As time goes by, I’m looking for solutions that require as little maintenance as possible. One of those is deploying our client web app and our homepage directly on the CDN edge, with GitHub Actions. Not only we don’t need a server to host the app, but the deployment script is also serverless and maintenance-less. This allows me to focus on important tasks, knowing that deployment and serving of the app is always blazing fast.

It’s been a long journey since I decided that the current version of Monitive is just not good enough for our customers. That it doesn’t scale how it should. That its interface isn’t responsive or suitable for mobile devices. That the inner workings are not flexible enough to allow further extensions and features. All this, because it was the very first usable iteration of Monitive, crafted around 2011.

“Remember that guy that gave up? Neither does anybody else.” Progress on the new Monitive has been slow as a snail in a marathon, but nevertheless the progress was there. Since the last update last year, a lot has been going on, and one day I woke up and just decided to write, even if small updates. Not only because Monitive is about transparency, but because I love writing.

It’s been a while since the new Monitive codename “Freyja” was launched in private beta, and even though a lot of things have happened, development is moving forward a bit slow than I’ve hoped. Nevertheless, I’m happy that the core monitoring engine is running smoothly and it’s a great foundation for the years to come.

“Always design with the customer in mind,” they say. “We listen to our customers,” they say. And they’re right. But why not actually ask the customers what they want and just build what they’re asking for? “We might be driven off-track if we implement what our customers want.” This may come up as an argument to stick to the vision path and never deviate from the roadmap. However, in the end, aren’t we trying to build something for the customers?

Whenever I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is… well… not go over last night’s notifications on my phone. This has taken a while to get used to, but I am happy I did it. And it’s been a few years now. The first thing I do is get up and go to the bathroom. Then, I go into the kitchen, and brew my first coffee of the day. While the coffee is brewing, I raise the window rolls, turn on some music, and make sure everything is ready to have a great start to the day.

Have you had any moments lately where you felt completely overwhelmed? I would say it happens to the best of us, but let’s be honest: it happens to all of us. No matter where you live, what your home life is like, or what you choose to do for work, there are bound to be moments where it all just feels like too much.

The brand new Monitive platform is almost ready to be seen by the world, but just like any software development project, minor issues always surface that tend to push a release date back further and further. There’s always copy to be adjusted, links to be added, an icon that would improve clarity. Maybe a box is missing or the color of a button needs to change.

Even after being in business for 9 years, I still wanted to keep everything: every email, every note, every design draft or mockup — all the small things that helped Monitive evolve into what it is today. Storage is not an issue these days, and by the looks of where technology is headed, that trend will not change anytime soon. There’s just one catch.