Marc's Mind | Software, Side Projects, and Decades of Building Things

Earlier this week on a Reddit thread I was discussing Caffeinated Checkbook.

I started writing code in 1981 on a Commodore VIC-20.

I used GnuCash religiously from around 2005 until 2011.

Since I started writing code in the early 80s I’ve always had a notebook with me.

What happens when a doctor gives instructions to an arguably neuro-spicy middle-aged developer and said developer can’t find an app that suits them?

I’ve been self-hosting my own calendar infrastructure for a while now.

New month, new scam attempt.

Over the past few months, I’ve been increasing my visibility — more blogging, more conversation on LinkedIn, and generally showing up again after some time off.

Update (April 2026): Since writing this post, I built Caffeinated Calendar, which connects directly to Radicale and any CalDAV server alongside Google, iCloud, Outlook, and Zoho.

For years, I was a satisfied paid user of Enpass.

Static sites are great.

I originally wrote a version of this for Caffeinated Softworks, but the topic struck close enough to home that I wanted to share an edited version of it here too.

Terms of Use This site, marclewis.com, is a personal blog.

Privacy Policy This site, marclewis.com, is a personal blog.

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For the last couple of years, I’ve been dabbling with a few side/hobby projects.

So I’ve been working on bringing a new project to light in my spare time over the last few years, dittos.io.

So last March I purchased a Synology DS1515+ and wrote about it in one of my posts “Who Shall Control My Media?

Paid Memberships Pro is a great WordPress plugin that allows paid subscriptions to your WordPress site.

It took me way too long to figure this out, but there is no documentation at all on Sony’s store website, and google kept referring me to Windows 10 setups.

Google WiFi promises an attractive, easy to setup, easy to manage, and relatively inexpensive home router that is mesh capable.

Our oldest son has been wanting one of these since he first saw them.

I love popcorn.

After using an Nvidia Shield tablet for a year or so, and dealing with a battery recall and then an RMA because it would no longer hold a charge after only 3 months, I decided to try something different.

For the last few months, I’ve had a D-Link DSP-W110 sitting in a drawer.

I’ve been through quite a few Android tablets since they first hit the market a few years back.

Since the Media Players post, I’ve been working on refining our setup and getting it to the point where I can stop tinkering with it and just leave it be to run.

So you’ve got a lot of videos, home movies, pictures, etc., that you want to have access to from all of your devices and get them on your big screen.

http://fortune.com/2016/10/03/software-patents/?

I didn’t really want a new phone but my HTC One M9 was starting to really irritate me.

Media players are a interesting topic.

I just thought I would put this out there in case anyone else had the same problem as I did as there is surprisingly little out there.

UPDATE - Dec 1, 2018 - I’ve Finally installed Ubuntu 18.04 LTS on the Asus ZenBook UX501VW First off, let me first say, what a nightmare this was.

Update 2016-04-25, this post is obsolete.

I thought I would put this here in case anyone else has been experiencing the same thing I have been.

After I purchased the new ASUS ZenBook, I went looking for another power supply for it, one to keep plugged in at my desk at the office, and another one for my backpack.

The infrastructure I’ve had our media setup on has changed quite a bit over the years, too.

Over the last couple of years, the entire media landscape has changed.

Update 2016-04-25, this post is obsolete.

With Jessica not being nearly as mobile any more, we decided it was time to start looking into a little bit of home automation.

After three years of using my trusty Vaio laptop, the time had finally come to replace it.

So, after upgrading my laptop a couple weeks ago I found myself with a “spare” 960GB SSD from my old laptop.

Its no secret that I like Amazon and their services.