🇵🇱 Przejdź do polskiej wersji tego wpisu / Go to polish version of this post

First, let me quote a song by the band Elektryczne Gitary, originally it is in Polish, but I will try to translate it – “And what am I doing here, uh-uh, what are you doing here”. As for what you, dear Reader, are doing here, you have to answer that yourself. However, to the part of the question about me, I would answer briefly that I have always been looking for my, but truly my own, place on the Internet where I could write about literally everything that seems interesting to me at the moment and deserves a few words. I partially accomplished this through Twitter, and after its downfall, I continue to do so on Fediverse, specifically on Mastodon. However, social media never give a sense of being fully at home. It’s different when it comes to a modest blog that will exist as long as I want it to and will be active enough as much as I have the desire for it.

So here I am and right at the beginning I establish the first rule of my blogging – I will not force myself to do anything here. If I feel inspired, I will write a lot, and if I don’t, there will be less, that’s just how it is. I also don’t plan to introduce a chronological approach here, so it’s possible that I will jump quite intensively between topics. This is a healthy approach for the author, but definitely not a recommended way to create a place where the reader will want to come back, because the key to creating such conditions is to establish a sensible publication interval and stick to it, and I certainly won’t guarantee that here. Well… That’s not exactly what I’m aiming for here, but I also don’t want to completely discourage those who are reading this, so I’ll say that I’ll try to write here first of all substantially, secondly interestingly, and thirdly concisely, although as you can see, the last one is not really my strong side, so let’s move on to something more specific!

What will I be talking about here?

The first answer that comes to my mind to the above question is “I have absolutely no idea”! But seriously, I have many things in my head that I would like to share with the world, regardless of the effect it will have, i.e. whether anyone will read it.

TL;DR
PHP projects, Open-Source, Work as a bus constructor, Self-hosting, Apple, iPad Only, Linux

Definitely, I would like to share my ideas for projects here, as well as describe those that I have already done and share the knowledge that I have gained while working on them. I hobby-program in PHP, creating websites, but not the pretty ones, only the functional ones that lack a designer’s touch due to my lack of taste, but each of them does something that is useful to me and, if I share them, also to others. For example, since one of my interests is also sport shooting, I am interested in firearms, so I created a price comparison engine for firearms and ammunition in Poland, which is now quite popular. It is available at CenyBroni.pl. Currently, I am working on its updated version because with programming, you first write something, and then after a few months, you realize that you would do it completely differently now. Another project is Grazdanka.pl. This is an educational game which task is to learn the alphabet used, among others, in Ukraine and Russia. The third and final project of these “more interesting” ones that I want to share here is Twittodon.com. It is an ultra-simple but effective tool that allows you to verify the connection between your accounts on Twitter and Mastodon.

Programming is my hobby, which I pursue after work, although after the birth of my child it’s mostly at night, which often results in extreme sleep deprivation. Well, I can’t help it that often when I have an idea that seems interesting to me, I have to realize it as quickly as possible, because otherwise I can’t focus on anything else. I am also a huge enthusiast of open-source software, so I publish the code of the vast majority of my projects as fully accessible for viewing, and even duplication, on GitHub. The words hobby and open-source clearly indicate that this is not a source of income for me, so how do I support my family? Professionally, I am chief designer at PAK-PCE Polski Autobus Wodorowy Sp. z o.o. (Polish Hydrogen Bus), which belongs to the Polsat Plus Group and is involved in the production of hydrogen buses (looking at the name, unbelievable, right?) under the Neso Bus brand, but also other things related to hydrogen, renewable energy sources (RES), electromobility and energy. In short, everything that is green and cares about the future of next generations.

Projects based on PHP are one thing, but I also have a passion for setting up my own self-hosted solutions, which means running them on my own hardware without relying on someone else’s server infrastructure. I do this on various types of servers starting with Raspberry Pi boards, through ODROID-like copies, to the Fujitsu Q920 mini computer, which I recently purchased. I described how to create your own home server on a separate blog odroid.pl, but I will definitely refer to it here and probably partially duplicate topics because I want to have everything in one place so that I can link it later when someone needs an explanation of something I’ve already described. Speaking of self-hosted solutions, it’s impossible not to mention the smart home. I’ve been exploring this topic for some time now, and I have a dedicated server with Home Assistant OS installed, so I’ll definitely want to mention a few words about it too.

Aside from all that, I’m an Apple fanboy and I’m not afraid to admit it. Due to software requirements for my work, I use Windows for work purposes. I rely on various Linux distributions for all of my servers. However, the main ecosystem I use is Apple’s (iOS, iPadOS, and macOS). The apple logo is on my phone, laptop, and even my watch, but lately I’ve been discovering more and more benefits of using an iPad as my main device for getting things done. Have you ever heard of the “iPad Only” ideology? If not, that’s great, because it will definitely be a recurring topic on this blog. I’ve decided to create and run this blog entirely on an iPad, so we’ll see how that goes in the long run.

It was supposed to be short…

I still have many thoughts in my head that I could pour out here, but I am also aware that this post has become dangerously lengthy. I am just getting started, so ten deep breaths and I am peeling myself away from the keyboard, because otherwise I will end up cramming my entire life story into one post and will only be left with shutting down the blog and turning off the lights. Finally, I leave you with the song that has been playing in my head since the beginning of writing this post. This is a Polish classic music, so despite not understanding the text, listen respectfully.