JavaScript is not available.

Dec 8

I'm working my way through reviewing all of the amazing PC games in

@yogscast

@jinglejam

's charity bundle (over £2.5m raised so far!) 🎮 Here's my thoughts on the first 30, special shout-outs to the only 5/5s:

@TuringTestGame

@SnoozyKazoo

♥

Reviewing ALL 83 Steam games from the Yogscast’s Jingle Jam charity bundle (part 1 of 3)

Every Christmas since 2011, one of my favourite content creators The Yogscast have organised the “Jingle Jam”, a collection of streams with an associated bundle with TONS of great games to raise...

Thanks

😘

This is what my 2022 sounded like on

@Spotify

. Get your #SpotifyWrapped now!

open.spotify.com

Your 2022 Wrapped

This is what my 2022 sounded like on @Spotify. Get your #SpotifyWrapped now!

My latest roundup of favourite Android games are incrementals from

🥋,

👨‍🌾,

🧪,

🥗, and a bonus solitaire game🎴! I wonder which will be #1 😇 jakelee.co.uk/aug-nov-idle-a #androidgames #gaming

Android game reviews: Farm & Mine, Idle Research, Tap Ninja, Solitaire Golden Prairies, Eatventure

How has it been 4 months since my last Android game round-up post!? Well, here’s what I’ve been playing most in Aug / Sep / Oct / Nov, and yes, they’re almost all idle games. Oops.

Nov 21

I recently migrated my 14 years of

@googlechrome

password clutter (1000+!) to

@LastPass

, and did some loooong overdue spring cleaning 🧹 Here's how I did it, and a few comments on the LastPass experience. #security #infosec

Migrating from Chrome’s Password Manager to LastPass, and tidying up 10+ years of password clutter

I’ve been using Chrome since its 2008 release, and rely on the password manager daily. As you might expect, after 14 years I built up a lot of saved passwords (1000+)! However, migration to a proper...

Nov 16

I recently tried out a new blogging platform

@InsideBloggie

, and unfortunately it didn't work out. However! I used it as a self-study into user trust, and how bugs can quickly erode it death-by-a-thousand-cuts style. 🐛😬 blog.jakelee.co.uk/how-bugs-erode #Software

How minor bugs and security flaws can erode user trust: Examining my unfortunate experience with...

Whilst wandering through GitHub recently, I discovered the Tokyo-based Bloggie.io, a markdown blogging platform that gave a great first impression. Unfortunately, after an hour or so of clicking...

Nov 16

Recently had to migrate my

@jekyllrb

blogs from Universal Analytics to

@googleanalytics

4, since UA is going to stop collecting data in a few months! Here's how I did it 📊📈 #Analytics

How to migrate a Jekyll Minima blog from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 (UA to GA4)

When I first set up my Jekyll blog with Minima, it had built-in support for Google Analytics. Great! However, only using a legacy “Universal Analytics” ID seemed to work. This was fine for a few...

I’m going to take some time out to recharge and enjoy my new home in Canada. If anyone is hiring Staff Engs or other technical leadership roles remotely, I’d love to chat about what I can do for you in 2023. #LoveWhereYouWorked #OneTeam

Ever wanted to analyse your

@Twitch

data and find your top streamers, emotes, first / total chat messages, total watchtime etc? Now you can, with a Google Sheet I created! jakelee.co.uk/analysing-my-t #twitch #data #google

How do you use Twitch? A guide to analysing your emotes, subscriptions, chat messages, and viewing...

Along with YouTube, I also watch quite a lot of Twitch streams & VODs. In this post, I’ll share my spreadsheet for analysing my top streamers, chat messages, playback methods etc using my data...

Sep 5

Now that I'm an EM I rarely do feature work so... what better time to share / advocate how I prefer working on features!? 😅 blog.jakelee.co.uk/using-mvp-to-d #softwaredevelopment #programming

How an MVP-inspired approach to small feature development can improve your work’s visibility &...

In the last ~20 years, MVP releases have thankfully become the standard way of developing software. However, this mindset can be taken further, and used as a way to work on an individual ticket or...

I wrote this piece about the publishing history and details of #AndroidsBook, now that all of the new editions (print, ebook, and audiobook) are available.

chethaase.medium.com

Androids: The New Edition(s)

Same book, with new publishers, new markets, and new formats

May 24

My top 4 #Android games in May! Words Collide, Upload Simulator, Pocket Quest, and Dice Life. Yes, I like idle games 😅

The 4 Android games I played far too much of in May

I have a confession: I’m a mobile gamer. And no, not intense 3D games that can at least claim to be exciting, but mostly incremental / idle games and puzzle games. Assuming you’re not judging my...

Apr 25

Anyone who's worked with me knows I watch app crash rate like a hawk, here's a non-engineering look at WHY it's so important, and HOW you can improve yours!💥📉🤞 #AndroidDev #DevOps

@crashlytics

From 99% to 99.99%, why & how to chase 100% Crashlytics crash-free users

In services with uptime, availability is often measured in the number of 9s, e.g. “4 9s” is 99.99% uptime. Whilst installed apps themselves don’t tend to have uptime in the same way, they do have...

