I decided to setup a little server on my local network just to make use of a 2TB harddrive I use to store videos.

Told everyone in the house I planned to grow the library over time and that they could access it all in a browser using my system name. It's become quite a fun venture and my video library is shaping up nicely.

Using nginx on a Dell XPS 17 with Ubuntu 16.04 to host a server that just auto indexes a shared directory on my external 2TB harddrive. Kind of an embarrassing rig, but it's just a hobby activity and I do plan to upgrade shit later.

The real fun has been getting to understand a bit more about video files. They used to be magic to me, as complex as their file extension. Now I run a script on all of my torrents which checks the video and audio codecs, converting them if they aren't supported by Chrome's and Firefox's web players, and outputting mp4s using ffmpeg. I feel like I have this stuff down fairly well now. Becoming more and more automated.

Next step is to port forward so I can access it from anywhere, but we'll see about that later down the line.

Don't ship half baked code

*yesterday*
Client: "Perfect! How did you do this so quickly?"
Me: "I used a library"
*today*
Me: "I'm still debugging. It will take some time"
Client: "Well, it has already taken too long...I can hear Mozart in the background. Maybe you need to go to a library to get some quiet and get it done fast. Visit the one you used yesterday."
Me: "Library?...Ah, I meant plugin...like, code...a library is a bunch of packaged code"

A young guy I work with burst into tears today, I had no idea what happened so I tried to comfort him and ask what was up.

It appears his main client had gone nuts with him because they wanted him to make an internet toolbar (think Ask.com) and he politely informed them toolbars doesn't really exist anymore and it wouldn't work on things like modern browsers or mobile devices.

Being given a polite but honest opinion was obviously something the client wasn't used to and knowing the guy was a young and fairly inexperienced, they started throwing very personal insults and asking him exactly what he knows about things (a lot more than them).

So being the big, bold, handsome senior developer I am, I immediately phoned the client back and told them to either come speak to me face-to-face and apologise to him in person or we'd terminate there contract with immediate effect. They're coming down tomorrow...

So part my rant, part a rant on behalf of a young developer who did nothing wrong and was treated like shit, I think we've all been there.

We'll see how this goes! Who the hell wants a toolbar anyway?!

DEVOPS ~ Jack of all Trades, Master of Some™

@jonistorey