Ten years ago, I started this blog.

It’s my third or fourth blog - in 2010, I retired my personal blog https://thomasswilliams.blogspot.com as well as my second technical blog on abandoned site “TheRuntime”, now only on archive.org (side note: 2010 was a busy year, I started studying a Masters degree).

In 2016 I started this blog with the aim to write at least one post a month.

Ten years on, I’ve written nearly 100 posts. I took a break between 2023 and 2025 as work was super-busy. But I always planned on coming back and documenting what I’d learned, in the hope that it could be a reference point for me, outlasting specific jobs, as well as help others.

The posts I’m most proud of are a series on learning R Markdown (Markdown and R code for data visualisation and interactive reports), a series on learning Leaflet (web-based map tiles with an Antarctic twist), my home networking evolution, and random developer & IT bits and pieces that reflect me - a curious learner.

There’s also tons of DBA-related posts from the day-to-day operational level, to the long-term view and product ownership level, that mirror my career journey.

I’m a firm believer that the act of writing is the best way to prove and improve writing quality. Writing as a skill is critical, and technology and computing are more exciting and dynamic than ever.

I hope to continue - as I have over the past 25 years of working in IT - documenting/clarifying/reflecting on whatever platform, for another 10 years.