Colin Walker - Daily Feed

# Mobile Browsers I have documented my search for the 'perfect' email client on many occasions. Spoiler alert: I've largely given up. Now, I've returned to mobile browsers. I've tried my fair share over the years. When I used an iPhone there was no real discussion — you used Safari.1 It's a different picture on Android. I gave up on Chrome years ago. I don't use system-wide ad blocking so Chrome is not an option seeing as it doesn't support extensions on mobile. Firefox has never really clicked…

# Today marks 23 years since I started blogging! It seems a lifetime ago, but it's less than half my lifetime. I've been struggling to post lately, only getting going again over the past few days, but I've got some ideas about things I want to do to the site. Not necessarily in relation to what I post, more how it works. I want to redesign things and simplify the code. Still, that's for another day. For now, let's just celebrate the anniversary. 🥳

# Approaching three years since getting the Amazfit GTR 2 watch, battery life has really taken a nosedive. What started out as up to 14 days (generally around 10) has dropped to barely 3. It was time (no pun intended) to think about replacing it. Rather than getting another fully smart watch, I decided to go for a hybrid. If money was no object I would buy a Withings — I think they're the gold standard for hybrid watches — but as it is I opted for something far more conservative: a Sekonda…

# It's the third anniversary of my first Bandcamp release: the acid clan EP. It still annoys me that the production isn't up to scratch, especially on False Pretences where there is some clipping on the claps. I recently remastered Round and Around but's there's only so much you can do when all the hardware elements were recorded onto one channel (I only had my mixer at the time and no audio interface). It just goes to show how far I've come in three years, but also that I have been…

# The new randomelements ep "silver machine" is out now! You can read all about it over on the randomelements site. The title track is on YouTube:

# Subvert launches today Today's the day... Subvert, the cooperative-owned music marketplace, is officially live today! And yours truly is there as a founding member. I have, so far, uploaded a recent selection of releases with plans to upload most of my tracks. Subvert is different. Subvert is for the people, by the people, where every member is part owner. It allows for "member tier" pricing so that you can offer fellow members a reduced price. You don't have to be a member to browse and buy…

# It's no secret that I've been struggling to finish tracks lately. I have an idea, create a loop, listen to it excessively, then can't extend it out to a full track. I had three separate tracks at various stages of completion then my brain decided to have yet another idea when it woke me at about 4:30 the other morning. If only everything came together that easily. Last night, I went up to the studio just to see if anything would happen. The flood gates opened and I got about 90% of that new…

# Happy Star Wars Day...

# I hadn't looked at /reader (AKA /inbound) for a few days; I can't actually remember how long. There was a lot in there so I hit mark all as read. There was probably stuff in there I might want to have read, but if I hadn't actually sought it out I obviously didn't want to read it that much. I didn't really need to take such drastic action, seeing as items older than a week automatically drop out after gradually fading. I suppose if I was that bothered, the reverse would make more sense: items…

# While I've been off, I've been doing a full rewatch of The Expanse. I watched the first three seasons as they came out, but never got back into it once Amazon rescued it. I've been meaning to pick it back up for a while. I'd forgotten just how good it was.

# No friendsI've written before about friendship and commented on the phenomenon of male loneliness. What really brought it home to me recently was when my wife answered a question in an app about meeting my friends, she just wrote "no friends". Simple and bluntly honest. It's been almost a running joke that that the only people I know outside of work are my wife's friends. But it's not a joke. Not in the slightest. I've always said my big three issues are boredom, frustration, and impatience.…

# Now that I have the randomelements site up and running, the best way to keep up with music news is to follow the RSS feed over there. I don't think I'll focus on posting all new release details on the blog.

# In a post on Bluesky, I wrote: Sometimes, I overcomplicate things and lose the vibe. I've decided not to rerecord "After the tears" but use the live jam as the base and just make tweaks. I know a new version just won't sound the same. As with All raw sound and emotion, I want // need to get away from trying to get everything just so. What's the saying? Perfect is the enemy of good. So true. It's also the enemy of "done" or "finished". I was tidying the desktop on my Mac and saw it was…

# ADHD Me: must work on // finish off the new track. Brain: oooh, let's make glitchy drum sounds with the Syncussion.

# After Wednesday's breakdown, I went back to the doctor's yesterday — a week early. I'm officially off citalopram and have been moved on to fluoxetine. Today was the first dose. Hopefully, this will agree with me more than the citalopram. That won't be hard.

# I think it's safe to say that citalopram is not for me. I'd been feeling progressively worse over the past week until everything culminated in a massive breakdown last night. Feeling very bored and fed up, I went up to the studio with the intention of starting to put things back together. I sat down and, bang, the tears came and wouldn't stop. Great wracking sobs. I called my wife, who was at our daughter's house, and just about managed to blurt out a few words before she dashed home. It to...

