Mimi Uploader is no longer in active development
I have decided to stop development of Mimi Uploader. The current beta will not be released, and there will be no more releases in the future.
The app will still be available in the App Store and continue to work. If I decide to remove it completely, I will give at least one month’s notice.
I thank you all for your support over the five year lifespan of this app.
If you’re wondering why I’ve decided to do this, please read on, although you might also want to read about the history of Mimi Uploader that I wrote 18 months ago.
So anyway, here are some reasons that went into the decision, although no single one was dominant:
- Mimi Uploader’s role as a utility has diminished over time as alternatives have become possible and accessible.
- The app makes almost no money. When I introduced subscriptions for supporting development, there was support for some time, but it plateaued, and then reduced.
- Micro.blog has been introducing new features for managing and displaying photos and providing alt text. To be clear, I’m in support of that as these go to all users and make the service better for everyone, but they diminish the utility of Mimi, and also increase the burden of maintenance.
- Some of the most ardent users and supporters have left the Micro.blog community in recent months.
- I want to focus on newer projects and want to be clear to all users that this app is no longer a priority. If you subscribed to support development, then please feel free to cancel that subscription.
Thanks for a great five-year run π
Yesterday it dawned on me that it was Pi Day Eve, so obviously, I whipped up a little Swift iterator that iterates over values of Pi from Pi Delivery. You can get it at this gist.
Use it in your swift code and make fun stuff using the value of Pi up to 100 trillion digits!
Happy Pi Day!
Making a Mallet
Over the last few evenings, I built my first mallet. As I was making it, I made a big mistake, but I went on making it. I made other smaller mistakes but in the end I have a mallet, that, while not perfect, is a nice addition to my tools. I will only build better mallets in the future.
I’ve been attempting to do more of hand tool woodworking, which involves joinery that takes some effort with chisels to get right. I’ve been using them with a cheap rubber mallet. That has worked fine but I wanted to make my own with hardwood.
I have some scraps lying around, and I found a nice piece of 1" thick walnut (Western, I think) in there. The wood had mostly the characteristic dark brown of walnut, but it all had some lighter sap wood. I decided to make the handle from the sap wood, so that I would have some contrast between handle and head.
I cut the pieces to dimensions that made sense but here is where I made the big mistake. I cut the pieces of the head in a way that the edge grain ended up on the top and bottom of the head, rather than on the striking faces.
But the cuts were made and I was committed. I knew I would make mistakes going into this so this didn’t stop me from proceeding.
I lined up the pieces to shape the space for the handle in the head and glued up the pieces to form the head. This is where I made the second mistake. I had seen videos where the person would use a nail gun to hold the pieces in places, but I didn’t have one, so I got some small finishing nails, and hammered them by hand. This led to misalignment of the pieces. As a result, once the head was all glued up, it had to be trimmed to form proper faces.
I also chamfered and/or sanded every sharp edge using the band saw and the belt sander. In the end I had a nicely shaped head. The handle was a tight fit but I glued it up and hammered it into place.
The next day I sanded, and cleaned up all surfaces and applied two coats of Watco Danish Oil (Natural). After letting it cure for a day or so, it is now ready. I’m looking forward to chisel work with it in the near future.
My Valentine
My valentine, my wife of nearly eleven months, is such an inspiration to me in so many ways. She inspires me to be a better husband and man, and to take better care of myself.
I want to especially call out her incredible determination over the last couple of years to running regularly. She took it upon herself to start running again after a long pause. I recall how hard it was for her to train up to running her first 5K, and then her first quarter marathon. Later that same year, with an amazing effort, she ran her first half marathon, followed one year later by her second one.
These days a 5K is just a regular run, which blows my mind. Through all the seasons, and injuries, she is going stronger than ever.
