors. I&rsquo;m not well versed in many languages, more of just a HTML and CSS person, with dabbles in YAML and TOML to reconfigure Hugo. As such, even though the guides I used seemed straightforward, and probably are to those who regularly use Scala or JavaScript, I encountered errors I didn&rsquo;t know how to fix.</p> <p>However, I finally managed to get something working through a slightly modified version of a <a href="https://www.chrisdeluca.me/article/exporting-mastodon-posts-to-my-blog/">Node.js script by Chris Deluca:</a></p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-javascript" data-lang="javascript"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="ch">#!/usr/bin/env node </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="ch"></span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="kr">import</span> <span class="p">{</span> <span class="nx">readFile</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="nx">writeFile</span> <span class="p">}</span> <span class="nx">from</span> <span class="s1">&#39;node:fs/promises&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="kr">import</span> <span class="p">{</span> <span class="nx">Buffer</span> <span class="p">}</span> <span class="nx">from</span> <span class="s1">&#39;node:buffer&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="kr">import</span> <span class="nx">striptags</span> <span class="nx">from</span> <span class="s1">&#39;striptags&#39;</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">(</span><span class="kr">async</span> <span class="p">()</span> <span class="p">=&gt;</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">try</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">const</span> <span class="nx">filePath</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="k">new</span> <span class="nx">URL</span><span class="p">(</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s1">&#39;./outbox.json&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">import</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">meta</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">url</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">);</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">const</span> <span class="nx">contents</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="kr">await</span> <span class="nx">readFile</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">filePath</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="p">{</span> <span class="nx">encoding</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="s1">&#39;utf8&#39;</span> <span class="p">});</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">const</span> <span class="nx">data</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nx">JSON</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">parse</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">contents</span><span class="p">);</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">data</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">orderedItems</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">forEach</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="kr">async</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">=&gt;</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">object</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">inReplyTo</span> <span class="o">||</span> <span class="o">!</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">object</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">content</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="k">return</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">const</span> <span class="nx">unixTimestamp</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="nb">Math</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">floor</span><span class="p">(</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">new</span> <span class="nb">Date</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">published</span><span class="p">).</span><span class="nx">getTime</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="o">/</span><span class="mi">1000</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">);</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">const</span> <span class="nx">publishDate</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="k">new</span> <span class="nb">Date</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">published</span><span class="p">).</span><span class="nx">toISOString</span><span class="p">();</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">const</span> <span class="nx">template</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="sb">`+++ </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb">title = &#34;Note on </span><span class="si">${</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">published</span><span class="si">}</span><span class="sb">&#34; </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb">slug = &#34;</span><span class="si">${</span><span class="nx">unixTimestamp</span><span class="si">}</span><span class="sb">&#34; </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb">publishdate = &#34;</span><span class="si">${</span><span class="nx">publishDate</span><span class="si">}</span><span class="sb">&#34; </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb">draft = false </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb">syndicated = [ &#34;</span><span class="si">${</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">object</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">url</span> <span class="o">||</span> <span class="s1">&#39;&#39;</span><span class="si">}</span><span class="sb">&#34; ] </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb">+++ </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="sb"></span><span class="si">${</span><span class="nx">striptags</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">unescape</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">item</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">object</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">content</span><span class="p">),</span> <span class="p">{</span><span class="nx">allowedTags</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="k">new</span> <span class="nx">Set</span><span class="p">([</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s1">&#39;a&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s1">&#39;strong&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="s1">&#39;em&#39;</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">])</span><span class="si">}</span><span class="sb">)}`</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">const</span> <span class="nx">fileData</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="k">new</span> <span class="nx">Uint8Array</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">Buffer</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">from</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">template</span><span class="p">));</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="kr">await</span> <span class="nx">writeFile</span><span class="p">(</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="sb">`/Users/Jessica/posts/</span><span class="si">${</span><span class="nx">unixTimestamp</span><span class="si">}</span><span class="sb">.md`</span><span class="p">,</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">fileData</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">);</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">});</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">}</span> <span class="k">catch</span> <span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">err</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="p">{</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="nx">console</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">error</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="nx">err</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="nx">message</span><span class="p">);</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="p">}</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">})();</span> </span></span></code></pre></div><p>For some reason, I had an issue with line 10 <code>./outbox.json</code>, I needed the ./ in front to make any of the pathing work, as without it, it became confused and complained of lacking permissions.</p> <p>Also, as someone who doesn&rsquo;t use Node.js often, I had to grab striptags separately before running the script to make it work.</p> <p>As such, here is the step-by-step of how I did it if you need to start from scratch and don&rsquo;t know much about all this sort of stuff, like me!</p> <h2 id="guide">Guide</h2> <blockquote> <p>I&rsquo;ve written this guide for Mac as that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m using. The entire process uses Finder, Terminal, The Unarchiver, and CotEditor - though similar applications ought to work fine.</p></blockquote> <ol> <li>In Terminal, install <a href="https://brew.sh/">homebrew:</a> <code>/bin/bash -c &quot;$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)&quot;</code></li> <li>In Terminal, install <a href="https://nodejs.org/en">Node.js:</a> <code>brew install node</code></li> <li>In Terminal, install <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/striptags">striptags:</a> <code>npm install striptags</code></li> <li>Go to your Mastodon instance via a web browser, logging in and going to Preferences → Import and Export.</li> <li>There should be a button to create an archive of your data.</li> <li>After the archive has finished collecting everything, but this may take a long time depending on how much data there is, press on Download Your Archive.</li> <li>A .tar.gz file will download. In Finder, open and save its contents through an extractor such as <a href="https://theunarchiver.com/">The Unarchiver</a> or <a href="https://www.keka.io/en/">Keka</a>.</li> <li>In Finder, locate the <code>outbox.json</code> file, and copy it into your home folder (mine is in my name of <code>Jessica</code>. You can quickly get to your home folder by pressing down Command, Shift and H at the same time - <code>command+shift+h</code>).</li> <li>In a text editing application like <a href="https://coteditor.com/">CotEditor</a> or <a href="https://www.sublimetext.com/">SublimeText</a>, copy and paste the above large JavaScript code, and save the file as <code>convert.mjs</code> in your home folder.</li> <li>Next in the text editor, you need to change line 37. It determines the location of where you want the Hugo posts to be created. You will need to change the name of the home folder from <code>Jessica</code> to the name of yours.</li> <li>In Finder, go into your home folder and create a new folder called <code>posts</code>.</li> <li>In Terminal, you ought to be automatically in your home folder already, you can confirm this by entering <code>pwd</code> into the Terminal and pressing Enter. It should return with <code>/Users/[NAME]</code>. If you are elsewhere, keep inputting <code>cd ..</code> and hitting Enter until you see <code>/ %</code> at the end, and then type in <code>cd /Users/[NAME]</code> and pressing Enter. Verify you are in the right place again by using <code>pwd</code> as described before.</li> <li>In Terminal, type <code>node convert.mjs</code> and press Enter. Nothing may look like its happening, but if you use Finder and navigate to <code>posts</code> in your home folder, it should now be populated with .md files.</li> <li>In Finder, copy and paste the .md files to where the posts go within your Hugo website.</li> <li>You may need to edit the .md files slightly, due to possible formatting issues. You can do this within your text editor.</li> </ol> <h2 id="optional-tweaks">Optional Tweaks</h2> <ul> <li>As default, the script will generate .md files titled <code>Note on [TIME]</code> within the Hugo Front matter (as seen on line 22). You may wish to rename this.</li> <li>You may also wish to modify the slug (the URL ending the post will have) on line 23.</li> </ul> <h2 id="limitations">Limitations</h2> <ul> <li>Only Public posts are converted. For example, replies, which are usually sent as Unlisted, will not appear, but if you sent them as Public, they will.</li> <li>Any <code>#hashtags</code> will appear in the .md file, but won&rsquo;t be functional.</li> <li>Images didn&rsquo;t import or load. Not an issue for me as I rarely use then, but if they&rsquo;re a significant part of you Mastodon experience, you may want to look further in how the images can also be imported into Hugo posts.</li> <li>Custom emojis didn&rsquo;t appear either, with only their shortcode in text being visible, for example: <code>:infinity_rainbow:</code></li> <li>Content warnings vanished too.</li> <li>The archive can only be requested every seven days, meaning your Hugo posts may often be out of date, depending on how regular you post.</li> <li>You will also need to manually request the archive every seven days, extract it, and move the <code>outbox.json</code> file to the appropriate location.</li> <li>Running the script will create posts from the entirety of the <code>outbox.json</code> file. If you are doing this weekly, make a note of the most recent .md file created, and then when you run the script every week, delete the .md files older than it, so you don&rsquo;t end up with duplicates. Alternatively, you could copy and paste all the contents within <code>posts</code> to where the posts go within your Hugo website, being careful not to overwrite existing files, and instead just have the newly created files added.</li> <li>As I alluded to in step 15: &ldquo;you may need to edit the .md files slightly, due to possible formatting issues&rdquo;. This is because while paragraphs appear normally within Mastodon, they do not convert well.</li> </ul> <p>For example, a daily waffle game comes out looking like this: <code>#waffle442 2/5🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⭐🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜🟩⭐🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩</code></p> <p>Instead of this:</p> <pre tabindex="0"><code>#waffle442 2/5 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩⭐🟩⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩⬜🟩⭐🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 </code></pre><p>As such, you may need to spend time reformatting if you use paragraphs extensively, like me!</p> <h2 id="other-options">Other Options</h2> <p>If you are just wanting to archive toots, and not necessarily republish them, you may instead be more interested in <a href="https://github.com/blackle/mastodon-data-viewer.py">mastodon-data-viewer.py</a> or <a href="https://github.com/kensanata/mastodon-archive">mastodon-archive</a>, with the former using the export function again, and latter instead accessing the data via the API.</p> <p>Not really wanting to put a strain on the instance I&rsquo;m on by requesting all my data via the API for no real reason, I have only tested mastodon-data-viewer.py, which creates a local &ldquo;website&rdquo; only your device can access where you can browse your past toots (and replies!) easily by navigating between months, and by a search bar! As such, it may be useful to spin up every now and then just to use the search function if your instance (like mine) does not have ElasticSearch, and you want to find something in your past toots. Content Warnings and images are also supported here, if that&rsquo;s important to you, and there are buttons to reply to the toots and to go to them directly.</p> <p>Lastly, there is also <a href="https://purr.neocities.org/">Meow</a>, which appears to have a nice interface, but I wasn&rsquo;t too sure about trusting it as it isn&rsquo;t open source and I&rsquo;d rather be able to run something like that offline.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Despite the limitations, and although there are other methods out there which may be more suited to your situation (I recall stumbling across one using the API, but cannot find it now), I am personally okay with this approach. Although not fully automated, and needing manual intervention, as I know my toots have many paragraphs within them (as well as waffle game scores that do not need archiving!), I don&rsquo;t mind doing a bit of light reformatting once a week to make sure the content all works fine.</p> <p>However, if there was a way to make sure the converted posts carried the same formatting the toots had, I would be interested in alternatives - even if I still have to export the archive, run the script, and re-upload weekly. It&rsquo;s never a bad idea to do a weekly backup of your Mastodon data anyway!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/rss-and-newsletters/ Fri, 31 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/rss-and-newsletters/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything-again/">I recently talked about how I looked into Omnivore</a>, and mentioned in passing how it didn&rsquo;t connect to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS">RSS feeds</a>, and I realised I had not discussed how I access my RSS feeds. So, in this post, I&rsquo;ll be going through my journey with RSS, and where I&rsquo;ve landed up, as well as how I decided to read newsletters, and what this means to the <a href="https://omnivore.app/">Omnivore</a> set up.</p> <h2 id="early-days">Early Days</h2> <h3 id="firefox">Firefox</h3> <p>I don&rsquo;t quite remember when I first began using RSS to read content online, but I do recall saving RSS feeds to my bookmark toolbar within Firefox and every day having a quick look through them. <a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/feed-reader-replacements-firefox">Although Firefox removed this feature a couple of years ago</a>, the add-on <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/livemarks/">Livemarks</a> is a good replacement which I still use, though not in the same fashion as I used to.</p> <p>These days, rather than websites I wanted to keep an eye on for updated posts, I now use my feeds on my bookmark toolbar for news websites as a quick way to keep on top of current events.</p> <h3 id="flipboard">Flipboard</h3> <p>I slowly migrated away from using this method for website post updates some point after getting a mobile device, and preferring to read on there. I had grown used to using ReadItLater (eventually becoming <a href="https://getpocket.com/">Pocket</a>), and wanted a way to read RSS feeds in a similar way. I came across <a href="https://flipboard.com/">Flipboard</a> which integrated news sources and RSS feeds into a nice UI mimicking a newspaper. For a while, I used this method alongside trying out RSS apps, but gradually faded in use.</p> <h2 id="ifttt">IFTTT</h2> <p><a href="https://ifttt.com/feed">I became reawakened to using RSS as a means of delivering content to me with the arrival of IFTTT</a>, particularly how I could not only create a system whereby RSS feeds get sent directly to my inbox, but I could also aggregate them to only land in my inbox at the weekend when I had time to read them.</p> <p>Initially, this was a good system, but it only takes one weekend missed to fall behind, and before I knew it, I was being swamped with RSS emails, many containing posts I didn&rsquo;t actually care about. I decided I needed an app where I could quickly swipe past the posts that didn&rsquo;t interest me, and spend time reading the ones that did.</p> <h2 id="inoreader">Inoreader</h2> <p>I knew I was never going to last long using <a href="https://www.inoreader.com/">Inoreader</a>, a service which many say is one of the best in its field, due to its pricing structure, but I gave it a go just in case such a price was worth it. And it probably is for people who are keenly into reading content spread across the internet with it aggregating not just RSS, but also newsletters, social media and websites without RSS, and it&rsquo;s also for those who have the money. I simply don&rsquo;t, and so had to look elsewhere.</p> <h2 id="feedly">Feedly</h2> <p>The biggest name in RSS is probably <a href="https://feedly.com/">Feedly</a>, and it was the first place I looked when trying out something new. It&rsquo;s a decent enough service for someone starting out, but I disliked how intrusive it felt, and was flagged up as not being the best privacy wise.</p> <h2 id="palabre">Palabre</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure how I came across <a href="http://levelupstudio.com/en/palabre">Palabre</a>, an Android RSS app which can either sync with Feedly or fetch RSS feeds itself. I liked its UI, and how I could keep the RSS feeds local to my Android device where I would be reading them. This was my method for accessing RSS content for many years, still using it even after not being updated for a long time and becoming abandonware. But hey, if it isn&rsquo;t broke, why fix it?</p> <h2 id="selfhosting">Selfhosting</h2> <p>Well, when I became interested in selfhosting, one of the first things that came up suggested by people to do was to set up your own RSS aggregation service. There are many choices out there and pretty lightweight after all. So I thought I&rsquo;d give it a go.</p> <h3 id="tiny-tiny-rss">Tiny Tiny RSS</h3> <p>The name most recommended was <a href="https://tt-rss.org/">Tiny Tiny RSS</a>, but I couldn&rsquo;t get it working for some reason, and later found people online starting to suggest moving away from the platform. So, not determined to work out why I was getting issues, I looked elsewhere.</p> <h3 id="miniflux">Miniflux</h3> <p><a href="https://miniflux.app/">Miniflux</a> looked nice enough, with its minimal and clean UI, but I again had issues with setup and frequently ran into issues. Not a problem, there are other options.</p> <h3 id="selfoss">Selfoss</h3> <p>I finally got a setup working with <a href="https://github.com/fossar/selfoss">Selfoss</a>, and was initially happy with it, until it came to using third-party applications to access the RSS content. Although it had its <a href="https://f-droid.org/packages/bou.amine.apps.readerforselfossv2.android/">own mobile app</a>, I didn&rsquo;t like the idea of being locked in, and while there were workarounds to use in other applications I found them buggy.</p> <h3 id="freshrss">FreshRSS</h3> <p>On the other hand, FreshRSS seemed to be a protocol widely supported by many third-party applications as the API could be manipulated to appear as either <a href="https://feedafever.com/">Fever</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Reader">Google Reader</a>. This excited me as I could then shop around to find the mobile app and desktop application which suited me best. The process of migration was simple as the subscriptions can be imported (as well as exported for backing up), and then there wasn&rsquo;t much more to do aside from changing the theme to Catppuccin as it worked pretty much straight out of the box, though there are plenty of extensions if I wanted to do more with it.</p> <p>On my Android phone, I chose the <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.seazon.feedme&amp;gl=US">FeedMe</a> app, and am still experimenting on the desktop, currently trying out <a href="https://github.com/hello-efficiency-inc/raven-reader">Raven Reader</a> and <a href="https://github.com/Ranchero-Software/NetNewsWire">NetNewsWire</a>, though leaning towards Raven Reader as it is cross-platform on Linux as well.</p> <h2 id="newsletters">Newsletters</h2> <p>As times have changed online, <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3mm4z/the-rise-and-demise-of-rss">fewer people are pushing content via a website and summarising it through RSS</a>. Instead, <a href="https://www.conordewey.com/blog/future-of-newsletters/">there has been a major shift towards newsletters</a>, something I suspect is due to how easy it is to <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/newsletters-subscription-substack-journalism">monetise compared to using advertisements or traditional paywalls</a>.</p> <p>As a consequence, there is a lot of interesting content tucked away within newsletters, which makes them difficult to read elsewhere. There have been some workarounds, with Inoreader&rsquo;s paid tiers having an email address to use when signing up to newsletters, to then automatically integrate into your Inoreader set up, and Omnivore has something similar too.</p> <p>Of course, one may ask what is the issue with newsletters as they are designed, to arrive promptly in the inbox of the person to signed up to it? Well, maybe not much for most people, considering many seem to be using newsletters. However, my issues were them clogging my inbox up, and then forgetting about them if they were moved or had rules to send them to a dedicated Newsletter folder. I also did not like how the remote content couldn&rsquo;t be displayed within my email program as I had set it up to be privacy conscious, but didn&rsquo;t really need that when viewing a newsletter compared to possible spam, phishing or marketing emails from elsewhere.</p> <p>Furthermore, for me, reading newsletters ought to be about enjoying the content, rather than having an email focused UI, which thinks this is a message you might respond to, get in the way.</p> <p>So, I wanted a way to read the content within newsletters without having them bother my email setup, but also something that was free, that I could use on my mobile devices, and had an attractive UI designed for reading.</p> <h3 id="slick-inbox">Slick Inbox</h3> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure how I came across <a href="https://slickinbox.com/">Slick Inbox</a>, it may have been by accident or through a search, but I liked the concept, doing what Inoreader was offering, but just and only that: an email address to give when signing up to newsletters, and an app to then display all the emails in.</p> <p>Essentially, it could be argued Slick Inbox is just a glorified dedicated inbox for newsletters, but offers an easy way to unsubscribe to newsletters, the ability to bundle similar newsletters together for browsing a topic, a discovery system, and all within a UI designed to read and not send or reply.</p> <p>However, after a while of using it, I did wonder what would eventually happen to my Slick Inbox account when out of BETA, I would probably be charged to have as many newsletters as I have, so I decided to try out a system of using an email account, despite my past reservations - after all, it can&rsquo;t be too different to this, could it?</p> <h3 id="email-rules-and-filters">Email Rules and Filters</h3> <p>While I was able to easily create a dedicated inbox, rules, filters, and use the intermediary service of <a href="https://simplelogin.io/">SimpleLogin</a> to prevent the newsletters knowing my actual email address (as well as giving me a way to quickly unsubscribe by nuking the email address), I very quickly realised why I didn&rsquo;t do this in the first place, with the same issues arising as I mentioned earlier.</p> <p>All this reaffirmed my initial belief a dedicated application for reading was likely the better path.</p> <h2 id="rss--newsletters">RSS 🤝 Newsletters</h2> <p>Thankfully, I am not the only person out there who is struggling to find a way to access the content of newsletters without wanting them to land and clog up my inbox.</p> <p>I think I stumbled across <a href="https://github.com/leafac/kill-the-newsletter">Kill The Newsletter</a> somewhere on Reddit, an open source self hosted service which converts newsletters into RSS feeds. You create an inbox with the name of the newsletter you wish to read, the service then gives you an email address to use to sign up to the newsletter and a .XML URL to add into your chosen RSS platform. You&rsquo;ll then see any emails sent to that inbox in the RSS feed.</p> <p>I think it&rsquo;s an excellent idea being able to integrate newsletters into existing RSS reading setups, and love how this means the content of newsletters can now be read in multiple different ways. Although I am not a big reader of RSS or newsletters on my desktop, I know many are, and am glad it can be accessed not only via, say, an Android app, but also desktop applications.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Although it has taken me a long time to get to this point, I think the current setup is functioning well for me as I significantly prefer working within RSS readers and having the feeds update alongside newsletters, as I&rsquo;m in a &ldquo;reading mood&rdquo; when I open my apps up, good to have it all in the same place!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation-march-2023/ Fri, 24 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation-march-2023/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation/">Since my post on this subject from last year,</a> a few things have happened which have made me rethink about the way I have organised my music collection. In this post, I will go over the changes, and what I used to try to improve my music library.</p> <h2 id="server">Server</h2> <p>I was becoming frustrated with <a href="https://airsonic.github.io/">Airsonic,</a> with its frequent downtime and sluggishness. I decided to look towards <a href="https://www.navidrome.org/">Navidrome,</a> which uses the same streaming protocol, and is in active development.</p> <p>The changeover was a little difficult as there was no package I could simply install, like I did last time. Instead, <a href="https://mariushosting.com/how-to-install-navidrome-on-your-synology-nas/">I followed these instructions on how to set it up via Docker</a> running on the secondhand Synology NAS I was storing my music collection on.</p> <p>I created a Shared Folder to store my FLACs, populated it, and simply pointed to it via the instructions.</p> <h2 id="listening-clients">Listening Clients</h2> <p><a href="https://github.com/jeffvli/sonixd">I recently found out that SoniXD was no longer being developed,</a> <a href="https://github.com/jeffvli/feishin">with development moving to Feishin instead.</a> I am not too sure about Feishin just yet, as it is missing many features I like, but I will keep an eye on it. I also looked into <a href="https://github.com/dweymouth/supersonic">Supersonic,</a> a new desktop client for Subsonic protocols, but also found it to be very early days in development.