Hi, I’m Alex. I’m a software developer, writer, and hand crafter from the UK.

I build systems for digital preservation – making sure that digital archives remain safe and accessible into the far future. Currently I think about photos at the Flickr Foundation, and before that I helped build services to store and search the museum and library collections at Wellcome Collection.

I enjoy writing, and I’ve been posting at this domain since 2012. I write about a variety of non-fiction topics, with a particular focus on software development. If you want to know what’s on my mind, check out the articles I’ve written, the talks I’ve given, and the lessons I’ve learned.

In my free time, I enjoy doing art and simple hand crafts to relax. I’ve had a lot of fun doing cross stitch, origami and paper craft, and doodling sketches of implausible sci-fi vehicles.

I’m queer and trans. My pronouns are “they” or “she”.

This website is a place to share stuff I find interesting or fun. I hope you like it!

Favourite articles

Here are some of my favourite things that I’ve written:

• 

  NEW

  Always running

  When the fire starts, I am already running for the exit. I run because somebody must show the way.

• 

  How I create static websites for tiny archives

  Start with a simple HTML file, then add features like templates, sorting, and filtering as they become useful.

• 

  Drawing inner/outer strokes in SVG (clips and masks)

  Showing how clips and masks work, and how they can be used to draw inner and outer strokes of a shape.

• 

  Unexpected errors in the BagIt area

  Exploring the many ways a BagIt bag can be invalid, and how you might want to build a process for validating bags to ensure the quality of your digital archive.

• 

  Mountaintop moments

  The amazing events that let us temporarily escape from our lives, and how to deal with the emotional crash that comes afterward.

• 

  Using DynamoDB as a calculator

  Taking advantage of Amazon’s least-loved compute platform.

Here are some of the topics I write about:

• aws
• blogging about blogging
• books
• code crimes
• colour
• cross-stitch
• css
• digital preservation
• drawing things
• fun stuff
• generative art
• images
• javascript
• maths
• my tools
• personal
• photography
• python
• ruby
• rust
• screenshots
• swift
• talks
• web development
• wellcome collection

If you want to stay up-to-date with what I’m doing, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter:

I’ll send you an email at the end of every month, with a short summary of what I’ve been up to, links to stuff I’ve written, and a list of things I’ve enjoyed recently.

Check out the archives if you want to see what you’ll be getting.

I won’t spam you, I won’t sell your email address, and you can unsubscribe whenever you like.