β€οΈ
π οΈ Long Workbench
After building storage shelves towards the end of the year, I turned my eyes to the other side of that area and decided to build a workbench there. The idea being that it would house my new 3D printer, and also have room for other projects that I didn’t want to do in the dusty environment of the woodworking area. I drew up a rough plan on a photo and it came to 12 feet by 2 feet.
Its frame would be made of 2x4 lumber held together with pocket screws (a first for me, so I went and bought a jig!). The top would have two layers of 3/4" plywood. It didn’t need to be fancy, so I decided to use more of the same birch plywood I’d used for the storage shelves.
Installing the frame was a little bit tricky but I managed to do it by myself by stacking some boxes for support, and attached it to the bare studs with lag screws.
Then it was time to make the front legs. The floor in the basement is not only not level but also has lumpy concrete in some spots. So each leg had to be constructed by trial and error for the place it would stand.
Now I was ready to build the surface which had a base, and a top. The base went on pretty quickly. I screwed down from the top to attach it to the frame. The top was made of the same plywood but I finished it with two coats of polyurethane using a spray. Spray was a bad idea, but more on that later. I installed the top by screwing up from underneath the base.
After a week I started to build the other half. It was the same process but due to issues with the studs, I had to cut a couple of dados.
The rest of it went smoothly, and I lined it up as best as I could with the first half.
Next I fastened 2x2 boards all along the edges, and mounted a strip of the same plywood along the back, and with that, it was completed.
So far I don’t feel the need for all the legs I had in the sketch, but I can add more if needed.
Lessons were (hopefully) learned. Mainly to not use spray poly to finish a large flat surface, and also not to do it in the house, even if it was in the rough basement. I finished the second one in the shed.
A new version of Mimi Uploader is out with even more support for Photo Collections π
The previous release had the ability to see your list of collections. This new one adds the following features:
- Add photos to collections from the list of recent uploads. Tap and hold a single photo, or use the “⦔ menu on en entry that has a batch of photos to add them all.
- Delete a photo from a collection. When browsing a collection, tap and hold on a photo to see the option to delete.
- Create a collection. Just tap “+” on the collections list.
I’m finding this way of managing my collections to be great. Hope you like it too!
You can get Mimi Uploader for free from the App Store.
As discussed in a previous post, the Photo Collections feature is only available to Supporter. You can become a Supporter using the sliding scale in the app.
π οΈ Basement Storage Shelves
Over the last week or so I designed and built freestanding storage shelves in our basement. Inspired by this video, and other similar ones, I decided that I would give it a go.
The basement had become a mess of stuff, about 70% of which was worth keeping. So we started by re-organizing what we wanted to keep and the rest we discarded/donated/gave-away.
On the 23rd I drew up the plan, and we went and bought the first set of materials from a neighborhood building material store, which has amazing people. Then came the holiday, so I didn’t start to build until the 26th.
The first set took a while to make as I was new to it and wanted to make sure I got the measurements right as we had already got the plywood cut at the store. On the 27th I put the first shelf together.
The design allows for expanding on either side, so right away I built an extension. This time it went really fast, even with a drive to the store to get more materials.
This second set had only two shelves that were half as deep so we didn’t block the window, and also Jenni could place her paddle board bag vertically to easily pick up or drop off. I noticed that the there was a sag on this shelf, so later I added a strip of wood for additional support.
On the 28th I built yet another extension. This time I didn’t have enough plywood for three levels, so for the time being it only has two, but hey, those box fans fit nicely in there.
Yesterday I completed another extension and that should be good for our current needs. From one end to another these shelves are 15 feet (~ 4.5m)
I will observe how it performs, and have ideas to add more structural support if needed.
I’m really happy with how these turned out, and with our efforts, the entire space looks and feels so much better already.
P.S. As I was building this I also organized my basement shop that I hadn’t used in a long time, including installing these wall-mounted shelves to hold lumber.
P.P.S The end posts are also 2x4s, but they look like 4x4s in the photo, likely due to distortion from the use of an ultra-wide lens.
Happy New Year! π₯³