Max Glenister

Things I’m making, fixing and taking apart.

I’ve been writing here since 2004, mostly about hardware hacks and retro handhelds, web development and UX, and whatever else I’m tinkering with. If you’re new, pick a thread below.

366 posts by Max Glenister • More about me

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  • Blog & IndieWeb

    38 posts

    How this site is built: Jekyll, webmentions, GitHub Actions and the small web.

    1. Start withArchive Archaeology

      I was talking to someone about foobar2000 and how prolific I’d been in the customisation scene back in the day. I knew I’d written up a detailed config somewhere, with screenshots and everything, but the domain was long gone and I hadn’t thought about it in years. On a whim I punched moglenstar.net into the Wayback Machine and there it was, cached HTML from a site I’d let lapse almost two decades ago. That led to more searching.

      13 min read • February 2026
    2. Adding support for Webmentions3 min read • April 2022 • 37 interactions
    3. Finding the Small Web in a Loud Internet3 min read • April 2026 • 1 interaction

  • UX & Design

    26 posts

    Everyday interface details: cursors, progress bars, charts, and software that's harder to use than it should be.

    1. Start withWhy can't I read this picture book?

      I’ve spent the last five years reading picture books with my kids at bedtime. Hundreds of them - and I’m still going, even as my eldest moves on to chapter books. One thing has consistently driven me mad: I often can’t read the words.

      4 min read • January 2026 • 1 interaction
    2. Your forecast is accurate and still wrong5 min read • March 2026
    3. O cursor, where art thou?4 min read • September 2026

  • Reviews

    29 posts

    Hands-on reviews of retro handhelds, e-ink devices and other small gadgets.

    1. Start withThe DS Pico might be the last DS flashcart you'll ever need

      In 2007 I was deep in the DS flashcart scene, cycling through a string of carts. GBATemp threads, firmware drama, custom skins, compatibility lists. By 2009 I’d moved on. Nearly twenty years later, the DS Pico has pulled me right back in. Open-source, built around an RP2040, and around £10 from Chiscart on AliExpress. I’ve bought three.

      7 min read • March 2026 • 1 interaction
    2. The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader6 min read • June 2026 • 25 interactions
    3. The Mangmi Air X7 min read • November 2025

  • Web Dev

    34 posts

    How the web works today: modern CSS, old markup, and building boring, durable sites.

    1. Start withPHP2Shell and the case for building boring sites

      From Wednesday 21 October to the end of the weekend, I was patching an old VPS and moving a handful of sites onto a new one. PHP2Shell finally made the decision for me. This blog carried on regardless, because it’s just files. The sites I’d built with a CMS were another story.

      4 min read • October 2026 • 2 interactions
    2. Antiquated CSS and why we needed it12 min read • September 2026 • 2 interactions
    3. It's 2026, why are vendor prefixes still in your CSS?7 min read • March 2026 • 2 interactions

  • Data & Experiments

    7 posts

    Small data projects: Wordle stats, Hacker News numbers, five AIs predicting the World Cup, and other things I counted for fun.

    1. Start withWhat's the most popular number in Hacker News titles?

      Two consecutive titles on the HN front page yesterday had a 6 in them. This means nothing. But it’s the sort of nothing that lodges in your brain until you do something about it, so what is the most popular number in Hacker News titles?

      7 min read • July 2026 • 4 interactions
    2. Rebuilding and analysing 4 years of Wordle stats from WhatsApp chat logs10 min read • July 2026 • 7 interactions
    3. Every Kickstarter project I've backed2 min read • June 2026 • 3 interactions

  • Tinkering

    60 posts

    3D-printed fixes, Pocket CHIP and DevTerm projects, and Android hacks on old and unusual devices.

    1. Start withAndroid Auto on my HR-⁠V's Android 4.0.4 head unit

      I recently bought a 2018 Honda HR-V as our family car. It has a 7” touchscreen running Android 4.0.4, a version so old it predates Android Auto by about three years. It runs Android Auto now anyway, thanks to a small app I built over the course of a week.

      7 min read • November 2026
    2. A Foray Into Home Automation6 min read • August 2018 • 7 interactions
    3. I turned my DevTerm into a Game Boy Camera and Printer9 min read • March 2026 • 5 interactions

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Posts
366
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251k
Since
2004

Latest posts

  1. Android Auto on my HR-⁠V's Android 4.0.4 head unit

    I recently bought a 2018 Honda HR-V as our family car. It has a 7” touchscreen running Android 4.0.4, a version so old it predates Android Auto by about three years. It runs Android Auto now anyway, thanks to a small app I built over the course of a week.

    7 min read •
  2. PHP2Shell and the case for building boring sites

    From Wednesday 21 October to the end of the weekend, I was patching an old VPS and moving a handful of sites onto a new one. PHP2Shell finally made the decision for me. This blog carried on regardless, because it’s just files. The sites I’d built with a CMS were another story.

    4 min read • • 2 interactions
  3. Chasing build speed on Jekyll 4

    I’ve been putting off upgrading from Jekyll 3.10. Partly late-adopter habit, partly because my setup worked fine, and a version bump seemed simple enough. I should know better by now. It mostly was.

    4 min read • • 1 interaction
  4. Cardboctober, ten years on

    It has been 10 years since I ran Cardboctober, a month-long hackathon in which I created something new for Google Cardboard each day and wrote about it. I considered doing it again this year, but my time is spread thinner these days than it was in 2016, so I thought I’d do a bit of a retrospective on the WebVR and Google Cardboard scene instead.

    7 min read • • 3 interactions
  5. O cursor, where art thou?

    All too often on my computer, I’ll finish typing something, reach for my mouse, and have no idea where the cursor has got to. Not on the monitor I was looking at. Possibly on the laptop screen, but I’d have to turn my head and check. So I do what I always do, shake the mouse until macOS inflates the cursor to the size of a dinner plate, and carry on.

    4 min read •

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