Knee Jar

The First Build Is Done

Wed, 28 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Back in June I mentioned I’d started building a game just for fun. A few months of evenings later, the first build is done.

It’s still very much a first version. The core is there: the third-person view, the big battles and the strategy side that ties it all together. But there’s a lot I already know I want to change, and probably a lot more I haven’t spotted yet.

Testing it out

So the next step is getting it in front of people. I’ve handed it to a few people I know to play and, more importantly, to tell me honestly what works and what doesn’t. Watching someone else play something you made is humbling in the best way. Things that feel obvious to me turn out not to be, and the bits I worried about sometimes turn out to be fine.

What’s next

The plan is simple: listen, take notes, and keep improving it. It’s still a passion project with no big launch in mind, but I’d like to see how good I can make it.

If you’re one of the people testing it, thank you. Keep the feedback coming.

Lights That Follow the Screen

Sun, 25 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This one was a quick weekend build, and honestly one of the most fun.

I wanted movie nights to feel a bit more cinematic. The idea was simple: make the smart lights around the TV react to whatever’s on screen, so the colours spill out into the room.

How it works

It’s a very simple app that runs on the TV box. It records a tiny copy of the screen, works out the colours on each side of the picture, and sends them to the Philips Hue lights around the TV, many times a second. Explosions light up the room, a sunset turns everything orange, and a dark scene dims the lights right down with it.

Once it’s set up, it’s just one button: turn it on, turn it off.

The catch

Some streaming apps block screen recording, so the app just sees a black screen. For those, it falls back to slow, ambient mood lighting instead, which still looks nice in the background.

It’s not a business tool and it was never meant to be. It’s just a fun one, and it’s made watching anything at home a little more special.

Digging Deeper Into the Numbers

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The next project came from a familiar frustration. Every platform gives you its own reports, but they only go so deep. Sales numbers live on the ecommerce platform, website traffic is in Google Analytics, and social media has its own dashboards, and none of them really let you dig in.

What it does

The analytics tool is about reviewing that data properly. It brings everything together so I can:

Compare performance across a whole range of factors
Track real return on investment for campaigns and spend
Analyze the data we already have in more depth than the built-in reports allow

It’s less about collecting new data and more about finally getting full value out of what’s already there.

Where it’s at

It’s still growing, but it has already changed how I look at the numbers week to week. Being able to line things up side by side makes it a lot easier to see what’s actually working and make better calls because of it.

A Little Game, Just for Fun

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Not everything I build has to solve a problem at work. This one is purely for fun.

I’ve started building a video game in Unity as a passion project. It’s a third-person game with a heavy focus on large-scale battles and strategy, the kind of thing where you’re managing a lot of moving parts at once (which, now that I think about it, isn’t that far from my day job).

There’s no big plan behind it and no launch date. It’s just something I enjoy chipping away at in the evenings, and it has already eaten more late nights than I’d like to admit.

If it ever turns into something worth showing, I’ll share it here.

A Better Way to Run Store-Wide Sales

Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Back in February I said I had some other things in the works. The first one is finally far enough along to talk about: a sale manager app.

The problem

Most ecommerce platforms come with their own promotions built in: buy one get one free, spend a certain amount and save, that kind of thing. The catch is they all work at the cart level. The discount only shows up once something’s been added to the cart, or once a customer meets some condition like buying a certain number of items.

What they don’t handle well is a proper store-wide sale. Setting a specific discount across hundreds of products, having it show right on the product page where customers actually see it, and having it start and stop on a schedule. For a long time that meant a spreadsheet, a lot of clicking, and an alarm on my phone to switch everything back.

What I built

So I built a tool to do it for me. I can set up a sale using:

A percentage off, like 20% off everything in a collection
A set amount off, like $10 off each product
A specific sale price for each product

It all works in bulk, including straight from a CSV file, so a sale across hundreds of products is as easy as one. Every sale gets a start and end time, and the app takes care of applying it and putting prices back when it’s over.

It’s not flashy, but it has already saved me hours and removed a whole category of “did I remember to turn that off?” worries.

Building it

I leaned heavily on modern development tools to build this. I like the practical side of new technology more than the hype, and this was a good example. Something that would have taken me months on my own came together in weeks, and I learned a lot along the way.

More soon. Thanks for reading!

Finding Time to Finally Make Some Changes

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Life gets busy — and if you’ve visited this site before, you’ve probably noticed it has been sitting untouched for a while. Well, I finally carved out some time in what has been a very full schedule to give it the refresh it deserved.

