10 Years of JustinVollmer.com

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of this website. It’s really, really hard to believe that I’ve been posting to and updating the site for a full decade already, and even crazier when I look back at how things have changed over the years, both in terms of the website, and in terms of me as a human as well.

Reflections on JustinVollmer.com

January 6, 2014, was supposed to be a work day for me. However, where I was living at the time was under a Level 3 snow emergency that day, and so instead of driving to the office, I stayed home. Back then, I was much less equipped to work remotely than I am now, and so I didn’t have anything pressing to work on, and decided to set up a website. I had heard of Squarespace, and after taking a quick look at its features, decided it was probably the easiest way to start out. And so, with that, JustinVollmer.com was born! 🎉 If you want to get an idea of my thought process at the time, check out my Welcome blog post, left up for posterity.

2023 Year in Review

Wow, this year has seemingly flown by! Somehow, it’s already December 31st, which means, it’s time for me to publish my year in review! I’ve decided once again this year to focus on major changes (or how things have stayed the same) in the last 12 months, instead of writing a sequential highlight reel.

Not a lot has changed in my personal life over the past 12 months, which is largely fine with me (I’m sure that will come as a shock to those who know me well… sarcasm). I am still attending the same LCMS church that I referenced in last year’s review, and continuing my study of theology, though at a slower rate than in 2022.

My Default Apps at the End of 2023

I first saw this trend a little over a month ago from Kev Quirk, and soon after, most of my favorite bloggers had joined in. Robb Knight has even been compiling a list, and I really wanted to jump on the bandwagon. But, unfortunately, I was busy enough that I didn’t have the time to write up my own post. That is, until now…

And so, without further ado, here’s a list of my default apps at the end of 2023:

Experimenting with Immich

Something that’s been on my tech to-do list for a number of years is to set up a self-hosted photo/video storage solution for myself that utilizes my home server, and can be easily backed up to an external storage solution if/as needed. My plans have been for this to initially not be a replacement for something like iCloud Photos, but rather a complimentary solution, archiving photos in case something ever happens to my iCloud Photo library. This weekend, I took the first step in implementing such a solution.

Mercury Weather

There is something special about using an app that the developer has clearly put a lot of time and effort into, and it shows in the small details, the little finishing touches that make the app a delight to use.

A few weeks ago I ran across a post on Mastodon by the developers of Mercury Weather showing off screenshots of their upcoming (now available) macOS version. I liked what I saw, and went and downloaded the iOS app to play with.

Use a Custom Domain Name

From a blog post by Manuel Moreale:

Please, for the love of all things web-related, if you decide to do anything online, get yourself a domain name. Don’t rely on the 3rd party domain provided by services like Blogger, Substack, Tumblr, whatever. Yes, it’s an extra cost but owning your URLs is important. If Substack dies tomorrow, all your fancy-cool-name.substack.com URLs are gone. And all the links scattered across the web that were pointing to them are now broken.

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An Update to My Reading List

This afternoon I updated the format of my reading list. For those who haven’t looked at it before, I’ve kept a public list of the books that I’ve completed reading since around 2016. Originally, I modeled it heavily on a similar concept from essayist Jamie Todd Rubin, and included notations for the format I the book was in (e-book, physical book, or audiobook), if it was a reread, and whether I recommended the book or not.