Yes, I am alive. :) I'm sorry for the lack of updates. I meant to make a post before taking a break for the summer , then kept postponing until... summer was over. Oh well.

Plans for the website

As soon as I can really focus on coding again, the first thing I'll want to do is to add Kanji to Keyword review mode for the SRS. This has been requested from time to time - and I will finally add the option to do so. This shouldn't take too long to implement, but it could still be weeks before I can dive knee-deep into the code.

Next unless some good suggestions come up in the meantime I am eyeing two things:

• I could finally look at adding JLPT lessons so users can freely switch between JLPT and RTK. I think that would be pretty cool - so you could eg. complete JLPT N5. Then switch to RTK and the way the dashboard currently works, simply advance in index order "filling in" the gaps.

• Another exciting project would be to completely upgrade the Review area, removing obsolete code so we can finally have something like dark/light/custom themes for the review screen - as well as more layout options. This could keep me busy for months, but I think also much needed.

All I can tell you for sure is I will work on the "Kanji to Keyword" SRS option as soon as I am able which could still be a few weeks away - an then I'll work from there.

What I've been up to (the geeky stuff)

In late summer I have been busy switching OS yet again. I bought a M1 Mac Mini last year. It was a great environment to work with, and I wish I could keep it. Long story short, since I do not actually need to do anything macOS-specific I figured it made more sense for me to move back to the PC.

In late 2020 I built my last PC. It's still pretty good and it just seemed silly to let it gather dust. I thought I would sell it, and use a Steam Deck for occasional gaming. That's not a great prospect of course - much easier to resell a Mac Mini with warranty, than a PC. Thankfully as months went by the cogs started turning and then it all made sense to me: move back to the PC, cancel my Steam Deck pre-order, and instead try switching to Ubuntu as my main OS.

While I was already familiar with Ubuntu desktop, and I think it was pretty good already in 20.04 - I just never really considered gaming on it. It was always my "development" environment. Valve's backing of Wine/Proton and the success of the Steam Deck made me consider an option I didn't even consider before. Once I installed Steam I was a bit startled... it looks pretty much exactly like it does on Windows. These memories of trying to run games with "Wine" from 10+ years ago... finally put to rest. I haven't run a lot of games yet, I tried No Man Sky, old school Guild Wars 1 (I added it as a "non Steam game"), and even my all time favorite MMO EverQuest II. They all run just fine on my PC (a Core i5-9600K, and a GTX 1080). Looking at the "protondb" website it looks like at least half my library including AAA games like DOOM and Dark Souls III should run fine too.

So this September I have been busy setting up Ubuntu 22.04.1 - as well as restoring my development environment (VSCode, Sublime Merge, docker, etc). I was on 20.04 before switching to the Mac Mini last April - so I had to upgrade my native Ubuntu partition anyway.

Only this time I spent some more time really test driving this as my main OS. Basically asking "Could I delete my Windows partition right now?". It's almost there. Ubuntu has LOTS of issues which is besides this post - some really silly ones like my sound output device randomly changing on reboot. Most issues have some kind of workaround. But the long and short of it is, it's "good enough" for me, and to be able to finally just use ONE OS instead of switching context all the time is a big relief.

So anyway... the PC is sorted.

Now I have to setup a new desk. My main desk where I worked at home last year is in a back room which has no heating. It's good in the summer but in the winter I have an electric heater that could increase the bill by 60-80 € in the coldest month. This year with the increasing energy prices in Europe, I felt it made more sense to move to a smaller desk in my living room where there is heating. No worries, I'm fine. I just felt like I am throwing money away by heating a room just to sit at the desk. The front room faces the street - which is VERY noisy in the summer - but for the winter months it should work out.

I'm still waiting for a table top from IKEA, and then a smaller chair that can fit under a 100x60 cm desk. So I expect to be busy setting up things for another couple weeks.

I'll use this time to keep fiddling with this new Ubuntu 22.04 OS. I don't have a whole lot of indispensable apps - but I am really a stickler when it comes to desktop experience... Finding a replacement for MusicBee has been a challenge. Lots of very capable players, but most of them have a pretty outdated design imho. Finally I found a player called "Tauon Music Box" which with some tweaking looks kinda similar to MusicBee, with a clean "metro style" UI and a mini player.

Other musings

I can't wait to get back into the code. The Kanji to Keyword SRS option is not difficult to add - and should provide a moderate motivational boost (always nice to be able to say "done!").

Last but not least I'd like to thank everybody who supported the website this year. I wish I could post more often - either here or on Patreon - so I am super thankful that we even have 40 patrons as of writing. There has also been continued support on PayPal. Overall there has been a small, but noticable uptick on Patreon/PayPal. I don't know if I can attribute it to the dashboard updates as I have few email feedback. Or maybe people just like to see me more active on the site.

JapanesePod101 is not doing as well though. And it's been tricky for me to figure out how to better integrate it. I knew that pushing the banner further down with the new dashboard would have an impact, and it definitely had an impact. I think the main value of the banner is for new visitors. Lots of poeple come and go, and maybe they are not interested in the site - but are curious and check out JPOD. And if they end up buying a subscription for example, they are still supporting the site - so it's a win win situation. My hunch is because the homepage is more busy now, it takes attention away from the banner and it doesn't see as much click through as it used to. So I may experiment in the future moving it around.

I mean I could simplify the homepage and just move the dashboard to somewhere else - which has the advantage that returning users could simply bookmark the dashboard and the ad could only show up on the blog / home. Maybe this is a good idea? I guess it will be worth trying out.

Cheers!