</p> <h3 id="substreamer-web">Substreamer Web</h3> <p>In the meantime, I have started to just use the Navidrome interface from within a web browser, though I recently saw <a href="https://noted.lol/substreamer-web/">a post on noted.lol about a web client version of Substreamer</a> that caught my eye. It was simple to install on the NAS alongside Navidrome, and quickly loaded the collection, fetching artist information from last.fm including artist image, a biography, top songs, and similar artists.</p> <p>However, I was unable to edit playlists, so I&rsquo;ll still need to go back into Navidrome to do that, though aside from that issue, it&rsquo;s a good &ldquo;desktop&rdquo; client for now, which can, of course, be used through any device which doesn&rsquo;t have a dedicated app and can access a web browser, which might come in handy.</p> <h3 id="symfonium">Symfonium</h3> <p>A few months ago, I discovered <a href="https://www.symfonium.app/">Symfonium,</a> an Android app accessing music servers running the Subsonic protocol, <a href="https://reddit.com/r/Android/comments/yuxeqs/dev_symfonium_20_is_out_music_player_and_cast/">in a Reddit post.</a> The developer is still regularly updating it, and there is a <a href="https://support.symfonium.app/">community forum</a> for feedback and requests too.</p> <p>Although a paid app, it had a generous free trial, and I managed to save up enough Play Points to get it with a good discount. It&rsquo;s a beautiful application with highly customisable features and great practicality, it also fetches some data from the internet to improve the listening experience, such as biography and top songs, though artist images and similar artists would also be nice. Furthermore, as with many applications I&rsquo;ve encountered, I cannot edit playlists on it, which is a shame.</p> <h2 id="tagging">Tagging</h2> <p>I decided with this migration I was to finally sort out my music tags once and for all. It was a tedious process as while there are applications that will automagically fix the tags for you, I have faced two main issues with these in the past.</p> <ol> <li>As the majority of the music we are talking about in this collection is Japanese and Korean, the tagging applications, to be fair, did the right thing by changing all the tags into the correct Hiragana/Katakana/Kanji for Japanese or Hangul for Korean. However, I don&rsquo;t know these languages and finding or identifying the artists, albums or songs I want to listen to would be not only be difficult to recognise, but impossible to search for quickly as my keyboards are in English. As such, I would want the tags to be in a form of Romanisation or an English translation. And I would have to do this by hand.</li> <li>In the past, I have found some tagging applications to be kind of useless with their genres, with some being &ldquo;Asian Music&rdquo;, &ldquo;International&rdquo; and &ldquo;World&rdquo; - not very helpful. As genres vary amongst the tracks within an album, I actually decided to do away with genres, as they were more bother than they were worth. If, however, I could find a decent tagging application with good genre listings, I might consider giving that a go.</li> </ol> <h3 id="musicbrainz-picard">MusicBrainz Picard</h3> <p>I decided to use the free <a href="https://picard.musicbrainz.org/">MusicBrainz Picard</a> application to manually fix any issues with my tags, not using any of their automatic features. It was a very slow part of the process, but meant the tags were rendered how I liked them. I do think they have decent automatic tagging when needed, I had to hop to the website a couple of times to grab the details of an album when the tags were completely blank, and the edited them afterwards.</p> <h3 id="file-names">File Names</h3> <p>But I had another issue. While the folder structure was relatively neat, with [artist] → [album], the file names themselves were a bit messy, and this affected my playlists, as I could not write the .m3u3 files knowing exactly what the file names would be, as they could be any variations of the following:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-markdown" data-lang="markdown"><span class="line"><span class="cl">01 [song title] </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">01 - [song title] </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">01_[song title] </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">01 [artist] - [song title] </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl">01 [artist] - [album] - [song title] </span></span></code></pre></div><p>While MusicBrainz Picard has an export option, it didn&rsquo;t work out too well for me, so I looked elsewhere.</p> <h3 id="beets">beets</h3> <p>I heard of <a href="https://beets.io/">beets</a> a long time ago when browsing <a href="https://synocommunity.com/">SynoCommunity,</a> but I was put off my the non-graphical user interface. However, I had since become more used to working within the terminal, and decided to give it a go, as it has an export function.</p> <p>beets can actually do so much more, and is incredibly extensive in its capabilities in automagically tagging music. Again, not something I want, but something others should consider if they are going to reorganise their music collection.</p> <p>After setting up my config as so:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="nt">directory</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="l">/Volumes/Drive/Organised</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">library</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="l">/Volumes/Drive/musiclibrary.db</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">import</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span><span class="nt">copy</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">yes</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span><span class="nt">move</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">no</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span><span class="nt">write</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">no</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"> </span><span class="nt">autotag</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="kc">no</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>I simply then ran <code>beet import -A /Volumes/Drive/Fixed</code> to import my tag approved music collection into the &ldquo;Organised&rdquo; folder, with a structure based on [artist] → [album] again, and files as <code>01 [song title].flac</code></p> <p>The really neat thing is that if I acquire new music, I can just edit the tags how I want in MusicBrainz Picard, and then run the command again for beets to do its magic and add the music into the library with a perfect file structure.</p> <p>I then, in turn, copy the music off my local device and onto the NAS for Navidrome to automatically add to the collection, ready for streaming. Although beets can run on my NAS (again, that&rsquo;s how I found it!), I felt more comfortable running it locally as I am editing my tag locally, and then could view the local versions of the files as a backups from those on the NAS.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>With the exception of a stable fully featured desktop client, and a couple of features I would like added to Symfonium, I am relatively happy with this current set up. I love how easy it is to keep organised with a quick adjustment of tags and then running a short command for beets to do its work, and then easily accessible to listen to via Substreamer Web and Symfonium.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/dashboards/ Fri, 17 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/dashboards/ <p>Upon entering the world of self-hosting, one of the first things I saw when browsing around were the fancy <a href="https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#personal-dashboards">dashboards</a> people had linking to all their applications and services. While I&rsquo;d dabbled in fancy start pages in the past, these had been limited to add-ons within my Firefox browser, and were not (at least, at the time) accessible on mobile devices. In this short post, I&rsquo;ll very briefly go into the various applications I tried, and explain my current setup.</p> <h2 id="flame">Flame</h2> <p>I initially began with <a href="https://github.com/pawelmalak/flame">Flame</a> as it looked simple enough and was easy to install, which was important to me as this was indeed one of the first things I did install on my server. I liked the clean user interface, the ease in editing the icons and labels, and its speed. I was concerned about backing up though, and, if you are a regular reader, you&rsquo;ll know I like new shiny things&hellip;</p> <h2 id="dashy">Dashy</h2> <p>And the shiny thing that caught my eye was the more complex <a href="https://github.com/lissy93/dashy">Dashy</a>, with its extensive customisation, many widgets, and built in backing up system, as well as <a href="https://dashy.to/docs/">substantial documentation</a>. I was delighted at how easy it was install, and spent the next couple of days tweaking it to how I liked, with the <a href="https://draculatheme.com/">Dracula theme</a> I preferred back then, some widgets, and all the links to my various server applications.</p> <p>However, I then found issues which began to frustrate me. It started becoming sluggish in loading, making any changes was a hit-or-miss at whether they saved or not, and icons would randomly decide to not load or morph into different sizes. Despite the many positives, and I would recommend people give it a go as they may have a better time at stability, my frustration led me to look elsewhere after many months of Dashy.</p> <h2 id="homer">homer</h2> <p><a href="https://github.com/bastienwirtz/homer">homer</a> is another popular choice among dashboards, and I was drawn in by its YAML configuration, liking how I could save that and simply reload it if there were data loss, plus I figured it would be faster without a GUI for configuration.</p> <p>However, I hit a very early bump in the road as I couldn&rsquo;t get any icons to load for me, and could not work out why. As such, I started looking around again.</p> <h2 id="flame-again">Flame (Again)</h2> <p>&ldquo;Why not?&rdquo; I thought to myself as I saw Flame recommended in a list of dashboards. I now knew what I wanted in a dashboard and what I didn&rsquo;t need. Sure, the widgets in Dashy were nice, but I&rsquo;d rather have speed and uniformity, and something that I knew worked, of course.</p> <p>I again quickly set up my labels and icons, and this time customised the light and dark themes to <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/catppuccin">Catppuccin</a> in Green flavours of Latte and Mocha in under a minute. I also added some bookmarks to the bottom, made sure it used DuckDuckGo, and I was done. I added the URL as a PWA to the home on my Android device, and then I had this lovely fast, stable, functional and appealing dashboard I can easily access on my mobile devices or on my desktop, perfectly in sync.</p> <p>The issue of backing up was easily remedied by my better knowledge of self-hosting now, and I mapped volumes outside of Docker to gain access to the data, which makes it easier to backup via <a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a>.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/website-revamp-2023/ Fri, 03 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/website-revamp-2023/ <p>For those who have been here before, you may have noticed some changes to the website. There has been a revamp of the website, so in this post, I&rsquo;ll briefly discuss what changes I made, how they were done, and why.</p> <h2 id="colours">Colours</h2> <p>Although a long term fan of the <a href="https://draculatheme.com/">Dracula Theme,</a> I have since become drawn to the variety found in the <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/catppuccin">Catppuccin Theme.</a> In particular, I greatly enjoy its Mocha in Green. Since discovering it, I have been on a gradual mission to slowly convert as much of my computing experience to Catppuccin Mocha Green as possible, and recently realised that my website could be changed too.</p> <p>It was easier said than done, with although the basic CSS easily modified by creating a <code>theme-vars-override</code> file, changing the syntax took hours to work out. In the end, I abandoned efforts to use <a href="https://github.com/alecthomas/chroma">Chroma</a> as I failed to get it implemented correctly, and instead modified it via a <a href="https://github.com/catppuccin/highlightjs">Highlight.js file</a> and <a href="https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2019/conditional-syntax-highlighting-in-dark-mode-with-css-imports/">following this guide.</a></p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-css" data-lang="css"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;</span><span class="nt">style</span><span class="o">&gt;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">@</span><span class="k">import</span> <span class="s2">&#34;/catppuccin-latte.css&#34;</span> <span class="nt">root</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="p">@</span><span class="k">import</span> <span class="s2">&#34;/catppuccin-mocha.css&#34;</span> <span class="o">(</span><span class="nt">prefers-color-scheme</span><span class="o">:</span> <span class="nt">dark</span><span class="o">)</span><span class="p">;</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">&lt;/</span><span class="nt">style</span><span class="o">&gt;</span> </span></span></code></pre></div><p>However, I did have to modify the light theme, known as Latte, a bit, as my configuration of it failed some colour contrast tests. Though this then sent me into a new problem, I couldn&rsquo;t work out how to apply syntax styles for both light and dark themes on the website toggle. I did try a guide, but for some reason, struggled to get the light theme showing the correct syntax colours.</p> <p>Ordinarily, I wouldn&rsquo;t be so fussy over some colours not working as intended, but the issue was one over accessibility - the syntax in light mode would fail accessibility tests as there isn&rsquo;t enough contrast. So I had to fix it.</p> <h2 id="theme">Theme</h2> <p>I tried turning light mode off to prevent the issue, but couldn&rsquo;t get that to work either. Feeling a bit like a failure now as I was struggling to get anything to work, I then decided to step back a rethink the website theme entirely.</p> <h3 id="papermodx">PaperModX</h3> <p>Initially, I tried a fork of the <a href="https://github.com/adityatelange/hugo-PaperMod">PaperMod</a> theme I was using, called <a href="https://github.com/reorx/hugo-PaperModX/">PaperModX</a>, as it spoke about having <a href="https://github.com/reorx/hugo-PaperModX/#highlight-code-with-chroma-no-bullshit">Chroma support out of the box</a>, and I also found the CSS easier to edit. I managed to get to configured quite well, but I continued to struggle with the syntax changing depending on the light or dark mode toggle, even now I had Chroma. I decided I needed a theme which had the Chroma not only built in, but changeable based on the dark or light mode being toggled.</p> <h3 id="loveit">LoveIt</h3> <p>I saw <a href="https://hugoloveit.com/">LoveIt</a> discussed during one of my many troubleshooting web searches, with someone suggesting PaperMod implement a feature like LoveIt had done. I actually looked at many themes at this point, and initially ruled out LoveIt as a bit too much - containing many features I didn&rsquo;t need. However, after investigating more simpler themes, and running into one issue or another, I decided to try it out again.</p> <p>I liked how it has been mostly easily customisable, being able to change much of the CSS simply through the <code>_variables.css</code> file, though had to import the CSS found elsewhere needed for editing Mermaid diagrams.</p> <h2 id="mermaid-diagrams">Mermaid Diagrams</h2> <p>Speaking of which, I decided to make a switch to using <a href="https://mermaid.js.org/">Mermaid diagrams</a> instead of images of diagrams for accessibility reasons, and liked how these appeared to have different themes - could these be toggled into light or dark mode?</p> <p>Apparently, but I cannot work out how. As such, after much struggle, I had to give up, and instead try to create a theme for the diagrams which works in both modes, as such, it&rsquo;s a pretty ugly grey, but not much I can do about it - unless any one has any ideas? You can contact me via my Mastodon account if you do!</p> <p>Speaking of help, I&rsquo;m also open to knowing why my arrowheads in the Mermaid diagrams are so tiny <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-swap-between-mac-and-windows/#usbs">(as can be seen in this post here)</a>!</p> <h2 id="images">Images</h2> <p>As this was all going on, I realised with the images I had used for the post covers were no longer going to match the toggled theme either, they would have the colours for either light or dark mode, and while I good try to make them work for both using grey, like I did with the Mermaid diagrams, I realised my perspective on images has changed significantly over the past few months anyway.</p> <p>My time on Mastodon has made me rethink the use of images as a whole. While I had alt-text for all my post cover images, I began becoming more aware of useful alt-text while using Mastodon, and I appreciated how the platform is more text based as fewer people used images compared to elsewhere online. I decided that I didn&rsquo;t really need images here, they weren&rsquo;t adding much to begin with.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>As a result, I am now using the LoveIt theme, with modified light and dark modes based on Catppuccin Latte and Mocha in Green, with no images, and added Mermaid diagrams. I am hoping not to really change much again, as this was quite an undertaking, but I am hopeful to find a way to fix my issues with the Mermaid diagrams I previously mentioned!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything-again/ Fri, 17 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything-again/ <p>Well, this is embarrassing. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/posts/adventures-into/reorganising-everything/">Just a mere two weeks after writing my previous post,</a> I changed my mind on much of my organisational process yet again. So, in this post, I will write again on what programmes I am using to do what purpose, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/posts/adventures-into/organising-interesting-stuff/">in another attempt to organise the interesting stuff in my life.</a></p> <h2 id="obsidian">Obsidian</h2> <p>I decided to finally migrate away from <a href="https://getupnote.com/">UpNote,</a> <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/posts/adventures-into/reorganising-everything/#speaking-of-logseq">as I described in my previous post,</a> but quickly found the process within <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq</a> quite not right. The main issue was with folders. While UpNote gave Notebooks to help organise sections, Logseq only likes pages, and I couldn&rsquo;t overcome this problem I had reframing my mind to think differently.</p> <p>However, <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> shows the full folders tree, so I have my notes nestled neatly into folders, and can navigate them with ease. I&rsquo;ve kept the setup quite simple. Just adding <a href="https://github.com/clbn/dracula-gemini">Dracula Gemini</a> as my theme, and the plugin <a href="https://github.com/FlorianWoelki/obsidian-icon-folder">Icon Folder</a> to easily identify the folders within my setup.</p> <h2 id="zettlr">Zettlr</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/posts/adventures-into/digital-gardens/#conclusion">But then what about the Digital Garden?</a> As I&rsquo;ve previously stated, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/posts/adventures-into/note-taking/#obsidian">I do not like the idea of hopping between Obsidian vaults,</a> so I had to move these files elsewhere. Well, why not a platform designed for digital gardens or <a href="https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/">Zettelkasten</a> type notes?</p> <p>I had come across <a href="https://www.zettlr.com/">Zettlr</a> before, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/posts/adventures-into/note-taking/#zettlr-and-notenik">writing how it seemed more for academic use and not good for every day notes.</a> But, what I now had were not everyday notes, and while not academic, it should be a good choice for what I did want to use it for. Furthermore, as it is cross-platform, so I could access it in a similar way on my phone, it seemed like a good idea to try again.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m glad I did. It uses Markdown, accesses local files, creates backlinks between the files, and is easy to navigate with its three pane setup and full view of the file system and the folders I created.</p> <h2 id="logseq">Logseq</h2> <p>I was recently browsing Reddit, and came across <a href="https://reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/12bp6vv/raindrop_vs_anybox_vs_goodlinks/">this post</a> discussing the merits between bookmarking applications <a href="https://raindrop.io/">Raindrop,</a> <a href="https://anybox.app/">Anybox</a> and <a href="https://goodlinks.app/">Goodlinks.</a> Not a discussion that particularly interests me as I am satisfied with <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything/#link-garden">my bookmarking solution,</a> but I went to read it anyway, and <a href="https://reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/12bp6vv/raindrop_vs_anybox_vs_goodlinks/jey5k90/?context=3">saw a comment recommending Readwise Reader.</a> Already aware of Readwise, I looked into Reader and I love the idea of having one place to gather newsletters, RSS feeds, saved web articles, and being able to highlight interesting sections to save for future reference. However, I didn&rsquo;t love the price, and would prefer something local as well.</p> <p>I came across <a href="https://omnivore.app/">Omnivore</a> sometime last year, an open-source Read It Later application similar to Pocket, and later I read a Reddit post with <a href="https://reddit.com/r/logseq/comments/112qst4/omnivore_and_logseq_a_complete_guide/j8q99f0/?context=3">someone asking how Omnivore and a Logseq (!) plugin compares to Readwise,</a> to which the developer replied:</p> <p><em>&ldquo;We don&rsquo;t pull in highlights from external sources like Kindle and stuff. We are more a place to read your articles and documents, and do your highlighting/note-taking.&rdquo;</em></p> <p>So, highlighting and note taking articles is there, and poking around shows a way to subscribe to newsletters as well. I couldn&rsquo;t find a way to pipe RSS feeds into it, but I can always add those individual articles in later that I wish to save.</p> <p>However, despite speaking of a self hosted version, there currently, as I write this, <a href="https://docs.omnivore.app/self-hosting/self-hosting.html">no instructions on how to do this.</a> There also is only an iOS app, nothing for Android, which makes accessing it on the go difficult, <a href="https://omnivore.app/help/saving-links#savingfromyourandroiddevice">though they suggest a Progressive Web App will work.</a></p> <p>Despite this, I thought I would give it a go, and set up a new graph in Logseq (with Catppuccin Mocha Green theme!), added the Omnivore plugin, and set up a connection to the account I created. It required a restart for it to show, but I soon had a few articles, and its highlights, I had added for testing purposes!</p> <p>While I would have perhaps preferred the plugin to make new pages to each article with its highlights and notes, I still thought it did a really decent job at what it was trying to do, and liked how it also brought in the labels to become tags for easy browsing within Logseq. Now to populate Omnivore with more content and await instructions on self hosting&hellip;</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Hopefully, fingers crossed, that should be me done for a while organising my interesting stuff. Though I have recently spotted updates to <a href="https://www.audiobookshelf.org/">audiobookshelf</a> which have caught my eye&hellip;</p> https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything/ Fri, 03 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/reorganising-everything/ <p>We are back here again, reflecting on what has changed in my set up for organising interesting stuff nearly a year on <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/">from this original post,</a> as well as updates to my <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking/">note taking process.</a></p> <p>I have learned a lot during the past year, about technology and about myself, about how I function and work. This has resulted in changes to my workflow.</p> <p>Firstly, my love of <a href="https://www.markdownguide.org/">Markdown</a> has driven a lot of these changes, so I&rsquo;ll start there.</p> <h2 id="markdown">Markdown</h2> <p>Over the past year, I&rsquo;ve dabbled in numerous methods, apps and systems to find what works for me. I have come to prioritise a few things in my journey:</p> <h3 id="vendor-lock-in">Vendor Lock-In</h3> <p>I&rsquo;ve noticed a few things in my time which have made me weary of platforms where the data is locked into them.</p> <p>Companies can get bought out, go bust, change to subscription models, or make other decisions which may make me want to leave. But if there is vendor lock-in, walking away is more difficult.</p> <p>How easy it is to migrate data depends on the platform, and may only play nice with a select few other platforms. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/replaced-day-one/#migration">I remember the issues I had with extracting Day One data into Joplin, needing Bear to act as a middle man to make it work.</a> By having data that isn&rsquo;t locked in to a particular vendor, I can more easily pick and choose where I want my data to reside, without much fuss when changing my mind.</p> <p>Markdown is phenomenal in how its .md files can not only be basically read by a wide range of programmes, but how these programmes can drastically change how these files look and function within the confines of that programme. For example, a .md file can be rendered into a website via <a href="https://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a> or <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo,</a> used as part of Personal Knowledge Management software like <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> or <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq,</a> or simply function as a written document in <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora</a> or <a href="https://ia.net/writer">iA Writer.</a> These files can be taken anywhere, and used in a variety of different ways as they travel along with you.</p> <h3 id="cross-platform">Cross-Platform</h3> <p>I&rsquo;m in a situation which I think is relatively unique: macOS for my personal computer, Linux on my laptop, and Android on my phone. Unfortunately, not many pieces of software span across platforms like this. In particular, thanks to the integrated use of iCloud, many macOS apps sync seamlessly with iPhones and iPads, but don&rsquo;t have an Android app.</p> <p>However, because of no vendor lock-in, I am able to access my .md files on different pieces of software over my three devices. For writing, Typora runs on macOS and Linux, but not on Android where I can instead use <a href="http://www.epsilonexpert.com/">Epsilon Notes.</a> My bookmarks are accessed via <a href="https://nota.md/">Nota</a> on macOS, and <a href="https://github.com/gsantner/markor">Markor</a> on Android.</p> <p>And, again, due to no vendor lock-in, I can easily access my files via any file system.</p> <h3 id="back-ups">Back Ups</h3> <p>I have had significant issues in my life with databases. I get the benefits, but I also find myself wrangling with them and can be difficult to back up.</p> <p>On <a href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress,</a> the process has been tricky migrating between domains, server hosts or to restore after a bad update or security breach. However, all my posts can be easily backed up here on this Hugo running website as they&rsquo;re all written in Markdown and can be readily accessed via any normal file system. Same goes for my notes, not in an inaccessible database like Evernote, but stored individually in plain sight, where they can be backed up all over the place to keep safe without much fuss or difficulty.</p> <h3 id="standardisation">Standardisation</h3> <p>Markdown has a simple, but effective, language which is easy to learn and utilise, and as the .md files can be used in a variety of situations, it means I am essentially only using one language to achieve many different purposes. I am typing web posts, taking notes, organising bookmarks, and writing longform documents all in the same language. Formatting is the same, linking is the same, inserting images is the same, it&rsquo;s all the same, which makes life easier and getting on with stuff faster.</p> <h3 id="public-publication">Public Publication</h3> <p>I&rsquo;ve already touched on how Markdown can be used to create websites, but having so many different ways to render Markdown via Static-Site Generators, as well as through documentation such as <a href="https://docusaurus.io/">Docasurous</a> and <a href="https://www.mkdocs.org/">MkDocs,</a> opens many doors as to how I can share my .md files with the world.</p> <p>Rather than fiddle around with complicated export options or copying-and-pasting written drafts onto platforms to publish my work, I type directly into a .md file, run a command in terminal to render it all, and then just upload it. The process can be streamlined even further through the use of GitHub, if need be.