Jonsdocs

2025 in review

Jonathan -

When I wrote my 2024 review post I opened by commenting on how it was an odd year, and I think 2025 has surpassed it in oddness rankings. During 2025 I saw job changes, family changes (which is all I'll say about that for now), and completely different challenges to I'm used to. I also somewhat lost track of time, and the year seemed to go really quickly at some points and really slowly at others.

Statistics

Continuing with tradition, a look at some stats....

  • Steps, according to Fitbit: 4,081,351 steps (average 11,182 steps per day)
  • Miles, according to Fitbit: 1,858.53 miles (average 5.09 miles per day)
  • Sleep, according to Fitbit: 6 hours 58 minutes (average) per night
  • 29 blog posts published (20 in 2024), 28 still in drafts (compared to 13 at the end of 2024)

On blog posts, I posted more than in 2024 - partly due to republishing posts I was using on LinkedIn as part of running my company. I released a series of shorter posts on protecting your organisation, along with a handful of posts for cyber security awareness month.

Reviewing my 2025 goals

  • ✅ Gain legendary status on all Welsh Duolingo units
    I completed this on 24th November. There were a few course updates during the year, and I wanted to stretch this goal a bit. Sadly, when you get legendary on every unit there's no additional trophy or fanfare 😢.
  • ✅ Be able to read and understand yet more Welsh literature
    It still takes me a long time to read Welsh magazine articles, but I think I'm getting quicker. I definitely need more practice and to be more disciplined in my reading
  • ❓Be able to hold a spoken conversation with my Welsh friend
    Sadly I didn't get round to trying this, although past experience showed I'd need her to speak slowly. We exchanged a lot of WhatsApp messages in Welsh though
  • ✅ Implement some of my home automation ideas
    While I didn't implement as many as I'd have liked, I did finally set Home Assistant to monitor my UPS [1]. I then added automations so that when the UPS lost mains power I was sent a push notification, and after ten minutes on battery power my NAS was automatically shutdown
  • ❓ Find happiness and interest in my day job
    Sort of? I founded a company and now work for myself, but there's good days and bad...
  • ✅ Give at least one talk
    I spoke at codeHarbour in September, presenting my honeypot research. There's a blog post about it here.

Conferences, events, and talks

In November, I attended ISC2 Secure London (blog post here) which was overall a good day. Unfortunately I only managed one day at Infosecurity Europe this year, but still attended some interesting talks. I didn't attend any other conferences, but did attend a couple of ISC2 Spotlight seminars, which were of varying use.

There were a number of codeHarbour and BCS Kent Branch talks over the year, and I attended most of these. There's some speaker overlap, so I skipped some sessions where I'd heard the talk before. I had the privilege to speak at codeHarbour, presenting my 2025 honeypot research. It'd be great to see more diversity at these events though, both in terms of speakers (there's a few of us on rotation) and attendees. BCS Kent Branch is mainly men (generally older) and codeHarbour is mainly men (typically younger).

Work

Wow, this year was different! As I alluded to in my goal review above, I now run my own company, Jonco IT & Security Ltd, which means I'm my own boss. I've wanted to run a company for a while, and after parting ways with my employer in February, having paid off my mortgage, my wife and I decided now would be a good time to give this a try. (You may recall from my 2024 review that my original employer was bought out, and I was basically demoted on joining the existing security team).

Running your own company is not without its challenges and I posted a bit about this. I'm finding the company is very slow to get to a position where I'm able to pay myself anywhere near the level I was used to. I fully confess that there's more I could be doing to promote the company, and I need to get better at the sales and marketing side, but I'm also genuinely surprised that I've not been able to find more security contract work given the global shortage of security professionals. When you consider 2025 had some massively impactful cyber security incidents, including Jaguar Land Rover being shut down for months which impacted the UK economy, you'd think it'd be easier to pick up customers.

Despite the business getting off to a slower start than expected, I'm enjoying it for the most part. I'm getting to work on some interesting projects (the benefit of working for myself if that I'm in total control there), and I have a lot more freedom to direct my time.

I was interviewed about starting my company as part of Carl Struyk's Growth Therapy podcast. It was really nice having a chat with someone else that's newly founded a company and sharing our experiences.

Professional development

Other than development through attending conferences and tech meetups, professional development has been much more ad hoc than I'd like. I've increased my development knowledge by using Flutter (very much still learning), and I'm learning how to run a company which surely counts too!

Gaming

I finally completed Satisfactory, having played the game since early access. Visually it's still a very impressive game, and my Framework Laptop 16 copes very nicely. The ending was a bit of an anti-climax though, as the plot for the game is only a very minor aspect.

Having finished Satisfactory, I started playing Starcraft 2 with my cousin. Gaming is a social pursuit for me, so this was another game we could play together. Getting that installed on Linux was a pain, but I got it going and am now getting used to it.

eVitabu

An advantage of working for my own company meant that I could further develop eVitabu on company time, rather than working on it in my downtime. APF kindly have contracted me to work up to two days a month on the project, and that's seen a lot of improvement in the web-based management system (EVM). I've also been able to turn my attention to rewriting the Android app in Flutter, the goal being to eventually release an iPhone version.

"AI"

"AI" is everywhere, so I should probably give it a bit of a mention here. I've used JetBrains AI and JetBrains Junie to assist me with some coding projects, and that's been really useful. Certainly "AI" tools for developers have improved a lot since I first gave them a go a couple of years ago, although the output isn't always correct. I very much believe in keeping the human (me!) in the loop, and reviewing the code that's offered by the "AI", but I'm definitely benefitting from its use as a developer.

I've also used Microsoft Copilot to help with business questions and research. Checking the referenced documents / articles / pages is absolutely needed when doing this, but I'm happy with the way I'm using Copilot and the validation steps I'm taking.

Books

I had a very on / off relationship with reading this year, sometimes going days at a time without reading more of the books I'd started. Still, a selection of the books I finished reading:

  • The Anomaly and The Possession by Michael Rutger
    I re-read The Possession after finding out I'd previously entered this series at the second book. The series starts with The Anomaly, so I read that, and then enjoyed The Possession again
  • The Missing Cryptoqueen by Jamie Bartlett
  • Bunker by Bradley Garrett
  • Timeline Taxi by Brent Roose
  • Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  • Jumpers - Code Zero by Z.R.R Beatham

I've increased my reading list, despite trying hard not to buy any more books before finishing the ones I've already got unread 🤦‍♀️.

Goals for 2026

  • Be more successful with Jonco IT & Security, so I can earn enough to continue the company
  • Review my Home Assistant configuration - it definitely needs some tidying up!
  • Implement some home automation ideas, starting with control of my Flexispot sit stand desk
  • Give at least two talks (looking promising, as I'm already booked for two tech meetup events)
  • Progress eVitabu's rewrite into Flutter, with a view to producing an iPhone version
  • Improve my use of JetBrains tools, for example using Live Templates

Banner image: "tango office calendar", from OpenClipart.org, by warszawianka.

[1] - Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS). This is basically a backup battery that has key network equipment connected to it. In the event of a power cut the router, switches, Wi-Fi access point, NAS, and Home Assistant will remain available for up to an hour.