I’ve been feeling restless about my blog for a good long while. Wanting to update, not quite wanting to commit the words I want to say to the vastness that is the internet. However, a resurgence in indie websites and personal blogging has given me a bit of motivation, so I’m hoping this is the kick up the butt I need to get moving again.

To “celebrate” this I’ve gone old school with my theme – partly inspired by one of mine from 2006 (yes, I’m that old) and partly inspired by McLuhan by Anders Norén. I’ve thrown this together in a couple of hours, so testing has been limited especially on mobile devices – but I’ll worry about that later. I also plan on adding a dark mode, because of course.

The key thing about this update is going back to basics and stripping out a lot of the superfluous imagery. Adding images to my blog was always an attempt to please the crowd and not because I actually gave a shit, and I think that’s part and parcel of why I started to withdraw. This was about my words in 2002, and should be about my words now.

I’m going to try and blog once a week until the habit kicks in again, but how many times have I said that before? We’ll see…

As I head into week 5 of my personal covid-19 lockdown experience, I am increasingly finding the days are blurring together. My mental health is up and down, although my hormones are partly to blame this week. Since my last post on lockdown, the kids have moved into official Easter Holidays territory. Normally this would… read full entry »

(Update 2019-08-07: this article is now available in Brazilian Portuguese: 10 dicas para um site WordPress mais rápido) — Website speed is a huge factor in your search engine (specifically Google) ranking: As part of that effort, today we’re including a new signal in our search ranking algorithms: site speed. Site speed reflects how quickly… read full entry »

After a brief twitter conversation yesterday, I realised that I have over 17 years of blog posts on this site, but no way of distinguishing those actually worth reading from what is mostly a collection of personal old waffle. So, here’s my jemjabella all time top ten, as decided right now on no scientific basis… read full entry »

After spending the past week or so having a regularly scheduled blog crisis, I spent most of last night hunched over my laptop (literally, my back is killing me this morning) poking and prodding at the keyboard, trying to come up with something new. I’ve felt for a while that my blog wasn’t accurately representing… read full entry »

With the recent announcement over on my professional blog that I’m now celebrating 5 years of working for myself as a freelance developer, it feels somewhat bittersweet that I am also announcing the closure of one of my side projects: WAHMweb. It has been a labour of love over the past 5+ years. Designed originally… read full entry »

As I mentioned earlier this month, I recently followed some bloggers on twitter with the goal of inspiring me to blog more. It’s kinda worked: I have a lot of ideas floating about my head at the minute. Whether they’ll making it into an actual blog post is another matter, but step 1 complete. Winning! However,… read full entry »

I followed a bunch of bloggers on twitter today. My grand plan is to follow, be inspired by their energy and regular posting, and thus start posting regularly again. Hahahahaha. Realistically, however, I’ve already noticed a worrying trend amongst these ~cool~ bloggers: they’re all young twenty-somethings with no kids, no mortgage and very few of… read full entry »

Last week I told you all about Team SCA‘s bloody AMAZING all-female crew winning the 8th leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, and that in honour of their win I was encouraged to take part in a challenge that would test my boundaries. I picked the 300ft bungee jump: the equivalent of jumping off the… read full entry »

Back in June 2015 Team SCA won the 8th leg of the Volvo Ocean Race which in its whole, spans 5 continents and over 39000 nautical miles. The first all-female crew to enter the Volvo Ocean Race in more than a decade, the women battled across 647 gruelling miles, which saw multiple crew members suffering… read full entry »