Welcome ... I'm Kristof

I've been a passionate software developer for almost 30 years and currently a tech-savvy IT manager. In my spare time, I tinker with things like this blog, because creating software never lets you go. Here is more about me ...

Misc
Addo Road
IndieWeb

IndieWeb Carnival: Meaning of Life

My thoughts on this month's topic and whether it is even worth thinking about

I don’t often participate in the IndieWeb Carnival. The last thing I contributed was in November 2024 with my post You will never know whose butterfly you were on the topic of “Impact.” Maybe I should do it more often, because it’s really exciting to read other people’s posts on the same topic. Different opinions offer new perspectives.

This month’s topic from Jeremiah really triggered me this time, and I’ve been thinking about it for days… The Meaning of Life … and here are my two cents on the matter.

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Note

#TIL |  Display horizontal container initially scrolled to the right

On my /stats page, I used the wonderful web component activity-graph to implement an Activity Graph that displays my posts over the entire lifetime of my blog.

Now, as is common in Western cultures, the graph starts on the left side and is displayed horizontally. This means that the most recent and interesting entries are on the very right, and you have to scroll to the end to see them.

The question was how to make the graph display directly scrolled to the far right at the start, and the solution is quite simple and uses the component’s various HTML levels:

<div class="activity-graph-wrapper">
  <activity-graph>
    <figure>
      <table>
       ...
      </table>
    </figure>
  </activity-graph>
</div>

Using the CSS direction property, I first rotate the graph in the reading direction to RTL (right to left) at the top level, then rotate it back again at the next lower level. This means that the browser displays the graph starting on the right, but everything below has the usual western-style reading direction.

.activity-graph-wrapper figure {
  direction: rtl;
}
.activity-graph-wrapper figure table {
  direction: ltr;
}

#CSS #TIL

Photo
Dama Cuddling
New Photos

Remaining Photos from 2025

Loreley, Kronberg, Wiesbaden

Every now and then, when my sweetheart and I go on a day trip in the region, I sling my camera over my shoulder in the hope of capturing a beautiful scene or two. Last year was no exception. Often, however, I don’t get around to reviewing and editing the photos, but I have now caught up on three events from 2025. Enjoy…

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Tools
Swedish Windows
IndieWeb

New Approach on Sending Webmentions

Console Script vs. EchoFeed

Four years ago, I made this blog fit for IndieWeb. The most important part for me was the integration of Webmentions, which are mainly automated “pings” sent from one website to another, telling the latter: “Hey, I mentioned your post ABC in my post XYZ.” Such a connection between two blogs is certainly not the same as the fast interactions of the Fediverse platforms, which are more like email or chat, but are usually one-way and, unfortunately, still rather rare. But for me, they offer a healthy basis for networking my own digital home with others who think along similar lines.

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UI/UX
Massive Blooming I
Great Finds

ChartsCSS - Without a single line of JavaScript

How to spice up boring HTML tables just with CSS

I’ve known for a while that I want to add a statistics page to my blog. Just for the fun of tinkering with code, without any deeper reason. In the summer, I wrote down my ideas on a few Obsidian pages and looked around to see what options were available for data visualization. It’s nicer and more intuitive to display some of the statistics as bars and pies than just in boring numerical columns. I’m more of a visual person… “Everything is so colorful here.”

One research find stood out from the crowd of the usual JavaScript tools: ChartsCSS by Rami Yushuvaev and Lana Gordiievska. It promised to bring classic number visualizations such as bar and pie charts to a web page without a single line of script, but exclusively with CSS styles!

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Note

Unexpected Visitor

Today, we had a visit from an animal that is quite rare in a city, a Gray Heron, which probably needed to inspect our neighbour’s little fish pond with the Kois. What a beauty …

Note

Farewell 2025

I ‘ve found 2025 to be a particularly difficult and challenging year, quite apart from the political madness that is unfolding in so many parts of the world and which cannot leave a political person like me unaffected. No, even on a personal level, I will not forget this past year. Starting with my return from an absolutely amazing holiday in South Africa and two other wonderful breaks in Portugal and Sweden, the year has mainly shown me my physical limits. Yes, 57 is no longer mid-20s, and some decisions and habits in my life are now taking their toll, along with a few others that I hadn’t on the list.. and I’m struggling with that physically and mentally. Getting older is not for wimps…

My wish for 2026 is to achieve the serenity that allows me not to get upset about things I cannot change anyway, and to simply tackle those things that I can influence and shape.

Tools
Wasen Lights
defaults

App Defaults 2025

While preparing this new AppDefaults post for the passing year 2025, I took a look back at the two previous posts from 2023 and 2024 and find it exciting to see how my behavior has gradually changed over time.

A slight shift away from the tools offered by large American companies towards small European alternatives or OSS, which is likely to intensify in the future. I also have less and less patience with software that is going down the path of enshittification. I don’t care how long I’ve been using it or how much work is needed to make the switch; it just has to go, even if it hurts, like Plex. I’m not going to be taken for a ride … just die.

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