Update for the week ending on Friday, Mar 26, 2021

TinyPilot

Management

• Started sharing job listing for part-time local assistant

Software development

• Created a Shopify webhook listener to process completed checkouts
  • I’m hoping this can solve two of my problems
  • The first is inventory. I want to automatically update my inventory spreadsheet every time an order comes in (we’re currently doing it manually at the end of each day)
  • The second is automatically providing the latest microSD images to customers. If customers need to reflash their microSD, they currently have to email me for a secret link to the image. It would be way easier for everyone if there was a web form where they just typed in their order number and email, it checked whether they should have access, and then it shows them the link instantly.
  • Shopify’s kind of a pain to integrate with because they give examples of their requests, but they don’t define the schema, so it’s hard to know if I’ve implemented the listener correctly until I see some requests come in
• Reviewed a PR to make error handling more uniform
• Reviewed a PR to add a convenience script for changing video settings
• Reviewed a PR to add a tag to the uStreamer Ansible Role
• Added the hostname to the title tag on all TinyPilot Pro pages
  • It helps users who are running multiple TinyPilots
• Made a new demo GIF to highlight the new UI
  • I can’t figure out how I got the old one to be so small in size. It was 658 KB and I think 30 FPS.
  • New one was 6 MB on first try. I managed to bring it down to 2 MB with gifsicle, made a smaller version that’s 300 KB
• Fixed some of TinyPilot’s documentation
• Removed the Github pull request template
  • It added friction for the regular developers and there are so few new contributors that it was a net negative

Customer support

• Added an FAQ article about re-flashing a microSD with Balena Etcher

Product research

• Continued planning for custom PoE HAT

Sales

• Replaced the super old demo on the homepage with reviews from YouTubers
  • Before
  • After
  • Still needs some polish
• Reached out to two more potential affiliates
  • No response

mtlynch.io

• Started a blog post about building logpaste

LogPaste

Meta: I needed a service where users could easily share TinyPilot debug logs with me, and nothing else matched what I was looking for, so I rolled my own as a fun weekend project.

• Add support for uploading text via curl (or any other simple HTTP tools)
• Add support for uploading text files
• Add rate-limiting by IP
• Fixed a bug that caused replication to turn off 😬
  • Fortunately, I’m still the only consumer, and I think I only lost two log uploads before I caught the issue
• Added an end-to-end test
• Documented uploading with JavaScript
• Added syntax highlighting for code snippets
• Added support for a customizable page footer

ResticPy

• Added a Github Pages view of the API documentation
• Refactored the command executor
• Added support for more restic commands and flags

Misc

• Tried and failed to fix a broken light fixture in my basement
• Gave a bunch of stuff away on my local Buy Nothing Facebook group
  • 50% no-shows, I’m so desperate to build my own replacement app