I spend a lot of time sitting in front of my laptop, but not as much as GNOME would lead you to believe.

I spend a lot of time sitting in front of my laptop, but not as much as GNOME would lead you to believe.
Typing this on a £60 Xiaomi Redmi A3 device that I purchased from Argos. It’s not going to replace my current phone (iPhone 11) but I was interested to see how a cheap Android device performs and what it provides for the money. Long story short, it’s actually a usable device, which is a pleasant surprise. £60 to play around with Android, before deciding to drop iOS and purchase a premium device is an acceptable cost to me. Also, £60!
One of my least favourite tasks is wrestling with HTML email templates. I recently spent some time working on what I thought was a nice and attractive email template. It worked really well with the email clients and devices I tested it on, then it got delivered to Classic Outlook on Windows 10/11 and BOOM! Everything fell apart. Apparently, Classic Outlook is going to be around until 2029. I think I'll just stick to using plain text email templates until then.
Daily driver (Lenovo ThinkPad T14s Gen 3) upgraded to Fedora 42. No issues to speak of. I love that I can do a release upgrade and then just get on with my day. Perfect.
Upgraded my secondary machine to Fedora 42. The upgrade was quick and error free. Will do my daily driver next, after I run a few backup routines.
I did not upgrade to Fedora 42 on release day. Maybe tomorrow?
Fedora 42 is due for release tomorrow and I’m tempted to upgrade, but 41 is currently rock solid for me, so I’ll probably wait a while before upgrading. Or maybe not.
Over the last couple of years, my monitor count has gone from 3 to 2 to 1. I used to enjoy having lots of applications spread across multiple screens in front of me, now enjoy just having the application on screen that I'm actively using. I'm not entirely sure why this happened, maybe it's because I'm getting older, or maybe it's due to the improved performance of touchpad gestures in GNOME, or a combination of both. Whatever the reason, I'm currently enjoying using a single monitor.
I have started using oat milk in my coffee.
Trying vertical tabs in Firefox. Life is wild.
Just finished reading Deathworlder - An Astra Militarum Novel by Victoria Hayward. It was a good read and I particularly enjoyed how the Tyranids were portrayed - it never occurred to me that they would be vocally silent, which is quite terrifying.
I don't watch a lot of animated series, but I thoroughly enjoyed Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man on Disney+.
Cute Walt Disney comment/quote found in the Disney+ HTML.
Spent the last two weeks travelling around the bottom of Florida with Becky. We saw lots of wildlife including alligators, manatees, turtles, pelicans and tarpons. We drove the Florida Keys road and visited the Everglades national park. We also attended the Homestead rodeo, which was epic. We did some touristy stuff in and around Miami, including a day at South Beach, a boat trip around PortMiami and a ride in the Miami observation wheel. It was a lovely holiday. I also turned 50.
I have started adding vanilla to my coffee.
Started watching American Primeval on Netflix. It's brutal and gritty, I love it.
Just finished reading Longshot - An Astra Militarum Novel by Rob Young. The Imperial Guard are one of my favourite Warhammer 40k factions and I enjoyed reading this a lot. I've got Deathworlder lined-up for my next read.
I have a feeling that Star Wars: Skeleton Crew is the best show I will watch in 2025.
I've adjusted down my yearly cycling distance goal on Strava to 5,000km. I didn't manage to ride as much as I would have liked last year, not coming anywhere close to my goal of 10,000km, so I've changed it to a total that should be more achievable. It's only the 9th of Jan, but I'm currently 18km ahead of pace, which I'm pleased with considering the current freezing weather.
Longlegs is a very weird movie. It's dark and arty, which I enjoyed, but I'm not sure I'd be in any hurry to watch it again.
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My name is Philip Newborough and I’m a full stack web developer living and working in Lincoln, England. This website (philipnewborough.co.uk) serves as my personal homepage. When I’m not working with tech, I love to ride bicycles with my wife and friends.