Sunshine and fresh powder. The perfect way to end a week skiing Stubai Glacier.
Now
Welcome to my now page, inspired by Derek Sivers, the IndieWeb and the evolution of /now pages. Also part of the nownownow.com community.
Here you can find out what I’m focusing on right now, or what I’ve been up to recently.
I made it down to Here at Outernet last night for the Apparat show, who was playing live with the full band. So so good.
Support was from K Á R Y Y N who I wasn’t familiar with but found myself enjoying.
The sound at the venue is incredible. Hitting all the right levels, but where you can still hear yourself speak. Well worth a visit if you’re ever in London.
I’m in London right now. 10°c, grey skies. Good conditions for getting on with things.
What I’m working on #
I’m currently exploring the idea of moving Practical Hugo away from Cloudflare Pages and instead self-hosting, using either Coolify or Dokploy. It feels like a better fit considering the subject matter.
I’m about to start migrating Solorsimple to Cloudcannon’s Unified Configuration, mainly to speed up the CMS and get the site inline with the Cloudcannon docs.
I’ve been looking into password protecting content on Hugo sites. A client needs a simple way to paywall her video courses until she’s ready to go full-blown membership site. It seems simple enough using a tool like Pagecrypt.
I finally made a start on Practical Accessibility. I’m only a few chapters, in but I’m already seriously impressed at what Sara has put together here.
Away from my desk #
I’ve been looking into setting up a Lifetime ISA before I reach the cut off point (you have to be 39 or younger!). The 25% government bonus of up to £1000/tax year is pretty appealing. Worth noting you can only put 4k/year in and that comes out of the 20k ISA allowance.
We’ve been tiling the splashbacks in our kitchen with ceramic tiles from Quorn Stone. It’s been a surprisingly cathartic process, for the most part. That is, until a tile requires cutting into an irregular shape. Angle grinder, wet or dry tile cutter, good old hacksaw…the jury’s still out on the best cutting tool.
I’m gearing up for another trip to the Alps next month. This time we’re heading to the Stubai Valley in Tyrol, Austria.
Things I’m enjoying #
- Web Accessibility Cookbook by Manuel Matuzović.
- Taylor Penton’s type design which is giving me all sorts of ideas for a new typeface of my own.
- Enshitification by Cory Doctorow.
Happy New Year!
We just drove up to Ramsau near Berchtesgaden to try our hand at tobogganing on the Hirscheckblitz Rodelbahn. My hands are freezing and I’m covered in snow, but it was such a fun way to kick of the new year.
Watching the sun go down over the mountains from the top was worth the trip alone.
I’m in a Bavaria, ice skating on Höglwörther See, which is looking like a real winter wonderland right now. Haven’t done it in years, but getting the hang of it again surprisingly quickly.
There’s something quite special about having to clear the snow using your own shovel to reveal the frozen lake beneath.
Definitely one of my highlights of the year. Let’s hope the ice holds.
I’m currently in a very wet Berlin with a bunch of friends. We’re here celebrating the release of Benyayer – Morpho, which I created the artwork for (in collabration with Matt, who also made the music).
Yesterday we started with brunch at Frühstück 3000, then snuck in a quick trip to Neues Museum, where we spent a couple of hours wandering around the Ancient Egypt exhibition. Well worth te trip if you’re ever in Berlin.
After a quick bite at Canal bakery, we headed to Element Bar in Neukölln, where Sohana FC hosted their second Indian supper club – incredible experience!
Matt played some records at Paloma Bar, including a few from the new album, to see out the evening. It was a fun night with a great bunch of people, some of whom I hadn’t seen in a very long time.
Tonight we all ate ramen together at Buya Ramen Factory, which was exactly what we all needed after a big night out. All in all, a very good weekend.
Until the next time Berlin.
I’m in London right now where it’s looking and feeling very much like Autumn.
What I’m working on #
Much of my client work right now is focused on UX/UI’ing the AIN website into the present. Behind the scenes there’s been a complete rebuild of the tech team and a migration from Fuel to Symfony. It’s ongoing but we’re making headway.
When not tackling client projects, the majority of my work hours are focused on Practical Hugo. I haven’t set a launch date yet but we’re very close. I’m just tying up a few loose ends before publishing the first season.
