The OpenGraphs browser extensions are live! Well, at least some/most of them!! I share the latest updates on what I am working on for https://www.opengraphs.com, along with some browser extension inconsistencies.
You can find the OpenGraph Browser Extensions here:
Chrome - https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/opengraphs/kiifpjdcadbbbhoocoobahkogpnmngio
Firefox - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/opengraphs/
Microsoft Edge - https://microsoftedge.microsoft.com/addons/detail/opengraphs/cfhfplinkfammfoljdakadohdgggkmch
And, here’s the link to the post on IndieHackers:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/dirt-for-sale-breaking-ground-on-opengraphs-com-gkZlrGXD4nH5381idGWq
Watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD1yMVA40nE
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Welcome to the wacky world of browser extensions in 2025. Between varying manifest version support, as well as inconsistencies in the user experience and capabilities of browser extensions on the same browser engine (looking at you Arc and Dia, on Chromium), it can be hard to provide a consistent nice experience between them all, but I am doing the best I can. So far, the best experience across the extensions are in both Google Chrome (native) and Microsoft Edge.
The thing that makes the experience so good is the Side Panel support, which was introduced with the rollout of Manifest V3. The beauty of the Side Panel API is that it allows the extension to remain open while you are navigating a site within a tab, or even changing tabs, which makes it great when you are trying to review the open graph/Twitter|X Card/meta data for sites and pages. Unfortunately, the Side Panel API is not yet supported in Firefox, nor Opera, and the semi-annoying thing is that it is unfortunately not consistently implemented on other Chromium-based browsers, like Arc and Dia. Basically, I have some work to do on the extension for Chrome if I want to make it usable in these non-standard browsers, but I’ll be getting to that at some point, and also sharing all the inconsistencies in the Browser Extension world across the board, both within browser ecosystems and across them.
Other than the browser extensions, I have been working on the OpenGraphs site, mainly focused on the copy and wrestling with the resistance as I try to showcase what OpenGraphs can be, how it can help automate a lot of busy work, and makes it a breeze when you want to go back and mass update the open graph images and data for big sites. The goal is to have an updated home page, browser extension pages, and tool page up and live by the next recordings.
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
Or, you can watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/iU2PMrYUNIQ
After attempting and failing to get an episode out the last couple of weeks, I am happy to say that I finally recorded one, and I am getting it out early this week.
A lot of stuff has happened over the last 2.5 weeks, so here’s a quick run down, along with links:
Optimizations were made to the https://www.opengraphs.com renderer, that is currently powering the open graph image generation for both https://www.allplay.fm and https://www.ryanhefner.com
While integrating OpenGraphs into the All Play site, I noticed the audio players were no longer playing anymore, so after a bit of back-and-forth with Transistor (https://www.transistor.fm), I decided to rip out the custom waveform generation stuff I was doing and just play the mp3 directly in an `audio` tag. Hence, No Waves. I do plan on getting back to a solution for adding the waveforms back, but for the sake of getting things working, and working on other stuff, this quick hack will have to do. Probably a lesson in there about focusing on the right things, and how not everything has to be bespoke and custom built.
Along that front, the whole No Waves thing got me thinking about Justin Jackson’s (https://justinjackson.ca) analogy about finding the right wave, and how I feel the same way trying to find the right product and revenue generator as I did back in the day when I started surfing. Heading out on the crap days to get more comfortable with my board and doing a lot of paddling to get into shitty waves, but all that time in the water and paddling made it easier for me to catch waves when I would eventually get out on the good days and was presented with good waves.
Speaking of Justin Jackson, I was able to snag some time with him last Thursday for an impromptu Jam Sessions episode. I was feeling a little off in this one, but have a watch and let me know what you think: https://www.youtube.com/live/2_nuzJa3AJ0?si=JYB2WWNhlMphWu14
On the OpenGraphs front, I have been busy making a few optimizations to the render, but mostly focusing on the marketing site and building some tools, and browser extensions (!) to launch before the full offering is available. And, a side note, the current state of browser extension development somehow feels even more fragmented and disjointed than ever, but I’ll save my thoughts and issues there for another episode.
The goal this week is to get the browser extension submitted to at least one of the stores/directories this week, along with updates to the OpenGraphs marketing site to support it/them. And, get one—maybe two!—tools deployed to the site as well. My thinking is that if I can start to bake in some early tools that are nice and people like to use, hopefully that will keep people coming back, subscribing to the newsletter, and aware as new stuff keeps rolling out to the site, leading up to the full-on service becoming available. I’ll keep you posted on how that goes as things progress.