</p> <h2 id="link-garden">Link Garden</h2> <p>As a result of all this, I changed my mind as to how I wanted my stuff to be organised. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#logseq">Rather than lock my bookmarks away in Logseq,</a> <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/digital-gardens/#but-logseq-looks-interesting">where they cannot be made easily public,</a> I decided to redo my bookmarks into pure Markdown and have them generated into a website via MkDocs.</p> <p>I decided this should become my Link Garden, a variance of a Digital Garden, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/digital-gardens/#dead-or-alive">featuring Dead content.</a> As I write in my About page:</p> <p><em>&ldquo;My Link Garden is an open repository of sorts where I have bookmarked various websites across the internet I found interesting, helpful, or just wanted to make sure I didn’t lose them. They are not endorsements, just a collection of links that can be viewed publicly.&rdquo;</em></p> <h2 id="syncthing">Syncthing</h2> <p>I also migrated away from using FolderSync, instead installing <a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a> on my server and using it to sync between all my devices, meaning all my writings, websites, Obsidian and Logseq all stay perfectly in sync. It&rsquo;s honestly one of the best pieces of software I use, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.</p> <h2 id="speaking-of-logseq">Speaking of Logseq&hellip;</h2> <p>As it is no longer needed to store my bookmarks, this other piece of amazing software has now been freed up for a use. In my drive towards Markdown and away from my data hosted elsewhere, I have reconsidered its purpose for my notes. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking/">As I previously wrote,</a> I decided to use <a href="https://getupnote.com/">UpNote</a> last time I revisited this subject.</p> <p>I still do like UpNote, and recommend to people who aren&rsquo;t too interested in controlling their data. It&rsquo;s clean, cross-platform, feature rich, and in active development. However, now I have Logseq sitting right here unused, it seems like a perfect opportunity for me to migrate once again and use it for my notes. After all, that is the purpose of Logseq!</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>All in all, I have gradually migrated towards options which enable more control over my data, made them easier to access across my devices, and enable me to publish them publicly.</p> <p>There are still issues I haven&rsquo;t addressed yet. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#but-what-about">As mentioned in the last post about all this,</a> tweets and toots don&rsquo;t have homes, nor do Reddit posts or audiovisual content such as YouTube videos and podcasts. <a href="https://readwise.io/">Readwise</a> is still the major player for gathering highlights of eBooks, online articles, and Twitter, and I do not know of a self-hosted alternative.</p> <p>However, I am overall happier with my system than I have been before. Though I know, and actually hope, things will change and improve as time goes by!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/the-rest-of-2022/ Fri, 20 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/the-rest-of-2022/ <p>2022 was a complex year for me. On the one hand, I grew significantly as a person as I tried new things and learned much more about myself, but on the other hand, I struggled with illness, loss, anxiety and depression. This combination resulted in this blog taking a backseat.</p> <h2 id="new-adventures">New Adventures</h2> <p>Following an idea from a family member, I opened an online store selling local goods. Success has been slow, but I am getting sales from the endeavour, and have learned a lot about the process.</p> <p>Mostly, running the business as ethical as possible has been very educational. From the creation of the website to how sales are packed and shipped, everything has been eye opening and tested me in a good way.</p> <p>It took a significant amount of time to set up the whole thing, and takes a couple of hours every other day to maintain. Although this isn&rsquo;t a significant amount of time, it nonetheless has drawn my attention here rather than writing.</p> <h2 id="low-times">Low Times</h2> <p>The other substantial aspect of my life last year was my ongoing issues with my mental health, which while I believe I am in a better place now as I write this than I was last year, still drained my energy, preventing me from dedicating time to writing.</p> <p>In particular, Autumn onwards was basically a write-off, with a sudden and unexpected death sending me into a spiral of depression before then being hit with a long illness I have only just recovered from. As such, it wasn&rsquo;t until January 2023 did I begin to spend my whole day awake and have the energy to do things other than the most important.</p> <h2 id="rediscovering-myself">Rediscovering Myself</h2> <p>On top of all of this, I discovered I am autistic. This has been a complicated experience, but one which has ultimately made a great impact in my life for the better. So much of my behaviour, attitudes and feelings are now better understood as they can be explained. I am a lot less depressed about who I am since finding this out, as I feel less broken and dysfunctional, but I still struggle with anxiety, which has a paralysing affect on me.</p> <p>Nonetheless, I have been reevaluating my life through my new autistic lens and am in the process of making a number of changes to help improve my life, now I know so much more about myself.</p> <h2 id="future">Future</h2> <p>One thing that has stayed true is that I do enjoy writing. I started using Twitter in Autumn of 2022, and switched to Mastodon in November 2022 just as I became really ill, and found writing this way therapeutic, helped me socially, and enjoyable. It made me want to get back to writing in this blog as soon as I was healthy enough.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-study-part-2/ Fri, 01 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-study-part-2/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/study/">Since I wrote about how I study,</a> I began my dissertation required to graduate. This has required the inclusion of a few new tools to assist me, and I’ll be going through them in this short post.</p> <h2 id="notion">Notion</h2> <p>I use <a href="https://www.notion.so/">Notion</a> to keep a daily progress journal, with a set template covering a few areas:</p> <ul> <li><strong>Tasks and Activities</strong> <ul> <li>Describe in detail what I have accomplished today.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Problems and Unknowns</strong> <ul> <li>Describe any issues I am experiencing, as well as anything I am unsure about.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Associated Thoughts</strong> <ul> <li>Here I write anything which interests me, perhaps to follow up on another day, such as possible lines of arguments, debates with myself over approaches, and sometimes just the process of getting random ideas out of my head and written down instead.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>To Do</strong> <ul> <li>A checklist of what I need to do next or soon.</li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>Queries</strong> <ul> <li>A list of questions to ask my professor when we next meet up.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>I have also added a section on contacts found who I would like to talk to about informing my work. I broke this table down as follows:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Data:</th> <th>Input:</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Name</td> <td>Name here</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Connections</td> <td>How they are connected to my work</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Expertise</td> <td>A sentence from an online profile of theirs</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Entry Point</td> <td>Academia, web search or referral</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Academia</td> <td>Name of relevant academic paper (if possible)</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Email</td> <td>Their email address</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Organisation</td> <td>Their primary organisation they work for/with</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Last Contacted</td> <td>Date of when I last sent contact</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Status</td> <td>No response/Not active/Referred on/Email replied/Interviewed</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Next Stage</td> <td>End/Sent follow-up/Arranging interview</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h2 id="google-forms">Google Forms</h2> <p>Part of my research gathering require me to interview people, though some would not have the time and preferred to answer a questionnaire instead. I use <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/forms">Google Forms</a> as it is a simple interface with a recognisable name. I also used it in the past when gathering data for a recreational project, so I had a basic understanding of how it worked.</p> <h2 id="calenderly">Calenderly</h2> <p>The subject of my research project focuses on a locality in the United States, and as I am in the United Kingdom, organising around timezones is vital. I cannot recall how I encountered <a href="https://calendly.com">Calenderly,</a> but I remembered it would be a good service to utilise to help me arrange interviews with people.</p> <h2 id="zoom">Zoom</h2> <p>Interviews would be held on <a href="https://zoom.us">Zoom,</a> as another recognisable platform I assumed all would have used, and I’ve been right so far.</p> <h2 id="obs">OBS</h2> <p>I use <a href="https://obsproject.com">OBS</a> to record the audio of the interviews. I am convinced better tools are out there, but I am used to OBS, I simply decided to go with what I know.</p> <h2 id="transcription-services">Transcription Services</h2> <p>I was cheeky here. I realised most of the services had an option where the first thirty minutes, or even three hours in one case, of audio could be transcribed for free, and with so many services competing, I simply took half a dozen up on their various offers, and I’ve managed to transcribe everything without paying… However! I am willing to pay if I exceeded my options, and <a href="https://www.descript.com/">descript,</a> with ten hours of transcription for $15 a month, is not a bad option compared to other services usually charging $5-$10 for one hour of transcription.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>This were all in addition to my existing tools described in my previous post on this subject. <a href="https://www.onenote.com/">OneNote</a> remains invaluable as my primary source of storing and accessing research, <a href="https://www.toketaware.com/ithoughts-osx">iThoughtsX</a> has been used frequently for not only diagrams, but for mind mapping and brainstorming too, and I continue to use <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/pages/">Pages</a> to write my progress reports and drafts, intending to use <a href="https://office.live.com/start/Word.aspx">Word</a> at the very end (as that is what the university requires). Likely, there are applications and services more suited to particular types of research and studying – this is simply how I do it!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking-applications/ Fri, 17 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/note-taking-applications/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/study/#note-taking">I have spoken in the past about my experiences with Evernote and OneNote,</a> and I found these applications clunky for simple note taking with too many bloated features. I don&rsquo;t mind OneNote for my academia, but for light personal use, it was just too much for what I need it for.</p> <h2 id="simplenote-and-upnote">SimpleNote and UpNote</h2> <p>For a while, I was using <a href="https://simplenote.com/">SimpleNote</a> for, well, simple notes. I jotted down quick lists, films to watch, sizes and dimensions of area I needed to know and keep for the next hour or so, and random things which popped into my head to check up on later - are ear buds really worth it?</p> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/replacing-day-one/">But as I was migrating away from Day One,</a> I encountered <a href="https://getupnote.com/">UpNote,</a> and while not suitable for journal entries, I liked it more than SimpleNote, and decided to migrate my small assorted notes over.</p> <h2 id="times-change">Times Change</h2> <p>In a matter of weeks though, I began to delve further into self hosting and having full ownership of your files. I liked how <a href="https://ia.net/writer">iA Writer</a> had an interface where you could easily organise files and folders, and this be mirrored in the actual filesystem. It made it simple for backing up, and I felt better knowing my data didn&rsquo;t need exporting or converting to be accessed elsewhere. As such, it dawned on me that UpNote may not suit me anymore, already.</p> <h2 id="clouds">Clouds</h2> <p>Initially, I decided whatever platform I was to use, the data would either have to be self hosted or in a cloud. It was during this time I also began to give Nextcloud a go, <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/#nextcloud">as described in a previous post.</a> Liking what I saw, I moved my notes to <a href="https://github.com/nextcloud/notes">Nextcloud Notes,</a> but I soon realised this would not last.</p> <p>The biggest issue was the editing and preview modes. I like the <a href="https://www.markdownguide.org/">Markdown</a> to not be visible whilst I am typing, instead preferring a &ldquo;Seamless Live Preview&rdquo; as <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora</a> calls it on their homepage. With Nextcloud Notes, I had either full Markdown while typing or an uneditable &lsquo;rendered&rsquo; version with the Markdown hidden.</p> <p>I also tried <a href="https://www.qownnotes.org/">QOwnNotes,</a> but found it overly complex for my needs, and it featured a split-screen design with one window presenting the raw Markdown, and another with the Live Preview. Again, as I wanted these merged seamlessly, this application wasn&rsquo;t for me. However, it is free and cross-platform, as well as quite powerful, so I suggest giving it a go.</p> <h2 id="nota">Nota</h2> <p>I stumbled across <a href="https://nota.md/">Nota</a> on a Reddit thread one day, and signed up for their BETA waiting list. I was near automatically accepted, and promptly downloaded the application. It&rsquo;s a nice mixture between the <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidians</a> and <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseqs</a> of the world, and more simpler interface you would usually find in note taking software. It&rsquo;s fully functional, without being overbearing, which seemed to suit me perfectly. I pointed its directory at my notes folder, and they all perfectly rendered in its three column system, the furthest left showing me all the folders and subfolders, the next one along with the content inside the folder, and then the larger pane displaying the document&rsquo;s content. Nota also has a tabbed system where one can quickly jump between notes at the top.</p> <p>Although I find its dark mode too dark, much preferring something along the lines of <a href="https://draculatheme.com/">Dracula,</a> and unable to toggle it into a light mode, I decided to put up with it, knowing the application is still in developmental stages, and theming will likely come in the future.</p> <h2 id="old-hardware">Old Hardware</h2> <p>I have an old second-hand MacBook Air <a href="http://dosdude1.com/software.html">that I had to patch to force it to upgrade to Catalina,</a> as compatible software was becoming increasing difficult to find when stuck on High Sierra, despite being a fully functional laptop with very minimal issues. Occasionally, after a few hours of use, it can get &lsquo;overwhelmed&rsquo; and needs a reboot, and I can&rsquo;t run any intensive pieces of software on it, but for web browsing, word processing and note taking, it&rsquo;s perfectly suited.</p> <p>After being stuck in bed one day, I decided to grab it and install the new pieces of software I had discovered over the past few weeks, and all managed to work fine. Except Nota. Confused, as I am running Catalina on my iMac as well, I then reviewed the version dates and saw an update had occurred a couple of days before, and now Nota seemed to only run on Big Sur or above.</p> <p>I was incredibly frustrated as I realised Nota was effectively dead to me now. I wouldn&rsquo;t be able to use any future versions and access any of the new features or bug fixes as Apple have decided my iMac will forever be stuck on Catalina - again, despite it working perfectly fine.</p> <p>And so, although Nota was still running on my iMac, I knew I had to find another note app for my desktop.</p> <h2 id="standard-notes">Standard Notes</h2> <p>I had heard a lot of good things about <a href="https://standardnotes.com/">Standard Notes,</a> and saw its server could be self hosted. I naively thought this would mean I wouldn&rsquo;t have to pay the subscription fees to gain access to features I would deem as basic, such as Markdown support and being able to choose between a dark and light mode, but no. Annoyed, I immediately looked elsewhere.</p> <h2 id="laverna-turtl-and-trilium-notes">Laverna, turtl and Trilium Notes</h2> <p>Laverna looked alright, but before I could start trying to work out the syncing, I had issues with how the Markdown was being rendered.</p> <p>I want lists to look like this:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-markdown" data-lang="markdown"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Alarm is being discontinued </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> However, the alarm is still on sale in certain stores </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Places which have the alarm: </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> Local Hardware Store </span></span></code></pre></div><p>But they ended up looking like this:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-markdown" data-lang="markdown"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Alarm is being discontinued </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> However, the alarm is still on sale in certain stores </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Places which have the alarm: </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> Local Hardware Store </span></span></code></pre></div><p>I couldn&rsquo;t work out why as the Markdown was appearing correctly in Nota. As I use lists a lot for my notes, this was a dealbreaker, and I uninstalled it, and tried turtl. However, I couldn&rsquo;t get it to work. Whenever I try to sign up to an account, I get the error: <code>relation &quot;users&quot; does not exist</code>, and web searching didn&rsquo;t provide me with any answers as to what I am doing wrong. So, I uninstalled it and tried Trilium Notes, <a href="https://github.com/zadam/trilium/wiki/FAQ#mac-os-support">but quickly saw there was not an application for Macs.</a></p> <h2 id="zettlr-and-notenik">Zettlr and Notenik</h2> <p>I believe I found both of these programmes while browsing Reddit again looking for suggestions. While both appear to be great applications, they&rsquo;re also too much for what I am looking for. <a href="https://www.zettlr.com/">Zettlr</a> appears to be more focused towards academia than simple note taking, and <a href="https://notenik.app/">Notenik</a> proudly states it is to do &ldquo;more than just record your notes&rdquo;.</p> <h2 id="fsnotes">FSNotes</h2> <p>Realising I was now set on having notes in Markdown, I then browsed though the <a href="https://www.markdownguide.org/tools/">Tools page</a> of the Markdown Guide website, trying to find any Mac note taking application I had not yet tried. A few caught my eye, with <a href="https://billiam.itch.io/deepdwn">deepdwn</a> in particular seeming quite interesting, <a href="https://itch.io/t/1227306/possible-demo">but with no demo or trial,</a> I didn&rsquo;t want to purchase without trying it out first, not sure if it would be what I&rsquo;m looking for.</p> <p>What I landed on was <a href="https://fsnot.es/">FSNotes,</a> but then faced a similar issue as with Laverna, where it rendered the Markdown weirdly. This time, it had no paragraphs at all:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-markdown" data-lang="markdown"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Alarm is being discontinued </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> However, the alarm is still on sale in certain stores </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Places which have the alarm: </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> Local Hardware Store </span></span></code></pre></div><p>There was probably a way to change my inputs to make it work correctly, as the demo content which came preloaded in FSNotes had paragraphs, but I needed somewhere I could jot down quickly and it just work.</p> <h2 id="joplin">Joplin</h2> <p>Of course, there was Joplin. <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/replaced-day-one/">I was already using it for journal entries,</a> and didn&rsquo;t like the idea of merging the two worlds together, but was running out of options at this point. However, and you won&rsquo;t be surprised to hear this, but I faced the same issue as before:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-markdown" data-lang="markdown"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Alarm is being discontinued </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> However, the alarm is still on sale in certain stores </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="k">-</span> Places which have the alarm: </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"> <span class="k">-</span> Local Hardware Store </span></span></code></pre></div><p>Though the idea of repurposing an application I already used made me rethink some things.</p> <h2 id="obsidian">Obsidian</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/digital-gardens/">Having spent plenty of time in Obsidian,</a> I knew what it was capable of. Obsidian would render the Markdown how I wanted, and although heavily full of features, many can be turned off, and the application could become pretty simple for holding basic notes.</p> <p>So I created a new vault and began playing around with themes and plugins, in order to mould it into the simple note taking application I wanted it to be.</p> <p>After some tweaking, I ended up only having the following plugins:</p> <ul> <li>File Explorer</li> <li>Search</li> <li>Starred</li> <li>File Recovery</li> <li>Style Settings</li> </ul> <p>For the theme, I chose <a href="https://github.com/bLaCkwEw/Dracula-Slim">Dracula Slim.</a></p> <p>I understood dumbing down Obsidian to a mere simplistic note application would be doing the software a disservice. However, at the time, it was the best I could find to do what I wanted it to do. I put the vault inside Nextcloud, used <a href="https://www.tacit.dk/foldersync">FolderSync</a> to get the files onto my Android phone (still having this set up from when I last tried Obsidian on my phone), and then have the Obsidian app looking at the folder.</p> <p>However, I had not considered the difficulty in running two vaults at the same time on my phone, and found switching between the tedious. I realised I needed separate applications.</p> <h2 id="where-now">Where Now?</h2> <p>Frustrated, I have currently returned back to UpNote, which would be a perfect application, if it only it let me self host my files rather than be on their servers. I have extensively reviewed the <a href="https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#note-taking--editors">awesome-selfhosted list,</a> and am struggling to find anything that just works as I want it to, with there being various issues regardless of which application I choose. I can only hope the future either gives me a self hosted UpNote, either as part of a new update or as an alternative application to compete.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-self-host/ Fri, 03 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-self-host/ <p>In this short post, I want to talk about my experience with YunoHost, Portainer, and Docker-Compose on my Raspberry Pi, as well as my previous limited experience of self hosting using a Synology DiskStation.</p> <h2 id="self-hosting">Self Hosting</h2> <p>The idea of self hosting has always appealed to me as someone concerned about privacy and keeping costs down. I quickly discovered self hosting was one way to involve both, as hosting your own data kept it out of the hands of others, and many platforms would charge you to use their services (as you would be using their servers), but not if you self hosted it yourself.</p> <p>Initially, I remember self hosting a Minecraft server on an old Synology DiskStation with upgraded RAM, <a href="https://pcloadletter.co.uk/2012/01/11/minecraft-package-for-synology/">using a package from a custom repository.</a> There were quite a applications which could be installed onto the DiskStation, <a href="https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm/packages">either via Synology themselves,</a> <a href="https://synocommunity.com/">or with other custom repositories,</a> but these were quite limiting when you think of all the applications out there which could be self hosted.</p> <h2 id="docker">Docker</h2> <p>As time went by, Synology later added support for Docker, a service which easily allows the installation and running of what are known as containers, isolated pieces of software. Suddenly, a world opened up of many thousands of applications which could now be installed and ran locally. Initially, I tried <a href="https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag">Wallabag,</a> <a href="https://github.com/shaarli/Shaarli">Shaarli,</a> and <a href="https://github.com/kanboard/kanboard">Kanban,</a> as well as some RSS feed readers. However, many of my attempts ended in failure, as the Docker container would automatically shut down after running, or would run but be buggy and unusable. For the applications which did run as intended, I became wary of the RAM usage, as the DiskStation was performing many different activities and I didn&rsquo;t want it to become substandard.</p> <p>Realising there were limitations to using a DiskStation for self hosting, but liking the idea, I went looking for a piece of hardware which would exclusively run Docker containers.</p> <h2 id="yunohost">YunoHost</h2> <p>I actually didn&rsquo;t even get that far. Although I looked into other server hardware and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Unit_of_Computing">NUC-type computers,</a> as well as repurposing an old Linux machine, it was by pure happenstance that I one day saw a conversation on <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon</a> about a random piece of software being &ldquo;easily&rdquo; self hosted using <a href="https://yunohost.org/">YunoHost.</a> I&rsquo;d never heard of YunoHost before, but a quick web search made it look like everything I was looking for. Not only was it an operating system with many applications at a one-click easy install, but it could run on a Raspberry Pi. I had a model 4 I was using for <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/">Home Assistant,</a> <a href="https://yunohost.org/en/apps">but it looked like I could install Home Assistant on YunoHost along with loads of other pieces of software!</a></p> <blockquote> <p>As an aside here, I do realise there is a different between <a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/">the Home Assistant Operating System and a Home Assistant Container,</a> and I was using the Operating System before. However, I wondered if I could make it work in a Container. We&rsquo;ll see in the future if this panned out well for me or not!</p></blockquote> <p>Installing YunoHost was simple, though it took me a few tries at getting the URLs and SSL set up correctly. But once all the configuration was finished, I&rsquo;ve not had any issue with all that administration side since.</p> <p>I then began to survey the applications on offer, and there is a wide selection. Not every application is in here, and I struggled to get some to work, but successfully installed <a href="https://www.freshrss.org/">FreshRSS,</a> Home Assistant, <a href="http://nextcloud.com/">Nextcloud</a> and Wallabag.</p> <h3 id="limitations">Limitations</h3> <p>As I said, some applications simply refused to work, and as I was exploring the world of self hosting, I realised there were plenty more options out there which YunoHost didn&rsquo;t provide. I began to research how best to host with little limitations.</p> <h2 id="portainer">Portainer</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure how I came across <a href="https://www.portainer.io/">Portainer,</a> but I decided to test it out on a new SD card with just <a href="https://www.raspbian.org/">Raspbian</a> installed. I was surprised at how simple it was to setup and access headless and remotely. I was also pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to also install <a href="https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome">AdGaurd Home</a> and <a href="https://tailscale.com/">Tailscale</a> without needing containers.</p> <p>I then began a long process of trial and error in finding, selecting and installing various docker containers. It took me a while before I decided using predefined <a href="https://docs.docker.com/compose/">Docker-Compose</a> scripts would go a long way in helping ease some of the issues I was facing, and I liked how these could be saved and easily executed if a full restore would be needed by simply entering the same script again.