Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 30/09/2026We’re using Cloudflare’s “IP address list” feature to whitelist access to our internal admin site. Cloudflare has done it well - each IP address gets a comment and a “created at” field. Two little things that make managing the list much better. 100
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 29/09/2026Damn, Claude, don’t hold back the punches. It’s very true though. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 24/09/2026How good is that at describing the pleasure of being the sole developer on a product you own? From www.m2h.nl/writing/the-... 001
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 22/09/2026So happy! I also would have been content with this. thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/co... 110
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 22/09/2026Trying to add a little personality into Feature Upvote’s website top nav. @punchlinecopy.com - I’m desperately hoping for your seal of approval here. 🦭🦭🦭 110
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 21/09/2026A new feature in Feature Upvote no-one has asked for, but I’ve been wanting to build for years: votes can optionally slowly lose value over time. An item highly requested a year ago drops down the list. An item regularly getting votes each month rises. 120
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 18/09/2026Possibly the biggest irony in tech in that Hacker News - where people endlessly the merits of the latest JS and CSS frameworks - still uses tables for layout like we did in 2005. Even more ironic is that most HN users neither know nor care about this. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 08/09/2026Google behaving worse than even Ryanair: The choice that says $0.15/month is actually $2.99/month. And the amazing $0/month plan is actually $32.99. Everyone involved surely knows this is deceptive. “But it converts better this way,” I’m sure some weaselly PM pleads. 220
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 02/09/2026A 24-week streak of posting to our company socials (and our posts are much better than they used to be, too). Not coincidentally, Julia, our Content Marketing Manager, has been working with us for 24 weeks 😀 (Likewise, our newsletters have become more regular and better.) 030
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 27/08/2026This is cool. A game controller that resembles an old school arcade machine and holds your iPad. (Seen today at Gamescom) 150
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 26/08/2026Enjoying a casual dinner German-style: (vegetarian) döner kebab in the park. 110
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 24/08/2026For a few days, I’m back in the city I lived in for eight years. A city with a distinctive style of beer served in a distinctive way. (It’s Cologne, Germany) 010
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 23/08/2026Feature Upvote spotted in the wild! Love seeing a game’s community embrace their Feature Upvote board. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 15/08/2026Typical sign outside shops in Barcelona during August. It’s Catalan for “we open on 31st August”. 15 years here, and I still haven’t embraced the “close down the business for August” mentality - it’s difficult when you are running a SaaS. But next year I’ll try doing less. 110
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 14/08/2026As we’re getting close to Gamescom, it’s a great time to share our 80-second explainer video: the quickest way to work out what the heck Feature Upvote is! (But really, the name of our product is a biiiiig clue.) 010
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 13/08/2026It’s hard to compete in Google Ads for your own product name when you are bidding against Spotify. Sigh. Pointlessly pushing up our bid cost. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 12/08/2026Ok, this is cool. This little Catalan town we chose to watch the eclipse from has an official viewing spot with complementary seating. There’s an excited buzz here. 110
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 12/08/2026Having a solar eclipse in Spain in August is extremely poor planning. We’ll be outside for hours waiting in this heat, with the legendary August humidity thrown in for extra suffering. 100
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 11/08/2026I had the foresight to buy these back in March. There’s high demand right now from desperate people who are just learning that you need these to watch tomorrow’s eclipse. 221
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 06/08/2026I google for Algolia. First result says “Algolia” and appears to be Algolia. But it isn’t. Google continues to disappoint me. 110
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 28/07/2026Google AI now agrees that, yes, Feature Upvote DOES have a public REST API. The winning move seemed to be using Google Search to request Google to index the relevant blog post. Sometimes the old ways still work. Hat tip to Siew Ann Tan for suggesting this. 011
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 26/07/2026Just found out my girlfriend has no knowledge (or perhaps it is memory?) of the “I can haz cheezburger” meme. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 24/07/2026Here’s a pic so you can find it - I don’t want to leave a link to the suspicious posts. 100