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rLRNnlzIOQM
I connected with Vercel this past week to discuss how I could both optimize and try to control the costs that https://www.starterpacks.net was accumulating. I did walk away with some techniques that I will try on the next site I launch on Vercel where I need to try to maintain a consistent bill. Most notably:
So, some good pointers to keep in mind for the next site that takes off on Vercel.
On the client front, it was a busy week, but I was able to play around with writing my own Cache Handler to support the Render deploy of the frontend. I played around with various approaches trying to write a Cache Handler backed by a Redis instance, but ultimately had to back out of that approach since I wasn’t able to fully grasp the life cycle flow for when a cache handler is initialized and abandoned, resulting in either too many Redis connections remaining open and overloading the instance, or clients cleaning themselves up too early and causing errors when get/set methods were called. Instead, I ended up writing a Cache Handler that is using a LRU cache, and it seems to be enough to smooth out the instance, serve things fast, but without all the complexity of the Redis stuff. I might circle back to a Redis-based solution down the road, but the LRU approach seems to be working for now.
After a long week of client work and troubleshooting, I wanted to make progress on something new that I have been putting off for a while, so I sat down on Friday on got the first instance of the open graph images renderer setup and deployed for https://www.opengraphs.com. OpenGraphs is essentially a re-write/re-imagination of a previous service that I wrote and was using to generate open graph images for my projects, but I have some plans to both optimize and expand that previous services vision, and hopefully customers, which I will be focusing on as I continue to build out the admin portions of the app.
Along with getting the OpenGraphs renderer deployed, I was able to publish an update to the library that I use to handle the open graph data in my NextJS sites. You can check it out here: https://github.com/ryanhefner/next-meta
And, don’t think that I have forgot about https://www.skylounge.social. After getting Starter Packs stabilized and no longer sucking money out of my wallet, and getting the OpenGraphs renderer setup and deployed, I should have the headspace available to wrap up a few of the remaining features on Skylounge and start inviting some early people to host sessions on the site and see how well it either does, or does not, work 🤞 More on that to come...
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
Unfortunately I missed my milestone of getting an early release of https://www.skylounge.social deployed during Release Day. But, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. It’s kind of hard to run when it feels like you have a knife in your stomach and you don’t know how to stop the bleeding.
I dig into what attempts I made to optimize the NextJS App for https://www.starterpacks.net to utilize fewer resources on Vercel (spoiler alert, unsuccessfully), what the usage and costs were, and what I ultimately did to try to stabilize the costs until I can start to get the site earning more than it costs to host.
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
A quick update on this glorious hump day, just in time before I head out to the Atlanta PHP meetup (https://phpxatl.com).
Tomorrow, May 21st at 11:30am EDT I’ll be chatting with Brian Casel (https://briancasel.com) about his recent launch of Instrumental Components (https://instrumental.dev). Join us in the stream and if you have any questions for Brian or myself you can get them answered live!
Subscribe and join the stream: https://youtube.com/live/LyMjPhkHk3k
I am also going to be streaming to https://stream.place, a new streaming platform geared towards the Bluesky/ATProto community. So it should be fun adding another destination to consume the stream from. And, I floated the idea out on LinkedIn to see if people would be interested in watching the stream there, but just waiting to see if I can get a good signal from there or not to justify adding it.
Weigh-in on the LinkedIn stream: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ryanhefner_jam-session-launching-instrumentaldev-activity-7331038582549147650-CmcP
So, with that said, hopefully you can find the stream wherever you prefer to consumer your streaming content and we look forward to seeing you there.
And, on the Starter Packs front, https://www.starterpacks.net, I ended up getting a pretty big hosting bill last month that would make the project unsustainable if it were that high moving forward, so in an attempt to reduce costs, and because I was meaning to explore it anyways to make navigating the site potentially faster, I converted all `/profile/...` pages to use ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration). My hope is that by rendering and caching these pages indefinitely, I will serve more cached versions of the pages and reduce some of the edge requests and function invocations previously required to serve those pages. It does introduce some complexity when it comes to revalidating those pages in the future, but this is just a means to try to cap costs, and if it works I can figure out how to keep everything fresh, while still being optimized. So stay tuned...
Other links:
https://www.skylounge.social
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhefner
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
I listened to a podcast episode back on January 30, 2025, and there are 3 little words that have been bouncing around in the back of my head ever since whenever I turn on the mic to stream or record, "oil your chair".
