Kev QuirkModify

2026-04-04 21:18:00

Sanjay asked me in a comment on my AMA post:

I think the short answer to your question, Sanjay, is mostly yes. But I'd advise against it for some things*.

The easy things

Some of the items on your list are really easy to get without a subscription, for example:

• RSS feed reader - there are many feed readers you can install locally for free. Vivaldi has one built right into their browser, for example. Or you could self-host something like FreshRSS, or Miniflux.
• Notes app - my recommendation here would be Obsidian. I personally sync via WebDAV to my server at home. If you don't have the ability to do that, most operating systems have a note taking app pre-installed.
• Reminders - you can use the calendar app on your device, or on mobile, the built-in reminders/to-do apps.
• Document editing - LibreOffice is great, as is Only Office if you want something more modern looking.
• Operating system - Ubuntu for the win. It's what I use.
• Video editing - Kdenlive is available for all major operating systems, and works really well.

The not-so-easy things

Unfortunately, some things on your list are either going to cost you money, privacy, or time somewhere along the line.

Email with a custom domain

Domains cost money. I know some don't but they tend to be very spammy and have poor email delivery as a result. Also, any email service worth their salt will require you to pay. If not, they're probably sniffing your mail.

You could self-host your email at home, but there's then a cost associated with the hardware to host the mail server, or your time administering the system. Email is notoriously difficult for self-hosters too.

Website hosting (GitHub or Cloudflare)

As with most things that are free on the web, if it's free, you're probably the product. And that's true with both GitHub and Cloudflare, in my opinion.

You can host a site for free on either service, but you would either need to buy a domain, or be happy using one of their free sub-domains. There's also the technical debt required to create the static sites that these services support. So there's a time cost.

Again, you can host at home, but there's the same hardware or time costs that are associated with self-hosting email.

CDN & Databases

Like email hosting, any service worth their salt is going to charge. Some may have initial tiers that are free, but I doubt they will be very generous. I personally use Bunny for my CDN needs. They're reasonably priced and have a pay-as-you-go model, so no subscription involved. Obviously you can't host a CDN at home, as that would defeat the object of the whole thing.

For databases; same story as above. You can host at home, but there's a hardware/time cost associated, or you can pay for a reputable host to do it for you.

Music

I think this one is easy. Your options are threefold:

1. A self-hosted media library that will consist of:
   • Ripped music from a physical collection.
   • Buying digital music from services like Bandcamp where you actually own the music, but this can get expensive.
   • Pirated music 🏴‍☠️.
2. A free account on a streaming service like Spotify, but it will be riddled with ads.
3. A paid subscription to a streaming service.

Final thoughts

I think these decisions ultimately come down to personal preference, and a compromise in one of three things - cost, time, or privacy.

• A service can be free and private, but it will be time consuming to manage.
• It can be quick to get started (hosted) and private, but it won't be free.
• It can be quick to get started (hosted) and free, but it won't respect your privacy.

There's always a trade off with this stuff. It just boils down to what you're willing to trade off, personally.

2026-04-04 01:54:00

Last week I wrote about how I thought I was being scammed by someone on eBay. In the post I said the following:

I've asked eBay to step in and help resolve the situation, so we will see what happens. But there's a lot of buyer protection on eBay (and rightly so) but there's very little in the way of seller protection, even though I'm not a business. So I have a feeling they will find in favour of the buyer and I'll be out a few quid.

Well, a few days after publishing that post, I received an automated email from eBay, saying:

I then logged into eBay to check the conversation I'd had with this user via the eBay messenger. At the bottom of the message thread, there was a notice that said:

So it seems that eBay, for whatever reason, deemed the user's account to be problematic enough to warrant a suspension/termination.

What now?

Honestly, I don't know. I haven't had the payment for the watch taken from my account, and eBay haven't requested that I refund the payment. So I assume that I get to keep Ollee watch¹, and the money the potential scammer originally paid.

We message back and forth on WhatsApp, and they haven't messaged me there - if I were in their position and a legit buyer, I'd be seething and would have definitely messaged on WhatsApp. So something tells me this isn't their first rodeo, and the potential loss is just collateral damage.

