diary on James Alvarez

Home garden office - Self build - Part 1: Design

Sat, 23 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

We are having a baby soon! That and the likelihood that I will continue to need a room to work from home, we decided that it was worth looking at getting a garden office, if it can be done within a budget. Both pre-made off-the-shelf buildings, and custom built ones are quite pricey. If we are talking about something insulated with electrics, windows, doors all set up and built, the cheapest I have found is > £12000. Self build however I am managing to squeeze everything in at £4500, a huge saving. It's an undertaking I'm heading into somewhat blindly as I don't personally know anyone who has built anything like this - but I'm pretty optimistic now I've done my research. I have been inspired by similar projects here and here.

Too much wine during lockdown?

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I think he's trying to tell me I am drinking a little too much. Well, it's Christmas and it's just been 2020, what does he expect!

Live updates during PHP dev - without React or Watchify

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Recently I decided to go back to basics and rewrite my site and blog in as minimal format as possible. No libraries or frameworks, no database, all hand coded, fast loading and clean etc. However, one of the things I really missed from developing with stuff like React was being able to see changes on screen as and when you make them.

For those who haven't used React or watchify, its quite cool, as they detect when source files are updated, recompile the whole site, and present it to the browser automatically.