</p> <h3 id="backups">Backups</h3> <p>While YunoHost had its own system of backing up, running Portainer off the Raspberry Pi meant it was now my responsibility to make sure everything was backed up. However, I have struggled to find a simple way to backup everything I need to. I am looking into options such as <a href="https://www.duplicati.com/">Duplicati</a> and <a href="https://github.com/WayneD/rsync/">rsync,</a> but am currently using the internal backing up features of the installed applications, which I know isn&rsquo;t good for the long-term, though something I am trying to work on.</p> <h2 id="applications">Applications</h2> <p>As of this post, I have the following applications installed for self hosting:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/AdguardTeam/AdGuardHome">AdGuard Home</a> <ul> <li>To block adverts and limit trackers.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://github.com/lissy93/dashy">Dashy</a> <ul> <li>Personal dashboard and home start page.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="http://nextcloud.com/">Nextcloud</a> <ul> <li>For calendar and cookbook.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing</a> <ul> <li>To keep certain files and folders in sync between my computer, phone and laptop.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://www.home-assistant.io/">Home Assistant</a> <ul> <li>To manage my internet of things and smart home.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://github.com/hay-kot/mealie">Mealie</a> <ul> <li>Recipe manager.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://www.freshrss.org/">FreshRSS</a> <ul> <li>RSS feed manager.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag">Wallabag</a> <ul> <li>To store interesting articles.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web">Calibre-Web</a> <ul> <li>Organiser and OPDS feed creator for eBooks and eMagazines.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit">Libreddit</a> <ul> <li>Alternative front-end for Reddit.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search">Whoogle</a> <ul> <li>Alternative front-end for Google.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://airsonic.github.io/">Airsonic</a> (On Synology DiskStation) <ul> <li>Music library and streamer.</li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://www.plex.tv/">Plex</a> (On Synology DiskStation) <ul> <li>Video and live TV organiser and streamer.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/ Fri, 20 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/organising-interesting-stuff/ <p>When I started browsing the internet, I remember saving a few select webpages I found interesting into my browser. As time went on though, no only has the web expanded significantly, but the type of content which can be found on the internet has increased. There are recipes, news articles, academia, how to guides, podcasts, videos, newsletters, long-form journalism, tools, RSS feeds, tips and tricks, Reddit threads, and websites which are just plain interesting. Trying to organise all that interesting stuff in ways to not just access it, but be able to save/store it for later use, as well as being able to extract the most important aspects from it, so as to not forget it, has become, for me at least, difficult.</p> <p>In this post, I&rsquo;m going to walkthrough where I started on this journey, where I went, and where I am now.</p> <h2 id="beginnings">Beginnings</h2> <h3 id="bookmarks">Bookmarks</h3> <p>As I said, I began with bookmarks in my browser, but this approach never served me well. I&rsquo;d spend ages every few years reorganising the bookmarks into neat nested folders, and then completely forget about them. Or I&rsquo;d hit &lsquo;save&rsquo;, and never organise it at all. I ended up with systems where half was immaculately organised, and the other half an absolute mess, with neither serving their purpose. They weren&rsquo;t accessible in a way which suited me, being tucked away and out of sight. Granted, there are probably plugins and add-ons now for browsers which sort bookmarks out in a much better way, but at the time, these options simply didn&rsquo;t exist yet.</p> <p>As such, I became reliant on just my memory and web searching. For example, I&rsquo;d do something along the lines of &ldquo;What was that website which helps you with PC parts? Logical something?&rdquo; And I&rsquo;d do a search for &ldquo;PC building + logical&rdquo;, and I would get my result - <a href="https://www.logicalincrements.com/">Logical Increments.</a></p> <p>It&rsquo;s not a good system at all as I have a poor memory even at the best of times. Still, I found it more useful than the bad system of bookmarking.</p> <h3 id="readitlater--pocket">ReadItLater / Pocket</h3> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/subscriptions/#lifetime-subscriptions">I spoke briefly about using ReadItLater/Pocket here.</a> In short, I lacked WiFi in my bedroom, and so saved web articles in ReadItLater to then read at night in bed. It then became Pocket, and I kept using it to save articles even when internet access reached all parts of my home.</p> <p>However, I started to use it badly. I would find interesting articles across the web, read them, and still save them into Pocket, for them to never be reopened again. Why? Well, it was interesting, and I wanted to keep it in case I wanted to refer back to it. Or, if I did re-read these articles, I still didn&rsquo;t archive or delete them. Because again, it was interesting, and I didn&rsquo;t want to forget where that interesting thing was. I might need it again in the future.</p> <p>So I just kept saving and saving and saving and saving. I&rsquo;m not sure how many articles are now saved in my Pocket, but I hate to think. We&rsquo;re pretty much at a decade&rsquo;s use now, and I&rsquo;ve been saving multiple articles a day. I knew it was wrong, but I didn&rsquo;t know what to do about it.</p> <h3 id="evernote">Evernote</h3> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/study/#note-taking">I have also spoken briefly about Evernote before,</a> mostly being used for university studying. I liked using Evernote a lot for academia, and remember how amazing Evernote felt when I first used it, but when I tried using it for personal use, aside from recipes, which I&rsquo;ll get to later, nothing really clicked for me. Furthermore, when Evernote&rsquo;s pricing model changed in 2016, I needed to find a free alternative, and I decided to stop using Evernote completely once I had found that alternative.</p> <h2 id="system-changes">System Changes</h2> <h3 id="onenote">OneNote</h3> <p><a href="https://www.onenote.com/">OneNote</a> was a natural option, and free too. I was able to easily migrate my academic studies over, as well as the recipes, and then reconsidered if it could be used for more. For starters, I was excited about IFTTT, a service which links services together, connecting them via automation. I found I was able to tie things together in ways so that if I saved an interesting post on Reddit, a page would be created for me in OneNote. I began linking as many services as I could, so I would be able to save interesting things all over the internet, and they all land up in OneNote.</p> <p>However, I found OneNote to be sluggish, and difficult to find things. Searching was never too successful, and with the mountains of pages which had grown via all the automation, I found myself spending ages scrolling through and clicking on the pages one-by-one trying to find what I was looking for. It was a frustrating experience, and I wanted to find somewhere new, away from my academic studies as I suspected this may be why there was so much slowness, to store my links to interesting stuff.</p> <h3 id="notion">Notion</h3> <p>I remember first coming across <a href="https://www.notion.so/">Notion</a> via someone building a website from it about mechanical keyboards, and was fascinated by the simple and clean, but powerful modular interface. It seemed to be a programme where you can assemble anything onto it, and make it be anything you wanted. I was really excited about this, and began researching Notion and assessing templates.</p> <p>I decided to create a wiki-type system, where I would store all my interesting stuff into sections for easy access and with links between them. I would build pages according to the needs I required, some would need tables, others would be in the style of kanban boards, and there would be pages simply displaying images I liked - mostly comprising of affirmations and positive quotes from mediation apps I used.</p> <p>I spent ages organising it, and found a decent workflow I was satisfied with, whereby I could not only easily save interesting stuff from the internet by using <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/notion-web-clipper/">Notion’s Web Clipper,</a> but I could easily send the data into a database page, where it would be automatically organised and easy to find. Storing interesting stuff became a dream. But accessing it was a different matter.</p> <p>It was sometimes difficult to just simply click on a link and have it load up in my web browser, sometimes these links I had saved demanded to be treated as pages and a near blank page would load up instead with a small URL at the top to click on. Plus, a wrong click somewhere sent Notion on a sluggish train in motion, taking ages for those blank pages to load, and then ages to go back to where I was if I wanted to click on another.</p> <p>Frustrated, and realising a database for pages was not going to really work for just storing links, I decided a new home was needed.</p> <h3 id="raindropio">Raindrop.io</h3> <p>A simple web search uncovered <a href="https://raindrop.io/">Raindrop.io,</a> and I was surprised to be told I already had an account when I went to create one. I opened my password manager, and sure enough, there was a password there for Raindrop.io. It turns out I created an account in 2017, and had only saved a few links in there to some Christmas jumpers. Vaguely remembering this, I then began to wonder why I didn&rsquo;t stick with it.</p> <p>Unable to remember, I poked around the applications (on both Mac and Android), and found them to be exactly what I was looking for, and for free. While Raindrop.io has a paid subscription plan, I found I could do all I wanted on the free tier. Well, almost everything. The only exception was the lack of nested folders, which I would want to use to organise my bookmarks. Not too much of an issue though, I could create as many Groups as I wanted, and simply slotted Collections under these Groups. It involves quite a bit of scrolling up and down to get to where I want, but a significant improvement from Notion.</p> <h3 id="mealie">Mealie</h3> <p>However, I didn&rsquo;t put all my bookmarks in Raindrop.io. I had hundreds of recipe bookmarks I wanted to access in a better way than simply pointing links to them. <a href="https://www.shoddywebsites.com/2022/02/14/why-are-recipe-websites-so-hard-to-use/">Recipe websites have become gargantuan beasts on the internet, full of bloat containing adverts, newsletter pop-ups, auto-starting videos, huge fully loaded comment sections, and of course, life stories at the start.</a> Now, I don&rsquo;t blame the authors of these websites for doing this. I understand they are merely having to play a SEO game that the web search engines demand them to play. I highly doubt most would want to do this and make their websites behave in such a way.</p> <p>Nonetheless, I hate it, and it makes for a terrible user experience.</p> <p>I had long been aware of programmes such as <a href="https://www.paprikaapp.com/">Paprika</a> which strip the recipe out of the website, providing you with just the recipe&rsquo;s ingredients and instructions. Of course, this isn&rsquo;t new, and I had used both Evernote and OneNote to scrape recipes for me. However, I wanted something just focused on recipes like Paprika does, but found its prices a bit concerning considering I&rsquo;d need to purchase both a Mac and an Android version, coming to around $35, and I&rsquo;d need to purchase more if I later end up with on iOS or predominantly using Windows.</p> <p>Instead, I searched on the <a href="https://reddit.com/r/selfhosted">/r/selfhosted subreddit,</a> and came across <a href="https://mealie.io/">Mealie,</a> a free alternative which could be accessed by any one if they had the link. Not only would it scrape recipes removing all the baggage, but I could also then edit them if I made any adjustments, as well as tag, organise, rate and favourite them.</p> <p>I loaded up Docker, installed Mealie on my <a href="https://www.synology.com/en-uk/dsm">Synology DiskStation,</a> and began migrating the recipes over one-by-one, by clicking on the link in Notion and then pressing on the Mealie bookmarklet, which then started its process of scraping. There was one annoying hitch, in that I had to make sure Javascript was on each website I scraped from, and I have it off by default via <a href="https://noscript.net/">NoScript.</a> So, I had to load the recipe up, allow Javascript via NoScript, have the webpage load up again, and then be able to have the bookmarklet work. Still, the process only took me a couple of days on-and-off, and in the end, I now have a wonderful database filled with recipes which can be easily searched or browsed through via its web interface. On Android, I use <a href="https://hermit.chimbori.com/">Hermit</a> to make a web app for easy access with <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.coffeeteers.sharetomealie">Share to Mealie</a> as a quick way to send the database new recipes, and have simply added it to my start screen for my browser on my Mac, though could make a web applet via <a href="https://github.com/nativefier/nativefier">Nativefier.</a></p> <h2 id="new-ideas">New Ideas</h2> <h3 id="shiori--shaarli">Shiori / Shaarli</h3> <p>Still looking for a home for my bookmarks, I encountered both <a href="https://github.com/go-shiori/shiori">Shiori</a> and <a href="https://github.com/shaarli/Shaarli">Shaarli</a> over the past year, having successfully installed them both on my Synology DiskStation. Not remembering why I didn&rsquo;t keep them at the time, I gave them both another go on <a href="https://yunohost.org/">YunoHost</a> running on my Raspberry Pi, hoping these would be self-hosted solutions to Raindrop.io. However, I was deeply unsatisfied with its predominant use of tagging as a means of organisation, much preferring a folder-based structure system - or even a faux one akin to my setup in Raindrop.io with Groups and Collections.</p> <p>Still, I really liked the idea of self-hosting my bookmarks, and wanted to pursue this further.</p> <h3 id="bookstack">Bookstack</h3> <p>It was when browsing through YunoHost that I saw <a href="https://www.bookstackapp.com/">Bookstack,</a> and it caught my eye. I did a quick web search to see what people were saying about it, and found this post of someone asking for a simple wiki for family use. The idea of a wiki made me think back to my time with Notion, but I wondered if a self-hosted solution would be better as it would be on my own server this time, hoping for increased speed and suffering less downtime.</p> <p>I would create a shelf with an overarching topic (e.g. Technology), a book with the more specific topic (e.g. GoHugo), and then pages organised on smaller subjects (e.g. Themes), with those pages containing the associated bookmarks.</p> <p>It seemed like a good idea initially, but after a while of adding a few bookmarks in to give it a go, I found issues trying to create backups, and I realised a lot of data could be lost if something should happen to the wiki. It made me rethink back to how if I had direct access to my data, rather than some sort of database, I would feel happier with backups.</p> <p>My current setup involving Raindrop.io didn&rsquo;t fulfil this either though, even more &rsquo;locked in&rsquo; as it wasn&rsquo;t even self-hosted. However, I decided that if I struggled to backup my data on both platforms, I ought to at least use the one easiest to use, which was still Raindrop.io</p> <h3 id="dead-or-alive">Dead or Alive</h3> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/digital-gardens/">As I previously mentioned in my post about digital gardens,</a> I then came to a decision where I would view my interesting stuff as either:</p> <ol> <li>Dead (Interesting stuff where no ideas can come from them. They are guides, tools, software links and so on. Stuff I can&rsquo;t take notes from)</li> <li>Alive (Interesting stuff which can spark ideas off. They are the news articles, long-form journalism and think-pieces of the world. Stuff I can take notes from)</li> </ol> <h2 id="clouds">Clouds&hellip;</h2> <p>It was when I was investigating somewhere to store my &lsquo;Alive&rsquo; interesting stuff, I realised I would need to back it up to the cloud and have it available for syncing to use on different devices. People talked about using <a href="https://www.tacit.dk/foldersync">FolderSync</a> on an Android to use for individual folder syncing, which was required for applications like <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> and <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq,</a> so I would need to use a cloud which was compatible. Granted, I already had a <a href="https://www.dropbox.com/">Dropbox</a> and a <a href="https://onedrive.live.com/">OneDrive</a> account, but the former was for website hosting backups, and the latter provided by my university for academia. I had a spare Dropbox account used for syncing my <a href="https://joplinapp.org/">Joplin</a> journal entries as I wanted it completely separate from my other accounts, and considered using that, but was aware of the limited storage. My personal stuff uses Synology Drive as a cloud platform, but I couldn&rsquo;t see this as an option to use with FolderSync (though, looking back now, I wonder if I could have used WebDAV). As such, I began to browse FolderSync and check out the cloud providers it supported.</p> <h3 id="nextcloud">Nextcloud</h3> <p>I was very aware of <a href="https://nextcloud.com/">Nextcloud,</a> but never paid it too much attention. It seemed a bit like an operating system you would install on a server to enhance it and provide added options. I didn&rsquo;t think I needed that as I had a Synology DiskStation as my server. Sure, Nextcloud looked nice, but I didn&rsquo;t need it.</p> <p>However, after trying a few cloud options out, with little success, I decided to give Nextcloud on my YunoHost solely to provide cloud storage for syncing. Not just for my digital garden, but I also recalled Joplin having an option to use Nextcloud as well, and I would feel happier having my private journal entries in my own cloud.</p> <p>The process was incredibly simple, and I love the modern and clean interface Nextcloud has, as well as how fast and responsive it feels. Syncing it with my Android phone was a breeze too, as was the actual syncing process with Obsidian via Foldersync, and directly with Joplin via WebDAV.</p> <p>In all likelihood, I probably would have been able to achieve this through Synology DiskStation, but I had grown to liking the idea of my more personal written data being separated from my computer backups, music collections and other types of file based backups, which I had there. Instead, the Nextcloud would hold more personal information and be used to sync it between devices. I could then migrate some of my stuff away from Synology Drive and into my Nextcloud account, but I&rsquo;ll need some time to reconsider this at a later date.</p> <h2 id="and-more">&hellip;And More</h2> <h3 id="nextcloud-bookmarks">Nextcloud Bookmarks</h3> <p>Anyway, I told myself Nextcloud would only be used for cloud storage of written files, but it suggested a bunch of apps to try out, and I saw it had a <a href="https://github.com/nextcloud/bookmarks">bookmark manager,</a> a folder based bookmark manager at that! <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.emasty.bookmarks">With an Android app!</a></p> <p>I tried it out by exporting the content of my Raindrop.io account, which arrived in a single .html file via email, and just thought I&rsquo;d give it a go by importing that into Nextcloud Bookmarks. To my surprise, it worked straight away. Granted, all the Groups vanished, as these were merely organisational features within Raindrop.io, as have all the icons for the Collections, but all the links and folders were there, as were the tags. I would just have to nest the folders accordingly to recreate what I had in Raindrop.io</p> <p>Well, nearly recreate. <a href="https://www.midwinter-dg.com/mac-apps/nextcloud-bookmark-manager.html">There is a Mac client,</a> but it&rsquo;s stuck in dark mode for some reason, and after I had spent the time nesting my folders, only the Android app recognised these changes. The Mac app flattened the folders to one level only, making it unusable.</p> <p>This makes using Nextcloud Bookmarks overall difficult as I want an interface where I can easily view the folders in the sidebar, but Nextcloud Bookmarks on the web is currently just listing the tags there. Unsatisfied, but not sure where else to go, I stayed with it while I tried out some other Nextcloud applications.</p> <h3 id="nextcloud-cookbook">Nextcloud Cookbook</h3> <p>Now, I know what you&rsquo;re thinking. Why would I even consider looking at another recipe manager considering how long it took for me to get Mealie setup and hold all those recipes? Well, my nagging issue with databases arose again. Yes, I can create and restore backups in Mealie, but what if I forgot to make them or download them to preserve them? In <a href="https://github.com/nextcloud/cookbook">Nextcloud Cookbook,</a> the recipes can be viewed individually inside your Nextcloud folders - no database required.</p> <p>Granted, this wouldn&rsquo;t actually be a great idea for the hundreds of collected recipes in Mealie, as it would generate so many files and folders, but what about storing just my favourite recipes? The ones I have tried and tested, and decided were good enough to keep to use again? I had already marked these out within Mealie, and so would only need to move over a dozen or so recipes into Nextcloud Cookbook. I now had a new handy place to store the ones I liked the most without having to go through the mass of ones I like the look of, but have yet to actually try. There are even <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.nextcloud_cookbook_flutter/">Android</a> <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.capacitor.cookbook.app">apps</a> for easy access to the recipes while I&rsquo;m cooking.</p> <h2 id="logseq">Logseq</h2> <p>Concurrently through all of this, I was also dealing with my adventures through digital gardens, and had at this point concluded to use <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> over <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq</a> for that purpose, despite the fact I actually preferred using Logseq. It was when I was weighing up my options for bookmarks did I contemplate if what I needed wasn&rsquo;t a bookmark manager after all, but a wiki of sorts? I began opening the bookmarks in my web browser, <a href="https://gist.github.com/bradleybossard/3667ad5259045f839adc">and with this neat Tampermonkey script,</a> I was able to create a bookmarklet where, when pressed, I am provided with the current page as a Markdown link. I can then copy and paste this link into a Logseq page I have organised, as well as linked how I want and &rsquo;nested&rsquo; accordingly too. And by hitting ⌘ + K, a search window appears on any page so I can quickly find what I am looking for. Something to do with TiddlyWiki? ⌘ + K and typing &ldquo;TiddlyWiki&rdquo; gets me to a page with everything I have all about TiddlyWiki immediately - links to themes and plugins as well as links to written guides and articles. Furthermore, due to the interlinking system of Logseq, I am able to cross-reference how I like. For example, I have a page of software links neatly organised into sections, but are tagged to their platforms, so I also have a Mac page which now also shows the software alongside my guides and interesting articles about Macs, which updates in real time across Logseq when I make edits.</p> <p>Rather than use bookmarks or something like <a href="https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag">Wallabag</a> as a means to store links, a wiki makes significantly more sense due to the flexibility regarding organisation and cross-linking.</p> <h2 id="intended-workflow">Intended Workflow</h2> <p>As such, I use Logseq to store the &lsquo;dead&rsquo; interesting stuff I find. I will have a link copied via my Tampermonkey bookmarklet on the toolbar, which I will then paste into its corresponding section within Logseq. However, if that piece of content has some &rsquo;life&rsquo; in it, I will decide if it goes into Pocket or Wallabag. Recipes will go into Mealie, with tried-and-tested favourites being later moved into Nextcloud Cookbook as a more curated resource.</p> <h3 id="pocket">Pocket</h3> <p>Pocket will be used more as intended, saving articles I wish to later read, but try to keep them to only time sensitive articles, relevant to me only in the &rsquo;now&rsquo;. I will try to be better at either deleting read articled, or if they might be useful in the future, send them towards Wallabag.</p> <h3 id="wallabag">Wallabag</h3> <p>Any articles which may be relevant to me in the longer-term will go into Wallabag, and be tagged correctly, so I can easily find the article later on. I may later go back to dig an article out if I wish to build on it, possibly developing into a blog article or a piece of academia. In that case, I would move it into my digital garden.</p> <h2 id="but-what-about">But What About&hellip;?</h2> <h3 id="ebooks-and-emagazines">eBooks and eMagazines</h3> <p>I&rsquo;m currently saving bookmarks and highlights of these in their native applications, then opening them on my Mac and using <a href="https://trex.ameba.co/">TRex</a> to grab the text via OCR. From there, recipes will follow their previously described route (though I would have to copy-and-paste the data in more manually), and everything else ought to be interesting stuff to keep in Logseq as part of the wider wiki aspect of my new system, interconnecting to other relevant pieces of information.</p> <p>There are other applications/services which may be more suitable, <a href="https://readwise.io/">Readwise</a> is often mentioned but I don&rsquo;t believe it would work with my eMagazines, and it&rsquo;s a subscription I&rsquo;d have to pay monthly to use.</p> <p>I have had <a href="http://moondownload.com/">Moon+ Reader</a> for many years, and just installed <a href="https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web">Calibre-Web</a> on my server, connecting the two. I am hoping to find a way to export highlights from Moon+ Reader, and am currently looking into <a href="https://github.com/Ujwal-NK/moonreader2html">moonreader2html.</a></p> <h3 id="tweets-and-toots">Tweets and Toots</h3> <p>At the moment, I am not getting the tweets and toots I like out of Twitter and <a href="https://joinmastodon.org/">Mastodon.</a> I bookmark them in their respective platforms, and they just sit in there. For Twitter, I believed I could probably link some sort of system together using IFTTT, whereby a bookmarked tweet may be saved in OneNote, for example. However, the trigger options only feature liking a tweet to be saved, and I don&rsquo;t want to save those. I could be more manual and instead push the tweet to somewhere to be saved, but then I encountered the issue with tweets being scary privacy-wise. I looked into something like <a href="https://github.com/heiseonline/embetty">Embetty,</a> which renders tweets in a more privacy-friendly way. However, it&rsquo;s not quite what I&rsquo;m after, but now I want something which does render tweets in such a way for storage reasons, rather than to display publicly.</p> <p>Toots from Mastodon don&rsquo;t have this issue, but again, I would rather have these appear rendered within a programme rather than having simple links. I recall Notion having such a feature regarding tweets, but again, I would want it to be a re-rendering, not directly from Twitter.</p> <p>However, there are alternative front-ends to Twitter, such as <a href="https://github.com/zedeus/nitter">Nitter,</a> <a href="https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect/issues/320#issuecomment-1013378326">which now support embedding tweets.</a> As such, all I need to do now is figure out a place for these tweets and toots to live. Toots are pretty simple, I can paste the embed code (an iFrame) straight into Logseq to appear, but tweets, from either Twitter or Nitter, only shows a tweet&rsquo;s text, no images or video. This may not be a huge issue though, as there is a link to read the full tweet so I can view the image or photo associated if need be.</p> <p>As such, for tweets and toots, I will be embedding them into Logseq into their appropriate sections, though would prefer a solutions which scrapes them as something static, rather than a live link. Not only in case it ever gets removed, but to reduce bandwidth and for use offline.</p> <h3 id="reddit-posts">Reddit Posts</h3> <p>I actually don&rsquo;t have a good system for saving these at the moment. If the original post is interesting, these are being treated like web articles. If a comment or the whole thread was interesting&hellip; it&rsquo;s being saved in Reddit, but currently stuck there. Reddit has the option to embed posts, but I again wondered if I ought to be using an alternative front-end like libreddit, and if so, should also be embedding through this more privacy-friendly platform. However, I could not find a way to do so via libreddit, but maybe I just need to poke around a bit more?</p> <h3 id="rss-feeds">RSS feeds</h3> <p>It won&rsquo;t be a long one, but I am planning to write about my &ldquo;Adventures Into&hellip; RSS&rdquo; in a future post.</p> <h3 id="newsletters">Newsletters</h3> <p>I&rsquo;ve had some interesting &ldquo;Adventures Into&hellip; Newsletters&rdquo; lately, and will want to write these up as well in the coming future.