May 2024 Work Log (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Here's everything I worked on during the month of May, exclusively for patrons. This month is a little bit light, since I had some contract dev work on top of my normal job, and I've been trying to finish up my new personal site.

Alt Text Creator

I released the first update to my Alt Text Generator browser extension in May, version 1.1. It addressed a bug where the welcome page would appear before cloud sync was complete (thus giving incorrect information about the saved API key), and tried to fix a bug where the context menu would not appear in Firefox. I say "tried" because it still seems to be happening, and i haven't fully figured out the root cause.

I'm hoping I can release a more complete update soon with more bug fixes and support for the new GPT-4o AI model, especially since the new AI model can generate alt text at roughly half the price of the current GPT-4 Vision API.

Tech Tales

This month I released a new Movie Club episode of Tech Tales! Me, Joe Fedewa, and Zachary Wander discussed Tron: Legacy, in what is now the longest episode of Tech Tales to date (1 hours, 21 minutes). You can listen to it on YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

I also rolled out a new simplified website for Tech Tales this month. My goal was to make it faster to jump to the show's page on popular podcast apps and streaming services, with the main links further towards the top and more visible. I also removed the Google Podcasts link because, well, that's dead now.

PhotoStack

This month I rolled out an updated home page for PhotoStack, with updated explanations for some of the features. There are also now a fallback message that appears for people using ad blockers, asking them to donate to support development.

I don't plan on blocking PhotoStack entirely for adblock users, or rolling out more aggressive popups or notifications. All these mechanisms are pretty easy to work around, anyways. If Link Cleaner ever gets approved for Google ads, it will work the same there.

The Spacebar

I published one article on The Spacebar this month about setting up and using an original iPod in 2024. It was a lot of fun!

As a side note, the article about avoiding Opera and Opera GX I wrote in January went semi-viral again earlier this month. A lot of people shared it on social media, and it was also being pushed by Google Discover feed (along with a few other older articles). I got 15 new email subscribers within the past few days, and more followers on other platforms, so that's pretty cool!