alexwlchan

A selfie! I’m smiling at the camera, wearing a green dress, and sitting in front of a large amount of green foliage. It’s a sunny day and shining both on the side of my face and the plants.

Hi, I’m Alex (or Lexie).

I’m a software developer with a particular interest in digital preservation. I’m also a keen writer, crafter, theatre-goer, and occasional dancer.

I’ve put a bunch of things on the Internet, including:

My personal writing, which covers a range of topics, from programming to photography, from colour theory to Chinese dictionaries. I’ve been writing at this domain for over a decade, and I post new articles several times a month.
A bunch of open-source tools and utilities. I’ve contributed fixes and patches to dozens of projects, and I’ve shared a few of my own, including my tool for managing my scanned files and a way to find the dominant colours in an image.
My work for the Flickr Foundation and Wellcome Collection, my current and previous employers. I’ve worked on a number of different things, including a unified catalogue search, a cloud-based preservation storage service, and a toy for parsing Flickr URLs.
Fun and amusing art projects, like measuring data by shelf space in floppy disks, or controlling a rocket with the <marquee> tag.

When I’m not online, I can often be found with needle in hand, working on some cross-stitch or embroidery, or with shoes on feet, tapping away to a funky jazz number at a swing dance class. I have two left feet, but what I lack in skill I make up for in enthusiasm.

I’m queer, trans, and I loosely describe as a genderfluid shapeshifter (which may mean more to me than anyone else). My pronouns vary; on the web, either “they” or “she” are safe choices. 🏳️‍🌈

This site is a one-stop shop for everything I’ve put online – it’s either here, or linked to from here. If you’re new, you might want to start with my writing or my list of projects.

I hope you enjoy it.

My writing

I write about anything I find interesting or fun – there’s plenty of programming, but lots of other stuff too. Here are some of my favourites:

If you want to read more, I’ve got plenty to look at.

My newest articles

I typically write three or four new articles a month. If you want to find out when I post something new, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on social media.

Here’s what I’ve written recently: