Don’t be a scary old guy: My 40s survival strategy with charm

Hi, it’s Takuya. Last week I had my birthday and turned 41 (November 19th). When I was younger, I could never really picture what life in my 40s would look like. It’s this vague age where you don’t have a clear image of how you’re supposed

My plan to avoid hyperfocus and keep a healthy work pace (as a dad of two)

Hi, it's Takuya here. As I wrote in my previous post, I recently pushed myself too hard with my indie SaaS dev work and ended up burning out. One of the main reasons was my tendency to hyperfocus. When I get absorbed in something, I tend to lose

How low self-esteem and hyperfocus drove me to burnout

Hey, this is Takuya. Recently, I pushed myself too hard on indie development and ended up sick, as I posted a video on my channel recently. My atopic dermatitis flared up badly, and my quality of life dropped sharply. It was like hell, literally. I’m still recovering, but I’

The scariest “user support” email I’ve ever received

Hi, it's Takuya. As your app grows in popularity, you occasionally start to attract attacks aimed directly at you—the developer or site owner. Just the other day, I got one that was honestly terrifying, so I'd like to share it. The Email Subject: Cookie consent

Discovering the joy of driving as a long-time paper driver

Hi, it's Takuya. Ever since I got my driver’s license before entering university, I had basically never driven a car. Living in the city, I avoided driving as much as possible. The thought of operating something that could seriously hurt or even kill someone if I made

Zen: Why Inkdrop never extends Markdown syntax

I've been running Inkdrop, which is a Markdown note-taking app, and I’ve decided to never implement proprietary Markdown extensions, as that’s the philosophy of the app. The strength of Markdown (specifically GitHub-flavored Markdown) lies in its status as a widely used, loosely standardized document format in

Inkdrop v6(canary) is now available 🥳 The new Markdown editor and more

Hi! This is Takuya. I'm super excited to announce that the first canary version of v6.0.0 is available 😆✨ It comes with a bunch of ground-up improvements. Let's go! Release notes: Inkdrop Desktop v6.0.0-canary.1 🥳Hi! I’m super excited to announce that

Agentic coding made programming fun again

Hi, it's Takuya. I have a 9-year-old SaaS with multi-platform desktop and mobile apps called Inkdrop, a plain-text Markdown note-taking app. Recently, I started using Claude Code in my project. My first attempt was a failure, though I eventually got used to it in my workflow. Then, I

How to automate signing your Windows app with Certum's SimplySign app

I’ve been running a SaaS for 9 years, which includes an Electron app for Windows. For code signing, I’ve been using Certum's Code Signing Certificate: Code signing certificate for indie developersA walkthrough from buying a Certum’s code signing certificate to sign an app with itTakuya

How to automate development journaling with Claude Code

Hey, what's up? This is Takuya. I recently started using Claude Code to write code. It works great with my tmux and neovim setup since it can run as a CLI tool. It dramatically improved my productivity, but I tend to get lost in what I was working

What I did for upgrading React Native to 0.79.1 from 0.74.2

Hi, it's Takuya here, the developer of Inkdrop – a Markdown note-taking app that supports syncing and offline-first capabilities, built with React Native. Bumping up the React Native versions has always been hard, and this time wasn't an exception, especially because it involved migrating from the old

How to animate a TanStack Virtual list with motion (rev. 2)

The desktop version of my note-taking app is built with React and Electron. Previously, I managed to animate the insertion and removal of specific items of a TanStack Virtual list using motion. However, that approach would always trigger animations whenever the note list content changed, including when switching notebooks from