Does this mean that for once the scammers have lost? We'll see. At this point I think the issue is closed from an eBay perspective, so I'm planning to re-list the Ollee Watch for a much discounted price in the next few. If eBay subsequently request the money be returned to the scammy user, I'll just have to take the hit on that.

If you're based in the UK and interested in this watch, please get in touch using the reply button below.

2026-03-29 19:26:00

Back in November I pre-ordered an Ollee Watch, which was delivered in February. After playing with the watch, I decided I didn't want it, so I posted it up on eBay - never worn, so brand new.

A week or so later it sold and I posted it off to its new owner. A day or 2 later, the buyer messaged me saying the backlight wasn't working. This immediately raised my suspicions as the watch was brand new and I had packaged it up well.

Anyway, I gave them the benefit of the doubt after they had sent a video of the apparent problem, accepted the return, and paid for them to return the watch to me.

Getting the watch back

I took delivery of the watch yesterday, opened the package and all of the Olle packaging has been removed, as well as the original Casio module. It came back like this, with only half of a Casio box:

I tested the backlight; low and behold, it's working fine! So now I have a new Ollee watch, with no packaging, and no Casio module. So it's worth a lot less than it was previously.

Fucking brilliant.

I've asked eBay to step in and help resolve the situation, so we will see what happens. But there's a lot of buyer protection on eBay (and rightly so) but there's very little in the way of seller protection, even though I'm not a business. So I have a feeling they will find in favour of the buyer and I'll be out a few quid.

Double fucking brilliant.

I messaged the buyer once I'd received the watch back, politely asking WTF? and they replied with:

I'm sorry I thought the original packaging was all there, there definitely was a problem with the backlight and I think the original Casio thing is in the little compartment on the stand.

The module is 100% not there.

What I think happened

Now, the buyer may be legit. The backlight may not have been functioning properly while they had it. They may have binned all the Ollee packaging², and the Casio module, but I find it hard to believe.

The backlight works flawlessly. It's not like it works occasionally or anything like that. You tap the light button and it lights up every single time. It's in perfect working condition.

My guess is that they've done this to get the Ollee packaging, then they're going to scam some other poor bastard by selling them a standard F-91W (which costs around £15) dressed up as an Ollee watch for around £100.

Final thoughts

Anyway, we will see what happens as eBay get involved. If you're in the UK and interested in getting yourself a fully working, brand new, Ollee watch (albeit with no Ollee packaging) for cheap, get in touch.

2026-03-28 02:04:00

I'm really proud of what Pure Blog has become, and honestly a little overwhelmed by the interest it's received since launch. The feedback and enthusiasm from the community has been genuinely lovely, so thank you.

That said, since announcing it a couple of months ago, I've spent pretty much every spare minute working on it, and most of that time building things I didn't personally need. I said a few weeks ago that Pure Blog was feature complete...ish. The "ish" turned out to be a mistake, because it left the door open and I smashed right though it. 🙃

So as of today, with the release of version 2.2.0, I'm dropping the asterisk. Pure Blog is feature complete. It does everything I want it to do, so it's time to actually use it.

I've worked through and closed the all open issues and PRs. From here, if you request a feature, thank you, but it's unlikely to be implemented. But there are some things I will continue to accept:

• Bug reports — if something's broken, I want to know.
• Translation improvements — some non-English translations are AI-generated and could use native speaker review.
• New translations — if you want to add a new language, submit a PR using /lang/en.php as a reference.

If there's a feature you want to implement, Pure Blog is open source, so fork it and build what you need - it's a tonne of fun!

As for me, I'm going to get back to actually writing on this lovely little platform I've built. That was the whole point, after all. 😊

2026-03-26 04:11:00

It's been a little over a year since I bought my Framework 13 laptop and shared my initial thoughts, so I thought it would be a good time to provide you guys with an update on what I like, and dislike about this plucky little laptop.

Performance

I think this is a good place to start since my previous laptop was an M1 MacBook Air, which I loved, but the paltry 256GB of storage, and the fact that it would inevitably be killed off artificially by Apple, I decided to jump ship, and the Framework 13 beat the competition for me.