It felt like the right moment to update things, because honestly, a lot has changed since this site was last touched.

Nine Years and Counting

Back in 2017 I stepped into a marketing role, and what started as one thing has grown into so much more. Over the years I’ve developed skills across a pretty wide range of areas — management, product development, e-commerce, social media marketing, and more than I could fit into a single list. Each year has brought new challenges and new things to figure out, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed the process.

It hasn’t always been straightforward, but that’s kind of the point. The roles that stretch you are the ones that teach you the most, and I feel like I’m still very much in that mode — learning, adapting, and trying to make a real impact in what I do.

What’s Next

I’m looking forward to continuing to grow in my career, taking on new challenges, and sharing more of what I’m working on here. I also have some other things in the works — more on that soon.

For now, it just feels good to have a corner of the internet that actually reflects where I’m at. Thanks for stopping by.

Jekyll And Heroku

Sat, 17 Sep 2016 18:05:00 +0000

Over the past 2 days I have been working to setup this website > www.jordantomasone.com, the website itself runs on Jekyll static webpage generator developed by github. Originally I had planned to use github pages to host the site but I encountered some issues because I create the git repo under its own organization, and by doing so, would of had to use www.jordantomasone.com/app-name (with app-name being the name of the app), this was a little messy for my liking so I decided instead of creating a brand new github account and hosting it on github pages I would try another option.

So while I weighed my options I remember that my AWS only has 3 months left on the free 12 month period so as well instead of creating a new account or using it for 3 months and switching I kept looking, this was my mistake.

I ended up find Heroku as an option, there cloud services for ruby deployment is really praised thoughout my research so I decided to take the plunge and check it out. So Heroku itself is not a bad option at all its just for using a static webpage generator it kind of loses its purpose, unlike github pages Heroku needs to precompile all page assets or it basically just interperts static pages. So in the end uploading the _site/ folder is all that is need.

So what I have learned is that using Heroku with Jekyll is pointless, github pages and AWS are always better alternatives, but don’t take my word for it try it yourself.

I've Been Busy!

Tue, 13 Sep 2016 08:05:00 +0000

Hey, just wanted to update the blog on what I have been up to. Over the past 2 months I have been working on building a brand for a client. In terms of what I can talk about, you can check out the website here or you can check out the github page for the site here, still working out chosing a domain name and once that is accomplished site will be filled in and completed for production. In terms of the video content, we currently have 4 videos developed, working on getting music for the videos currently as well but we should have content released for the start of October (Hopefully).

In terms of the site being updated, I have started using cloudflare to help provide SSL support along with the many other features that having a CDN provide, I am going to test this out and I’ll give a update on the service in future blog posts.

Just wanted to post a final note about my music, and I wanted to just touch on the limited amount of time I currently have for creating music, so the album that was planned might turn into a few singles or I might just hold of releasing any content for sometime.

Keybase and Project updates

Tue, 23 Aug 2016 09:05:00 +0000

Site Updates

Add keybase verification page at www.kneejar.com/keybase.txt

To Do

Https support (looking for provider)
Site redesign (currently on hold)
Video editing
Fill content for Project Site Here! (About me page, blog, etc.)

Keybase.io

Lastly you can find me on keybase as namespace. Keybase is a awesome idea; it makes public/private keys easy to use and I can’t wait to begin using it.

Project Update

Currently I am working assisting a friend with build a website and starting a youtube channel, just wanted to leave some progess here.

Videos

Currently 1 video has been created, currently working to get a design for the videos. Will update once the youtube channel is up.

Website

Website is designed and currently waiting to fill content in, site is designed for bloging and logging videos. To view the webpage click here or check out the github page Here!

August 9th quick update

Tue, 09 Aug 2016 10:12:00 +0000

Site Updates

Added Analytics to website.
Updated Homepage and projects.
Repaired bad links.
Changed Branch managment on github.

To Do

Complete Homepage index.html
Complete projects
https support
site redesign

Music Update

Currently working on new music, check the projects page for more info.

Life update

A lot of progress have been put on hold currently working on repairing computers and mainly assisting a friend starting a youtube channel. The channel is aimed to be a vlog channel I have been assisting with video design, editing, and brand creation, currently still working on content, will update more in the future. Also looking forward to a new game coming out called: Of King and Men, it has a lot of Mount Blade elements and it has a open multiplayer world, would highly recommend checking it out if you are into that. Stay Positive Looking forward to updating soon!

-J