Nowadays I have a feeling that most of the software or apps on laptops and mobiles are too complicated or over-engineered. The apps I am using nowadays have too many features other than their core purpose. I know these apps are made for a wide range of users, and the corporations behind them want their products to be feature-rich...
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Fast apps
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Frictionless tool
The most frictionless tool I have ever seen is a piece of paper and pen.
It’s simple and easy enough to not think about anything else related to it. I don’t need to think about how I can use that, as my brain knows how to use it like I know how to eat. There are no disruptions like new interfaces where the button position has been changed, or performance glitches due to useless features. It’s just a tool that easily becomes part of your body, and you can start working immediately. Eventually it will disappear from your mind when you are using it. That’s how it becomes a perfect tool.
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Kagi Small Web
What is Small Web? While there’s no single, perfect definition, we like to define the Small Web as personal blogs, independent videos, webcomics, and other authentic spaces created for non-commercial purposes, usually for self-expression or community building. Basically, sites in the Small Web exist to...
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How to add random quotes to your (Hugo) website footer
To be honest, I love beautiful and brilliant quotes. They can come from anywhere, like smart people, movies, or books. I don’t care where they come from. If they inspire me, I love them. The most beautiful part is...
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Life Left App
Life Left is a minimalist life reflection web app that helps users visualize how much of their life may still remain, based on their age, retirement plan, and expected lifespan.
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Default Apps 2025
Earlier this year, I shared my default apps of 2023 here. This is the 2025 edition. The big change is that I’ve moved more into the Apple ecosystem, while most of the rest has stayed the same.
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Start the Hugo server with your local IP
I want to share my writings to my colleague thorugh my IP before publishing it. So here how I done it:
- Get your IP using the command
ipconfigfrom the terminal. - Go to your Hugo project’s root directory in your terminal.
- Run the following command, replacing
<YOUR_NETWORK_IP>with the IP address. hugo server --bind 0.0.0.0 --baseUrl http://<YOUR_NETWORK_IP>:1313- The server will start, and the output should show the website is available at
http://<YOUR_NETWORK_IP>:1313.
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Software gardening and death
I have came across the following article recently.
Software is a bit like this house plant: its wellbeing depends on the folks who constantly tend it. Without us around, it gradually erodes.
I used Google Orkut in the past and I loved it at that time. It was fun to send messages in the scrapbook, cool usernames, and enjoy all the other social media features that felt cool back then. But after the rise of Facebook and other giants, Google shut down Orkut. They sent us an email with a link to download our data archive and said goodbye. I still have those emails from Orkut, and when I read them recently, they gave me a nostalgic happiness.
What I realize now is that everything eventually comes to an end when the gardeners stop tending their gardens. We cannot take it for granted forever. Today we have access to some of the most amazing things in human history. We need to be grateful and enjoy the beauty of it. So keep on gardening, and cherish your fellow gardeners.
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Lightbi Version 2
Last week I released version 2 of Lightbi. I had been planning it for a very long time, but the time didn’t permit me until now.