Apr 24

Waaaay back in 2017 I made a lenticular LEGO mosaic that I STILL really like! Here's a little guide: jakelee.co.uk/lego-mario-and 🧱🧱🧱👨‍🔧 #LEGO #Mario

How I made a LEGO lenticular mosaic of Mario & Luigi (in 2017!)

Waaaay back in 2017, I designed and created a lenticular LEGO mosaic (2 images in 1) of Mario & Luigi, and it’s the only original build I’ve kept! Luckily I still have my notes from the time, so I’m...

If you were wondering what is happening with a week-long outage with JIRA, Confluence and OpsGenie, I have you covered. Read this if you want to handle incidents better: plenty of learning for any engineering team.

newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com

The Scoop: Inside the Longest Atlassian Outage of All Time

Hundreds of companies have no access to JIRA, Confluence and Atlassian Cloud. What can engineering teams learn from the poor handling of this outage?

211

Apr 11

Been ill the last few days, so spent some time... quantifying & categorising my book collection. Obviously! 📚 jakelee.co.uk/current-book-c #BookTwitter

My current book collection and organisation strategy

As anyone who has seen my Goodreads or Kindle analysis posts knows, I read a lot. Once I had a bit of space at home, I started collecting books I’d read in the past, and reading physical books more....

Mar 26

Finally got round to earning

@GooglePlay

's Store Listing Certificate, the free short course is definitely worth doing if you publish / market #Android apps! Full review 🎓:

A brief review of the (free) Google Play Store Listing Certificate as a developer

Back in December, I got an email about something called the “Google Play Store Listing Certificate”. It seemed pretty relevant to my job, and I finally got round to completing it! It’s mostly...

Mar 21

Spent some time over the weekend analysing my

@AmazonKindle

reading history in

@GoogleSheets

, and making a template to drop your own data into😊📚 jakelee.co.uk/analysing-5-ye #data #Kindle

Analysing 5 years of Amazon Kindle reading (and how you can too!)

One of my favourite possessions that I use almost every day is my Kindle Paperwhite 3 from 2016. I purchased the Paperwhite 5 recently (comparison coming soon!), and decided to analyse the hundreds...

Mar 14

I wrote a little utility to analyse

@GooglePlay

purchase history, if anyone else is wondering how much they've spent on apps over the years! 🤑 No authenticating / uploading etc, and my data is included if you're curious 😅 jakelee.co.uk/analysing-my-g #GooglePlay #Android

Analysing my Google Play purchase history (and how you can too!)

I’ve been in the Android ecosystem for a few years now, and tend to make 1-2 Google Play purchases per month, usually removing adverts from a super casual game. To analyse this data, I wrote a little...

Mar 9

Open sourced my first few Android games from 2016/7! The code is horrific, but somehow the end products are... still not bad. Maybe there's more to app dev than code quality 🤐 blog.jakelee.co.uk/open-sourcing- #AndroidDev

Open sourcing Pixel Blacksmith and my other old Android games

I originally got into Android development by making a game in my spare time, Pixel Blacksmith. This game ended up becoming way more popular than I could have imagined, and persuaded me to follow app...

Mar 6

Added Table of Contents & section linking functionality to my Jekyll blogs, thanks to

@allejome

's *excellent* liquid scripts! #webdevelopment

Blog updated (v2.1) with table of contents and anchor links!

Whilst Jekyll’s Minima theme is great, there’s a couple of very basic features I wish it had by default. I added the features myself today, and decided to start doing “release notes” style posts for...

Mar 6

In case anyone is struggling with the #ForzaHorizon5 Series 5 accolades (especially the stunt park ones...), I wrote a little guide! Also includes a couple of ways to "cheat" them 😉 jakelee.co.uk/forza-horizon- #pcgaming #XboxGamePass

Forza Horizon 5 Series 5 (Horizon Rush Takeover) Accolades Guide

With Forza Horizon 5’s fifth series, Horizon Rush Takeover, a ton of new PR stunts & a stunt arena were added alongside the usual cars. Additionally, 23 new accolades were added, here’s how to get...

Mar 4

Finally fixed a rare but silly UI bug that had been in our app for over a year, a very satisfying end to the week! 😅 blog.jakelee.co.uk/fixing-a-too-t #android #androiddevelopment

Fixing a BottomNavigationView that insists on being too tall

At work, we’ve had a bug that has appeared intermittently since before I joined. The navigation bar at the bottom of our app would very rarely become absolutely massive. For seemingly no reason....

I *also* used

's data export to figure out my most watched subscriptions over the last 4 years (and provided instructions)... Turns out all the Hatventures binge rewatching put

@Hat_Films

on top! 👑 #data #YouTube

Analysing my YouTube subscriptions & views over the last 4 years (and how you can too!)