</p> <h3 id="podcasts">Podcasts</h3> <p>I currently do not have a good system for extracting interesting stuff out of podcasts, though am looking into trying out platforms such as Snipd. No idea how it will go yet, as I haven&rsquo;t even installed it as of time of writing. I like my current podcasting app <a href="https://www.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts,</a> <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/subscriptions/#lifetime-subscriptions">and would be reluctant to change due to being grandfathered in to its premium features.</a></p> <h3 id="videos">Videos</h3> <p>I don&rsquo;t actually store or save videos I find interesting, though I probably should. Almost everything I watch is online comes from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/">YouTube,</a> and I could very easily just make playlists with titles covering certain topics, and just save videos I find interesting in there to keep.</p> <p>As for extracting interesting information out of potential &lsquo;Alive&rsquo; content, this relies on simply passing the video, grabbing and pen and paper, and writing the note down along with the timestamp, later typing these notes up into originally <a href="https://getupnote.com/">UpNote,</a> but now straight into my digital garden. But I find this process annoying for a few reasons.</p> <p>First, I know, why not type? I don&rsquo;t know what it is about me, but I realised a while ago I simply absorb information better if I handwrite rather than type, and find it easier to pause and play a video if I stay in one window, rather than hopping back and forth between a note taking app and the video playing. Second, paper is wasteful and it costs money to buy new paper notepads and pens. I do have a drawing tablet that I use for annotating my university coursework, but again, I&rsquo;d be switching between the app for handwriting and another for the video.</p> <p>Ideally, I would like to have something like an <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/buy-ipad/ipad-10-2">iPad</a> where I could place that on my table and use it as if it were me writing into a paper notepad. However, even the cheapest iPad is over £300 and the <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/select-apple-pencil">Apple Pencil</a> another £80+ on top of that. I&rsquo;d be dropping around £400 to save money on buying paper and pens. It doesn&rsquo;t make much sense. I could purchase secondhand, but as someone using a secondhand Mac who can no longer receive any new updates as Apple simply decided it was too old, I am cautious about longevity and not wanting to buy an iPad that will stop getting updates and may become useless in just a couple of years.</p> <p>Another issue I have with my current setup is that it just doesn&rsquo;t seem very efficient. I feel like I&rsquo;m missing out on something&hellip;</p> <h2 id="final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</h2> <p>I could, of course, save pretty much everything via <a href="https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox">ArchiveBox.</a> I have looked into it, but find am not finding it to be very user-friendly, and again am concerned about my ability to do sufficient backups. However, I think if someone is more technical than I am, it is probably the most useful solution to these issues.</p> <p>Regardless, this has become a very long post, and I do apologise for that. However, much like a digital garden, my thoughts became so interconnected, I did not want to break some of these sections off into their own posts, even if I had planned for that - there was going to be an &ldquo;Adventures Into&hellip; Recipe Management&rdquo; post which isn&rsquo;t required any more.</p> <p>Furthermore, I was developing some of the ideas and using some of the applications in this post whilst I was writing it, so some aspects of my workflow are in early stages. I hope to elaborate more on what I end up finally doing in a more fleshed out way in future posts. For now at least, this is how things are at the moment!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/digital-gardens/ Fri, 06 May 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/digital-gardens/ <p>While I was writing a post documenting my adventures into organising stuff, I became sidetracked and began to delve into the world of digital gardens. The content is enough to warrant a post of its own, as well as needed to reduce that post&rsquo;s length!</p> <p>Here I will walkthrough my journey with Obsidian, Logseq, personal knowledge systems, wikis, and digital gardens, as well as brief forays into Jekyll.</p> <h2 id="beginnings">Beginnings</h2> <h3 id="obsidian---attempt-01">Obsidian - Attempt #01</h3> <p>For a while now, I&rsquo;d heard people online talking about the best new programme no one knew about - <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian.</a> It looked fascinating. A local storage alternative to <a href="https://www.notion.so/">Notion,</a> built on fast Markdown files, and endlessly customisable. Again, a programme where you can assemble anything onto it, and make it be anything you wanted. Excited, I installed straight away, and then became confused with the interface, it all seemed much less intuitive than Notion, with a steep learning curve too. I wasn&rsquo;t daunted, and decided to browse the Reddit, watch tutorial videos, and read a bunch of how to guides. But something just wasn&rsquo;t clicking with me, and I didn&rsquo;t know why. I would, over the course of a couple of months, try to sit down one day in study mode and really tackle wrapping my head around it and what I could use it for, nothing really worked, I gave up, and then tried again in a few day&rsquo;s time.</p> <p>Eventually, I concluded that maybe it&rsquo;s just not for me? I kept the apps installed on my Mac and Android, as well as the syncing process between them, just in case I had a burst of inspiration one day, but nothing came.</p> <h3 id="bookstack">Bookstack</h3> <p>I won&rsquo;t go into too much detail here on <a href="https://www.bookstackapp.com/">Bookstack</a> as the other post will discuss my time with it. However, I will say by that using Bookstack, with its use of shelves, books and pages in such a visual way, it helped my thinking around systems like Obsidian as I more easily saw how to create interconnecting links between documentation. Looking into this and Obsidian again, as well as <a href="https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/">Zettelkasten,</a> had me stumble across the idea of <a href="https://nesslabs.com/digital-garden-set-up">Digital Gardens.</a></p> <h2 id="digital-gardens">Digital Gardens</h2> <p>This concept fascinated me, the concept of small posts, almost the size of Tweets, scattered across a system, all interconnecting so ideas are never lost, and can be built on to form larger and more substantial trains of thought, which may, in turn, develop into something even bigger, forming the basis of a blog post or piece of academia. I was also intrigued by the notion of this all being out in the public. Getting to this point mentally had been difficult enough for me, a safe and curated place. Envisioning a public place full of my half-written notes and spontaneous ideas sounded very uncomfortable. But maybe it was what I needed to keep pushing myself?</p> <p>I also considered if I was being distracted here. I was trying to find ways to organise interesting stuff, not create a new note keeping system. But to be fair, what about creating notes based off the interesting stuff I was storing and accessing? Maybe they need to be in the same place to be all interconnected? Plus, if they&rsquo;re all interconnected and growing as a garden does, they won&rsquo;t get forgotten, and I could see them through the visual graphs often associated with digital gardens.</p> <h3 id="dead-or-alive">Dead or Alive</h3> <p>I decided then on a distinction of content I had:</p> <ol> <li>Dead. Interesting stuff where no ideas can come from them. They are guides, tools, software links and so on. Stuff I can&rsquo;t take notes from.</li> <li>Alive. Interesting stuff which can spark ideas off. They are the news articles, long-form journalism and think-pieces of the world. Stuff I can take notes from.</li> </ol> <p>Most of my &lsquo;Dead&rsquo; content was already in <a href="https://raindrop.io/">Raindrop.io,</a> whereas my &lsquo;Alive&rsquo; stuff was actually dying a slow death in <a href="https://getpocket.com/">Pocket,</a> being lost to the ages. I needed two systems to address these two types of interesting stuff, but I was now bending the concept of a digital garden quite far for my &lsquo;Alive&rsquo; content. I was now more talking about a wiki of sorts, somewhere to store the interesting stuff alongside the ability to take notes about it. My only successful use of Obsidian so far was a post I had found (and lost due to poor memory) about note taking, and I had applied to successfully to an article I read. I liked the idea of that note now living in the same interconnected space as the original article, which in turn would be interconnected and linked to others.</p> <p>I decided I wanted a wiki/digital garden hybrid to store all my &lsquo;Alive&rsquo; interesting stuff.</p> <h3 id="tiddlywiki">TiddlyWiki</h3> <p>Needing somewhere to try out the idea of a digital garden and see if it would work for me, I began looking for applications which could be used for digital gardens. Yes, there was Obsidian, but I was still struggling with the interface, and I didn&rsquo;t want to contend with that at the same time was working through the process of setting up a digital garden.</p> <p><a href="https://nesslabs.com/tiddlywiki-beginner-tutorial">I came across TiddlyWiki likely through this post.</a> I couldn&rsquo;t get it working on a server, so initially gave up before returning to it following the discovery of <a href="https://syncthing.net/">Syncthing,</a> which I will discuss in a later post in more detail. Now having a means of accessing a TiddlyWiki on all my devices, I could actually try it out.</p> <p>TiddlyWiki is quite unique in a few ways. First, the entirety of the wiki is contained within a .html file, which can be opened via any web browser. Saving is a different issue though, as saves are written to the file if if those permissions are lacking, there can be issues - some of which I experienced when trying to access a TiddlyWiki via WebDAV rather than local storage. I landed up using <a href="https://tiddlywiki.com/static/TiddlyDesktop.html">TiddlyDesktop</a> (cross-platform on desktops) and <a href="https://github.com/donmor/Tiddloid">Tiddloid</a> for Android, both pointed to their respective local storages, as means of reading and writing to that .html file. As such, TiddlyWiki doesn&rsquo;t have any databases or a plethora of files (which I eventually discover both Obsidian and Logseq create). It&rsquo;s simple to transfer and simple to backup.</p> <p>The next unique aspect is how you navigate it. Rather than a structured system of nested folders, or even creating interconnecting pages, TiddlyWiki functions via &lsquo;Tiddles&rsquo;, which remind me of a series of cards. You interlink these cards together yourself, and navigate through them as such. I was very intrigued by the idea, but came across a hurdle I found it hard to overcome. By this point with writing and trying out various applications, I had become accustomed to using Markdown, which isn&rsquo;t supported by TiddlyWiki. <a href="https://tiddlywiki.com/plugins/tiddlywiki/markdown/">I would later discover this plugin adding Markdown,</a> but at the time, I didn&rsquo;t think it existed, and decided it wouldn&rsquo;t work for this purpose. Even on reflection, while I do greatly like TiddlyWiki, I currently struggle to find a use and purpose for it, but as I like it, I still have it installed in case something springs to mind.</p> <h2 id="but-did-i-already-have-what-i-was-looking-for">But Did I Already Have What I Was Looking For?</h2> <h3 id="obsidian---attempt-02">Obsidian - Attempt #02</h3> <p>My experiences at using both Bookstack and TiddlyWiki made me want to try Obsidian again, now with more knowledge on how such a system might function - finally.</p> <p>I was immediately more successful, and able to tweak Obsidian to function as a digital garden for my Alive stuff, and my notes stemming from such content. I kept the setup quite simple, using <a href="https://github.com/bLaCkwEw/Dracula-Slim">Dracula Slim</a> for my theme, and only five plugins: <a href="https://github.com/lukeleppan/better-word-count">Better Word Count,</a> <a href="https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-calendar-plugin">Calendar,</a> <a href="https://github.com/mgmeyers/obsidian-style-settings">Style Settings,</a> <a href="https://github.com/pjeby/tag-wrangler">Tag Wrangler,</a> and <a href="https://github.com/SilentVoid13/Templater">Templater.</a></p> <h3 id="going-online">Going Online</h3> <p>A key aspect of a digital garden is how it operates in public where strangers can wander by, poke their head in, and have a look. Keeping it strictly inside Obsidian doesn&rsquo;t achieve that.</p> <p><a href="https://obsidian.md/publish">Obsidian Publish</a> is an option of publishing your information online, and while it looks great, I wanted something I could host myself as I am already paying for web hosting.</p> <p>Looking for a free option, I began to browse themes for Hugo, seeing if there was one suitable for digital gardens, as I am already familiar with it. I didn&rsquo;t have much success, <a href="https://github.com/maximevaillancourt/digital-garden-jekyll-template">but stumbled across a fantastic theme for Jekyll.</a></p> <h3 id="jekyll">Jekyll</h3> <p>I had not used <a href="https://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a> before, and initially had a bad time setting it up, finding the process more difficult than Hugo. However, after I eventually managed to get it all running, I set up a site, loaded up the theme, and copied my existing Obsidian files into it. It looked fantastic, I was so happy with how it functioned and navigating was a breeze with the graph view at the bottom of each page.</p> <h2 id="but-logseq-looks-interesting">But Logseq Looks Interesting</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not entirely sure what compelled me to try out <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq,</a> a similar programme to Obsidian, just when things were starting to click with it. I believe my thinking was that now I had wrapped my head around it all, before going any further with Obsidian, I ought to check out Logseq and see if it works better for my use.</p> <p>Although similar, it is different, notably with its use of blocks more than pages. Additionally, Logseq seemed to lean further into a digital garden system as it moved away from folders or some sort of hierarchical organisational system. I thought about these changes for a while. I am one to favour hierarchical organisation, but the whole point of a digital garden was to try and move away from that and be more interconnected.</p> <p>Giving it a go, I had issues though trying to convert some of my Obsidian pages into Logseq due to slight differences in formatting, but I could see the benefits. I liked the layout more, keeping almost all the content out of view until accessed, similar to TiddlyWiki, but still included the ability to add Favourites for easy access to a couple of key pages. I also like the All Page button, and think the Linked References at the bottom of the page help me know where I am amongst the pages. Creating blocks to be put inside pages is fantastic as these individual blocks can be embedded elsewhere and update automatically when a change it made, making it very dynamic.</p> <p>However, I found the blocks with the bullet points a bit odd. They didn&rsquo;t seem to play nice in Markdown, as opening the files anywhere else renders a list with bullet points before the headers. When placing my Obsidian Markdown files into the digital garden, everything renders perfectly, for example:</p> <ul> <li>Obsidian: <code>Header</code></li> <li>Logseq: <code>.Header</code></li> </ul> <p>There are also random coding bits which appear on the digital garden in Jekyll, with these being invisible inside Logseq, which makes it harder to know they are there and to correct. I am often finding myself opening CotEditor and the offending Markdown file to find and fix the erroneous text which creeped in. Furthermore, to make the files visible inside the digital garden, the following frontmatter needs to be added to the top of each document:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-YAML" data-lang="YAML"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>It shows as a random block appears at the top of each page, which looks strange. However, if I make it useful, like so:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-YAML" data-lang="YAML"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nt">tags</span><span class="p">:</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="l">productivity</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="w"></span><span class="nn">---</span><span class="w"> </span></span></span></code></pre></div><p>Then I don&rsquo;t mind it being there now it actually contains some information rather than a lone dot.</p> <p>Another oddity was how Logseq loved making endless duplicate files in a &lsquo;bak&rsquo; folder because I initially ran Logseq inside a cloud, and it created these files due to conflict issues. At the time, while I knew why this is an issue, and the obvious solution was to just not place the Logseq folder in the cloud&rsquo;s folder, I wanted my Logseq in the clouds everything would be backed up as soon as it&rsquo;s written, and able to access from anywhere. These issues disappeared when I switched to using Syncthing instead, but at the time, it made me rethink things.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>For now at least, I am using Obsidian to write notes, and that Jekyll theme as a means to make it all public. Well, it will, I have yet to actually upload the site, but I had to get through all this first before making a final decision!</p> <p>Nonetheless, Logseq is a very good competitor to Obsidian, and I am slightly baffled why it doesn&rsquo;t get as much &rsquo;love&rsquo; from the community as Obsidian does. It is with a heavy heart I had to choose Obsidian over Logseq for my digital garden due to my install issues with the bak files.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/lorien/ Fri, 22 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/lorien/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/posts/lets-talk-about/getting-here-technically/#however">As I wrote in a previous post,</a> a website I was administrating unexpectedly experienced a disaster recently. I had to work out how to save the data, how to set up a new website, how to move it over to a new web host, and also put forward backup plans on what to do if any of my steps in these processes failed.</p> <p>I didn&rsquo;t want to type out my ideas as I was more in the frame of mind to sketch them out, with floating bullet pointed lists, arrows linking things together like a mind map, and wanted a way to quickly cross ideas out which wouldn&rsquo;t, or proved not to, work. But I also didn&rsquo;t want to do this on paper as my notepads are small, I wanted to be able to erase stuff quickly too.</p> <p>As I already had it installed, I settled on using <a href="https://www.goodnotes.com/">GoodNotes</a> with its support for drawing tablets, and ended up with three landscape pages breaking down the process. As I kept reaching the edges of the pages, I had to make new ones, and it would have been better if I could have just used an endless page. I could have done this in <a href="https://www.onenote.com/">OneNote,</a> but with all my years of academia inside it, the application took forever to load and then I had to make a new notebook and section away from the academia. I just wanted to quickly load a whiteboard up, jot down my thoughts, and save it so I can easily refer back to it if needed, because if I am honest, it was more about the process of sketching those ideas out as a means of thinking through the problem, rather than saving and organising the page neatly for future access.</p> <h2 id="lorien">Lorien</h2> <p>I stumbled across <a href="https://github.com/mbrlabs/Lorien">Lorien,</a> a free and open-source cross-platform desktop whiteboard application, unexpectedly while trying to find a new note taking application (long story, the one I was using isn&rsquo;t supporting my old Mac anymore, and I will probably make a post about this in the future). While Lorien didn&rsquo;t solve that issue, it would have solved the issue I had those couple of weeks ago. The application loaded quickly and presented me with a near full screened gridded black canvas. The grid can be toggled on and off, and the canvas changed into any colour you want.</p> <p>Promptly, I turned off the grid, made the canvas white, turned the ink colour to black (though any colour can be chosen when creating a new palette), and grabbed my drawing tablet. I actually thought to myself &ldquo;Well, it won&rsquo;t have pressure support, but I don&rsquo;t really need that for just jotting things down&rdquo;, but to my surprise, and without any configuration or tweaking required, Lorien immediately recognised my pen and correctly produced pen strokes which varied depending on the amount of pressure I was applying. I then played around with it a bit more, using its buttons along the toolbar to create squares and straight lines, erase what I had scribbled down, and changing the thickness of these. Alongside the usual undo and redo buttons, there is also sort of &rsquo;lasso&rsquo; to select elements on the whiteboard to then move around, which would have been helpful a couple of weeks ago as I reorganised steps in the plans I was making.</p> <p>The application has tabbed browsing, allowing the user to quickly jump between whiteboards, and although uses its own format for saving files (.lorien), clicking the &lsquo;hamburger&rsquo; menu on the top-left lets you export the canvas into .PNG instead. The settings, which can also be found there, are simple, but did all I needed them to, covering areas of default settings, language, themes, and rendering options.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>As I write this, Lorien is at version 0.40.0, so still in the early stages of its life. It is missing some things, such as different shapes and an option for adding arrow heads to the lines, but I think there is a lot of good here already. I am so happy to have found a quick and easy to use whiteboard application, as many I had bumped into in the past seem to be overloaded with unnecessary features, focus on teams and collaborative business use, and require signing up with accounts. Lorien may be simple, but that isn&rsquo;t a bad thing when all you want is for something just to load up quickly and work straight out of the box.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/linux-mint/ Fri, 15 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/linux-mint/ <p>In my recent post about note taking, I talked about the issue I was having with an old <a href="https://support.apple.com/kb/SP683?locale=en_GB">MacBook Air (mid-2011)</a> becoming obsolete as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Mojave#System_requirements">Apple had decided it should no longer be upgradable to newer operating systems.</a> While this may not seem such a problem on the face of it with me just missing out on new features, the larger issue is installing applications - many will simply refuse to run on older operating systems. As such, unless I stick to applications which are themselves outdated receiving no new updates, a ticking time bomb looms over me, with newer updates to any existing software refusing to install, and if I wipe my devices and need to reinstall, many applications which worked on their older versions will not install anymore.</p> <p>In this post, I will describe what I initially did to try and address these issues, where I went next with installing <a href="https://linuxmint.com/">Linux Mint,</a> and how the process went in trying to emulate my workflow now on Linux.</p> <h2 id="macbook-air">MacBook Air</h2> <p>Initially, faced with this MacBook Air refusing to update past High Sierra, <a href="http://dosdude1.com/catalina/">I forced an upgrade to Catalina via dosdude01&rsquo;s installer.</a> The process went smoothly, and I was initially impressed with now being able to use more applications.</p> <p>However, there were issues with the performance of the MacBook Air. It was sluggish and slow, and sometimes hung and lagged. Furthermore, the battery drained quickly with charging being slow. Using it became a frustrating experience, especially since before receiving the MacBook Air, the previous owner had a new battery professionally put in, and I had made sure to not install anything too demanding. Nonetheless, the device struggled, and I became reluctant to use it.</p> <h2 id="linux-on-macs">Linux on Macs</h2> <p>The previous owner recently told me about a Reddit thread they came across insinuating the forced obsolescence of Apple products. In the comments, a Redditor spoke about installing Linux Mint on an old Apple laptop, and how it worked great. With the performance of my MacBook Air very poor, I thought it was worth a shot trying.</p> <p>I had previous experience with Linux desktops, starting with <a href="https://ubuntu.com/">Ubuntu</a> in the mid-late 2000s, and also trying various operating systems on old desktops such as <a href="https://elementary.io/">elementary OS,</a> <a href="https://elementary.io/">Zorin OS,</a> <a href="https://pop.system76.com/">Pop!_OS,</a> and <a href="https://getsol.us/home/">Solus</a> throughout the years, so I wouldn&rsquo;t be going into this as a complete novice. Though I saw no need to use these in the long-term, as I had a perfectly fine Mac desktop, installing Linux on a laptop may make the device hopefully usable again, and give me a real chance to experience Linux in a non-server environment and in every day use.</p> <p>I grabbed an .ISO from the Linux Mint website and &lsquo;burned&rsquo; it onto a USB stick via <a href="https://www.balena.io/etcher/">balenaEtcher,</a> before sticking it into the laptop and holding down the ⌥ Option key as the device booted. After selecting the USB stick, and a few minutes of it loading, I was greeted to a live environment of Linux Mint. Although it was currently running off the USB stick, it ran so much faster and smoother with little to no lag. Hardware wise, there was no reason the MacBook Air was struggling as much as it was running macOS, so I was relived to see the device performing better on Linux. Installation was simple, and in under half an hour from starting the .ISO download, I now had a laptop booting into Linux Mint.</p> <h2 id="linux-mint">Linux Mint</h2> <p>The operating system runs fast with minimal issues, and boots quickly too. Drivers were picked up straight away, there are controls for screen and keyboard brightness, and there are plenty of configurations to tweak the operating system to suit personal preferences, including adjusting how the touchpad works. Installing applications has come primarily via the Software Manager, though I&rsquo;ve also installed via snap and through individual .deb files too. Thankfully, due to my gradual shift towards FOSS applications on my Mac, many applications I use daily can be found on Linux too, including <a href="https://joplinapp.org/">Joplin,</a> <a href="https://filezilla-project.org/">Filezilla,</a> and <a href="https://logseq.com/">Logseq,</a> as well as those not open-source like <a href="https://getupnote.com/">Upnote,</a> <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora,</a> and <a href="https://discord.com/">Discord</a> demonstrating a larger number of applications available to install and run than whenever I tried Linux in the past.</p> <p>Although this selection becomes significantly vaster when you include the ever growing number of <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/linux">games compatible in Linux through the push of Steam,</a> it&rsquo;s not an area I will be considering as this laptop will be used primarily for writing, web browsing, and reviewing notes. As such, this narrows the scope of the laptop and means I also won&rsquo;t be contending with &lsquo;missing out&rsquo; on software only released on Windows and Macs, such as the <a href="https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/">Affinity range.</a></p> <p>Linux Mint has great integration with <a href="http://nextcloud.com/">Nextcloud,</a> and once logged in, populated the native calendar applications with my entries (saving me from having to install a separate application), and created a &lsquo;mounted&rsquo; drive of my files stored inside Nextcloud, enabling easy access from within the file system. Customisation is more advanced in Linux Mint than macsOS too, as I was able to change the theme of the entire operating system rather than be restricted to a mere light or dark option with a handful of accent options. Although I am running Linux Mint in the <a href="https://github.com/linuxmint/cinnamon">Cinnamon desktop environment,</a> I was able to find, install, and set my theme to <a href="https://draculatheme.com/">Dracula</a> via the <a href="https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1099856/">GTK theme here,</a> allowing me to have my favourite colour scheme across the whole operating system rather than only within a few selected programmes.