Alex Hyett is a Software Developer, YouTuber and Writer focussed on helping people transform their lives by learning how to code.
As a race, humans are really bad at doing cost benefit analysis. We might try and weigh up the pros and cons but we all have a tendency to exaggerate the pros if they are beneficial to us and downplay the cons that we can't directly see. This is also the case if the downsides are not immediate but will affect us at some point in the future. We see this pattern throughout history. We find something…
The other day I saw this post about "Stolen Buttons". It is a browser extension that "steals" a button from every website that you visit. You can see the creators collection of "stolen" buttons here: Stolen Buttons | Anatoly Zenkov If you scroll through the list there will likely be a few that catch your eye, as they are a little bit different. It might be the shape, the colour, or the font used…
In an attempt to reduce the amount of time I spend staring at my phone, I have bought myself another device. At least that is the lie I told myself for buying yet another gadget because it looked cool. After seeing Max Glenister and Neil Brown speak so highly of this device I just had to buy the XTEINK X4 e-reader . Note, this is not sponsored in any way I just wanted to share it with you! This is…
My wife and I have been looking for an app to track things like habits, hobbies, and when we last did certain chores. To be honest there are probably hundreds of different habit trackers on the App Store. Next to todo list apps they are supposed to be the easiest apps to create so it is not really that surprising there are so many options. But we must have tried dozens of different apps but none…
Last week I went full speed into setting up webmentions on my site. My implementation works around using webmention.io in my site's <head> and Bridgy for sending me webmentions for comments, likes and reposts on my posts that I share. Ideally I would like to self-host my webmentions endpoint so I am not relying on another service but I haven't found a suitable replacement yet. Maybe I should just…
I have been getting back into blogging recently. I know I write this newsletter every 2 weeks, but I try and keep to a set number of topics as I know my audience is mostly developers. My blog gives me chance to write about whatever is on my mind, without worrying about it being relevant to my audience. When I first started "surfing the web" it was all about personal websites and going from one…
It is safe to say I am not getting any younger. Although I suppose that is the same for all of us apart from Benjamin Button. I am turning 40 next year and with that comes quite a lot of retrospection on how I have led my life, whether I have made the right choices and what I can improve on going forward. As far as most life goals go I am fairly satisfied with my lot: Married ✅ House ✅ Kids ✅ As a…
Two weeks ago I quit my job. I had been working as a staff engineer at this startup for the last 2.5 years. The people, pay, and workload were all good but it was time to move on. I have worked with most of the team before this job and I am sure we will probably end up working together again in the future. So why quit? To be honest, I can't 100% rule out a midlife crisis. I turn 40 next year and…
It has been a while since I have sat down and wrote a blog post that is not directly related to programming or self-hosting. If I look back to 2023 I used to write about all sorts of different topics. I was reading the post 📦 Don't put yourself in a box the other day and I realised I have been doing something similar. My website doesn't get that much traffic at around 8000 visitors a month, so it…
Today I have been trying to set up webmentions on my website. Brennan Kenneth Brown has a great article that goes through his process for setting up webmentions: How Webmentions Work on brennan.day . I learned that I need to set up microformats which I believe I have done correctly. It seems to be coming back correctly using this tool: PHP Microformats Parser The downside is I actually need some…
3 years ago I did a video on "How to Build a Project That Will Actually Get You a Job" . It is crazy how much has changed since then. I still think there is value in creating these projects to help your chances of getting a job, but they definitely don't have as much sway as they used to. The reason of course is due to AI. How does a hiring manager looking at your profile know you didn't just vibe…
Over the last few months companies have gone from “you must use AI or you will get fired” to “use less AI or you will be fired”. As you know, it all comes down to cost. Companies thought that they could replace some salaried developers by giving AI to the remaining staff. Now it seems a lot of companies are back peddling on that stance now that the true cost of AI is appearing. AI has been heavily…