At the end of each year, I usually have a “most popular articles of the year” type article written. However, last year I wrote a slightly longer “annual review” type post. Since we’re already at the end of a year and I enjoyed writing about 2024, I thought it was worth doing another one for 2025.
For the most part, I’m sticking with the same format as last year, describing what I read, listened to, and how I did with some of my other goals. I’m also including some sections related to both work and other projects I’ve completed (or at least started) this year.
Highlights of 2025
Work
I don’t talk much about my day-to-day work here and haven’t posted anything other than a link to a blog post on X or other social media for at least a year.
I enjoy my work in the R&D team Great motif where the past year has been spent deep in AI, working in Laravel, Google Cloud Platform, WordPress and other tangential tools.
Much of the work we do is building out tools and infrastructure that support security initiatives, software for internal teams, and other tools that best fall under DevOps.
Projects
This year marks the first time in a few years that I’ve not only worked on a bunch of different side projects, but also worked on projects that use tech stacks I don’t work with often. The advent of AI has made it much easier to go from nothing to something faster, while at the same time learning something new faster.
Here’s a quick list of what I published this year in chronological order:
- Code Standard Selector for Visual Studio Code is a Visual Studio Code extension that allows you to easily switch PHP coding standards without having to edit settings in your IDE. And yes, this also works in all IDEs that are a fork of VS Code.
- Remove Empty Shortcodes is a WordPress plugin I revisited that automatically removes empty or inactive shortcodes from your WordPress content, while preserving your original database entries.
- With TuneLink.io for music matching between services, you can easily find the same song on different music streaming services. Simply paste a link from Spotify or Apple Music and TuneLink will give you the matching track on the other platform.
- Where can I look? is a web application that allows users to quickly find which streaming services offer a particular series or movie.
- Get Album Artwork for Apple Music Playlists is a Python script to get album art for Apple Music playlists when given an artist and an album. This makes it a little easier to ensure that album playlists have better-looking artwork than what Apple Music generates itself.
- TM Monthly Backup is an aptly titled program that I use to easily back up photos, videos, screenshots, and even generated content from my Apple Photos library.
Of the various projects mentioned above, the ones I’ve received the most email about are mine monthly backup program, Where can I look?And Code default selector.
Most popular posts
Last year I shared the most popular posts I published in 2024. This year I thought it would be interesting to look at the most popular posts in terms of visits over the year and the most popular posts of 2025.
Popular posts from traffic in 2025
Popular posts published in 2025
As the years go by, there’s a definite shift in content and frequency, but it’s nice to see that some of these posts have a long tail (namely the posts that are still popular in 2025).
Books
I still try to read two books at a time – one fiction and one non-fiction – but I don’t set hard limits on the number of books per month or whether or not they are the latest bestsellers or most popular books. I strive to read what I want to read.
As of this writing, I have read 22 books this year. I won’t list them all, but some of the things I liked most are:
- Nonfiction
- Farenheit-182 by Mark Hoppus. Since I grew up listening to blink-182, this was a fantastic book. It hits a lot of high notes and glosses over some things that, while would have been interesting, weren’t necessarily relevant to the core band.
- The comfort crisis by Michael Easter. I decided to read this after hearing Michael on a podcast. The overarching lesson of the book is still worth reading, and I won’t spoil anything here, but I really like Easter’s writing style. He intersperses his personal story with the larger points he makes.
- About writing by Stephen King. I’ve been reading his books for years, so reading the only memoir he published and gaining insight into his process, along with some other fun anecdotes, made for a good read.
- Future boy by Michael J. Fox. Back to the future is one of my top five favorite movies (in fact, I think it’s one of the few good time travel movies in existence) and Michael J. Fox is an incredible person, so reading this was an easy choice. In case you haven’t seen the documentary yet Stillit fits well with the content of this book.
- Fiction
- The Dark Tower VII by Stephen King. I was on the fourth book at the end of last year and finished the series in February 2025. It made for a great adventure. Yes, it has its weaknesses, but overall it’s hard to find a modern epic as sprawling as this series.
- Sunrise on the harvest by Suzanne Collins. I enjoyed it The Hunger Games since its publication and I’ve also liked all the additional stories Collins has written since then. Given a choice between The ballad of songbirds and snakeswhatever i liked, i like this one even more.