One of the things I loved about the M1 was the incredible battery life. I could work all day and still have a good chunk of battery left, and while the Framework 13 isn't quite as good as the M1, it's still excellent. I can work on this thing all day and still have around 30% of the battery left.

Similarly, the performance while using the Framework is great too. With a Ryzen 7 7840 (8 core, 16 threads @ 5.1GHz), a whopping 64GB RAM, 2TB NVMe, and a Radeon 780 integrated GPU, it's all the computer I'll need for the foreseeable future since I mostly browse the web, send emails, and write code. I also occasionally play Minecraft with the kids, so this is more than enough for me.

Operating System

I'm currently running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, after Fedora quickly started to frustrate me. Previously I commented on how I wasn't sure if I'd even stick with Linux, saying:

I'm not sure I have the energy to go down the Linux route again. I don't care what anyone says, Linux is not as simple as other operating systems.

Since moving over to Ubuntu and getting things set up in a way that I like, I'm now very happy being back in Linux land. Ubuntu has been totally stable, and performance has been fantastic. Everything is just as snappy as it was on the M1.

Build quality

The Framework 13 is not a Mac, and never will be. I'm yet to see any manufacturer hold a torch to the quality of Apple's hardware. However, it's still very good - the aluminium case is robust and showing very few signs of wear, even after a year of hard labour.

Still looking great even after a year of hard work

I opted for the orange bezel, but didn't like it originally. I've since grown to love it and no longer find it distracting. People just don't have orange laptops, so it's a little different and fun.

The orange bezel has grown on me

I also complained about the poor accuracy of the fingerprint reader, but that the issue seemed to be Fedora, rather than hardware. Since switching to Ubuntu it's been fine.

The hardware switches for the mic and webcam are great. I continue to use them most days, and it's nice to know that my own laptop isn't listening, or watching, when I don't want it to.

Overall thoughts

All in all the Framework cost me just shy of £1,500 at this spec, and considering the runway I have with the hardware specs, and the incredible ability to repair this thing, I think overall it's better value than spending the same money on a MacBook Pro M4 at the time.

I'm currently using around 256GB of the available storage on my NVMe. The MacBook Pro at the price I wanted came with 512GB, so I'd have been around halfway through my storage already. Considering lack of storage was a big driver for me replacing the M1 in the first place, I'm glad I went this route.

Whilst the build quality isn't as good as a Mac, it's still excellent. I have no concerns about the longevity of this cool little laptop, and I trust it will continue to serve me for many years to come. My wife still runs a Gen 2 Lenovo X1 Carbon from 2014 (that's 12 years old) and it's still going strong. If I can get the same kind of longevity out of this, even if I do need to (easily) replace a battery or 2 along the way, I'll be very, very happy.

If you're thinking about jumping in and getting a Framework laptop, my advice would be do it. I have zero regrets.

2026-03-21 02:40:00

So it turns out I didn't like the mustard yellow and steel blue design that I created a couple weeks ago. It just didn't sit well with me, and if I look back over my design history the designs that have stuck over the years are invariably grey with a splash of colour.

Problem was, I didn't really know how I was going to redesign the site. Then, one day, I was talking with Sven via email and I visited his blog (also running Pure Blog for the record 🎉), and I immediately knew that was the kind of design I was looking for. It's simplicity is just lovely, and so easy to read.

So I set about making my own version of Sven's lovely design. I didn't want it to be exactly the same as his, but I also didn't think my design would turn out quite as close to his as it did - I suppose that goes to show how much I like his site. :-)

I've spoken to Sven and he's good with me effectively copying his design.

For posterity (as I'm likely to change it again in the future) here's what the design currently looks like:

I'm still not 100% sold on the font (but it is growing on me), and I'm not sure about the yellow in the header, but blue everywhere else. So I may change a couple of things subtly. Having said all that, overall I'm the happiest with the design I've been since moving to Pure Blog.

Finally I'd like to thank Sven for allowing me to steal his wonderful design.

What do you guys think? Leave a comment below, or reply by email.