Sander van Dragt's Notes

• Sander @ 5 hours ago

  #til It turns out that Jira, the only web software that you need to upgrade your fibre connection for, is a lot faster if you bring your own GUI.

• The problem with the Touch Bar

  Sander @ 5 hours ago

  Michael Tsai posts another excellent roundup and in the midst of it, nails down what Apple got wrong about the Touch Bar:

  There’s this amazing, programmable screen, but there wasn’t really any way to empower the user to do stuff with it.

  My take: Apple has collectively forgotten what makes a personal computer, you know, personal because it has been hammering their doors and windows shut for the last 15 years.

  It’s not about changing the shade of paint on the door, it’s about swapping in bespoke fixtures because the original ones have sharp edges. #technology

• Hello Browser 0.2.0

  Sander @ 22 hours ago

  Hello Browser is a webview window for desktop web apps (written in vala, GTK4, for linux). The goal is to bundle a locally-served web app into something that behaves like a native desktop app.

  What's new

  • Links that open in a new window now open in your default browser. Previously, clicking a target="_blank" link did nothing — the new window request was silently dropped. Hello Browser now hands those URLs off to whatever browser you've set as your system default.
  • Pass a URL directly. You can now run hello-browser https://example.org without the --url flag.
  • Site launchers via make desktop. A new Makefile target generates .desktop entries so a wrapped site shows up in your application menu like any other app.

  Under the hood

  • Ported from GTK3 / WebKitGTK 4.0 to GTK4 + WebKitGTK 6.0. You'll need the GTK4 and WebKitGTK 6.0 development packages to build.
  • Build system streamlined; README updated with current setup instructions.

  Try it on GitHub

  #projects #hello-browser

• Sander @ Monday at 10:32 am

  For anyone starting to fix their own open-source issues with patches on top of apt packages, but cannot upstream it due to AI policies: https://github.com/svandragt/elementary-patches I built some tooling to make this easy, and this is where I plan to keep my elementaryOS patches. #projects

• Towards human focused personal computing

  Sander @ April 25 at 6:46 am

  THE PEOPLE DO NOT YEARN FOR AUTOMATION captures a lot of valid perspectives, but it sidelines what actually made personal computing compelling: the ability to shape tools to your own needs.

  For me, what's exciting is building tools that enhances people’s humanity and give them agency; the original spirit of personal computing. The article frames people's AI skepticism around data extraction and automation. But I think people will embrace tools that enhance their individuality, not surveil it.

  I reject the toothbrush that builds a profile based on data sent to the app over Bluetooth. But I celebrate the toothbrush that adapts to the individuality of someone's mouth. That's what personal means in PC and it's what we need to claim back before the software industry decides we can't.

  #technology

• Thoughts on Claude Code auto-mode

  Sander @ April 24 at 4:11 pm

  Started experimenting with Claude code auto-mode, isolated by a devcontainer from Anthropic that restricts network connections with the project mapped in. I passed on a milestone of GitHub issues that I wrote up and out came five PRs.

  It’s unable to use any local machine tooling, I’m learning nothing about the project that’s not described in PRs and all my commits are unverified and coauthored.

  It made decisions I wouldn’t have.

  Put the pull requests are interesting and it’s like I wrote little gifts to myself.

  My initial impressions are that it currently is suitable for “one off project” type projects but it’s interesting for learning purposes. #technology

• Sander @ April 22 at 6:48 am

  JQL syntax in JIRA is such that negative filtering, eg Labels != Refinement also filters out all the tickets without any value. #til

• Sander @ April 22 at 6:39 am

  Linux Mint may have be an established name, but they don't receive enough donations for a full-time engineer:

  The March 2026 Mint blog shows that [Linux Mint] received over $26,000 in donations. In comparison, the Zorin OS 18.1 announcement claims an impressive 3.3 million downloads since version 18 appeared. source

  Donationware is often suggested as a user friendly way to support software, but reality shows it's not viable. I recommend others to sponsor your daily driver OS, which in effect is "paying back" for the community support you have received (but I have to stress, you're not entitled to).

• Sander @ April 11 at 11:58 am

  Any developers using bash/zsh shell and git can use this code snippet to effectively git fetch when entering a directory:

  function chpwd {
    GIT_ROOT=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel 2>/dev/null)
  
    if [ -n "$GIT_ROOT" ]; then
      FETCH_STAMP_FILE="$HOME/.cache/chpwd_git_fetch_$(echo "$GIT_ROOT" | tr '/' '_')"
      if [ ! -f "$FETCH_STAMP_FILE" ] || [ $(find "$FETCH_STAMP_FILE" -mmin +10) ]; then
        ({ git fetch --all --quiet && touch "$FETCH_STAMP_FILE"; } > /dev/null 2>&1 &)
      fi
    fi
  }

  This snippet acts like a lightweight background updater, seamlessly integrating with your shell navigation to keep your local metadata fresh, reduce manual fetches and out of date merges. #til

• Sander @ March 30 at 4:56 pm

  Do your best work with Claude, but for users in the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), you’re best avoiding the afternoon and early evenings.