</p> <h2 id="conclusions">Conclusions</h2> <p>Although my time with Linux Mint on my MacBook Air has been brief, I have enjoyed it immensely, stating the old and well worn narrative that I would probably make Linux my daily driver, if only it had all the applications I use. Not only are there performance improvements, but the higher level of customisation and better integration of Nextcloud are welcomed too. If you have an old Mac device lying around you wish you could use once again, and do not need access to applications exclusive to Windows/Macs, I highly recommend breathing new life into the device by installing Linux on it. I went with Linux Mint simply as it was the one recommended in that Reddit thread, so I knew it would likely work without much issue, but I am sure there are likely other <a href="https://distrowatch.com/">distros</a> which may be more suitable to whatever your circumstances are. However, if you&rsquo;re like me and just wanted to give something relatively effortless a go on old hardware, I think Linux Mint has done a great job, and I was able to write this post on my laptop now running Linux Mint without a single problem!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-technically/ Fri, 08 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-technically/ <p>Growing up through the growth of the world wide web, and interested in website administration throughout, I have created many websites in my time. I made my first website when I was nine years old, a simple website coded in the most basic of HTML about video games I liked to play.</p> <p>As the years went on, my HTML advanced on hosting sites such as <a href="https://www.angelfire.lycos.com/">Angelfire</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_GeoCities">GeoCities,</a> and I began creating blogs covering the different subjects of my life I was interested in. However, I was fascinated by websites which had a more attractive way of blogging. Research pointed to <a href="https://www.nexcess.net/blog/wordpress-history/">b2/Cafelog.</a> Although it was possible to run my blogs off it, as I was now using a hosting provider, rather than Angelfire or GeoCities, I could not wrap my head around installing and running a database at the time, so I continued to manually make my blog posts in HTML, though tried to dabble in CSS as much as I could.</p> <h2 id="wordpress">Wordpress</h2> <p>I&rsquo;m not sure when I first learned of <a href="https://www.wordpress.org/">Wordpress,</a> but I have had it running on various websites I manage since the mid-2000s, and was an instant fan. I loved how easy it was to use - I didn&rsquo;t have to code each page one-by-one, or even code at all any more! Plugins made it even easier and more customisable than ever before, and everything looked incredibly professional.</p> <h2 id="easy-choice">Easy Choice?</h2> <p>When I decided to create this blog, it would thus seem Wordpress would be the obvious choice - I am administrating three other websites running on it after all. However, I was tempted by the simplicity of other platforms, trying to push myself into something new.</p> <p>Initially, I was enticed by running the website off <a href="https://www.notion.so/">Notion,</a> having stumbled across a beautiful blog which ran it. I was genuinely torn, and explored various options of making it work, settling on <a href="https://fruitionsite.com/">Fruition.</a> I purchased a domain, and then had to make a choice as to what to do with it. I ended up thinking about the future, where my knowledge with WordPress, as opposed to Notion, would come in handy later if, in the unlikely event people end up actually reading this blog, and I would need to scale up.</p> <h2 id="customising">Customising</h2> <p>Having then settled on Wordpress, my next issue was wading through all the steps of customisation to get the website looking and functioning how I wanted. It took me weeks to decide on a theme, what plugins I wanted to use, and how I was to break my text up with images. At first, I chose the theme <a href="https://wordpress.org/themes/nucleare/">Nucleare</a> with images to be inserted from <a href="https://unsplash.com/">Unsplash,</a> as I could <a href="https://unsplash.com/license">use these freely.</a> However, I then started to view more blogs, and found myself wanting to go back to a more simpler design, favouring themes akin to <a href="https://independentpublisher.me/">Independent Publisher.</a> I spent hours researching, installing and customising themes trying to get exactly what I wanted, which I didn&rsquo;t think was a lot, but I found to be difficult:</p> <ul> <li>Simple, clean and minimalistic design</li> <li>Post excerpts</li> <li>A signifier to suggest to the reader to click on the post to read more, such as a button, [&hellip;], or &lsquo;&hellip;&rsquo;</li> </ul> <p>And you&rsquo;d be surprised how difficult that is. Firstly, while I see Wordpress as a platform primarily for blogging, I am clearly in the minority it seems. These days, Wordpress is more often used for company websites, and the themes reflect this as such. It is incredibly difficult to actually find a &lsquo;boring&rsquo; theme intended to blogging - even searching within the &lsquo;blog&rsquo; filter inside Wordpress brings up hundreds of non-blogging themes, which while I understand could likely be used for blogging, is clearly not their main purpose:</p> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/img/blogfilter-screenshot.png" alt="Screenshot displaying the results when looking for a blog theme using the &lsquo;blog&rsquo; filter, showing no themes purposefully designed for blogging"> </p> <p>It&rsquo;s incredibly frustrating and makes starting a simple blog off-putting. In the end, I found two tips which helped me: <a href="https://wordpress.com/themes">Search via Wordpress.com,</a> as these were more stripped down themes, but were few and far between, and to search for FOSS themes, as tended to be on the more simplistic side I was looking for and actually had blogging themes for blogging.</p> <p>But this is not where my frustrations ended. Even when I found themes which looked the part, many had limited customisation options, and either didn&rsquo;t have an option for post excerpts to be shown, or if it did, they cut the text off - it looked sloppy. Granted, there was likely a way to manually edit the files to make this happen, but I was exhausted at this point, having ran into so many walls, I really didn&rsquo;t want to possibly spend hours learning something that might not even work, but knew it might have to come to that.</p> <p>Thankfully, it didn&rsquo;t. It was a search engine result which led me to <a href="https://coldbox.miruc.co/">Coldbox,</a> a theme which finally did everything I wanted it to! Simple, with post excerpts and &lsquo;Read More&rsquo; buttons, and customisable enough to make it mine. After setting it up though, I realised the use of Unsplash photos didn&rsquo;t fit with the &lsquo;vibe&rsquo; anymore, and I didn&rsquo;t know what to do. By pure happenstance, I read a newsletter which covered free illustrations for any purpose you needed them for: visuals in apps, newsletters, slideshows, websites and so on, via a website called <a href="https://undraw.co/">unDraw.</a> I loved the abstract illustrations and felt they fitted right in with the new look, especially happy with how I could change the colours to create consistency between posts.</p> <h2 id="new-shiny-thing">New Shiny Thing&hellip;</h2> <p>And thus, my website was complete. But I was not 100% happy.</p> <p>One thing which irked me was how Wordpress can be a chore to maintain as it is <a href="https://ithemes.com/blog/wordpress-security-issues/">a target for security attacks.</a> I was also annoyed at how plugins could pose as a security risk, having once had to rebuild a website for someone who had a plugin go rogue and turn their Wordpress installation into a spammy mess. <a href="https://wordpress.com/support/your-site-and-the-gdpr/">Another is the amount of tweaking needs to be done to be compliant to privacy matters.</a> I don&rsquo;t want to collect any one&rsquo;s data, I don&rsquo;t want to know who you are, but some plugins I installed to bring functionality brought along analytics and tracking, so I had to uninstall.</p> <p>Furthermore, I am distracted by shiny new things. <a href="https://bloggi.co/">Bloggi,</a> <a href="https://bearblog.dev/">Bear,</a> <a href="https://www.bludit.com/">Bludit,</a> <a href="https://write.as/">write.as,</a> <a href="https://telescope.ac/">Telescope</a> &hellip;these all made me think twice, with the latter two particularly intriguing.</p> <p>All this gave me a lot to think about.</p> <h2 id="web-10">Web 1.0</h2> <p>Reconsidering everything made me contemplate about how complicated the internet has become since I first coded that website at nine years old, and made more prominent in my thinking when I stumbled across <a href="https://clovercities.com/">CloverCities,</a> a generator to create websites reminiscent of the 1990s and early 2000s. While I think advancements with CRMs such as Wordpress have made things easier, I do have some nostalgia vision for more simpler times. I think that is why I was tempted by write.as and Telescope, I understand a lot of the internet needs to be built with high performing themes to get the best SEO and beat your competitor, but the simple act of blogging seems to be maligned as a result. That&rsquo;s not to say this sort of thing isn&rsquo;t popular, <a href="https://medium.com/the-raabithole/why-are-email-newsletters-so-popular-7bda7c272247">there is a reason newsletters are doing great,</a> as well as services like <a href="https://ghost.org/themes/?tag=Blog">Ghost</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/">Medium</a> being prominent. People clearly do want to write and be heard, but it seems they are being pushed into these services where alternatives exist, but are difficult to find.</p> <p>Wordpress is huge, but as I mentioned before, doesn&rsquo;t inherently look like a blog platform. Let me put it this way, if you were a writer choosing between Wordpress or Ghost, and you went to see what the choices are for how your blog might look like, which would you be drawn towards?</p> <p><strong>Wordpress:</strong> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/img/blogfilter-screenshot.png" alt="A repeat of the screenshot from before displaying the results when looking for a blog theme using the &lsquo;blog&rsquo; filter on Wordpress, showing no themes purposefully designed for blogging"> </p> <p><strong>Ghost:</strong> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/img/ghost-screenshot.png" alt="Screenshot displaying the results when looking for a blog theme using the &lsquo;blog&rsquo; filter on Ghost, showing themes purposefully designed for blogging"> </p> <h2 id="static-site-generators">Static Site Generators</h2> <p>I settled to being frustrated and putting up with all the issues which bothered me, but I began more and more bothered about what irked me and that longing for a simpler time. Research down a rabbit hole landed me in the realm of <a href="https://kinsta.com/blog/static-site-generator/">Static Site Generators (SSGs),</a> processes which generates functional websites, based on a set theme and your content, and outputting them in a way which means you can copy-and-paste them to pretty much any hosting provider with no fuss as there are no databases. Excitingly for me, I realised the predominant SSGs use Markdown as the language for posts and pages! I was already typing in Markdown, and now I can just place the file directly in the corresponding folder within the SSG, and my post suddenly appears on the website!</p> <p>Well, it isn&rsquo;t <strong>that</strong> simple. I first needed to choose an SSG, and there are many out there. I decided as this was all new to me, I would need one with plenty of documentation and support, as well as it being pretty easy to use. I contemplated <a href="https://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll,</a> <a href="http://gatsbyjs.org/">Gatsby,</a> <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a> and <a href="https://11ty.dev/">Eleventy</a> - but <a href="https://jamstack.org/generators/">there are many more out there.</a></p> <p>After some reading and testing, I went with Hugo as it seemed to fulfil the brief. However, it&rsquo;s not the simplest thing to get up and running. It took me multiple attempts to get Hugo setup correctly, and countless more deleting and starting over again when I broke something and couldn&rsquo;t fix it. Furthermore, you access it via Terminal on a Mac, which although I could use, I don&rsquo;t use it enough. To beginners, it could be daunting. However, once everything in the Terminal side is good to go, the rest is tweaked via text editors. Hugo allows itself to be used with TOML, YAML and JSON, and this caused an early issue with me as my chosen theme <a href="https://adityatelange.github.io/hugo-PaperMod/">(PaperMod)</a> had a lot of its documentation in YAML, whereas I had initially installed Hugo to use TOML <a href="https://adityatelange.github.io/hugo-PaperMod/posts/papermod/papermod-installation/">(a simple fix when re-reading the installation guide here).</a> I use <a href="https://coteditor.com/">CotEditor</a> to edit files which need configuration, and use <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora</a> for the blog posts.</p> <p>Once I had configured Hugo and correctly formatted a few posts, I could fully experience the blog, and I loved it. I still can&rsquo;t get over the speed - it loads so quickly between pages, and there isn&rsquo;t any baggage at all. No databases or plugins to be concerned about as security risks. No trackers or analytics as privacy concerns, and no bloat needed to make the website functional. It just works. I then went to build it, where Hugo is given the command &lsquo;hugo&rsquo; in Terminal, and processes all I&rsquo;ve done into a folder called &lsquo;public&rsquo;, ready to upload anywhere I want. With the entirety of the website (so far, as I write this), it equates to under 5MB. Five megabytes! It&rsquo;s tiny!</p> <h2 id="hosting">Hosting</h2> <p>When reading up about Hugo, I often came to the next stage: Hosting your website. Hugo is running perfectly fine on my computer at http://localhost:1313, but no one else can obviously access it.</p> <p>Plenty of guides talk about how, because of its tiny size, you are most likely able to get away with hosting for free. Free hosting! There is a lot of advice out there, so I suggest a simple web search of &ldquo;Hugo free hosting&rdquo; to find a guide you like, but the short answer is that places like <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a> can hold your Hugo-built website, and <a href="https://www.netlify.com/">Netlify</a> can be used to not only give you a way to connect your already purchased custom domain to your website, but can also provide an SSL certificate too - all for free!</p> <p>However, at this point, I&rsquo;m starting to get really excited about Hugo. I&rsquo;m rethinking everything at this point. All the websites I maintain on Wordpress, could I migrate them over to Hugo&hellip;? There was one big issue with that idea. While this website is tiny, the other websites are larger. One uses an extensive amount of images (which would bulk the size up), and another provides custom-made images for people to use on their websites, so there is a lot of hotlinking. Furthermore, I have had my hosting since a teenager, there was plenty I had stored on there too, hotlinking for myself. I was doubtful providers such as <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub,</a> <a href="https://www.netlify.com/">Netifly,</a> <a href="https://firebase.google.com/">Firebase,</a> <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/">AWS</a> and so on would allow such behaviour for free, and would start charging me. Additionally, I was happy with the lack of trackers and analytics, and was unsure what such providers may or may not place over my content.</p> <p>Feeling dubious, I decided not to bother. Although free would be fantastic, it&rsquo;s not going to work for me. Nonetheless, I&rsquo;m still gaining a lot via the faster and more secure websites, and I can just as easily use my current host for the websites. However, I&rsquo;m paying a lot for my current hosting as it is aimed for using databases, which I use for my Wordpress installations. It started to seem ridiculous to pay over £100 a year for services I would no longer be using. Surely I could get cheaper hosting if I was asking for less?</p> <p>A brief search presented a few options in this area, <a href="https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/">NearlyFreeSpeech,</a> <a href="https://uberspace.de/en/">Uberspace,</a> and <a href="https://neocities.org/">Neocities.</a></p> <h3 id="nearlyfreespeech">NearlyFreeSpeech</h3> <p>This hosting provider uses a <a href="https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/services/pricing">pay-what-you-use method,</a> where you deposit some money, and it will slowly drain away to pay for what is being used, with a reminder to let you know when the deposit has nearly ran out. I think it&rsquo;s a great idea, but I would prefer fixed rates.</p> <h3 id="uberspace">Uberspace</h3> <p><a href="https://uberspace.de/en/product/#prices">Using a pay-what-you-want model, with no difference in features, perks or services,</a> Uberspace provides a fair way of affording web hosting, <a href="https://uberspace.de/en/about/houserules/">with an easily understood set of rules.</a> At current exchange rates, the lowest suggested $5 a month tier would could me around £50 a year, halving my current hosting provider. Though I wouldn&rsquo;t be paying yearly, instead paying month-per-month. I like this idea a lot as a student, I could pay less now, and then pay more later when I have more income. It also has <a href="https://lab.uberspace.de/index.html">many guides on running applications,</a> and an <a href="https://manual.uberspace.de/">extensive manual.</a> Furthermore, <a href="https://uberspace.de/en/about/">they seem like a nice company.</a></p> <h3 id="neocities">Neocities</h3> <p>How much do I long for Web 1.0? Well, with Neocities, <a href="https://neocities.org/browse">it is alive and thriving.</a> However, it doesn&rsquo;t have to be like this, because while Neocities prides itself on hosting throwbacks to yesteryear, it is &rsquo;normal&rsquo; too, offering the ability to upload and host static websites of the more modern variety as well. Neocities is actually free for basic services, <a href="https://neocities.org/supporter">but for $5 a month,</a> users are able to use custom domains, install SSL certificates, create multiple websites and gain access to larger limits on storage and bandwidth. Furthermore, it explicitly allows hotlinking. Again, this would cost around £50 a year, and is also paid monthly at $5 like Uberspace.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>The biggest issue I am facing right now when it comes to web hosting providers is that I renewed my existing hosting just last month - how annoying! So for now, at this exact time, I will be using the remainder of that contract while taking this time to migrate my websites away from Wordpress and into Hugo. I can run them locally without an issue, so when the time comes in around ten months time, I can start paying my new web host, and start migrating the websites from my computer to their servers.</p> <p>As to who I will choose, I am currently leaning towards Uberspace, as I like their ethos and extensive documentation I can refer to when I need help. While I am very tempted to start using Uberspace right away, as this website is ready to go as a static website, it would be foolish to pay twice for the same thing when I could just as easily use my current web host.</p> <h2 id="however">However&hellip;</h2> <p>Since writing that last line, things changed dramatically. A simple change to re-organising my current web host (I swear, really simple and innocent!) broke a website I was hosting. Frustrated at it, and Wordpress in general (as the backups refused to restore), I made a few decisions, notably to go straight to hosting this website on Uberspace, and slowly start the migration for the other websites, first into Hugo, and then uploaded to Uberspace as well.</p> <p>I&rsquo;m finding the experience with Uberspace very interesting. It&rsquo;s more difficult than what I have been used to, but more akin to the days when I started out doing all of this. It&rsquo;s a very rewarding experience being able to accomplish small tasks to get everything working, I literally punched the air with joy when I successfully got the website running perfectly on Uberspace!</p> <p>It&rsquo;s going to be a bit daunting in the coming year to migrate everything in time, but I am looking forward to the process of doing it through Hugo, and feel happy to be using Uberspace as a web host going forward.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/long-form-writing-applications/ Fri, 25 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/long-form-writing-applications/ <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/subscriptions">In my post about subscriptions,</a> I mentioned <a href="https://spaceswriting.com">Spaces,</a> and realised I had not yet discussed why I had encountered it, same with <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian.</a> In this post, I’ll go into my current thinking and exploration regarding long-form writing apps, elaborating on my current thinking (as my mind is changing every few hours at the point when it comes to thinking about this subject), with a post soon regarding ‘second brain’ systems and note-taking.</p> <h2 id="beginnings">Beginnings</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-study/">As mentioned in my post about how I study,</a> I use <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/pages/">Pages</a> to write my documents and then edit in <a href="https://products.office.com/word">Word</a> if I wish to send them to someone who uses Word. I was satisfied with this process, but found Pages too… ‘rich text-y’ when I started writing for this blog. Initially, I wrote the first two posts using the WordPress editor, but I didn’t like how I kept getting mini pop-ups whenever I clicked on a block, I couldn’t get spellcheck to turn on to pick up my typos, and of course I needed to be online to write, plus while drafts can be saved, I would have to manually copy-and-paste the text to back it up, which is also an issue as by default, only a block at a time can be highlighted to copy-and-paste, requiring me to go through another step to access the raw source plain text. It was a hassle, and I know I needed to find another piece of software for long-form writing, without any frills to get in the way.</p> <p>This meant I could rule out popular applications such as <a href="https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview">Scrivener,</a> as although highly rated, seemed way too extensive for what I was wanting to do. Maybe if I do write a novel one day it’ll be a good choice, but for writing, and just writing, I knew I needed to look elsewhere.</p> <h2 id="markdown-applications">Markdown Applications</h2> <p>At first, I looked at how I could easily copy-and-paste my writings into WordPress without the issues of rich text getting in the way, and I quickly found out about <a href="https://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/">Markdown.</a> Turns out, <a href="https://www.markdownguide.org/tools/reddit/">I’ve been using Markdown for years as a Reddit user,</a> a simple and light language for writing formatted text. Most importantly, I could write in markdown, including headers and images if I wanted, and then simply paste the whole thing into a new post inside WordPress, and it should all appear the same as I wrote it. Excitedly, I then began down a rabbit hole I’m still not quite out of.</p> <h2 id="ia-writer">iA Writer</h2> <p>I started with a highly recommended piece of software, <a href="https://ia.net/writer">iA Writer.</a> It is generally regarded as expensive because a license is needed for each platform of macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android – each costing around $30, but is considered worth it, as well as being praised for its one-off payment compared to competitor <a href="https://ulysses.app/">Ulysses,</a> which has a subscription model. I used a two week trial of iA Writer, and wrote a couple of posts for this website using it, finding the feature to send my written article to my WordPress site automatically as a draft very handy. I was impressed by it, finding the experience of simply writing without excessive formatting getting the way to be a relief, helping aid the process of putting ideas and words to ‘paper’ easy and enjoyable.</p> <p>However, the price seemed high compared to some other applications on the market, some even free. So when my trial ended, I put it on the back burner, and went to see what else was out there.</p> <h2 id="spaces">Spaces</h2> <p>I spoke highly of <a href="https://spaceswriting.com">Spaces</a> in my previous post about subscriptions, and it was because I very nearly chose it as my predominant long-form writing app as it seemed to have pretty much everything I wanted, and was very reasonable with its free tier. However, one vital issue prevents me from doing so, and that is the location of my files. I cannot find them in my filesystem, and thus cannot back them up on a regular basis using a program like <a href="https://www.econtechnologies.com/chronosync/overview.html">ChronoSync.</a> If this isn’t an issue for you though, I would highly recommend checking it out.</p> <h2 id="marktext">MarkText</h2> <p>Another app which nearly took the main prize was <a href="https://marktext.app/">MarkText,</a> a free and simple cross-platform editor, but with one vital flaw I struggled to address. I loaded up the file containing the <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation/">post about music organisation</a> as a test to see what it looks like, and noticed long strings of seemingly random text bunched together spread throughout the post. I quickly loaded up the post on the website and went to a section where the text appeared to go crazy, and realised the $ sign was causing the problem. I thought I merely had a setting turned on for a special type of formatting (looks like something to do with inline maths), but I can’t find a way to turn it off.</p> <p> <img src="https://jessicajournals.com/img/marktextdollarsign.png" alt="A screenshot demonstrating the issue as previously described"> </p> <p>While this issue didn’t happen every time there was a $ sign, I found it frustrating I couldn’t fix it, as it kept making that long string of text. Disappointed, as I had liked the program otherwise, I decided against it.</p> <h2 id="typora">Typora</h2> <p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/n13vka/help_pick_a_markdown_writing_app/">Looking at Reddit posts and comments of what users recommend,</a> I came across two new names to try about: <a href="https://www.bywordapp.com/">Byword</a> and <a href="https://typora.io/">Typora.</a> However, due to a lack of a free trial, I had to rule Byword out, and instead tried Typora, a $15 for three licences cross-platform editor, for two weeks. I was immediately impressed with its focus and typewriter modes, features shared with iA Writer, and the ability for vast customisation of themes as well as its simple management of files where it just displays whatever is in the folder you pointed it to look at.</p> <p>In fact, it seemed to me, as someone who only had two weeks with iA Writer, as an application which does all I need it to do for a significantly less price. There was one exception I noticed, which was the ability to send drafts directly to WordPress, but again, I had intended to copy-and-paste these anyway, and the process works fine. In fact, I have written the posts about subscriptions and swapping between Mac and Windows in Typora, as well as writing this post up right now.</p> <h2 id="which-application">Which Application?</h2> <p>My mind was almost set, I had decided to go for Typora as it had the added benefits of Typora&rsquo;s license covering three devices including Windows and Linux, whereas I’d need a new one for iA Writer to type on Windows, and I don’t believe it is supported on Linux. But I wanted to revisit MarkText one more time to see if I could fix the weird issues with using $ symbols, and while I cannot find a way to prevent Inline Math from being activated, I can at least turn it off by pressing on the text and then selecting Inline Math from the toolbar under Format.</p> <p>However, I then came across another issue, struggling to find a way to quickly insert links. In iA Writer and Typora, I can press ⌘ + K over highlighted text, and it becomes a hyperlink to whatever was copied into my clipboard. MarkText, on the other hand, has a hotkey to create a hyperlink, but requires you to paste in the contents from the clipboard separately. Furthermore, after more testing, I significantly appreciated how Typora and iA Writer autocorrected my typing mistakes, whereas MarkText would just point them out, awaiting me to correct them, taking more time.</p> <p>As such, I will be using Typora as my primary application for writing. iA Writer is an amazing application, but I struggle to justify the costs when the significantly cheaper Typora is suitable enough for me. Because of this, I suggest any one looking for a new writing application ought to try Typora, iA Writer and MarkText before making their decision.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/subscriptions/ Fri, 11 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/subscriptions/ <p>A theme which may be spotted throughout my posts so far is a dislike for subscriptions. However, I do have a few subscriptions, and I’ll discuss here why I have them, what the alternatives are, the lifetime subscriptions I have, and matters around sustainability when it comes to development.</p> <h2 id="services">Services</h2> <p>I don’t mind paying a recurring fee for a service which has ongoing costs. I pay for stuff like web hosting, domain names, and email accounts for this reason. I can see where my money is going and why costs are needed to upkeep them. Granted, some services can cost nothing offering free plans, such as using <a href="https://wordpress.com/">WordPress.com</a> for hosting a website or an email provider like <a href="https://protonmail.com/">ProtonMail,</a> though I am aware these services are more entry-level, with the intention to encourage the user to become a paying customer. There are completely free services such as Gmail, <a href="http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/article/Homeowner/Why_Is_Gmail_Free">though I question what else I am paying with if it is not my money,</a> <a href="https://lifehacker.com/reminder-google-is-an-ad-company-1793384443">and I’ve seen Google described as an advertisement company rather than anything else.