Winter 2023 in review

21 Mar 2023 / 4 minutes

Yamtarr

I added some features like being able to track the start date and end date, but where I focused most of my time was on making in self-hosted. I learned about CI/CD with Github Actions and how to write Dockerfiles, and implemented many automations to the repository to make the deployment process easier. I added automatic tests on commits and pull requests, automatic building and publishing of Docker images, added dependabot for automatic dependency updates, and added codecov to show test coverage.

The app is already usable and easily deployable with a docker-compose file:

version: "3"
services:
  yamtarr:
    container_name: yamtarr
    image: ghcr.io/fuzzygrim/yamtarr
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      - TMDB_API=TMDB_API_KEY
      - MAL_API=MAL_API_KEY
      - SECRET=long_random_string
      # Change this to your domain or IP
      - ALLOWED_HOSTS=192.168.x.x, yamtarr.domain.com
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      # - HTTPS_COOKIES=False
      # - REGISTRATION=False
    volumes:
      - ./db:/app/db
      - media:/app/media
    ports:
      - "8000:8000"

volumes:
  media:

I’ve also worked on the application’s user interface, switched from using a navigation bar to a sidebar, redone the login and registration pages, made the pages responsive among other things.

Tv - Yamtarr

Refactoring UI

I decided to give the book Refactoring UI a try, and I’m glad I did. It’s a short book that teaches some design principles, with examples and explanations. It’s a great book for people who want to improve their design skills, but don’t know where to start. I also got Tailwind’s Components and I’m pretty excited to use it in my upcoming projects.

Persona 5 Royal

I also bought Persona 5 Royal during Steam’s spring sale, and I’m really liking it. I already played Persona 5, emulating the PS3 version on my PC, but I didn’t finish it due to lack of time, but now that they’ve released the Royal version on PC and with more time, it was a no-brainer to try to finish it once and for all.

Oh, and by the way, the soundtrack is just too GOOD.

I’ve been playing with the Wii U Pro Controller, which every time I use it reminds me how good the controller is, it has a great layout and the best battery life of any controller I’ve ever used. I didn’t even need an adapter to use it on my PC, it just worked right out of the box with Bluetooth on my Arch Linux machine.

Split keyboard

Also, as I mentioned in my post about mechanical keyboards, after buying the AKKO Alice keyboard, I really got interested in ergonomic keyboards, and decided to buy a split keyboard. I found a good deal on r/mechmarket, a subreddit dedicated to selling, buying and trading anything related to keyboards. I bought a wireless Lily58 Pro for €110, which is a 60% keyboard with a split layout. I think it’s the perfect keyboard for transitioning from a regular keyboard to a split keyboard, as it’s not too big and not too small with the my favorite layout.

I also learned about the ZMK, an alternative to the QMK for wireless keyboards, and have found it quite easy to use and configure, I used to use keyd to remap my keyboard at the operating system level, but with ZMK I can remap keys at the keyboard level, which means the mapping works on any computer connected to the keyboard.

Magic trackpad

After buying a split keyboard, for the peak endgame setup, I decided to buy a Magic Trackpad 3 to be able to work without a mouse. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and although it was expensive, 88€ for a refurbished one, it’s great and comfortable to use and it has great battery life as I haven’t had to charge it yet. On Linux, you should be able to find the battery level of the trackpad in /sys/class/power_supply'/hid-MAC_ADDRESS-battery/capacity where MAC-ADDRESS is the MAC address of the trackpad.

The trackpad works right out of the box on Linux, but you will need to install touchegg if you want to use gestures. I have been using touchegg which is a GUI for touchegg to add swipe and pinch gestures. For example, some of my swipe gestures are, left and right to switch between workspaces, up to switch to Firefox, down to switch to the terminal. Thanks to these applications, it has been an amazing experience to use the trackpad. You can also have different gestures depending on the number of fingers you use, and configure global gestures or application specific gestures.

Interesting blog posts

10 worst interview questions, by Michael Dubakov.

Authentication with Django and Single Page Apps by Mike Sukmanowsky.

Bing: “I will not harm you unless you harm me first” by Simon Willison.

Docker Vulnerability Scanning 102 - Going Deeper by Phillip Tarrant.

Leaving China by Blake Stone-Banks.

My Youtube earnings, by Brick Experiment.

Over-engineering my document storage system with Paperless-ngx by Autumn Skerritt.

The Cab Ride I’ll Never Forget by Kent Nerburn.

The iPhone Keyboard - Make It or Break It, by Cedric.

Visual design rules you can safely follow by Anthony Hobday.