The podcast episode was from Justin Jackson (https://justinjackson.ca) and Jeremy Enns (https://jeremyenns.com) on their Podcasting Marketing Trends Explained (https://podcastmarketingacademy.com/podcast-marketing-trends-explained) podcast. Here’s a link to the specific episode:
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-10k-timeline-how-long-it-takes-to-reach-10k-dl-ep/id1725822754?i=1000651165287
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ojnaFU34BTMzAUEaJpLB9?si=75f58475b5824473
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbT9Z-glsrM&list=PLSbtUoUeEbPIsWA2_cM91SN3HJuUnEOz9&index=16
What's wild is that when I recorded this episode I had thought that it had only been a couple weeks since I had listened to that podcast episode, but it turns out it has been almost 4 months 😬, and it took me that long to oil my chair.
This episode digs into the little things that I (we) have a tendency of putting off. Things that you know exist, and could be easily addressed, but yet the task goes uncompleted, and consumes some of the cognitive space in the back of the head, throwing off wasted cycles whenever it resurfaces, instead of using those for things that really matter.
I’ll get back to sharing some project updates in the next episode, but just wanted to share a little thought piece about procrastination, or clearing the mind.
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
Some quick updates on the status of https://www.starterpacks.net and announcing the new project that I am working on!
Since the last update, the crawlers have been crawling—HEAVILY—accessing the site over 24M 👀 times. Needless to say, my Vercel bill is going to be a little higher this month, but 🤞 it will be worth it. Since the last update where the number of indexed pages jumped from 3k to 17k, since the last episode that number rose as high as 45k indexed pages, but recently dropped a bit to 34k.
I think the indexes is going to be a bit of a cat and mouse game, but my hope is that more indexed pages will generally be better for driving more organic traffic to the site. As the crawlers are crawling, I am working on some articles that will showcase some of the features, and also focus on some keywords that I am going to try to start ranking for. So, no new feature development for now, but going to see how traffic to the site goes over the next couple of weeks as I focus on SEO and content.
On the development front, new things are in full swing on a new project that is also focused on the Bluesky platform and community. The project called, Skylounge, and it can be found at https://www.skylounge.social. The goal is to build a X/Twitter Spaces alternative for Bluesky, that also embraces all the things I love about the open web.
Over the last week I have been streaming the development of the project, with the goal of sharing the process and approach that I am taking for the app, along with trying to multiply the return on my effort of building. So far it has been going pretty well, but I am really looking at these live streams as an opportunity to do some co-working with people, so if you have a project you are working on and want to share what you are doing during the live stream, I am down to share your work and even have you jump on the stream—if you want!
My goal is to launch the initial version of the site on Release Day, happening Friday, May 30. If you have something you have been working on—or putting off—maybe you want to use some social accountability to fuel getting it down. You can find out more about Release Day here: https://www.creativequests.world/releaseday
Ok, I have been rambling on. If Skylounge sounds interesting and you want to be one of the early people to sign-up and help me test it out, please go to the site and sign-up to be included on the mailing list I will be using to share updates: https://www.skylounge.social
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
You can also watch the video on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/ENFM-pQK5iM
A quick update about some recent updates I pushed out on https://www.starterpacks.net. In the last episode, I announced the addition of the Quick Starter Pack Editor to the site. Since then, I have rolled out a few tweaks to make it nicer, like preventing duplicate entries to be added to new Starter Packs—even though those were never duplicated when saved to Bluesky—along with the ability to remove people from the list before saving. I have a few more updates planned around editors, namely being able to edit an existing Starter Pack, but that has not rolled out yet. I am sure I’ll be posting an update when it does.
Other than a few editor updates, the main updates that made there way to the site are in support of trying to help crawlers discover more content and pages on the site. Since January, the number of indexed pages in the Google Search Console has dropped from 980k+ down to just over 3,000 pages. In order to try to counteract the indexed page loss, I figured it was time to address some crawling issues that I introduced when I added infinite scrolling to the site. Now, in addition to supporting infinite scrolling when a user visits the site, there are links that crawlers can follow to continue discovering content and pages linked from those lists. At first when I tried to re-validate some of the issues via the Google Search Console, the number of indexed pages ended up dropping to just over 2,000 pages, but after a few tweaks and re-validating a few other issues that number has jumped up to over 17k pages, and based on the logs I am seeing from the site I am hoping that I can get back into the 6 digit+ range for indexed pages, which I am hoping will help to drive more organic traffic to the site.
