Issues with sending account related emails as well as the contact form are hopefully fixed now.

I have now finally implemented the free GMail SMTP to replace the unreliable shared hosting's builtin mail. The limit of 500 emails per day with Google is plenty enough for Koohii - whereas a limit of 100 emails per day as part of the free tier on some services like SendGrid was just a tad under what we need. On a really good day I've seen peaks of 80 registrations. Throughout the year when traffic increases it's not rare to see 40-60 registrations per 24h period, with an average around 30. Add to that password update and forgot password emails and we would definitely hit a 100 emails/day limit sometimes during the year.

The main downside I found out using the free GMail SMTP - is all the emails must be sent "From" the Kanji Koohii email. For the contact form it prevents me from setting the user's email as the sender. It means 2-3 extra clicks/copy-paste when I reply to a Contact form message but it's a small price to pay for the free service.

Hopefully this provides a better experience for new users as well as returning users - turns out Forgot Password is a feature that's pretty frequently used!

Old laptops, new tricks

Since I recently moved to a new co-loc arrangement and I don't have my desk yet I did this update on a late 2009 Macbook Pro! I needed something to keep me busy and to be able handle Koohii emails etc. I normally never work on a laptop but I had this one lying around so I figured, why not, let's see what we can do with it. I had a 240 GB SSD lying around, so I grabbed 8 GB RAM fairly cheap on Amazon and loaded it up with Ubuntu 22.04 and Windows 10!

You can run some decent looking games like Tomb Raider Anniversary or Guild Wars, and of course emulators like DuckStation but I thought modern web tools like docker, npm Vite etc would be an issue... turns out I had low expectations! Running php/apache/mariadb in docker is pretty lightweight and building the frontend with Vite doesn't take long. It does take a good second when switching between pages in development mode however. Obviously the CPU usage goes up and down wildly when I fire up VSCode, or open Google Chrome or when I play YouTube videos. But otherwise the CPU tends to sit around 20%. No doubt it could be even lower with a lightweight Linux distro but I like the bells and whistles of Ubuntu + GNOME.

Turns out the biggest downside to using this late 2009 Macbook Pro laptop is the screen! The colours on this LCD panel are washed out and it's really not usable for serious front end since you can't do any sort of subtle shading when designing a web page. This old laptop would be insane with a good screen.

I'm aware that here is some kind of server issue that prevents email from being sent. I don't have a quick solution.

For account related questions and support like resetting your password you can send a message to kanji • koohii ＠ gmail • com (use normal periods and no spaces).

Hi everybody. I hope things are going well for everyone. It's been pretty quiet here. I want to reassure everyone that yes I am still here. I've actually been in hospital for over a month. Since it's pretty close to home I was able to sneak in a few times.

Last year was difficult and I am sorry there wasn't any significant developments. There were attempts to move to a more hands on server - but in light of my recent hospitalization I think the decision to stay on a fully managed server was a good one.

I should still look into moving to a different host perhaps as HostGator did a pretty sudden increase of their basic hosting and not everyone was happy about it.

On the plus side since last year we have reached over 50 active patrons on Patreon! Ever since the Patreon was created we've always hovered around 40-45 active patrons so it's really cool to have reached this milestone - and I am grateful for the support.

One of the developments since hopsitalization is I am moving in some kind of "co-living" house which will be much better for me. During COVID I lost my appartment in Brussels and being in my father's home when I'm closing in 50 was definitely taking a toll - not to mention the stressful environment in the neighborhood which I've hinted in previous posts. So this is very good for me - but will take some adaptation. I have basically a private room, and shared living spaces, kitchen etc. like a typical co-living rental.

I hope as I get better to find some motivation to do some updates this year. As part of this move I am also mulling over getting a laptop but can't make my mind quite yet.

An Apple Macbook Air would be plenty enough for development/maintenance and it seems like it's possible to do some light gaming on it very recently with Game Porting Toolkit. Recent developments with Asahi Linux are very interesting too. The Macbook could be basically a beautifully designed linux laptop as well - albeit they haven't yet got the DisplayPort over USB-C working if I am correct and that's definitely something I would want. I am still sporting a good old 1440p LED Cinema display with Mini-DisplayPort cable.

I could also just move my tower PC to the new co-living space, but a laptop would allow me to move around the house. I looked into Linux certified laptops as well and they all have their quirks I saw some good reviews for Tuxedo InfinityBook Pro 14.

Thing is if it's not going to replace a gaming PC - I'm thinking I should probably focus on having a laptop completely dedicated to Koohii and other small projects - so it is always available in emergency (actually, this reminds me a recent email from HostGator - there will be some small down-times as they will finally add php 8.x support to the shared hosting). With that in mind perhaps a base 15 inch M2 Macbook Air would be a good pick - with the option to turn it into a Linux laptop eventually. I like macOS - but being able to get really comfortable with ONE OS is definitely a plus. I'd be pretty happy to run Ubuntu 24.04 instead, especially that last time I heard macOS still doesn't have native containers so development with Docker was noticeably slower on my M1 Mac Mini - that said this was 2+ years ago and things may have improved.

What else is going on here? I am pleased to let you guys know that I am now finally the owner of an actual smartphone. Ha! I bought a refurbished iPhone 12 Mini and I really enjoy it. My small gaming related project Diablo 2 Runewizard looks pretty wonky on it so that could be a good little warmup to get back into CSS.

For Koohii though I think we did a pretty good job? There's definitely improvements to be made but I did surprisingly well with the preview in Google Devtools considering I never actually used the site on a smartphone before (I did check it out once or twice on a coworker's phone). So this could also be some small tweaks I could work on this year to get me back in the groove.

Hope you enjoyed the off the cuff post!

Sometime last year I started the tradition of sharing some of my favorite electronic music to end the post. So today it is Megalon - Darkness a timeless techno album from 1994. Here is the album on bandcamp.

Update: JapanesePod101's Holiday Countdown Deals ended.