</a></p> <p>Purchasing these services outright is a terrible business model as servers are needed to manage their upkeep, costing money for technicians as well as electrical and site costs. I cannot see any company ever offering a lifetime purchase for web hosting or email services, unless you’re paying with your data.</p> <p>Self-hosting is not out of the option though, <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/why-you-may-not-want-to-run-your-own-mail-server">but from what I have read online, there seem to be mixed results for self-hosted email,</a> and the fees are <a href="https://www.sitepoint.com/self-hosting-your-website-bad-idea/">probably worth it to prevent the headache I’d may otherwise gain with issues I could encounter if I did it all by myself.</a></p> <h2 id="content-platforms">Content Platforms</h2> <p><a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation/">As previously discussed,</a> I have a TIDAL account for music streaming. I don’t mind paying for platforms which generate regular content to consume. If I were to purchase a music album, that is all I am going to get. However, if I get new music every week, if not every day, I can see why an ongoing cost is required. In turn, I have subscriptions to <a href="https://gb.readly.com/">Readly</a> to read magazines and <a href="https://www.netflix.com/gb/">Netflix</a> to watch TV and movies.</p> <p>Much like music, magazines and video content can of course be individually purchased, but as someone who reads a plethora of magazines with just the price of three equalling one month’s subscription to Readly, where I pay £8, I actually see it as saving me money, and I watch Netflix almost every day with its numerous shows and films, always finding something new to watch.</p> <p>However, we then come to the issue I see of many who dislike subscriptions for content platforms – the notion that you’re renting and not owning any of this.</p> <p>I recently had a discussion with someone regarding this when they were enquiring into high quality audio platforms. They took out a trial of <a href="https://www.qobuz.com/">Qobuz,</a> and found something out about themselves they had not realised: They only wanted to listen to about a dozen to two dozen albums. They worked out that for the monthly price of Qobuz, they could instead just purchase a CD, and in under two years be done with their collection.</p> <p>For people like this, renting their music does make little sense. However, I am not that kind of person. I am someone who might be described like <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/ed-sheeran-called-an-obsessive-music-squirrel-in-shape-of-you-copyright-case-at-high-court-as-he-denies-claims-he-copied-part-of-other-artists-song-12560645">Ed Sheeran was recently, as an “obsessive music squirrel” consuming music “voraciously”.</a> I listen to new music every day, and heavily focus on compiling playlists, now in their hundreds, of various different tracks from different artists. To pay outright for every track would cost me a fortune, and being able to browse music as I do would be impossible without being able to stream it. Furthermore, while I know many who would love to keep copies of their favourite magazines to refer back, I have always found myself to be someone who reads it once, maybe takes a few notes from what I’ve read, and then never picks it up again. But, if you are someone who does keep going back to old copies, then yes, a platform like Readly wouldn’t be right for you. Similarly, I don’t tend to rewatch television shows or movies, though there are of course a few exceptions – but if you do stick to a few select shows or films, then purchasing them outright would be the correct option.</p> <h2 id="wellness">Wellness</h2> <p>During very low periods of my mental health, having tried all the free options I could find, I concluded I might be something needing more. From this, I subscribed to a few apps to try them out, but currently pay yearly for two.</p> <p>The first is one I foresee me renewing year after year, that is <a href="https://www.downdogapp.com/">DownDog</a> – a service which provides a group of apps covering yoga, exercise and meditation all for one yearly price. With good timing from sales, I managed to get a subscription for just £20 a year for all three, and I cannot speak highly of the service. For that price, I am able to create fully customised yoga, exercise and meditation sessions, tweaking them to what I exactly want: length, difficulty, focus/intent and so on. A restorative yoga practice focusing on my shoulders for beginners done at a slow pace with lots of instruction to relaxing music? Yup. An exercise routine without any jumps for exactly ten minutes with ten second breaks between movements with little instructions with pop music playing in the background? Done. A mediation on self-esteem with silences lasting no more than thirty seconds? It’s yours. I could go on and on, but I do not mind paying for an app which, for me, is not only better than going to a yoga class or to the gym due to the experience being tweaked exactly to my liking, but also costs considerably less.</p> <p>The other app is <a href="https://www.finchcare.com/">Finch,</a> a mental health app focused on you setting and achieving small goals, as well as utilising writing as a therapy, through your care of a digital finch. The more you achieve or write about, the more gems you get to purchase things for your finch. Furthermore, your finch goes out on daily adventures and comes back with questions you have to answer, presenting life through a beginner’s mind – a tenant often mentioned in mindfulness. It also asks you about your mood throughout the day, and combines this with what you wrote about to summarise your good and bad days, and what may be correlative between them. When you log a low mood, it presents ‘first aid’, suggesting ideas on how to improve your mood, with mindfulness exercises, ranting away in a journal, breathing techniques or so on. The app also provides breathing exercises, soundscapes, a handful of exercises, stretches and yoga routines, and quizzes to analyse yourself. The app provides a lot, and I felt better paying for something developed by just two people, with a free option for those who really need it, but cannot pay for mental health help, thus I view this subscription a bit differently to others. £35 for a year was something I struggled to rationalise with, but I think it has greatly improved my mental health, pulling me out of my deep depression I was experiencing when I signed up.</p> <blockquote> <p>I apologise for what has turned into two app reviews, but I thought I needed to justify why I was paying for these subscriptions and what they offer me compared to other apps I have declined!</p></blockquote> <h2 id="lifetime-subscriptions">Lifetime Subscriptions</h2> <p>I have lucked out a few times in my life, being able to access services for a one-off fee which are now subscription based. The most notable of these to me is <a href="https://www.pocketcasts.com/">Pocket Casts,</a> a podcasting app I purchased very early on in its life cycle, and was grandfathered into when it became freemium with a premium tier. I love it a lot and use it every day, it syncs perfectly between my phone, iMac, and Windows PC, so I can easily pick up where I left off. It looks great, is easy to use, and I would recommend it to all, but I am unsure if would pay a yearly fee for it. Although it is only $12 a year, knowing me, I’d likely be looking into self hosting options…</p> <blockquote> <p>Speaking of being grandfathered in after switches to subscription models, I was an early adopter of ReadItLater, purchasing it for, I think, around £5 as I had patchy WiFi and could not read online articles in my bedroom. I got an email one day announcing the app was being rebranded as <a href="https://getpocket.com/">Pocket</a> and was now operating a freemium model, but as I had previously purchased ReadItlater, I was offered a 50% lifetime discount for subscribing to the premium plan – so in this case, I was not grandfathered in!</p></blockquote> <p>Lastly, I purchased a lifetime subscription to meditation app <a href="https://www.calm.com/">Calm</a> when it was on a big sale, as it equated to two or three years of yearly subscriptions to the app, and I had already been a member for a year. Since I purchased the lifetime subscription, the app has grown considerably, adding two new daily mediation teachers as well as another involved with daily movement, plus numerous more sleep stories and music playlists. I’m pleasantly satisfied with the purchase as I continue to use it daily years on, justifying the one-off purchase.</p> <h2 id="sustainability">Sustainability</h2> <p>I understand the argument that software delivery has changed immensely over the past two decades, software was once sold on floppy disks and then CDs in big boxes in stores after all. Whenever there were major version changes, a new edition of the software was released. For example, you had various editions of Microsoft Office: 95, 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007 and so on. Some software is still released this way today, such as Things and Scrivener.</p> <p>However, such software shares one thing in common: a high cost. These days with the proliferation of ‘free’ software (paying with data rather than money), as well as the sale of mobile apps tending to be around the $5 mark, it can be difficult to convince customers to part ways with, say, $50, every few years for an updated version of the same software. How to be sustainable in this new world has been problematic.</p> <p>As such, the alternative to this new landscape has been subscriptions. Developers get to continue working on and improving a piece of software for many years to come, not needing to continually chase new customers but care for the ones they already have, and don’t have to focus on new, perhaps less desirable, software just to keep the money coming in. <a href="https://spaces.do/pricing.html">Spaces.do wrote a piece on their website about why they have chosen a subscription based model for their software,</a> which contends that subscriptions can be fine if done correctly – by not taking advantage of the customer, charging around $15 for a yearly subscription, covering all devices logged into the same Apple ID. I think the piece makes some good points, and I should point out they also offer a generous free plan, making the decision to pay a yearly premium fee feel more as an offering to support the developers than to gain access to a functional program (though, of course, paying for premium does unlock more features, including syncing between devices).</p> <p><a href="https://drewmccormack.medium.com/a-cash-cow-is-on-the-agenda-138a11995595">The developers of Agenda present a different model,</a> whereby a basic free tier is available, and then a €35 fee unlocks all the premium features of the app already implemented, and then any added for the next twelve months. If the customer doesn’t renew, they get to keep those premium features they gained over that time period, but not any new features added after that twelve months. If the customer sees a new upcoming feature they want, they can then pay another €35 for that and any new updates added over twelve months again. <a href="https://agenda.community/t/get-all-features/21">In the comments sections, one of the developers equated this magazine subscriptions, stating you get to keep what you paid for,</a> but nothing new afterwards, unless you pay again. I think this has likely been the fairest model for all I’ve encountered, as there are various applications I want premium for due to one or two features, but decide against it as I know it’s not worth paying for year after year. But a one-off payment to access all the current premium features and get to keep them afterwards? I would probably do it, and this model encourages me to pay again and again by enticing me with possibly other features I would be willing to pay for.</p> <p>There are also other ways to monetise to make development more sustainable. <a href="https://www.notion.so/">Notion</a> is free with some restrictions for personal use, and charges fees for teams and businesses (as well as power personal users). <a href="https://joplinapp.org/">Joplin</a> and <a href="https://obsidian.md/">Obsidian</a> are completely free, unless you use their syncing services. I read somewhere in my time that <a href="https://www.goodnotes.com/">GoodNotes</a> keep their one-off fee as they can rely on a steady stream of new customers every year: the new crop of students heading off to university and needing an app to take notes with in class on their shiny new iPads. Nonetheless, not all pieces of software apply to these models of course.</p> <p>Some have argued the future lies with bundling subscriptions together to make them more palatable. I actually was a BETA tester for <a href="https://setapp.com/">SetApp,</a> and had free access to it for around six months as a result. Of course, I loved having access to loads of Mac apps I’d otherwise have to individually pay for, but I worried I may become reliant on them, and what if I could not pay the subscription for some reason? I’d lose access to them. The Qobuz argument essentially then went through my head: SetApp would cost over $100 a year – how many apps could I buy in that time and then have them to keep forever? It may be worth the value if you work out which apps you do want, how much it would cost you to purchase otherwise (or pay a yearly subscription for, maybe you’ll actually end up saving money?), and how long you want to use them – but it wasn’t worth it for me. When the BETA testing period ended, I chose not to sign up. Considering it was released in 2017, and it’s 2022 as I write this, I think I made the right decision not spending over $500 to rent software I could otherwise purchase outright!</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>I think my bottom line largely aligns with that of Spaces.do: subscriptions leave a sour taste in my mouth when I feel the company simply wants to milk me for all I have. The software I use and like being held hostage behind a paywall unless I pay up yearly or monthly to access it. It’s why I at least appreciate freemium models which allow some use and access, with just the perks taken away when a subscription ends.</p> <p>I also don’t mind paying subscriptions for services where there are obvious ongoing costs, and do mind when I can’t see them – me using my password manager doesn’t cost the developers anything in upkeep costs. I don’t mind when the costs seem reasonable and more as an offering to support the developers or to offset a free tier for those who cannot pay, as well as to pay for bonus features which aren’t required to make the application functional.</p> <p>My main issue is simple: I’m not made of money. If everything turns subscription based, I won’t be able to afford them all. I’ve been lucky with purchasing most of my applications on sales, in bundles or with student discounts, or buying in early while cheap before prices rise and the shift to subscriptions come in. I’m resourceful, I try to self host as much as I can to lower costs, as well as research to uncover random FOSS apps, finding plenty of hidden gems after hours of searching. Some services I use are like Joplin and Obsidian, offering paid syncing services which are easy to setup. Instead, I try to sync stuff by myself, taking time and effort, in order to save money.</p> <p>There needs to be a sensible middle ground where customers are not bound to endless amounts of subscriptions just to use their apps, and where developers can make a living from their work. I think this is why I am more favourable to the argument put forward by Agenda – offer a free tier which is accessible and functional, and then offer perks (and/or syncing services) at a reasonable price, and letting customers keep what they have paid for after the subscription ends. I don’t think there will ever be a perfect solution, but trying to be fair for all involved is a good place to start.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-swap-between-mac-and-windows/ Fri, 25 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-swap-between-mac-and-windows/ <p>Although I have written about Macs so far, I do also have a Windows computer. I built it after becoming frustrated with the lack of gaming options on Macs, <a href="https://uk.crucial.com/articles/mac-users/are-macs-good-for-gaming">as while they have grown considerably in the past few years,</a> many are still Windows exclusives. However, while I am pleased with my decision to have a more work/study focused Mac and a more recreational Windows, challenges are presented in using and swapping between them.</p> <h2 id="environment">Environment</h2> <p>Initially, I hooked my Windows computer to the television in the room, but while sofa gaming works for video consoles, I found it more difficult for games designed to be played at a desk. While working technically, due to ergonomic issues with keyboard shortcuts and small detailed text on the screen, I found it to be a difficult and frustrating experience. However, I had limited space in the room, so I could not fit a whole new desk setup elsewhere, and thus knew I had to combine my Mac desk setup with the Windows PC.</p> <h2 id="hardware">Hardware</h2> <p>The Mac setup on my desk is as follows:</p> <ul> <li>1x iMac</li> <li>2x Monitors</li> <li>1x Keyboard</li> <li>1x Mouse</li> <li>1x Microphone</li> <li>1x Drawing Tablet</li> <li>1x RGB Deskmat</li> <li>1x PC Speaker Setup</li> <li>1x Wired Headphones</li> </ul> <blockquote> <p>Connecting to internet and LAN is not an issue due to a lack of ethernet in the room, having to rely on WiFi instead. However, the addition of a switch would resolve these issues.</p></blockquote> <p>Granted, not all of these would be required on the Windows – it would be unlikely I’d need to use the drawing tablet, but a microphone might be handy when gaming with others. As such, I wanted to make as much of the existing setup to be shared between the two machines.</p> <h2 id="usbs">USBs</h2> <p>Anything USB related had a simple solution:</p> <ol> <li>Plug a male-to-female long USB cable in each machine, have both cable ends rest on the desk.</li> <li>Place a USB hub in the middle of the desk.</li> <li>Plug the USB devices I will be using into the USB hub.</li> <li>Simply plug the USB hub into the cable end of the machine I will be using. When switching machines, just unplug the USB hub from one end, and place it in the other.</li> </ol> <blockquote> <p>The cables could be labeled, but I just remember the Mac is on the left, and the Windows is on the right.</p></blockquote> <h2 id="monitors">Monitors</h2> <p>Remembering the USB cables this way is easy for me as the iMac has been placed on my left, and the Windows PC is on the floor to my right.</p> <p>I initially had the iMac in the centre of my three monitor setup, but instantly realised it would not work when swapping. <a href="https://www.vidmore.com/record-video/use-imac-as-monitor/">This is because only certain iMacs can be used used as an external display,</a> so while I am using my Windows machine, the iMac’s screen will simply be off, and placing this to the side just makes sense.</p> <p>The two remaining monitors have multiple connections and buttons to switch between these inputs. As such, my main monitor placed in front of me connects to the iMac via DisplayPort, and with the Windows via HDMI. The secondary monitor is much older, connecting to the iMac via HDMI, but only with DVI to the Windows. When swapping between the two machines, I press the buttons on the two monitors to select their other inputs, and the screens change easily.</p> <h2 id="audio">Audio</h2> <p>Although I could easily use my Bluetooth headphones for both machines, as it would automatically connect to the relevant machine when it turns on, I wanted the opportunity to use my speakers as well as my higher quality wired headphones.</p> <p>The end result is a bit janky, but works without any issues. Two magic ingredients make it functional, the first being the controller which came with the PC speakers. The controller connects to the back of the subwoofer using an RCA input, and then sits neatly on the desk, able to control the volume with a dial. Crucially, it has two connections at the front, an output for headphones and an input for an external connection, both using 3.5mm.</p> <p>The headphones output is self-explanatory, I can plug my headphones in and the audio cuts from the speakers and plays into headphones instead. The second output though is vital, it is designed to quickly plug a device in, such as a phone or tablet, to play audio via the speakers. I use it to connect the speakers to a secondhand DAC I have via a RCA-to-3.5mm cable. I also have a USB-to-USB connection from the iMac to the DAC, and another connection of TOSLINK-to-TOSLINK from the Windows to the DAC. At the front of the DAC is a button to switch inputs, and I can toggle between the iMac and the Windows, and am able to also plug my headphones in when necessary.</p> <h2 id="final-thoughts">Final Thoughts</h2> <p>I am more satisfied with the end result as I thought I would be, thinking I would need two extra elements to create a perfect setup. I believed I would need the three monitors on the Windows machine, but as I am only gaming there, a main monitor for the game and a second for Discord or a music player, is all I really need.</p> <p>Secondly, I thought I was miss gaming from my sofa, and felt I needed to purchase a long HDMI cable to connect the Windows machine to the television. However, since I making the change a few months ago, I have not felt the need at all, being perfectly satisfied with staying at the desk. Nonetheless, if I do change my mind, adding a cable would be a simple adjustment to the setup.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/replacing-day-one/ Fri, 11 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/replacing-day-one/ <p>The benefits of journaling have long been espoused, and as I decided to take greater care of my mental health, I decided to take up journaling. However, being conscious of the environment and wanting to save on costs in the long term, I wanted to keep it digital.</p> <p>I was already familiar with <a href="https://www.onenote.com/">OneNote,</a> having used it extensively for university, but saw it as very bloated for what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to associate my journalling experience with the application I use to study my university work. Furthermore, my access was through my university, and that wasn’t going to last forever – soon I’d have to be paying for a subscription. Other note taking apps weren’t cross-platform, ran on subscriptions, or were either too simplistic or too complex for what I wanted. It became apparent I needed an app which was designed for journalling.</p> <p>Annoyingly, of the dedicated journalling applications, pretty much all of the options were subscription based, and failed to sync across the differing platforms of Mac and Android. Frustrated, I resigned myself to biting the bullet and accepting the inevitability of a subscription-based world.</p> <h2 id="day-one">Day One</h2> <p>I was drawn to <a href="https://dayoneapp.com/">Day One</a> as a long term user of <a href="https://wordpress.org/">WordPress,</a> and saw that their owners has acquired <a href="https://automattic.com/">Day One.</a> This, plus the rave reviews, the cross-platform compatibility, and ease of use, made me decide this was the app for me. I could include photos, create a journal just for motivational quotes and advice, and I liked how it snapshotted the weather and location alongside the date and time. The daily prompts were also intriguing, and I liked how I could create templates to log daily activities such as meals eaten and media consumed. I told myself I’d give it a year’s subscription, and it may be worth it.</p> <p>However, it didn’t actually start well. I soon realised the Android version of the app was significantly less featured than the Mac version, and missed many of the features which drew me to Day One in the first place, though I told myself this would surely be updated soon enough. Another strange issue was the inability to edit entries on my Mac after making them on my Android phone if the entry had an image in it. Nonetheless, I was writing in it every day, and eventually found it therapeutic, so Day One was serving its purpose.</p> <h2 id="alternatives">Alternatives</h2> <p>Though things were obviously far from perfect, and without any sight of the features arriving on the Android version after waiting many months, I wanted to find a more suitable solution. Although I had this task pencilled in for over a month, I was only jolted to actively research an alternative when I saw an email come in from one the newsletters I’m subscribed to which debated the use of different writing apps for Macs. Although this wasn’t journalling exactly, the apps mentioned varied from note taking to manuscript creation, involving markdown, rich text or plain text. All this sparked by imagination and I contemplated again what could become a journalling application.</p> <p>Again, my requirements were unchanged: Cross-platform between Macs and Androids, no subscription, and easy to use. I tried a variety of applications, but settled on <a href="https://getupnote.com/">UpNote.</a> Although it has a subscription option of around $1 a month, there is also an option to purchase a lifetime version for just under $20, cheaper than one year’s worth of Day One. Not only is it available on Macs and Androids, but also on Windows, iOS, and Linux – all for one purchase without needing to pay for each platform.</p> <p>Granted, UpNote is not a dedicated journalling platform, but I had gone without many of the fancy Day One features, I didn’t think I actually needed them. Plus, it is actually a great and well featured note taking app, I saw how I could use it to hold the various notes I have scattered across my devices in one place.</p> <p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/UpNote_App/comments/sc3nld/comment/huzell3">However, the data in UpNote is not encrypted and the developers state the information stored is visible to them.</a> As such, while UpNote may be fine for quickly noting I need to buy cat food or jotting down the name of a new movie which catches my eye, I thought twice about using it for my journals, something more private and personal, where the data was stored more securely which I had control over.</p> <p>While not as flashy or feature rich as UpNote, <a href="https://joplinapp.org/">Joplin</a> seemed to tick all the boxes for me again as it was cross-platform and without subscription – it can actually be used for free. The files are stored on either a cloud platform, a server of your own through options such as WebDAV or a <a href="http://nextcloud.com/">Nextcloud</a> server, or you can use Joplin’s own syncing service. As such, I felt much better having more control over my private data, and also appreciated the files being stored in Markdown in case I wanted to move to a different platform in the future.</p> <h2 id="migration">Migration</h2> <p>I began migrating my non-time sensitive ‘to do’ lists and lists of things such as movies to one day watch all over to UpNote. Its nestled notebook system was perfect to organise these random notes and lists, as well as hold my journal entries and those motivational quotes I had gathered.</p> <p>The former was easy to do. I was using <a href="https://simplenote.com/">SimpleNote</a> to hold around twelve of these notes, and I was able to export these without a fuss to UpNote – I exported as JSON and chose to import via JSON on UpNote. I deliberately started with something simple to understand the process and thought “Great, that was easy, now we’ll do the same with Day One to Joplin”.</p> <p>It’s here my dislike for Day One grew immensely, and makes me never want to recommend such an app to use, because it locks the user in a way it didn’t have to. I recall when I chose Day One that there were ways to always export my entries out and that I’d never be stuck in the platform – but I never actually did a test myself. It turns out to be very difficult to export your entries to a different platform. I tried JSON, but it didn’t work, no entries imported. I tried the ‘Plain Text/Markdown’ option, but Day One had bundled all the entries into one single file, same with the HTML option, and these couldn’t be broken down into separate entries. I started to panic slightly, it suddenly dawned on me that exporting my entries was not as easy as it was advertised, and I might have to manually copy-and-paste each entry over by hand. Something I was unimpressed with and made me happier than ever to be moving away from Day One.</p> <p>Thankfully though, after some online digging, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dayoneapp/comments/o0d3o3/help_export_dayone_entries_into_more_useable/">I came across this Reddit post which described a great workaround.</a> Export as JSON, import via <a href="https://bear.app/">Bear</a> (which I had considered as a Day One replacement, but was deterred due to subscription fees for syncing across platforms), export the posts as markdown, and then finally import those markdown posts into Joplin. I was elated when I saw the process working, it had preserved tags, date and times, and of course all the diary entries. I had some of the motivational quotes as images, and these didn’t import successfully, but an easy workaround was to export those in Rich Text, and just accept they would lose their dates and times – not the worst thing in the world for quotes.