It was clearly not a big year for fiction. If there is an honorable mention, at least for the sake of argument, it would be so The hut at the end of the world by Paul Tremblay. It was a book I picked up on a whim, not knowing it was the movie Knock on the hut was based on that. It had a great hook from the first page, but the ending didn’t hold up to the quality of the rest of the story.
Eligibility
Last September I pinched a nerve in my lower back, bringing my usual routine to a standstill. In November I was able to start walking again and in January I was able to run on a treadmill and push weights again.
Since then, I’ve had to adjust my usual workouts. Unfortunately, I no longer run outside, but I still exercise five times a week and mainly do a combination of running on the treadmill, strength training and stretching every day. Once you pinch a nerve in your back, you will do just about anything to prevent it from happening again.
I still use Softer stripe and I have all the usual stats to share, but the one that matters most to me given where I was last year is this: Since I’ve been logging all my workouts since 2016 through my Apple Watch, this is the first year since 2018 that I’ve exercised more cumulative time in an entire year. As of this writing, I have logged 162 hours and 5 minutes and 437.69 miles in 2025.
I don’t have a goal of surpassing this next year, but if I can keep this up (I’m not getting any younger) and if I can avoid further problems with my back, then I’ll be happy.
Music, TV and podcasts
Music
The albums I enjoyed the most in 2025 are:
There are a handful of other albums I saved to Spotify this year (and, really, Subtitles for feelings didn’t come out this year, but I kept coming back to it). And for what it’s worth, there are a handful of synthwave and retrowave albums that I listen to a lot when I work (most are from Timecop1983, FM-84, and The Midnight).
TV
Like last year, I watch most of the time when I’m on the treadmill or when Meghan and I feel like watching something before the day is over. The shows I enjoyed the most this year are (in no particular order):
- Daredevil: Born Again. While it felt a little different from the Netflix series (reshoots and rewrites will do that), it found its footing before the end of the series and I’m glad for that.
- Disconnection. If you’ve seen it, you’ll understand; if you haven’t already, you should.
- Slow horses. I don’t know why it took me so long to watch this show, but once I started, I only watched it while working out. I covered the first four seasons over the summer and finished just in time for the fifth season to begin in the fall.
- Welcome to Derry. I liked the novel, IT and the Muschietti’s Chapter one but I wasn’t a fan of it Chapter Two. So I was lukewarm about this series. It worked out in the end, but the scope starts out broad and it takes a while to find its footing and a solid pace. If you’re a fan of the book but don’t feel like watching the show, the last two episodes are worth a watch.
I would be making a mistake if I didn’t mention it Stranger things. We’ve been fans since day one and even though the show hasn’t wrapped as of this writing, we’re still here for it.
Podcasts
The podcasts I listened to this year versus years past don’t vary wildly, but a few have fallen by the wayside and some new ones have found their way into my rotation:
And one more thing
Over the last few years my oldest daughter has become interested in playing the guitar. She got into it hard just over a year ago and has been playing and writing songs ever since.
She and I, for lack of a better term, started an “album swap” (what would you even call this in 2025?) where she recommends an album to me, I recommend one to her, and we listen for a few weeks. Then we ask each other questions and discuss it.
We also record it and I archive it for future listening. It’s something I’m really enjoying at the moment – and it’s meaningful. Fast forward a decade or two and I’m sure it will be much more.
Until 2026
Like any other, this year has been full of other milestones for the kids, our family, trips, and so on. But all of the above are the personal highlights that are all largely outside of work.
As I wrote last year:
Here are the highlights for 2024. Like most, I have things I plan to do in 2025, but I’ll wait until this time next year to share how everything went.
And I repeat that, but for 2026.
In retrospect, it has been an incredibly full year in almost every facet. Such is life as we – and our children – get older. I’m constantly surprised at how much we fit into a year, and even more so how quickly it goes by.
Nevertheless, each year brings a combination of pursuing the same goals and interests and venturing into new areas. In that regard, there will always be something new to share.
I hope that your year was just as full and above all good and that the next one is even better. On to 2026.
#Review #highlights #Tom #McFarlin