My Story
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Diane Corriette
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Own Your Software
From Overwhelm to Ownership: The Story Behind Building MTDify
UPDATE EDIT: JULY 2026: MTDify is now called Desk Ledger. This digital book keeping app has had its name changed. The story remains the same! If you had told me a year ago …
Own Your Software
The Welcome Window: Live Customer Support
Own Your Software
Introducing Invoice Generator: An Open-Source Invoicing Tool
Recent
The Journey from Offline-First to Local-First
Many developers arrive at local-first through a familiar path. They build an application that works offline, discover users want their data on multiple devices, …
The Benefits of Self-Hosting for Small Businesses
Self-hosting has a reputation problem. It sounds technical, expensive, and risky. For most small business owners, it sits in the same category as building …
When Offline-First Is the Right Choice
How do you know whether offline-first software is actually the right approach for a project or tool? Offline-first is not a moral stance. It …
Why Offline-First Matters for Privacy and Control
Why does offline-first software offer more privacy and control than cloud-based tools—and does that really matter in everyday use? Privacy and control are often …
What Is Offline-First Software?
What does “offline-first” actually mean, and why would anyone choose software that doesn’t rely on the internet? Offline-first software is often misunderstood. Some people …
The Freedom of Building Without Feature Requests
What actually happens when you stop accepting feature requests—and why does it change the way software feels to build and to use? Feature requests …
Why Building for Yourself Creates Better Software
Is building software “just for yourself” really a serious approach—or is it a shortcut that limits quality and usefulness? There is a widespread belief …
Why I am adding local-first development to my work
For years, my work has centred on helping creators and small businesses build a home for their ideas online. I have built websites, eCommerce …
From Personal Tool to Product: When to Share Your Software
How do you know when a personal tool should be shared—and what actually changes when you do? Most personal software should never become a …
Getting Started with Self-Hosting: A Practical Guide
Self-hosting does not require a computer science degree. It does not require expensive hardware. It does not require mass amounts of spare time. What …
Tools You Can Run Yourself
Today I wanted to focus on writing about tools you can run yourself. I want to explain how these tools can be a practical …
Introducing the Djangify eCommerce Site Builder
After a long stretch of learning, building, breaking, and rebuilding, I am finally ready to share something close to my heart - the Djangify …
Local-First vs Cloud-First - Key Differences
The software industry has spent the last decade shifting toward cloud-first design. Everything moved online: documents, tasks, calendars, finances, writing, even basic tools that …
How AI Enhances Independent Web Development
When I first asked ChatGPT to come up with an outline for an article on how AI enhances web development, it produced this utopian …
Building the Mini eCommerce Builder System
As I learned Django, most of my progress came from repetition. Immediately after completing my full-stack developer training, I spent a year setting up …
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