In addition to the making the site updates, I am going to try to start posting more updates in the different communities to hopefully drive awareness, and also start building more backlinks back to the site. The first update was posted over on Indie Hackers, just announcing to project and enabling the profile so I can post more. You can read that one here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/starter-packs-is-born-fe2Z1KTOK7spuf84v0i7
There is a bunch of other stuff I should probably work on next for Starter Packs, but I think I need a new project to be able to ping-pong on when my interest wanes. Want to see what I plan on working on next? Subscribe to this channel, @ryan_hefner, and I’ll be live streaming the development of it. And, if you have a project you’re working on that you would like to share, I welcome guests on the stream. Show off what you’re working on!
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
After a few weeks away I am back with some fresh updates that have been deployed to Starter Packs (https://www.starterpacks.net). The first—and best feature, imho—is the Quick Starter Pack Editor. This feature makes it easy to add people to your existing Bluesky Starter Packs in as little as 3 clicks (maybe more if you want to add them to multiple packs at the same time). This was a feature that I had wanted to add to the site since I started working on it, and I finally had the time—made the time—to sit down and build it out.
The next addition to the site is more for the curious, or the competitive, which is the Bluesky Starter Packs Leaderboards (https://www.starterpacks.net/leaderboard). Here you can find a list of the top Bluesky Starter Packs that people have joined Bluesky through either that week, or all-time. My hope is that these pages help to drive traffic to the site and encourage people to create and share more Starter Packs to try to climb the ranks.
I rolled out a few more features, but those were the main ones that made their way out. Now my focus is on building more value for the subscription plans and optimizing the site to appease the SEO gods so that more pages are indexed and available in search results. If you are interested in watching those updates come to life, I plan on live streaming those updates, so follow the channel (@ryan_hefner) and get notified when I go live.
To follow along, you can find me at https://www.ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com (https://bsky.app/profile/ryanhefner.com) and keep up with the show on https://www.allplay.fm and @allplay.fm (https://bsky.app/profile/allplay.fm).
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM (https://transistor.fm/?via=allplay)
Fathom Analytics (https://usefathom.com/ref/EKONBS)
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping #indiehackers
Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WNmupzrWcAA
What goes into setting and justifying your SaaS (Software as a Service) pricing? I had the goal of getting subscription plans setup for https://www.starterpacks.net before a queued job I had running to backfill data that I needed to support those plans was done processing. I ultimately did get the Stripe integration setup, along with defining the plans and everything that goes into supporting subscriptions on the site, but when it came to actually surfacing these plans publicly is where I got tripped up.
In this episode I dig into the plans, some of my thoughts around building value to justify the price, and some ideas I have to get to that value.
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping
The queues are up and running on Starter Packs and I have roughly 2 days before they are done, so my goal is to get all the pricing and subscriptions integrated into the site before they are done. I also dig into some background on getting the queues working in the NestJS app, and how I had to tune them to get them running efficiently—and fast!
Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/DzHzOaR_lDA
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping
While I was working on some updates for Starter Packs, I ran into an authentication bug that I wanted to fix. As I was working through the bug, and deploying the updates, all of a sudden my feature branch on Vercel stopped loading pages properly, but not all pages. In this episode, I dig into facing and overcoming obstacles that get in the way of making real progress on the project you’re working on.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/GEJV6989RwQ
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics
#buildinpublic #podcast #startups #webdevelopment #webdesign #bluesky #indiedev #bootstrapping
After last week’s Jam Session with Brian Casel, I was on the fence on which project I wanted to commit to in 2025. After that conversation, and a little reflection, I realized that I wanted to see Starter Packs through to the original vision for the project. Also, the amount of effort to get it there—I think—will be less than I had originally thought, now that some of my client work has chilled out a bit.
With that said, I am excited to share some initial updates that I pushed to the site yesterday that lay the foundation for the initial vision. They include:
I am still committed to getting an early version of Open Graphs out in March, like I committed to Brian on the episode, but luckily that work will also benefit Starter Packs, since I will be using Starter Packs, and my other sites, as early consumers of the open graph images that Open Graphs will be generating.
In the meantime, more updates will be rolling out to Starter Packs over the coming days, including: Follow All on Starter Packs, along with the background work that will start to link profiles with the packs they have been added to as a premium feature to subscribe to on the site. We’ll see how subscriptions will go, and I am sure I am going to have to build some real value to justify them, but I also have some plans on how to make the experience of unlocking the packs kind of fun, and hopefully notable.
Watch the latest episodes on YouTube at: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuFdIOfmEGP0xvjt2yng9FErsMTVTk1Of&si=H0RpnIlvOhwg5Q2j
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics
Welcome to 2025! I have been kind of having mixed emotions going into the new year, doing a lot of reflecting and projecting what I want to achieve this year. Definitely feeling mostly excited, but also a bit nervous.
I get into creating my new LLC, Commune Software (https://commune.software), looking forward to the live stream today with Mubs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckaGzVTvx98) talking all things side projects and Bluesky with his project https://blueskydirectory.com/ and my https://www.starterpacks.net/, and this podcast going video (right here now!). You can find the video podcast on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuFdIOfmEGP0xvjt2yng9FErsMTVTk1Of
I am looking forward to 2025 and trying to make this a year focused on building new connections and projects for the years to come. I hope you’ll follow along.
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics
Tis’ the season for introspection, self reflection, and projections for what the New Year will hold. Today I share some background into my process of reflecting and projecting on the things I need to get done, along with some ideas on how I plan on expanding and refining that process.
If you have a process you use to help yourself get better I would love to hear it. Please, connect with me on Bluesky, or hit me up on Twitter, and let me know what works best for you!
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
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So, what do you do when you start to run into walls, or slow downs, on the project you’re working on? I feel like I am at, or approaching one of those slow downs, and am trying to get ahead of it.
Since my last update when I announced Starter Packs, I have been busy continuing to build the logged out experience of the site. Focusing on gathering as many references as possible to the Starter Packs on Bluesky, and coming up with ways to make the firehose consumption more resilient, while baking in some features into the site that will allow me to capture more Starter Packs instances as people explore the site. So far things have been going great, but I am feeling the resistance creeping in and I am trying to resist it.
Where I am at now is that I pretty much has the explore experience dialed in. You can search for Starter Packs, along with Profiles, on the site, and freely explore packs and the people in them, along with being able to explore profiles, the Starter Packs they have created, along with the people they follow, and those who follow them. All in all, I am pretty stoked with where the site has come over a couple of weeks of working on it, and still pretty excited on where I can take it, but I am kind of slowing down a bit due to hesitancy on a few things, and I am not liking it.
Where I am slowing down is on the integration of OAuth’ing into the site to allow for authenticated actions to be performed, like following everyone in a Starter Pack, or following individual profiles. In the early days of the project, I created a quick (which actually turned into a multi-day) proof of concept of getting the ATProto OAuth setup working, but I haven’t really touched it since. Fortunately, it looks like it still works, but now I am trying to pair it with my own account handling and authentication and I don’t feel like I have crafted a setup that I am fully confident in, which has made me lose a bit of steam.
So, with that said, I am publicly committing to getting OAuth integrated into the site, and having all the following functionality added in over the next couple of days, so I can at least get it out there and then evaluate what I like, or don’t like, about the setup and then adjust. My concern about launching something I am not confident in is due to the higher than normal amount of traffic the site is getting, and I really don’t want to roll something out that ultimately ends up breaking, but I guess I will just have to cross that bridge when it comes.
For now, I am committed on getting the OAuth out, expanding the actions that people can perform while authenticated, and continuing to build some of the features behind the scenes that I would ultimately want to charge people a subscription for, but more on that at a later time.
To check out the current status of the site, check out https://www.starterpacks.net. You can follow along for updates on both the Starter Packs Bluesky account, @starterpacks.net, along with my personal account on Bluesky, @ryanhefner.com. Let me know what you think, and if there are any other features you would like to see added to the site and I will try to work those in.
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
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Wow, it’s been over a month since my last episode. That’s not due to me being too lazy, if anything just the opposite. I have been thrashing around on projects, but I would like to introduce you to my latest project that is piggy backing on the mass migration to Bluesky.
Just after the election, it seemed like the draw for a new platform that was a little less Elon and a little more move on was needed, and a lot of people felt the same way. I know I was pulled over there after I heard more people talking about it, and also discovering that more of the people I follow on the other platform were moving over. I was also added to a Starter Pack or two, which made things a bit more interesting as people starter to follow more.
For those who are not on Bluesky yet, or just new, Starter Packs are essentially a user created list of accounts or other Starter Packs, but you have the option to Follow All, or individually. I think the fact that Bluesky feels like the Twitter of yore, coupled with the fact that you can quickly build up the people you follow, and gain followers, via Starter Packs has helped ease some of the awkwardness of migrating platforms.
When I first got added to a Starter Pack, and started to see my follower account grow, I’m not going to lie, I was hooked! It also got me more interested in Bluesky and the AT Protocol in general. I started to dig into the API to see what you could do, what was available to work with, and what was potentially missing.
