Skip to content
// terminals & ink

Category: Blog

  • # articleJul 20, 2020· 8 min

    DIY Video Hosting

    I've been a paying customer of Vimeo since 2014 – specifically, their Pro plan. But when my renewal email arrived in April, myself and other small developers were seeing sales slow down as the pandemic worsened. Another $240/year was a tough sell for the small amount of video content I was hosting with them, and I wondered if there might be a cheaper alternative – either another service or by hosting videos myself. So this is how I moved off Vimeo and started hosting my own video content. On average, my bandwidth bill has dropped to $11/month – and that includes videos, static assets, and ALSO binary downloads for all of my Mac apps. Previously, I was paying $20/month just for video hosting on top of the rest of my bandwidth. It's definitely a geekier solution that requires more work up front to setup, and I'm not sure I would recommend it for a "real" business, but for my needs it was a fun project and I'm happy to save $200 a year.

    read the full post →
  • # articleJul 15, 2020· 8 min

    Process

    To keep myself sane while dealing with my work deadlines, I've found myself tinkering around with an idea I've wanted to try building for years now. Oddly enough, it's not yet-another-app, but a website (web service, maybe?). And it's actually something that's designed to be self-hosted. I haven't yet decided if it will (eventually) be open source, or if I might solicit feedback from friends (real and online) just in case it's more useful than I think. Sometimes the idea for something new comes in a flash of inspiration. And other times (as in the current case) it meanders around in the back of my head for years – just waiting for the right moment or combination of external factors. For this project, it's the result of the rebirth of the indie web movement, my long time interest in self-hosting and owning the tools and data I run my business with, and Apple's WWDC announcements about Safari and their OS's upcoming privacy improvements.

    read the full post →
  • # articleJun 29, 2020· 3 min

    BespokeApp

    I really don't know if anyone has a need for this other than me. But I've built this app a few times for myself in the past, so last night I finally took the initiative to make it generic and reusable – both for my future self and anyone else who might find it useful. It's called BespokeApp . It's a simple iOS app that gives you a tabbed web browser with the pre-defined websites of your choosing.

    read the full post →
  • # articleJun 21, 2020· 10 min

    A Pirate Looks (Nearly) at Forty

    One night last June we managed to get the kids to bed early and decided to rent a movie from iTunes. About forty-five minutes in, our youngest throws up, the oldest starts screaming because of the smell, and all hell breaks loose. Movie night over. For us, that's when the spell broke. For seven years we played by the rules. So I walked from the couch to my office iMac, visited an old favorite website of ill repute, and ten minutes later streamed the move in 4K to our TV. That one evening re-opened the piracy floodgates for us, and we haven't bought or rented another TV show or movie since.

    read the full post →
  • # articleJun 16, 2020· 1 min

    Very Simple

    I'll keep this post short because there's really nothing more of substance I can add to this argument that many developers and pundits way smarter than myself haven't already said. But I suppose it's flaring up again in the community because of the hey.com controversy, the recent developer survey Apple sent out ( my less polite response from last year ), and WWDC looming next week. From my point of view this is all very simple: The App Store opened eleven years, eleven months, and seven days ago. It is not a game. It is literally the livelihood of millions of people. The 30% shakedown has never been justified other than "we can". The capricious and inconsistent review process has never been explained other than "no comment". With all the awfulness and urgency in the world right now; and with all the good Apple truly is doing , it feels like a waste of precious attention and resources to complain about the App Store. But, hey , that's business. Antitrust. Now.

    read the full post →