According to Wallace Boyer in Chuck Palahniuk’s “Rant”: “… every person is obsessed with himself. You are your own favorite hobby. You’re an expert on you”. With that in mind, I spent some time...

Now that

supports the markdown-y Mermaid.js, I spent some time writing syntax cheat sheets for every supported graph! It's super powerful, will be converting our internal documentation soon™ 📊 blog.jakelee.co.uk/using-mermaid- #webdev #javascript #data

Using Mermaid for easy GitHub diagrams in Markdown-ish code

On most larger software projects, at some point you’ll probably need to use a diagram on GitHub. Whether it’s explaining how components interact, a user’s flow, or project timelines, it’ll happen...

Feb 27

Went back and added more detail to a v popular Reddit post I made back in 2017(!) about the most convincing Google phishing worm I've ever seen, bypassing 2FA etc. An interesting bit of niche internet history! 🔒 blog.jakelee.co.uk/a-writeup-of-a #InfoSec #Google #Phishing

A writeup of a very convincing 2017 Gmail phishing scam

Waaaaay back in 2017, I experienced the most convincing phishing attack I’ve ever seen. I didn’t fall for it, but it was too close for comfort! I published my notes on Reddit and it got a lot of...

How to Create a Blog Using Jekyll and GitHub Pages on Windows

Feb 20

Shoutout to @kiltandcode for this EXCELLENT getting started guide for

@Jekyllrb

on Windows. I was up and running a site in ~5m, whereas attempting it using official documentation took 2hrs with negligible progress!

kiltandcode.com

Nearly a year ago I migrated from the popular blogging platform WordPress to the static site generator Jekyll. Why am I and thousands of other bloggers deciding to move to a static site generator?...

Feb 19

I recently turned off

@Cloudflare

proxying for a

@GitHub

pages site and... SSL broke. An easy fix, but not an intuitive one 😬#webdev

How to disable Cloudflare proxying with GitHub pages on a custom subdomain

When creating a new GitHub pages site with Cloudflare’s DNS, the default setting is proxying all data via Cloudflare. This is OK, but Cloudflare can slow down GitHub pages somewhat, and GitHub pages...

Feb 19

Replaced my old portfolio site with a non-programming blog. The first post? Obviously about #cat ownership... 😻

The overall cost of owning a cat in the UK

Anyone who has spent more than 5 minutes talking to me knows I love cats, especially my girl Cassie (pictured in this post!). They’ve always been a big part of my life, and to me the emotional payoff...

Feb 17

Aaaaand I wrote a little bit about some of the challenges faced during the upload process

Announcing an online version of the Settlers 3 game manual

Settlers 3 is a PC strategy game from the late 90s that I spent countless hours in. It included a very detailed manual on the disc, full of images, tips, and stats. I’ve begun playing the game’s 2018...

I spent some time today resurrecting the

@TheSettlersEN

III on-disc manual, in online format! Hopefully a bit easier to use than the local / PDF formats, now available in EN / FR / DE. settlers.jakelee.co.uk/en/fr_start.htm #settlers #strategy #pcgaming

Recently discovered the excellent Image Resizer in

@Microsoft

's PowerToys by

@bricelambs

, it's super super useful for quickly preparing images for blog posts! #blog #windows #tips

Using Microsoft’s PowerToys for easy image resizing in Windows

When I moved from WordPress to Jekyll, I lost out on some of the auto-thumbnail functionality. Whilst I could manually create thumbnails and header images, I started looking for a more efficient...

Feb 16

After migrating to #Jekyll at the weekend, wrote up some of my #Wordpress complaints that caused me to leave! Yes, it's one long rant. Sorry. #webdev

Why I moved from WordPress to Jekyll

As mentioned in a previous post, I finally took the time last weekend to migrate this blog across to a simpler, free solution. This decision wasn’t taken lightly, so I wanted to expand on some of the...

Feb 14

Never mind, fixed Twitter preview weeee

Finally bit the bullet and spent the weekend learning

@jekyllrb

& migrating my blog away from #Wordpress! 98% decrease in load times, completely free, much easier workflow, all run by

@GitHub

and Markdown 😍 (I know Twitter previews don't work yet! 😅)

This blog has migrated to Jekyll!

You are now reading these words from a Jekyll-powered site, not Wordpress! But what does that actually mean?

Possibly my most niche #AndroidDev post yet, in case you ever need to extract a List<X> Room column into a new table, without losing data!

How to extract a Room list column into a new linked table, migrating data

On a project recently the Room database consisted of a single table with many fields, some of which were Lists. This was fine, and easy to work with until… it wasn’t. We started seeing an error in...

Jan 13

BREAKFAST. HAM. #CatsOfTwitter #Food

We have LIFTOFF of the

@NASAWebb

Space Telescope! At 7:20am ET (12:20 UTC), the beginning of a new, exciting decade of science climbed to the sky. Webb’s mission to #UnfoldTheUniverse will change our understanding of space as we know it.

0:32

2.3M views

1,287

15.7K

48.4K