Once that’s wrapped up I plan to switch my focus back to launching the phase two of the ERYN website.
Away from my desk #
R and I just celebrated her 31st birthday with brunch at a Palestinian restaurant in Notting Hill called Akub. It was well worth the trek across London for.
I started feeling stiffness in my achilles around 8k into the Kallithea Half. I should have done more about it directly after the race, but we were on holiday and I got lazy. Needless to say, I paid the price for it. So the past few weeks I’ve been working through a really sore bout of tendonitis. Tone and Tighten has a brilliant YouTube video that’s been super helpful for getting back on track. I managed to easy the pain within 3 or 4 days and I went for my first run back without any issues this morning.
Things I’m considering #
I’ve been noodling on doing something creative again. I feel the urge to start a sketchbook or work on a new typeface, perhaps. Neither of which I’ve done in years.
We have a bunch of marker pens in the office which we never use, so I was thinking about working my way through them. We stumbled upon some great street art in Athens which gave me some ideas. Let’s see if this pans out.
Type design is something I’ve explored on and off over the years. And, whenever I see cool type foundry like Beasts of England, which I found via Luis Mendo’s awesome site courtesy of Jason Kottke, I think to myself I should really make more of my own type design project.
Things I’m enjoying #
I just started watching Babylon Berlin, mainly to practice my German. Set during a fascinating period between the first and second world war, I won’t spoil it for those that haven’t see it, but what I will say is that it’s much better than I was expecting.
I’ve been working through my Obsidian vault, replacing all my Dataview tables with Obsidian Bases. It’s an exciting tool and the filtering is awesome. Unlike Notion, all bases start with the entire contents of you vault. Then it’s a case of filtering what you need based on the properties (front matter) in your notes. No more content siloed in a database. It’s super powerful and a well thoughtout addition to Obsidian.
Yesterday I ran run the Kallithea Half Marathon in Athens.
Except for a small section around the water by the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Center, it was three laps of a fairly unexciting route in brutal 30°c heat. Not easy.
To be honest, it was touch and go as to whether I would even run it, as I‘ve only just recovered from a nasty bout of flu. That, combined with the total lack of support lining the route (apart from R, of course 👏), didn’t make it any easier. 10k in and I was questioning my decision to run. I mostly just didn’t have the legs for it, due to a complete lack of long distance training over the past few months.
Anyway, given all of the above, I was pleased to come in at 1hr52mins. That’s 8mins faster than Hamburg in June, so I don’t have much to complain about.
Now we’re off to do some island hoping for the next couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to sitting on a beach, reading a book and recovering these sore legs.
I’m in London at the minute. These are the things I’m focusing on right now.
What I’m working on #
I’m in the process of moving my newsletter away from Mailchimp. Although the UX is terrible and forms are impossible to find, I have no major qualms with Mailchimp. I’m leaving because I’m looking for a European alternative that would be suitable to use with my european clients. Something agency friendly with a partnership program, that we can use over at ERYN. Brevo seems like a good fit for us.
I’m spending a good bit of my days working on Practical Hugo. This has become a far bigger project than I initially anticipated, but I think it will turn into the one I’m most proud of. I’m hoping to release the first part very soon.
I’ve been off social media for years now, but I’ve been lazy about deleting my accounts. Having recently stumbled upon cyd, I figured I’d make a start by winding down my Twitter X accounts.
Things I’m learning #
I just picked up a copy of The Ethical Design Handbook by Trine Falbe, Martin Michael Frederiksen and Kim Andersen.
I’m slowing working through Jack’s Radical Design Course. It’s been fun to see Jack’s process which is quite a bit different from my own.
Although I’ve been struggling to stick with it lately, my German streak on Duolingo is at 568 days. I guess it’s more difficult when it’s nice outside.
Figuring out mailing lists and all that fun stuff with Brevo.
Today I ran the Hella Halbmarathon in Hamburg 🇩🇪.
It was a hot one, we totally messed up our pacing, but it was great fun nonetheless. I managed to come in bang on the 2hr mark after chasing down the 2hr pacer with a 23min final 5km. Pretty happy with that.