The End?

After 7 hours and endless memories

After spending more than 7 hours , completing the library (which now consists of 12 unique projects and 14 amazing blog posts) and upgrading the viewing experience by MUCH, I can finally state that DoMax.lt is finally COMPLETE!

Of course, complete or not, blog library will continue to grow over the years.

Honestly, I feel very relieved about the fact that my own site now houses my greatest achievements with crazy stories to share, as new posts are written in a format of a memory tale.

I’m hoping the world is going to lean towards Open Source more and more.

What new blogs were added?

Posts and project descriptions for Matcha Linux and Onlinja are out!

I also remembered other successful projects I’m very proud of. One of them caused a snowball effect and started the biggest cross-class collaboration from students’ initiative my school has ever seen. I must mention that it was the first cross-class IT project, and heavily promoted by our school, so you might want to read about it here.

If I like the theme, can I fork it?

Yes! Like each and every one of my projects (like any other true open-source project) this is forkable, and even has instructions on how to make it truly yours. Check my site’s GitHub to learn more!

Visit DoMax.lt and see how ideas or strangest situations turn into real projects!

Unexpected turn

A shift?

In the last devlog I told you I’d make posts about Matcha Linux and Onlinja. Well, I LIED, but let me explain:

I remembered that I had more interesting stories to uncover, and had to vent a bit xD

What I wrote about in my latest blog posts:

• Pebble revival: I was thrilled to find out what the community has done in favor to preserve a smartwatch.
• School project and beef with Wordpress: How Wordpress caused a very bumpy development journey, and what I’ve learned from it.

That’s it?

Structurally speaking, yes. From a visual standpoint you wouldn’t notice anything… Until you turn on dark mode - the site doesn’t change!

As a temporary solution I now force light mode on my website. In the future I will probably implement proper dark mode.

I also made sure building the site threw no errors I caused. Everything runs smoothly from one end to another.

I also made sure that when browsing a project, menu displays “Projects” as a selected option. Previously it was (for some reason) hardcoded to only be affected when viewing a blog post.

So are you NOW writing about Matcha Linux and Onlinja?

Yes! And then the site will be ready for a ship, with a possible additional blog post about my journey with Hack Club’s Sprig.

My life always results in something unusual and exciting (sometimes in goofy ways). To know more, check out DoMax.lt!

What rises, has to fall

How a great project can be killed by bigger 3rd parties

Last year, during Summer of Making, one of my largest projects was definitely the EchoTuner - an AI playlist generator. I loved the idea and poured all of myself to it. However, it heavily relied on Spotify’s API that has now become fairly inaccessible due to poor corporate decisions. If you want to see how a project gets killed by a bigger player, read the newest blog here.

Another thing I updated was the About Me page. It features less cheap-talk and something that might actually be interesting to read. I highly suggest you checking it out.

Some visual elements have also been updated to keep consistency with design language (mostly hover events/animations).

Tomorrow I will become a writer

I have big plans for tomorrow. I’ll finally get all the missing bits together to post something about my best pair of projects I have ever made. They are Matcha Linux together with its full suite, and Onlinja, which is the best game you’ll ever play.

If you want to see great execution of simplicity, wait a day or two, a new devlog is on its way!

Is there anything beyond that?

No, I don’t think so. Unless some memory or idea comes to mind, I am not planning to post anything before shipping this site on Stardance.

That said, I already have many ideas for my other projects. We just have to wait! :D

More uncovered

Quite interesting!

In today’s devlog - new posts! I thought about sharing unheard stories of a flop (Codebase Awareness Protocol) that I made some time ago, with all the reasons of WHY exactly did it fail, as well as a success (Raspbery Pi 1 optimization) and how I utilized an old device that’s in perfect condition.

Both are worth reading! You can click on the links above!

Bugs can’t hide from me!

In addition to 2 amazing blog posts, I both introduced and fixed a very obvious bug.

In attempt to make everything look beautiful, with hover animations, I forgot the fact that this site isn’t still fully decoupled . Some elements, instead of being reused, are coded in-place, without newer styling compatibility. Luckily, when I noticed, the fix was a simple line replacement.

Everything functions as it should, and the site feels more responsive than ever before.

Shaping the site

The site is forming beautifully with more content to come. I’m trying to re-read my old project information and catch memories that are floating around.

The goal is simple yet obvious - try to make reading my journey be fun and appealing.

DoMax.lt won’t stop growing, even after Stardance, so make sure to visit it once in a while! :D

Something personal

What was I cooking?

Behind the scenes, I have greatly redesigned the About Page and added a new post for the Revival of DoMax.lt!

Within these pages is a more raw look at my technological journey, as well as how the site is going to be updated from now on.

Do I have any quick plans?

Absolutely! I MUST document the deprecation notice of EchoTuner and the challenges of making it.

NOTE: the website might not work at the time you’re reading this, but the auth flow should come back online

Speaking of challenges, one of my most challenging projects so far was Matcha Linux that you can view on Stardance too!

Next will probably come my less-known or failed projects, like CAP, Detention Loop, as well as some of group projects led by me (great example of this is SkyLink)

I think I’ll need some time to think about all of these projects and showcase everything about them. Stay tuned for further updates!

Back to blogging!

In this devlog: how am I trying to revive my personal page - DoMax.lt!

Here I am again! Back to my personal page that’s quite old at this point. Almost a whole year without posting! Time to change that.

What technology am I using?

I am using Jekyll for page generation. Jekyll’s charm is very simple - it requires everything to be written in Markdown, while the template for a site can just be taken from elsewhere and modified (by editing or adding your own Markdown files). Super useful and super easy for anyone who doesn’t want to mess around setting up a Wordpress machine, but loves to tinker a bit.

THAT SAID - modifying the themes can sometimes be painful, as they’re not frequently updated. I got lucky - my chosen template wasn’t too cluttered up, but I remember having to put in some work to clean and update it to a usable, production-ready state.

The thing I am happy about though is my Docker workflow. It’s very convenient - lets me preview my page after editing anything locally. And rebuilds the container extremely fast too!

Since I said it’s not a new project, well then what IS new?

Glad you asked! I always missed a “Featured Projects” section and I want to shape this site not only for projects, but also standalone blogs. Now it was shaped to act only as a project showcase, but there are other things I’m passionate about.

What exactly am I planning to add next?

First of all:

1. My pile of projects that I have finished to a usable state, but never showcased. They deserve more attention.
2. A couple of blogs. I recently discovered that the old model Pebble Steel still works due to massive preservation efforts and I’m looking forward to getting the new Pebble Time 2, whch is a part of the reboot, also some Raspberry Pi and Alpine/Matcha Linux findings.

And the rest we’ll see about!

To follow my journey, don’t forget to visit DoMax.lt and the other projects I am hosting or making :D