Status Report: Oh! What's this? An email? For me?!
That's right, I finally got around to setting up an email newsletter and fixing the issues with the signup form! You can now sign up for my newsletter and I'll send out emails when I have content to share. I did a couple of updates to the site as well, so you will find the signup at the bottom of each page.
What went well?
In the last couple of weeks, I was able to come up with a more concrete plan for the projects I would like to work on this year after doing some brainstorming. The Mad Fientist conveniently updated his article about why everyone should start a business, which had an exercise about finding the intersection of your interests, things you would like to improve, people you would like to meet, and skills you would like to utilize. My intersection was: Python, game dev, web dev, tech, and financial independence. I already have a couple of ideas that I am looking forward to working on; after I finish the initial Python tutorial.
On the python tutorial side of things, I have a basic lesson plan put together. I am going to focus on just the basics for the initial tutorial, and move on to more advanced topics in some form later. I was able to make some improvements to my python web editor, which I will use in the tutorial. There are a couple of things I would like to add to it before I am ready to write the tutorial, I think I should have something ready before the next status report.
It was good to get some updates done on the site including the email. I used iCloud+ to set up a custom domain for my email, which was nice since I didn't want to pay for Google Workspaces. I wrote up a tutorial for setting it up on my site!
What did I struggle with?
Although this doesn't directly affect me, because I was laid off months ago, it's not great to see all the continued layoffs from the tech industry(Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and many more). I hope things improve as one day I might want to go back to a regular job.
I bought some more ram for my PC as a last-ditch effort to get it to stop crashing. It didn't work so I ordered one of the new MacBook Pros. I am excited to get that next week and relegate my PC back to gaming, which somehow it doesn't seem to crash on...
It's a little uncomfortable to be purchasing new equipment without having an income steam, but I am sure I'll be able to figure that out in time.
Things I used and discovered
- Mad Fientist - A blog and podcast about financial independence.
- Excalidraw - A whiteboard tool for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams. I am using this to brainstorm my business ideas.
- State of JS - A survey of the JavaScript ecosystem. It's interesting to see emerging trends if UI development. I am looking forward to learning more about Astro and Svelte.
- iCloud+ - A lot of cloud services including custom domain email!
- Mailchimp - A marketing automation platform and email marketing service. This is what I am using to send out my newsletter. For now...
How am I feeling?
I am feeling good about the progress I have made and the direction I am headed. It was great to get some brainstorming done and have ideas on the horizon to work towards. I also started the process of forming my LLC! So things feel a little less nebulous now.