The one thing I wanted to see was if there was an easy way to see which Starter Packs I was added to, and unfortunately–or fortunately depending on how you look at it–there was not. I also wanted to see if there was a way to know where someone followed me from, whether is was from a Starter Pack, or directly from my Profile, or a Post. At first, I thought that was available, which got me super excited and actually made me spin up a quick project to start exploring more. Unfortunately as I started to dig in I found out that wasn’t the case, but discovered other interesting things that retained my interest/excitement to explore more.
After some quick hacking, and a few domains registered(!), I was well on my way to abandoning the projects I was previously working on to explore this new...thing. After a few nights of hacking stuff together, and exploring the OAuth integration, I had the bones for a new project. That project is, Starter Packs.
Check it out and let me know what you think. I hope you find some interesting Starter Packs and people, and will follow along for the journey. You can follow the project on Blueskey, @starterpacks.net. I have a bunch more plans for it, but next up is getting OAuth/account management integrated into the site to unlock some basic follow and Starter Pack management actions.
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Bluesky @ryanhefner.com and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplay.fm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
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How do you apply and reserve your fuel for the things you are working? That’s what I am wrestling with today. Typically, I reserve these early morning sessions for my personal stuff, so I can take advantage of the fresh tank of brain juice to pull from. I feel like with personal projects there’s always more critical thinking and personal hesitations that get in the way of getting things done that it takes that extra boost from the good morning fuel to break through them and keep going.
Although, today is unlike most of those days. Instead I am going to be working on some client stuff that has been lingering around a bit too long to see if I can knock that out early and use the rest of the day for personal stuff. Most notably, trying to commit some time to work on a site that is assisting with some relief efforts in Asheville, SC.
Over in the Verbs Discord, developers there have been contributing to two different relief effort sites. The first was disastercheckin.com, a site that allows people to text in updates via a phone number, and people who visit the site can do a reverse look-up via the phone number to check on the latest status of their family or friend who have posted. It was a way to allow for people to post updates when they get signal, and for multiple people to asynchronously check on the status of those people, without having to rely on the cellular networks for people to get some status of their loved ones.
Now that FEMA is in the area, the cellular networks seem to be more stabilized and people are able to communicate better now, so the effort in the Discord has transitioned to helping get clean water to the area, and assisting in the effort of managing the distribution of and requests for that water. For some reason, I can’t seem to find the site for that right now, but I will update the notes once I do.
I have always been a big fan of collaborative efforts around a local cause and this has started to inspire me to follow through on an idea that I have had incubating for a while now. More on that later, along with a link, but for now I need to get back to work and knock out this client work so I can make a real difference elsewhere.
— ✌️
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Twitter @ryanhefner, and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplayfm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
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A quick, long one about trying to maintain momentum as challenges and inconsistencies present themselves.
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Twitter @ryanhefner, and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplayfm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
Fathom Analytics
Since today is International Podcast Day, I figured it was only fitting to try to get an episode out today. Thankfully I have something very topical to announce today as well, a new podcast! Last week I streamed and posted the first episode of, Jam Sessions: Public Edition, or just, Jam Sessions.
A few episodes back I had announced Jam Sessions: Private Edition, the podcast that I plan on hosting on Ripple.fm. The point of that show was to have more intimate conversations that may include details or information that myself or the guest may only feel comfortable sharing with a smaller audience. But, once I started thinking about the private edition, I started to think about how much fun it would be to also have a public edition, so I reached out to Daniel Coulbourne—who I had already connected with back in May about basically doing something similar, but I dropped off and never got it together—and we were able to coordinate a time for the first public Jam Sessions episode and make it happen!
Daniel went deep on all things Verbs. For more information, you should check out the full show notes: https://www.jamsessions.fm/episodes/001-daniel-coulbourne-verbs-event-sourcing
Unfortunately, I had some audio issues on my side, but I was able to resolve them around the 13:30 mark of the stream. Hopefully you can deal with the subpar audio and pick up all the knowledge that Daniel was dropping on event sourcing and how Verbs differs.
You can check out the episode here:
Streams
Episodes
For all things Jam Sessions, you can find future episodes—and streams, eventually—at jamsessions.fm.
#InternationalPodcastDay
To follow along, you can find me at ryanhefner.com, follow me on Twitter @ryanhefner, and keep up with the show on allplay.fm and @allplayfm.
Help yourself, while supporting the show, by trying some of the services that I use, and highly recommend:
Transistor FM
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