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Switching from Docker Desktop to Colima
I use Docker containers to automate the setup of development environments in a standard and repeatable way. It makes it very easy to spin up applications locally during development, and especially to ensure everyone working in a team has a consistent environment. The Docker Engine is actually built on top of a few Linux technologies, including Kernel…
3–5 minutes -
Switching to Starship
A long time ago, I started experimenting with customising my Bash shell prompt. Rather than just showing the current working directory, I wanted to add snippets of useful information to my prompt. I started with displaying the currently active branch of a Git repository. Next I added code to show which version of a particular…
4–6 minutes -
Git Commit Etiquette
Clear, meaningful, commit and pull request messages are essential when working on a shared codebase. They serve a couple of important purposes: What makes a good commit? When writing your commit message, try to consider whether it answers these questions: Try to keep your commit messages small; no more than a sentence or so. Make…
5–8 minutes -
Apple Spring Event 2021
Apple typically holds an event in Spring, and this year was no exception. Their Spring Loadedevent covered updates to existing products and announced some new ones too. The environmental report also looked good, with many of the products being made from 100% recycled aluminium, tin and rare earth metals. It’s good to see that Apple includes…
6–8 minutes -
My favourite Mac: restoring an iMac G4
I was drawn to the Mac for many years before I finally got my own. This post talks a bit about how I got into the platform. I’d poked about on display models in computer stores, and was blown away by the way they looked, both hardware and software. In the PC world, Windows XP…
9–14 minutes -
Elite Dangerous
Since lockdown began earlier this year, I found myself revisiting an old game I’ve played a lot of before, Elite Dangerous. I’m not sure if it was the isolation of lockdown, but the thought of revisiting a full-scale recreation of the Milky Way galaxy with some friends was really appealing to me. Elite Dangerous is an…
3–4 minutes -
The Future of Mac
Hot on the heels of their iPhone announcement, Apple has returned with a special event all about the future of the Mac. Back in June, Apple announced they were migrating the Mac away from Intel processors to their own custom silicon. Though their A-series chips have long provided iPhones with industry-leading performance, until yesterday’s event we weren’t sure how…
4–6 minutes -
iPhone Size Comparison
With Apple’s recent announcement of new iPhones I thought it would be useful to put together a little post about the new hardware sizes and how they compare to various other models. Apple provides a very useful iPhone comparison tool but it only lets you choose three phones at a time. To make comparison easier I made a composite…
2–3 minutes -
WWDC 2020
Apple started their annual World Wide Developer Conference yesterday and for the first time it was delivered virtually, and free for all developers. The conference continues throughout the week and will be running over 100 live sessions with Apple engineers. As always the event kicked off with a keynote address showing the major changes to each platform.…
9–13 minutes -
Jekyll and GitHub Actions
When deciding to resurrect this blog, I first had to do some research to choose the right software to do the job. The original blog years ago was deployed using WordPress and while I’m still a fan of WordPress I wanted to keep things super simple this time around. At work last year I redid some internal…
7–10 minutes