Got a new camera. I used to shoot Nikon DSLR, but sold that gear years ago. Re-learning all this stuff, with Fujifilm. Photographers, send me your tips! #photography #fujifilm

Anyone doing a Secret Santa this year? I've built a little app to make it super-simple. Check it out: santa.hellotechnology.co.uk #webapp #saas #christmas #secretsanta

Whitby Lit Fest was exhausting, and at times stressful, but ultimately an absolute joy. Massive thanks to CauseUK for their excellent work, to all the authors, volunteers and my colleagues on the committee. A job well done. And yes, that is me chatting with Lee Child. #whitbylitfest

Just moved my desk and chair into my new office. I officially become a tenant at Church House tomorrow. Looking forward to having some space to call my own again after 18 months working from home.

I'm running a full-funded 5 week course called 'Digital Transformation in Tourism' for businesses working in the tourism industry across North Yorkshire. Find out more and sign up here: ynygrowthhub.com/events/whitb... Places are limited, so sign up early to secure your slot. #tourism #marketing

Have been chasing a bottle neck on my server for weeks. Something was causing high load, but none of the usual suspects. High traffic sites were all cached. Bots were mostly being kept out via firewall.

My web app just got used by a real person (who I do not know), to send emails to lots of other real people (who I do not know). That means it's a real thing, right? 🥳 #webapp #indiedev #indiehacker #saas #web #software

This morning I had the pleasure of meeting a new customer, Simon. Well into his 90s, Simon had been locked out of his iMac for nearly two years.

"You've imparted more value in an hour than we got from years of employing a full-time web developer." This is what I was told after an hour's Zoom call this morning. Why did was my input valued? Why had their employee failed to impress? Here are two observations:

This week I've been on-boarding a new church who're starting to use my #SaaS tool (churchplanner.co.uk). They've been working through every feature, adding their data, reporting bugs and recommending improvements all week long. What a joy!

This week I've added a few new fields to Contacts: - Preferred name - Secondary email And I've added the option to use #markdown when editing emails. This makes it easy to add some simple formatting and highlighting inline. Some HTML tags can also be used, for further flexibility.

I've added a couple of new features to Church Planner over the past few weeks. Firstly, a 'training' portal, which makes it easy to put together pages of content on a particular topic and share this with your church family. Here are some ways it could be used:

Always enjoy seeing my work in print. Been out and about putting up banners for Whitby Lit Fest this afternoon - it'll be here before we know it! Check out the programme and get your tickets at whitbylitfest.org.uk #whitbylitfest

For the last few months I've been helping coordinate the launch of Whitby Lit Fest - a brand new event for the town. Ticket sales went live this morning, and they've been flying out! Find out more about the programme and buy your tickets here: whitbylitfest.org.uk/lit-fest-25/ #whitby #litfest

Things have improved. Cracking views from Walla Crag this morning. Tim Chester teaching Colossians is pretty good too 🤓 #keswick #kescon25

Tents pitched. Rain falling. #keswick #britishsummer

Off for our annual trip to Keswick tomorrow. Camping, with 5 children, including a 10 week old baby. The forecast looks less than ideal. #rain #summerholiday #britishsummer

Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn How do you deal with rejection? I've been a freelancer for a long time, long enough to have seen a number of businesses I work with change hands.

I've been invited to join the next edition of @wearedevelopers.bsky.social Live - tomorrow lunch time: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho4m... Looking forward to chatting about the World Congress and CODE100 with @danielcranney.bsky.social and @codepo8.bsky.social 🤓 Tune in here 👇 from 11:30 BST tomorrow.

I got a new gadget a few days ago. No, it's not a new smartphone, nor a new laptop. I didn't splash out on a fancy new monitor either. This gadget is an Bluetooth enabled audio upgrade - but not in the way you might expect. Can you guess?

Heading to Keswick this year? Let's connect 🤓

I always love a trip. Getting anywhere from Whitby always feels like a bit of a mission. But connecting with thousands of other developers IRL at #WeAreDevs and having another opportunity to explore the wonderful city of Berlin definitely made it worth the effort. Some thoughts:

OK, for those who wanted the puzzles and solutions for #CODE100 at this year's #WeAreDevs world congress, here is the readme - we will do more in-depth videos about it later in the month puzzles.code100.dev/code100/edit...

