Hey there, everyone, I just wanted to pop in and talk for a minute about life, website, hobbies, etc. As I'm sure many have noticed, there hasn't been much of my presence around for a while. After that malware or hack on my Linode server a few years ago, the motivation to rebuild everything was just gone. So many hours were poured into building my website, taking photos, writing up detailed summaries, and the like to share with you all just to watch it go poof.
CMS - The Backend
First things first, lets start with the website, as honestly a lot hinges on that aspect. When I first started the rebuild effort,s i realized how much would be involved to get online again with it, to get all the models uploaded, the photo albums and such, but I installed a fresh version of Strapi and set to work.... only to realize i hated the way they handled many things.
With that I set out to build my own CMS basically, using react-admin for the admin panel, kysely for the ORM, and nest.js to build out the backend in, and while i got pretty far with it, my shortcomings soon revealed themselves and i had given up, after basically having a lot in place and functional. Something snagged me, and I couldn't figure out the solution.
About that time Strapi released their next major version, version 5, and i was like lets take a look at this again, and it had improved on many things, so again I set out to build everything in it again, I established my content type for my blog posts, some of the model stuff, and started uploading things again.... and then lost the database.... stupid me didn't have a backup either so i lost it all.
I got started yet again, rebuilding out with Strapi, figuring out how to build plugins for their platform, something that isn't very intuitive, I might add. Quickly getting frustrated, I started talking to a friend who turned me to PayloadCMS, which had just released version 3 not too far back. I started building out the collections in the content type, started playing around with it, and fell in love with how it works
Which leads me to where we are right now, on PayloadCMS, and I gotta say I'm digging it. Building custom things in their admin panel is easy as heck, and while I'm not a fan of Next.js these days, they've taken a pretty incredible platform and built on top of it so well, but also building out plugins and functionality into the backend has been a breeze. I built my own RBAC system; details of that will follow at some point, as I have some cleanup to do and plan to release it as a plugin.
At of the time of writing this I've migrated all my blog content over to it, and I'm exploring the photo gallery and models aspect next.
Svelte 5 - The Frontend
So, after the hac,k I started rebuilding my front end in Next.js, which is what i had used previously, and had in version control of course, but I wanted to modernize and change things i wasn't very happy with. and progressed pretty dang far in that point, but I just couldn't get over my unhappiness with react, and the server components and how all that played and worked. There was a solution!
Svelte, of course, as if it wasn't obvious. With all the hype about Svelte and their new major version, I figured there was no time like the present to give it a try, and much like Payload, I immediately fell in love with it, with the way it handles data loading, the file router, everything. I quickly began rewriting from the ground up, taking advantage of new tech (to me at least), and had it back to where I was with my NextJS website within a few weeks, and it was running good, looking slick, and just gave me good vibes.
I'm sure you've probably noticed (or maybe not, it's ok) and that there is tons of content missing still, but it's coming along at a much quicker pace now. Authentication isn't there, forms don't work, and half the dynamic stuff is still loading off of Strapi, but those are things that will be addressed very soon. Check back for more soon. I've got some ideas cooking.
Hobbies
Alright, so that brings us to the more personal side of my life, hobbies. Because of the state of the website, I honestly haven't spent much time at the model desk, because I didn't want to have to figure out where and how I was going to blog or comment or record the process of my builds to complement what I've already got to upload. So sadly to say, for the past year, I hadn't touched any models. Notice I said had right, because recently I've started digging in again, because the website is starting to piece back together, I feel confident about starting that process up again.
Looking at my desk, there are about a dozen items in various stages of being completed, so I figured best to pick up starting with the closest and easiest to complete, and move from there before I even think about opening anything new as much as I want to do so.
I guess check back soon on those, I'll have a write-up of each of them when they are finished.
Photography
Much like the hobbies section, photography, and just hiking and exploring have been on the back burner, with the sheer amount of photos to re-upload and tag I felt it best to just be a lazy butt and not go out, i mean i wish i was kidding but it's true. However, unlike the models, I have created photo galleries and image stuff in the backend so that I can start adding content, even if it's not visible on the website. I also added a pretty cool permissions system to allow people to see albums and not because I felt it was necessary. Some things might be too private to want to share with the world, and some things I think one day will be added for clients, maybe to see specifically.
To pair with that,t I want to add Medusa to the stack, so that when I create new images, I can also list them for sale, digitally or drop-shipped from one of the many great print-on-demand services out there, but that's a future goal. For now, just displaying my art is more important. But the adventures are beginning already.
Video Content
Last on the list is video content, specifically YouTube. I have been recording some video footage of board games, of my motorcycle, video games etc, but i haven't released a lot of it and that is something I'm hoping to get better at going forwards as well, now that the weather is getting nice I want to be out on my bike, exploring new places and parks, and just sharing a bit more of my life with ya'll.
I think that's all I've got for you for now. I know I've been sucky at blogging, but I'm hoping now that the framework is laid, it'll start occurring more again. Talk tech, toys, and more. For now, moose out!
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