</p> <h2 id="moving-on">Moving On</h2> <p>Satisfied with the outcome, I deleted everything from Bear, thanked it for saving me countless amounts of hours I would have otherwise needed to manually migrate the entries over, and uninstalled it. I cleared up my random lists from SimpleNote, deleted my account, and uninstalled too, then finally came to Day One. I made sure everything was backed up in case I needed to do the Bear trick again, and then deleted all the entries before uninstalling.</p> <p>I’m not sure which application I would recommend for journaling cross-platform without subscription fees, I think that is something people will need to just experiment and trial out for themselves. What I can say with confidence is to avoid Day One. Sure, it may work great on a Mac with all its fancy features, but the fact it was such a pain to export my entries out of it is enough to dissuade me. I don’t appreciate companies making it harder than it ought to when it comes to accessing my own content. UpNote, Joplin and Bear both have plenty of options for exporting your content, without locking you into its platform making it difficult to leave, Day One should be able to do the same.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation/ Fri, 04 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/music-organisation/ <p>Without ageing myself too much here, I vividly remember receiving my first music CD and CD player, and while overtime I have grown a sizeable collection, I exclusively listen to music via devices such as my phone and computer, and have done for many years now.</p> <h2 id="mp3">.mp3</h2> <p>Back in the day, the process was to rip my CDs into <a href="http://apple.com/itunes">iTunes</a> or use iTunes to purchase and download music as .mp3 files. However, as someone who loves to explore and listen to extensive amounts of music, curating hundreds of playlists mixing various tracks together, purchasing albums for the purpose of enjoying a single track isn’t economic. As such, greatly welcomed the advent of music streaming, being able to browse and listen to seemingly endless amounts of music in a significantly cost effective way.</p> <h2 id="spotify">Spotify</h2> <p>For many years, I was subscribed to <a href="https://www.spotify.com/">Spotify</a> and was mostly satisfied with this choice. There was one glaring drawback for me though. For the better part of the last fifteen odd years, I listen to Asian music, notably that in Japanese and Korean. While the latter has largely been readily on such streaming platforms like Spotify accessible with the explosion of K-Pop over the past few years, it nonetheless tends to exclude K-Rock, and the availability of Japanese music has always been patchy, due to longstanding issues the Japanese music industry has had with making its content more accessible – <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularkpopopinions/comments/gqruy0/if_it_wasnt_for_japans_lateness_to_the/">it took many years for full length music videos of Japanese artists to be uploaded to YouTube.</a></p> <h2 id="from-128kbs-to-flac">From 128kbs to FLAC</h2> <p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/japanesemusic/comments/k9yb33/spotify_sony_is_finally_releasing_a_lot_of_their/">Although more Japanese artists are having their work added to streaming platforms,</a> many of my beloved artists are still absent. As such, to enjoy such music on the go, ripping the CDs and converting them into digital files so as to listen to them wherever I am is the name of the game.</p> <p>Furthermore, as times have moved on, I have become more aware of sound quality. While teenage me would have been perfectly satisfied with 128kbs files, the obvious choice as someone with a basic iPod Mini which could only hold so much music, I found myself later not accepting anything less than 320kbs, and now with significantly higher standards. These days, not only am I proudly on team FLAC, I am now aiming to upgrade as much of my collection as possible from 16bit to 24bit.</p> <p>It was the change towards FLACs that caused a significant change in how I listened and organised my music collection: iTunes doesn’t support FLAC. Nor does Spotify, but I was not using that anyway to handle my local files as I found the integration process poor, so kept them separate. As such, I needed to find a way to organise my music collection in FLAC format, and another way to play them on my computer and phone.</p> <h2 id="an-itunes-successor">An iTunes Successor</h2> <p>I wanted an experience as close to iTunes as possible, as organising my music collection, with the creation of large amounts of playlist, appeared to be near impossible using programmes such as <a href="https://www.foobar2000.org/">foobar2000</a> or <a href="https://www.videolan.org/vlc/">VLC,</a> which I had seen recommended. I had memories of <a href="https://www.mediamonkey.com/">MusicMonkey</a> handling large collections well, and heard its spiritual successor <a href="https://getmusicbee.com/">MusicBee</a> was worth investigating. However, I had since moved onto a Mac, and none of these were compatible, being Windows only.</p> <p>As such, using a Mac became an obstacle, and I had to research I find more obscure programmes to use. Eventually, I came across <a href="https://swinsian.com/">Swinsian,</a> a Mac app which was exactly what I was looking for. It was able to handle large libraries, access and edit playlists easily, and of course, played FLACs.</p> <h2 id="a-spotify-for-flacs">A Spotify For FLACs?</h2> <p>This addressed playing and organising FLACs on my computer, but did nothing for my phone. While I could of course put all my FLACs on an SD card to stick it into my phone, I would need a very large SD card. Additionally, popping the SD card in and out each time I wanted to sync the tracks seemed cumbersome. Plus, I was becoming really drawn to the ‘Spotify experience’, being able to stream the tracks across multiple devices from a single source.</p> <p>Thankfully around this time I was also looking into general media storage and playback, and grabbed a great deal for a lifetime pass of <a href="https://plex.tv/">Plex.</a> Without going into too much detail, for those unaware, Plex sits on a server, reads the media files (photos, video, music…), and presents them to you on a variety of devices to watch or listen. Visually, it’s a very nice experience, with movies and TV shows neatly organised and played back to you with little effort on a bunch of smart devices.</p> <p>However, the music capability is lacking in my opinion. While Plex have made advancements, releasing a dedicated music app <a href="https://plexamp.com/">Plexamp</a> a few years ago, it isn’t a pleasant interface in organising large music collections, and the management of playlists is cumbersome, especially since there is no way to import or export playlists, so recreating years of playlists would have to be done track-by-track, which was far from appealing. Though with little options elsewhere I could find, I uploaded my FLACs to the server, and could play them via Plexamp on my phone to enjoy them. But this was far from an ideal experience.</p> <h2 id="subsonic">Subsonic</h2> <p>I’m not sure how I exactly found out about it, but at some point I came across <a href="http://subsonic.org/">Subsonic,</a> an application running on a server which reads your music collection (as well as other types of media, but I exclusively used it for music), presents it in an orderly fashion, and then enables it to be listened on a variety of devices, not too dissimilar to Plex. Difference here was a better experience for handling music libraries, and most importantly for me, a way to easily import playlists from my computer.</p> <p>I initially struggled installing Subsonic on my Synology DiskStation, <a href="https://github.com/ghenry22/subsonic-synology">though I thankfully found a package which aided in the process.</a> However, Subsonic is not free for the feature I wanted to use it for the most – listening on my phone, requiring a subscription instead. Although a one-off paid option is available, it is set at $99, which was pretty steep for me. However, I realised the thirty-day trial could be reused over-and-over again by simply backing up all the data, uninstalling the package, and reinstalling it. So, for a while at least, I would go through this process every month in order to keep everything working. It was not a perfect solution, but one I was content with in the meantime.</p> <p>A huge benefit of Subsonic is its API, and how any one can create applications to connect to their Subsonic installation to pay their music on a device of their choosing. As such, there were plenty of options to choose from when it came to finding a compatible Android app. After trying out many options, I finally decided on <a href="https://substreamerapp.com/">Substreamer,</a> due to its attractive interface, good usability, and how it just simply worked.</p> <p>Although I realised I could migrate away from Swinsian towards a Subsonic compatible application for my computer, I was reluctant. I was not fond of the web interface for managing my music and disliked the idea of having to use my web browser to be my music player. Although the notion of running numerous apps from instead web browsers is prominent for many, particularly with Chrome Apps, it really isn’t for me. Of course though, the Subsonic API was open for many to create their own applications to connect to their Subsonic servers, and so I could just find a compatible computer app, and then I would be fine. However, I was unable to find any I liked, and always found myself simply going back to Swinsian to organise, and the export to Subsonic to keep everything in sync. Again, not a perfect solution, though one I had to put up with.</p> <h2 id="high-quality-music-everywhere">High Quality Music Everywhere</h2> <p>While my Japanese and Korean language music collections were growing nicely in FLACs, I slowly came to the realisation the English language music I played in Spotify was far from a high quality listening experience. While I was aware of platforms such as <a href="https://tidal.com/">Tidal,</a> <a href="https://www.qobuz.com/">Qobuz</a> and <a href="https://www.deezer.com/en/">Deezer</a> which heavily marketed their superior audio, I was not in a position to pay for the higher prices. Although Amazon and Apple later offered higher audio quality, I had trialled <a href="https://music.amazon.com/">Amazon Unlimited</a> and found the interface very poor, and I was concerned about the limited ability to play <a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-music/">Apple Music</a> on a variety of devices. Spotify was reasonably priced, easy to use, had a huge music library, and widely accessible on all my devices. Furthermore, I was hearing every few months about Spotify HiFi, the high quality audio option, and how it was coming soon.</p> <p>However, I eventually ran out of patience, and after some research, I found a way to get Tidal at a more reasonable price, so decided to take the leap. Migration from Spotify was rather seamless, as I utilised <a href="https://soundiiz.com/">Soundiiz,</a> a website which aims to effortlessly migrate your music between dozens of platforms. It is free, but limited. I could have manually moved each playlist over to Tidal using Soundiiz, but found paying $5 to move them all over in one go a better option. Although I faced a smaller music library, I also gained some music missing from Spotify, and immediately enjoyed the higher quality audio.</p> <h2 id="a-better-subsonic">A Better Subsonic</h2> <p>As time moved along, I became more and more annoyed at having to uninstall and reinstall Subsonic every month, but did not want to pay subscription fees to keep it nor pay $99, especially since at this point, there had not seemingly been an update for many years and may soon become abandonware. I began looking into alternatives which could easily run on my Synology DiskStation, and eventually settled on the free <a href="https://airsonic.github.io/">Airsonic.</a> This successor to Subsonic builds on the existing work, and thus is compatible with the API and any of the applications marketed as being for Subsonic, rather than needing a whole new infrastructure. Another benefit was how moving from Subsonic to Airsonic was pretty much completely effortless, as the web interfaces are near identical and thus I had a zero learning curve trying to understand this ‘new’ application.</p> <p>There was one issue with the installation though, as I again had to seek out a package for Synology DiskStation because there was no official package, <a href="https://github.com/ghenry22/airsonic-synology">though the same developer had also created a package for Airsonic,</a> which installed perfectly fine. Since installation, I have had no issues whatsoever, and am overjoyed with the experience.</p> <h2 id="because-im-clearly-never-satisfied">Because I’m Clearly Never Satisfied</h2> <p>After my success with Airsonic, I began reviewing my situation with Swinsian, and realised how ridiculous it was I was still using Swinsian as my computer’s music player and having to manually sync the music and playlists between it and my now new Airsonic server. Surely in the years which have passed, there are better applications which can play music from my Subsonic server on my computer?</p> <p>Initially, it did not seem so. I scoured the internet and found little development, with websites and users recommending the same old software, or pointing to, admittedly nice looking, applications made for Windows or Linux. As a Mac user, things seemed to be limited. However, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/selfhosted/comments/re5wc2/sonixd_cross_platform_desktop_client_for_subsonic/">I then stumbled on a Reddit post which spoke about a new cross-platform programme</a> called <a href="https://github.com/jeffvli/sonixd">Sonixd,</a> a music player which streams music from Subsonic and <a href="https://jellyfin.org/">Jellyfin</a> servers.</p> <p>Fully featured and customisable, this beautifully modern piece of software was exactly what I was looking for. Although I have not been using it for too long, it has made me excited about the collection again, being able to easily see my playlists, quickly search my albums, and present a wealth of information about my music library from a separate app, and not my web browser. I can sit now at my desk, create a new playlist from within Sonixd, and then refresh Substreamer to see it loaded on my phone. I finally have my offline music collection integrated seamlessly across my phone and desktop, with options readily available for other devices if I so choose, again thanks to the prevalence of the Subsonic API.</p> <h2 id="future-plans">Future Plans?</h2> <p>I won’t lie, there is still one large issue I would love to resolve, and I think may one day be possible. That is to fully merge and integrate my online and offline collections. I recently helped a friend with their music collection, and while they have gone down a completely different route (Qobuz, Raspberry Pi, DLNA/UPnP… all of which is a different post I may one day write up), while we were on their path of discovering what works and doesn’t for them, they wanted to try out a piece of software everyone in the high quality audio world was talking about – <a href="https://roonlabs.com/">Roon.</a></p> <p>Roon is a piece of software, ideally running on a server, which, like Plex and Subsonic, reads your music collection, organises it, and makes it available to listen to on numerous devices, as well as connect many devices together to create multi-room audio – it’s also incredibly beautiful to look at. Among its many features, including an extensive ‘brain’ which makes connections between musical artists to aid in music discovery and fill in your missing metadata, it is able to seamlessly merge your offline music collection with your Tidal and Qobuz accounts. This isn’t a feature exclusive to Roon, <a href="https://volumio.com/en/volumio-premium-plan/">Volumio Premium</a> also has this feature, but both share the same drawback as to why I am reluctant to use these platforms – both charge subscriptions to access this feature. While Roon does have an option for a one-off payment, it is currently priced at $699, and considering I had issues with $99, there is no way I will pay $699. While it may be worth it for some, I should also point out that even if I did deem the price acceptable, Roon struggled with my offline music collection during my trial (I was curious how amazing a piece of software must be to charge $699).</p> <p>I think the issues Roon had was because my collection is entirely of Japanese and Korean language music. Although my collection has perfect metadata, Roon was confused, creating multiple artists for the same act, having some artists’ names in English, Japanese, or Korean, with some acts split into two different artists with different spellings for their names. The ‘brain’ was also less smart, struggling to create meaningful connections to other artists, and lacking even basic information about artists which Subsonic could do. As such, it essentially broke my collection, making it useless. I did not go so far as to examine if my playlists could be imported or not, as the mess it created with my collection was a dealbreaker, and I uninstalled and immediately cancelled my account.</p> <p>Although this does not rule out Volumio Premium, which may be a better experience of reading my music library, I again do not wish to pay a subscription for the rest of my life to listen to my music.</p> <p>So for now at least, until there is either a free or one-off fee I can pay at a reasonable price, my music libraries will remain separated, one for English music I stream, and another for my Japanese and Korean language collection. Hopefully one day I will be able to bring these together into a single platform, but for now, I am satisfied with Airsonic, Substreamer, Sonixd, and Tidal.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-study/ Fri, 21 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/how-i-study/ <p>Having been a student for many years, I have become attached to certain products to assist in my workflow. Here is a list of various applications I use to assist me, as well as how I use them. I also discuss which pieces of software I previously used, and why I moved on from them.</p> <h2 id="note-taking">Note Taking</h2> <p>Thankfully, my university is not one to mandate expensive books, and instead provides all the required readings, along with module materials, on a website or in .PDFs</p> <p>Originally during my undergrad, I used <a href="http://evernote.com">Evernote.</a> At the time, it was one of the only free applications which could be used to capture website information, store it for offline use, and, more importantly, enabled ‘handwritten’ notes which could be ‘scribbled’ in along the margins, something more done in paper books.</p> <p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/6/28/12052056/evernote-price-changes-basic-plus-premium">However, as many did in 2016, I sought alternatives after an announcement limiting the usability within the free tier.</a></p> <p>As a student, my university granted me free access to the Office 365 suite, and I soon discovered I could use its <a href="https://www.onenote.com/">OneNote.</a> Same functionality, but with significantly less restrictions.</p> <p>Since then, my workflow is simple. Use the <a href="https://www.onenote.com/clipper">Clipper add-on</a> on the university’s website, store the material in a neatly organised notebook, and then work through it adding my notes as I go.</p> <p>I initially used a cheap drawing tablet for my handwritten note taking, though was forced to upgrade after the right-side of the tablet began missing some of my writing strokes.</p> <p>Having purchased a cheap bundle containing Corel Painter, in hopes of undertaking some therapeutic artistic expression, I decided on a significantly better drawing tablet than before, the <a href="https://www.xp-pen.com/product/432.html">XP-Pen Deco Pro.</a></p> <p>I am very happy with the purchase, the top button toggles between pen and eraser for quick fixes in writing errors, and the dials are used for scrolling and zooming in, saving me from having to put the pen down to use the mouse for navigation, as well as the configurable shortcut keys for undoing, redoing, copying, pasting and so forth.</p> <p>Additionally, although perhaps only applicable to certain institutions, my university is very mindful of disabilities, and I have found it invaluable to access the transcripts of audio and visual material, copy-and-paste them into OneNote and then read along and write my notes down as I listen/watch the material.</p> <h2 id="writing">Writing</h2> <p>While I do have access to <a href="https://office.live.com/start/Word.aspx">Microsoft Word</a> via my university access, I struggle with two issues: dyslexia and typos. Both of which have become serious problems using Word due to the spellchecker being unintuitive. I frequently struggle spelling particular words, and despite well over a decade of typing now, I still make frequent mistakes. While the spellchecker does identify my mistakes, it fails to fix them automatically. Instead, I look back at a sentence and see a long string of red underlined words which I then have to go through one-by-one to correct.</p> <p>It takes time, and it distracts from my train of thought.</p> <p>As such, being on a Mac, I have free access to <a href="https://www.apple.com/uk/pages/">Pages,</a> which is significantly more forgiving and corrects most of my mistakes automatically.</p> <p>However, I still have to load up Word with my near finished assignment for two reasons:</p> <ul> <li>My professor is using Word and I want to make sure the assignment is formatted correctly for them</li> <li>Word counts differ between the two, and I have had last minute additions/removals to fulfil the word count obligations the best I can</li> </ul> <h2 id="referencing">Referencing</h2> <p>Although I have been intrigued and tempted by various referencing offerings (not at least by an add-on created by my university to assist in saving and generating references), I am satisfied by my simple system of abbreviations written alongside my notes, and then later reading the handbook for the final bibliography.</p> <h2 id="project-planning">Project Planning</h2> <p>Assignments vary, ranging from simple essays to expansive reports.</p> <p>Most of the time, I write a basic plan in Pages and create a checklist in OneNote on requirements and expectations of what my assignment is expected to do.</p> <p>However, there are situations where I have to juggle vast amounts of data and obligations. In these cases, I have found myself using one or two of the following applications:</p> <h3 id="trello">Trello</h3> <p><a href="https://trello.com/">Trello</a> utilises a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_board">‘Kanban-style‘</a> approach to task management, which displays tasks as ‘sticky notes’ which can be moved around into different sections.</p> <p>I have at times needed to break my assignments down into a few key topics, and then find extracts of my notes which align with the topic in question. I can then go through them as I write my assignment, and grab pieces of notes which are relevant. I colour-code them as well, with red as ‘not used’ and green as ‘used’, as well as orange for ‘important’ and blue for ‘not important, but interesting’. As I travel between topics while writing, I can quickly grab the note I need, change its colour to identify it has been used (to prevent accidental duplication of points), and resume with my assignment.</p> <p>I have tried self-hosted solutions, as Trello does not have offline support, and this has affected my work before. However, I struggled with ease of accessibility, which prevented me from switching away from Trello. However, I am considering revisiting this area again as self-hosted options have seemingly improved.</p> <h3 id="pagico">Pagico</h3> <p>Admittedly, <a href="https://www.pagico.com">Pagico</a> was not an application I sought out, but rather one included within a bundle I purchased more interested in the other apps on offer.</p> <p>However, for extensive assignments when I have needed to address a dozen requirements and a seemingly endless amount of topics, I have found Pagico to be very helpful in organising this vast amount of data.</p> <h2 id="other">Other</h2> <p>Although I have not needed it every module, I have also used <a href="https://www.toketaware.com/ithoughts-osx">iThoughtsX</a> in the past for my mindmapping and diagram-making needs, and am very impressed with its simplicity and end results.</p> <p>I have also utilised <a href="https://www.studiesapp.com/">Studies</a> for the modules with exams, and found its flashcard feature very helpful in drilling bits of information into my memory.</p> <h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> <p>Overall, I have found the process and these applications to support my studies well. As time consuming as it is though, I would recommend trying different options out for yourself to see what works best. For example, many of my fellow students do not handwrite notes, and utilise applications without drawing support, such as <a href="https://www.notion.so/">Notion.</a> I have also heard great things about various writing applications such as <a href="https://www.manuscriptsapp.com/">Manuscripts</a> and <a href="https://ulysses.app/">Ulysses,</a> but for me, I am more than satisfied with simple Pages!</p> https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-mentally/ Fri, 07 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/getting-here-mentally/ <p>When I tell people I have depression and anxiety, I always seem to want to state how long I’ve been unwell, and it’s an answer I’m unsure of. On the one hand, I would argue it has been gradual, so gradual it is hard to know when it got to the point of being a problem and needing to seek help. On the other hand, there are certain events in my life which I can point to as when things became worse or took a turn. It’s probably a combination of both.</p> <p>As such, it’s difficult to know exactly where my issues stem from, but I know a lot of my depression manifests itself in feeling inadequate and of no use to the world. No matter what accomplishments I achieve, I still feel useless.</p> <p>I’ve tried various techniques and wellness exercises to try and increase my self-esteem, my feelings of self-worth, and boost my confidence, but nothing seems to work. Furthermore, gratitude practices, which appear to be universally recommended, actually make me feel worse as the more I point out, note, and am made aware of the great things in my life, I feel more and more undeserving of them, making me feel worse.</p> <h2 id="a-change">A Change</h2> <p>Despite nothing really working, I kept at all the mediations, yoga, and exercising people told me I should do, hoping it’ll all work eventually. I’m still not sure if this is the case, but there was one moment where my mindset changed. I was listening to a meditation which happened to be about purpose, and how the person felt worthless, so added worth to their life. They did this by gathering up all the information they had learned about wellness and mental health, and then sharing it to others, in hopes it helps and aids them.</p> <p>While I lack the knowledge to do that, it got me thinking about the knowledge I have and how sharing it might helps others too. Nothing as deep, meaningful or insightful as improving mental health, but perhaps someone reading one of these posts may enhance an aspect of their life in some small way, and this idea was enough for me to at least try to write up some of the various stuff I know, with this post alone possibly maybe helping someone.</p> <h2 id="arriving">Arriving</h2> <p>Getting here mentally was difficult though. When I first started on the internet, I was extroverted, posting in various communities, making lots of online friends, and having various blogs over time. However, these all faded away over time, and as my mental health issues likely began, I withdrew more and more, telling myself no one wants to hear what I have to say, so I’ll say nothing.</p> <p>Getting myself out of that hole isn’t easy, and I’m still not really there yet. But I am trying, writing and publishing posts when I can, and that’s all I can do, at least for now.</p> https://jessicajournals.com/posts/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://jessicajournals.com/posts/ <h3></h4> <ul> <h3>2026</h4> <ul> <li> 2026-04-17: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/aoty-2025/">AOTY 2025</a> </li> <li> 2026-04-16: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/now/">Now</a> </li> <li> 2026-04-16: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/opensuse-leap-16/">openSUSE Leap 16</a> </li> <li> 2026-03-19: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/audio-setup-2026/">Audio Setup - 2026</a> </li> <li> 2026-03-12: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/manifesto-2026/">Manifesto 2026</a> </li> <li> 2026-03-12: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/website-revamp-2026/">Website Revamp 2026</a> </li> <li> 2026-03-11: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/uses/">Uses</a> </li> <li> 2026-03-10: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/fedora/">Fedora</a> </li> <li> 2026-02-19: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/asmr/">ASMR</a> </li> <li> 2024-05-31: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/website/">Website</a> </li> </ul> <h3>2025</h4> <ul> <li> 2025-11-25: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-reviews-english/">Music Reviews (English)</a> </li> <li> 2025-11-18: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/font-links/">Font Links</a> </li> <li> 2025-07-09: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/adding-radio-to-an-ambient-music-server/">Adding Radio To An Ambient Music Server</a> </li> <li> 2025-06-24: <a href="https://jessicajournals.com/music-setup-2025/">Music Setup - 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