A bit like AI, Elon Musk seems custom-built to undermine everything good and true in the world | Zoe Williams

Catching some of the final afternoon's talks at @wearedevelopers.bsky.social. Feels like AI ethics is the 'website accessibility' of 2025 — something everyone is aware is really important, but very few are actually engaging with it in a positive way.

Landed in Berlin for @wearedevelopers.bsky.social Slept badly. I always wake up several times before an early flight, worrying I've missed my alarm! So, first things first - coffee time. Also, it's raining ☁️

I'm off to Berlin this week to compete in the finals of the @wearedevelopers.bsky.social CODE100 competition. I'm not sure if there are any other Brits in the final, so I'm going to claim that I'm representing the UK, but that may not be entirely accurate 😜

Calling all developers... Next week I'll find myself on stage at @wearedevelopers.bsky.social World Congress as part of the CODE100 finals. If you were me, how would you be preparing for the event? Honestly, anyone got any decent tips? #webdevelopment #frontend #code

Come and join me at @wearedevelopers.bsky.social World Congress next week in Berlin. You'll get a free ticket if you help @codepo8.bsky.social out by moderating a session 👇😀

Hi 🖐 Jack here. I'd meant to get this finished and launched earlier in the year, but other projects took priority. Anyway, in the meantime the app kept getting confused for that other 'Hello Church' in the States. So I've re-named my app, to avoid confusion. New logo too.

Work in progress, but I've just added a 'training' module to my web app. It's a simple way for church leaders to collate and share resources on a particular topic, and either send them out by email or share a public URL with their church family. #webapp #software

Sunshine and blue skies.

I once walked past Jamie Oliver, in his dad's pub. He said hello to my wife. Also, I'm pretty sure I once drove past Zoe Ball, who was riding a bike in Suffolk.

Just imported all my old blog posts into hellotechnology.co.uk/articles - broken links, missing images, the lot. Decided it was better to keep my years of writing in one place, than have it fragment over several domains.

Made it! Never been here before. #mfe25

Just about to hit the road for @middlesbroughfe.co.uk #mfe25. Looking forward to learning some stuff and seeing some people.

Making a good logo even better—featuring the inimitable Jon Hicks. griffin.com/blog/making-... #design #brand #branding #logo #logos

Who's wearing your t-shirt? Think about this. When people buy a t-shirt from Nike, Gymshark, Superdry, Patagonia, The North Face or any other brand, they're paying actual money to become a walking billboard for someone else's business.

Life's full of ups and downs. As are search engine rankings. A few weeks ago I added a few back-links to hellotechnology.co.uk, from client sites I'd built a few years ago. They were still linking to my previous domain. #seo #searchconsole #google

Build an AI chatbot with me using @zapier.bsky.social in less time than it takes to make a decent cup of tea: www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC_F... #ai #chatbot #zapier #automation #customerservice #ux

Every quarter I send out a newsletter to my customers, providing a bit of insight into things going on at Hello Technology HQ. The latest one went out this morning: sh1.sendinblue.com/aeka6mdhtxpf...

Still quite a bit to do, but this is now live... HelloTechnology.co.uk 🚀 #webdesign #freelance

Got hold a new old VW Gamma V radio for my van, which is (almost) original. Now I can play tapes!

Space Invaders on your wrist: the glory years of Casio video game watches

Working on a bit of a re-brand.

Just been out and about visiting clients in my trusty T4. Couldn't resist capturing some of my journey back into Whitby. Such a beautiful day here in Yorkshire!

I've been a bit quiet here lately, too much work and other stuff going on. Managed a bit of DIY done today which has been bugging me for years, and the perfect day to do it. Removed, sanded and re-finished the Velux windows, new blinds to go in. Ready for the imminent arrival of a new baby!

The easiest, fastest, most readily attainable path to clean, uncluttered, authoritative, branded design is through typography.

👉 Toon Titles: Nowhere Bear (A GSAP animation) https://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/blog/toon-titles-nowhere-bear

Have been to this in the past, and would definitely be going again if it wasn't for the imminent arrival of a new baby. If you're able to make it you should definitely go! 👇