April 2025 Work Log (Patreon)

Hey everyone! I'm a few days late, but here's everything I worked on during the month of April. As always, this work log is exclusive for patrons.

ImageShare

The recent changes to ImageShare have now been finalized and released as ImageShare 3.1, the first update since the big Node.js rewrite last year. Much of the work here was done by Nanospearing.

This update brings back Imgur upload support, which was removed in the 3.0 update. Unfortunately, this only works for self-hosted versions of ImageShare, since Imgur is still blocking API requests from my server. I'm not sure I'll find a workaround, so for now, theimageshare.com is still limited to temporary uploads.

This update also introduces a new 'Mobile mode', which forces the small-screen layout normally used for devices under 350px wide. This is mainly helpful for browsers that don't support CSS media queries and can't switch automatically, like my Windows Mobile 6.5 phone with Opera and IE Mobile. You can use it by clicking the Mobile mode link or by visiting the theimageshare.com/m/ URL.

This also fixes issues with the QR code on ancient web browsers: it's now rendered as JPEG if the browser can't load PNG images. A few more bug fixes are included.

Link Cleaner

I started working on an interface overhaul for Link Cleaner during April. My goal with this update is to reduce the number of steps on cleaning links, improve the design, and do a better job of showcasing all its uses and install options.

The current design I'm testing is pretty close to the current layout, except the navigation bar is now at the top, and the URL text field is closer to the center of the screen. This might change more before the final rollout.

This updated layout uses the same text field for the URL input and output, so there's no more 'back' button to click before you can clean the link again. If you paste text again, or press the Enter/Return key on the keyboard, it runs again. This makes a big difference on devices with a keyboard: you can Ctrl+V to paste a link, Link Cleaner cleans it and selects the text field, and you just Ctrl+C to copy the cleaned link.

The URL text field also sticks to the top of the screen as you scroll down, so you can paste in another link without scrolling back to the top again. This is especially helpful on smaller screens.

There's also a new 'Install' button that opens a popup showing all the ways you can open Link Cleaner, like installing the web app or adding the Shortcut on Apple devices. I'm still figuring out the best way to show this, and it might end up as a scrollable page or something else.

This page also includes an official Link Cleaner bookmarklet. It was already possible to make your own, or use one that someone else made and shared, but this will be displayed alongside all the other official options.

I'm nowhere near done with this update, so I don't yet have a timeline for the release. The site will stay on the current design until this one is ready.

The Spacebar

I published one article in April: Data hoarding is more important than ever.

The Spacebar was also approved for Journey by Mediavine web advertisements in April, and the site is now using that instead of Google AdSense. In most months, AdSense was just about covering the monthly hosting costs and not much more, so I'm interested to see how Mediavine performs over the coming months.

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Security Checkup

I wrapped up my security and privacy checkup in April: see the post about that if you haven't already.