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 24/07/2026We created a V0 REST API for Feature Upvote 2019, waiting for it to be stable before we made it publicly available. Seven years later? After what can only be called an overabundance of caution, we finally made the REST API public. Now I have to work out how to make Google AI change its opinion! 100
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 19/07/2026My Barcelona neighbourhood, as the World Cup final second half is about to start. 020
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 15/07/2026You are right; this is not Instagram. But nevertheless here’s my location-appropriate lunch in Brighton today. The verdict: not even close to the excellence of New Zealand’s fish & chips. 110
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 14/07/2026On the train to Brighton, to attend Develop: Brighton. 120
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 09/07/2026I feel _very_ seen in Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s latest newsletter. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 06/07/2026On a whim, I changed Feature Upvote’s SVG “progress indicator” to pure CSS. I’m having one of those “this is not your grandpa’s CSS” moments. 030
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 01/07/2026My progress in learning Catalan: Two weeks ago I wouldn’t haven’t been able to read this flyer I spotted in a cafe today. Now I understand it perfectly. Nice to feel some progress! (Tr: “I can’t. I have yoga.”) 010
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 24/06/2026No, Stripe, I’m not going to give you ANOTHER ~1% of my revenue simply because I’m impatient and can’t wait a few days for our payout. This is approaching loanshark rates and behaviour. 321
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 24/06/2026My favourite feature in Linear: auto-close stale items. My mantra has become: If something has been in the backlog for 12 months, it is clearly not an important issue. So delete it. 031
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 23/06/2026It’s Kill the HiPPO newsletter day! Today’s topic: The “popular” feature no one used Read it here: killthehippo.com/posts/the-po... And sign up. You really should sign up. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 11/06/2026A new Kill the HiPPO newsletter! A theme important to me: how to prevent your software becoming a “death by a thousand paper cuts” experience. killthehippo.com/posts/death-... 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 01/06/2026Can you still eat ramen for dinner if you are way past “ramen profitability”? Tonight’s dinner. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 22/05/2026Some powerful stuff on why we say “Yes” to too many things in Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s latest newsletter: (Anne-Laure is the author of Tiny Experiments.) 010
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 17/05/2026I’m having lunch in the Spanish enclave of Llivia. An alpine town surrounded by France. Beautiful views of the Pyrenees here but it is raining so you can have a photo of my lunch instead of the vista. 160
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 16/05/2026I took a few days off to ride along France’s Canal du Midi with a friend. Should’ve been an easy ride but headwinds gusting at 60 km/h and a cold, wet snap ramped up the difficulty level a bit. 070
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 07/05/2026I love hearing how our customers describe Feature Upvote. This is from the discord of Rematch, the popular football (aka soccer) video game. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 05/05/2026Definitely one of the best things about living in Barcelona: taking an afternoon break from work to cycle along the Mediterranean coast. 050
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 05/05/2026It’s Kill the HiPPO newsletter day! This week: "Why no AI in Kill the HiPPO?" Subscribe or read the archive: killthehippo.com/posts/why-no... 010
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 04/05/2026When you give your marketing person permission to post anything they’d like on the company’s LinkedIn profile... ...you discover their favourite film franchises. 😀 010
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 29/04/2026I’m slowly replacing Feature Upvote’s textedit fields with rich text editors. I’ve just finished converting our “private note” fields. Giving the people what they want, as long as what they want can be achieved with B, I, U, A, UL, or OL HTML tags. 000
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 27/04/2026My author's copies of my book, Kill the HiPPO, arrived. Time to post a photo. 030
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 25/04/2026If @randfish.bsky.social bought my book, Kill the HiPPO, then you should too! A few days after launch, it’s really nice reading the first reviews and hearing the first recommendations. 051
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 22/04/2026My book Kill the HiPPO got its first Amazon review. www.amazon.com/product-revi... 010
Steve McLeod @steveofmcleod.com · 19/04/2026Approved already! I can now add ”author” to my profile! Now the haaaaard work of marketing begins 010