Blogs Posts by Nick McHardy
Welcome to my blog, where I cover tech, games and whatever else that’s interesting in the universe like vinyl, fusion jazz and side projects.
This website is inspired by the web of the late 90s - no, not just the style of the site - but also harking back to a time when people would set up websites (probably on Geocities or similar) and write about anything that interested them. Most of the websites looked terrible (my first few sites were no exception) but it was so liberating having your own site. So here’s my modern-day version of that late 90s vibe.
Not sure where to start? Here are some blogs to get you started:
There’s also a 🍊 Garden Diary to check out. It’s sometimes updated as the seasons change.
Latest Posts
📅 Posted 2019-03-30
(6 minute read)
It’s been a year since I initially wrote about Building a serverless CMS using AWS and Hugo and I figured it was probably a good time to provide an update on the architecture for Koi CMS, a serverless CMS. It’s progressed quite a bit over the past twelve months.
Kicking things off with a meaty diagram (click to zoom):
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📅 Posted 2019-03-03
(15 minute read)
Back in the day, I used to attend a fair amount of LAN parties. Dragging my PC and giant CRT monitor along to random houses to play games all night sure was fun so I’m going to look back at what all the fuss was about.
What’s a LAN party, anyway?
(I’ll save the hassle and just call them “LANs” from now on)
For those who aren’t familiar, haven’t been or haven’t heard about ’em, I’d say there’s a basic formula although no two LANs will be the same. For me, some of the elements were:
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📅 Posted 2019-02-15
(11 minute read)
I’ve been acting in the role of Engineering Manager for 6 months now, so it’s a good time to review how things are going. Some of the points below could be obvious to some and not everything will work in all situations, but I hope I can accurately describe my perspective.
A little bit of background for you, first, to set the scene. The organisation I work for had endured several restructures over the past few years, but the most recent one was probably the most impactful for me. For the first time, I had the option of acting in a people management role as an Engineering Manager.
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📅 Posted 2019-02-09
(8 minute read)
This is a story about the resurgence of radio in my life, at a time when everyone else has probably moved on.
Yes I’m talking about good ol’ fashioned radio. Generally FM broadcast, sometimes DAB+, sometimes a bit of streaming, but regardless: it’s back in my life.
For 7 years I presented a fusion jazz radio show on community radio, which was heaps of fun. Maybe I’m late to the party, but it also made me realise how cool the radio format is even today: there is quite a lot of choice when it comes to music and there’s plenty of eclectic radio shows to listen to, especially when you’re struggling to find inspiration yourself. I finished presenting a year ago to focus on other things in my life, such as Koi CMS, blogging and a new secret project which I will reveal one of these days.
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📅 Posted 2019-02-01
(2 minute read)
I’ve noticed a general trend towards more mobile users, but I think it would be good to quantify this. After all, developing websites purely on desktop is definitely easier but probably misguided.
The following mini-analysis is based on my corner of the Internet: not amazingly high traffic sites, but sites which are important to me none-the-less. The source for my numbers is Google Analytics.
The Comparisons
Here’s 4 very different websites compared.
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