# The new randomelements site went live yesterday, followed by some immediate bug fixes. 😅 Isn't it always the way, you only notice stuff after the event. It's only a simple three pager (home, updates, about) but I really like the look and feel. I'll probably expand it in the future, but for now, it's good to have it up. The /music page here now auto-redirects to the new site as I just lifted the text for the about page over there. No point having it duplicated. There might still be issues so...

# Work continues on the randomelements site; it's almost ready to go. Aside from the home page, it's based on my Hyblog hybrid blog project, but you wouldn't know it at first glance. The sliding menu tray is gone. Comments on the blog have been stripped out. Everything has been redesigned to match the home page. The home page pulls the HTML from my Bandcamp music page, finds the first release on the page, then uses their oEmbed API to automatically get the embed frame code and insert it. T...

# With things the way they are, I went back to the doctor this morning. It was earlier than planned, being only three weeks into taking citalopram, but I couldn't continue like this. I'm going to be staying on them for now (at least another two weeks) but have been signed off from work during that time while I hopefully // continue to adjust. I was offered time off last week when I had my first review; I turned it down as the Easter break was coming up and I felt guilty about going off so soo...

# As is the way when I can't concentrate on anything else, I've been making further tweaks to the site. It's something I can do without too much thought. It's not anything major, just better integrating the new look across the rest of the site. I suppose it's cathartic, starting from point A and getting to B so that it actually matches your vision.

# StrugglingThe Thursday before Easter (2nd April) was my two-week meds review. The sertraline would have been out of my system, but the citalopram wouldn't be at full efficacy. It certainly felt that way. The few days before had been increasingly difficult with low moods and feeling tearful. I had to log off from work early on the Wednesday because I couldn't focus and just wanted to cry. The doctor suggested this was most likely due to the transition 1 and suggested keeping to the same dose...

# Now that I have a couple of new synth stands 1 I need to reorganise everything. Again. It all feels a bit cramped and claustrophobic. Also, I need to significantly improve the power management. I've seen some reasonably priced, rack mounted power conditioners which I will consider before thinking about anything else. The only thing missing from the studio, if that's the right word, is a polysynth. Maybe something like the Pro 800. I've got enough gear, I just need to get on and use it, real...

# I've been going to town with more thematic changes: about >> ident hello >> EHLO colophon >> specs reader >> inbound follow >> tune in The URL structure is all staying the same — things like /about, /hello, and /feeds are well established — but it's fun to have a play with terminology.

# Home is where the start is The new site homepage is now live! It takes a few cues from the old version, but introduces a new aesthetic that I have carried over to the rest of the site. I may do more once things are settled and I've ensured there are no glitches. I was struggling to find a screenshot of the previous homepage (before I switched to going straight to the blog) so had to grab one from an old video. It's not the absolute latest — it doesn't have the title and bottom bars — but th...

# The new homepage is just about done — I'll probably make it live tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm making a lot of changes to the main site theme so that it better matches. Light mode should be just about done (there's always a chance I've missed something) but dark mode is currently a work in progress. 1 Things are going to look a little strange until I've finished. I'm really happy with how it's all working out. is that just a polite way of saying a hot mess ↩

# I'm working on a new homepage for the blog; something more modular that acts as a springboard. I've been wanting to do something new for a while, though not known which way I wanted to take it. Say what you will about GenAI, I asked ChatGPT for some ideas out of left field, and it gave some pretty cool options. I'm running with one that I've made significant alterations to. It deliberately has a different aesthetic, but I still need to better visually tie it in with the rest of the site.

# Time to refresh the phone home screen.

# There I was, bemoaning constant tweaks to the site, and I made some more. 😆 I've enhanced swipe to navigate. Can't see the video? Click here to watch... Can't see the video? Click here to watch...

# On this day ten years ago, I returned to the blog after a two-and-a-half-year break and set myself on the path that would ultimately lead to where I am today. It was a true landmark moment. I hadn't been happy with what I was doing, so stepped away to explore other things. A year with the #write365 project on Google+ left me burnt out and it took another year to feel ready to return, but on new terms. It was a fresh start with a minimal theme 1 and all older posts moved to an archive. I sli...

# Colin Devroe pointed out that a detail in his kanban app Signboard: as you drag a card it begins to slightly tilt in the direction that you’re dragging This is exactly the kind of minutiae I love and get lost in. I recently added CSS to fade, blur, resize, and tilt elements as they scroll on/off the screen, which gives me a similar sense of pleasure. And, of course, I've had the ability to swipe left & right on a touchscreen to go forward and back through the days on the blog. Inspired by...