Tiny but Mighty: My favourite kind of tool
I consider myself a bit of a minimalist. I like to do more with less.
Perhaps that's not precise enough. I like to do more with more precise tools.
Sometimes that means physically smaller. Sometimes it means handling only niche use cases. Sometimes, it means not using things. Sometimes it means going with pen and paper!
Why am I like this? Even I barely know. It's a mesh of many reasons.
One side of it is that I prefer being able to travel light, and worry about fewer expensive things to maintain. Another is that I like personalising my tools to suit my use case, which often means finding very specific things.
It's why I:
- Drive an Audi TT. It's surprisingly practical, plus I love the style!
- Game on a Steam Deck. For a handheld, it packs a hell of a punch for a great deal of games.
- Work on a 13" Macbook. Sturdy, compact for travel, and great battery life (important in South Africa!). I tried switching off of it for a month and had to go back.
Even my wallet follows this pattern: a lovely, compact leather piece that just holds cards and a bit of cash. It's about as small as an old Nokia.
When I think of the software I want to build, both for myself and others, I think in the same way. Tiny, but mighty.
I also love tiny web software that follows this idea. Here's a list of such websites I consider "tiny but mighty":
- Bear Blog: "A privacy-first, no-nonsense, super-fast blogging platform". Exactly what it says on the tin. This is what this blog is hosted on!
- Omg.lol: Domain, DNS, profile/web page, email forwarding, social media, pastebin, url shortening, and microblogging, all in one package!
- Pico.sh: Tiny tools for techies, using
ssh. Static site hosting, connection tunnels, blogging platform, pastebin, RSS -> email notifications, and Docker registry. A bit more effort involved to use it, but I love the concept. - Tiiny.host: "The simplest way to host & share your web project". It can't get simpler than uploading some files somewhere, right?
- Honorable mention for TinyLetter, a newsletter platform, which was shut down this year. Would've loved to use it, and haven't really found a similar platform for newsletters since.
- Hopefully, soon my own projects will make it to this list?
If you've got something to recommend for this list, be sure to let me know!
Sites recommended to me for this list:
- Buttondown.email (referral link) - referred by Wogan May. Never took a good look at it until now, and I immediately decided to move my newsletter to it.