Maker Journal February 2026
So what happened in February?
February always feels like a short month. Not just because it has fewer days, but because of the Lunar New Year.
You spend weeks preparing for it, a few days celebrating, and then suddenly the month is almost gone.
This year, I didn’t really get much rest either. I was back to work on the second day of the Lunar New Year because of my freelance project. So the holiday break felt even shorter.
Still, a few interesting things happened this month.
Playing with OpenClaw
I spent some time trying OpenClaw.
It’s actually pretty powerful if you give it full permissions. But of course… I didn’t.
Instead, I ran it in a very restricted setup on my old Intel iMac.
Even with the limitations, it was still useful for a few small daily checks. It’s not something I fully rely on yet, but I can already see a lot of interesting use cases if it runs in a proper environment.
For now, it’s more like an experiment.
Product Weekend — Echo Series
I also got an AI product enquiry from one of my clients.
Instead of just discussing ideas, I used my Product Weekend to build three quick prototypes.
I called them the Echo Series:
• EchoDesk
• EchoMap
• EchoLoop
All small AI experiments with ElevenLabs.
Honestly, I’m not sure if any of these demos will turn into real products yet.
But the interesting shift for me is this:
I’m starting to think more about building AI tools for local clients first, rather than focusing only on global SaaS ideas.
Let’s see where this direction goes.
Claude Code + Zed
This month, I also spent more time with Claude Code inside Zed.
Right now this combo is probably my favorite AI coding workflow.
Claude Code itself is evolving very fast, and I’m still learning new tricks almost every week.
I’ve been thinking about upgrading to Claude Max, but before that I should probably force myself to fully utilize the Pro plan first.
Otherwise, it’s just another subscription sitting there.
Wasting My Gemini Credits 😅
One funny thing…
I realised I’m still barely using my Gemini AI credits.
It’s already been two months.
I wanted to experiment more with Veo, but between ChatGPT, Codex, and Claude Code, my AI exploration time is already quite full.
The credits only last one year, so I really need to remind myself to use them more.
Otherwise, I’ll definitely regret it when they expire.
Wrap Up
So yeah… February was short, busy, and slightly chaotic because of the Lunar New Year.
But it was still a pretty fun month experimenting with AI tools and building quick prototypes.
Now March is here, and it’s time to get back to more serious building.
Let’s see what comes next.