Hello! I'm Dan, a UK based full stack web developer with a love of open source software. Most of my free time is spent working on BookStack, playing video-games or getting distracted by one of many hobbies like 3D printing.
I primarily develop in PHP using Laravel, with VueJS being my front-end framework of choice, but I also dabble in Go, NodeJS, TypeScript and Android development.
Latest Blog Posts |
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An easy-to-use and free platform for sharing documentation.
Evaluating the actual FOSS status of projects.
A simple twitter-feed-style RSS aggregator.
A system for managing batch sends to subscriber lists.
A basic HTTP/JSON based monitoring system.
An app for viewing and calculating thermocouple info.
An app to convert between RTD resistance and temperature.
More projects can be found on my Codeberg profile.
Just came across OpenDisplay, which seems like an awesome project for setting up e-paper displays:
Is a service open source just because the official client is open source? I don't think so:
This brave warrior survived his annual checkup at the vets today, although he did make initial capture a challenge by hiding under the sofa 😼
It amazes me how much more I prefer the Linux mint approach for GUI based software/package updates, compared to other (much bigger) distros I've used.
Other distros GUIs make me want to use the CLI, mint makes it more convenient to use the GUI. It combines system and flatpak packages in one interface, and presents all the information I'd want (versions, changelog etc...). And it's not buggy like other software managers.
What I've been working on for for May:
Designed and printed a barrier so I can leave my window open (to survive this heat) but help prevent cat escapes 😼
Iterated on the design for each printed panel.
Still needs to run through kitty QA though
Updated DanB/RSS with a new grid view, and smaller docker image:
More parts I've designed and 3D printed for my allotment greenhouse:
A look back at one of my favorite pieces of tech: The 2013 Nexus 7
Been a bit more productive in April. Here's what I've been working on:
The body is round
A bit late, but couldn't sleep so wrote up the games I played last year:
The cal.com project announced they're going closed source, with the reason stated that open source is risky due to AI vulnerability scanning 🤔
Like with mass firings, I think we'll see other VC-backed "Commercial Open Source" projects use AI as an excuse and opportunity to close their code now that AI is reducing the cost to entry for competitors, and for bypassing licensing or limitations in open core.
The licensing for cal.com was always questionable anyway:
March was a bit of a low productivity month. Mainly focused on BookStack releases and patches. Hoping April will be much more productive.
OnlyOffice is getting upset that they've been forked, after they attempted to set sketchy license additions to prevent forks:
I explain their questionable license, including a conversation I had with their legal manager, on isitreallyfoss:
https://isitreallyfoss.com/projects/onlyoffice/
I hope Euro-Office succeeds to provide a FOSS-friendly alternative, will need a lot of effort though to continue a project like that, especially if OnlyOffice play nasty.
Looks like I need to update my blog preview image generator to handle escaped quotes though 😅
Wonderful, now folks are using "AI Agents" to take my details from GitHub for spamming.
This was scummy enough when done direct by humans.
| Time | Message |
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| 17:05:46 | I could lose an entire afternoon on this site and not even notice. Fantastic stuff. |
| 17:08:01 | Your website is completely rad! Thanks for sharing! |
| 17:10:16 | The design is pretty ugly if I'm being honest. Nothing about it makes me want to stay and look around. |
| 17:12:31 | There's a lack of turtles on this website. I like turtles. Add more turtles. |
| 17:14:46 | The images are postage stamp sized and completely useless. Use proper high-res photos. |
| 17:17:01 | Hi Sandra I'm just popping out to Tesco, is there anything you need? xx |
