Here is the process I go through when trying to debug a tricky coding problem. First, I run a private personal blog which I use for debugging and taking coding notes. You can consider this your coding journal, and whatever tool works for you. I find something digital works better, since you can use HTML […]
Articles
Summer Sabbatical
My company, Automattic, has the wonderful perk of a 3-month sabbatical every 5 years. Amazingly enough, I’m already an old-timer and been there over 5-years, so this summer I took my sabbatical. I timed it to be off the same time as the kids for summer, so I didn’t work for June, July, and August. […]
Ubuntu Guide for Mac Converts
Here are some tips and tricks to help Mac users adjust to Ubuntu and Linux. I was a die hard Mac user ever since OS X was released in 2001. The combination of a Unix core and real desktop apps was a perfect match for desktop and development. However times change, with Apple’s focus on […]
Ethernet, FTW!
I’ve been interested in running a caching DNS server off my Raspberry Pi for awhile, and with the recent Cloudflare announcement of their new DNS service and discussion around it, seemed like a good time to set it up. Pi-hole I setup my device with Pi-hole a great bit of software which was easy to […]
Terminal Heatmap Chart
Awhile ago I created a simple script to create bar charts on the command-line for when I published my running year in review, 2017 example here. I published the script on Github and surprisingly have received a few contributors over the years, recently a couple of students from Greece did a nice upgrade to numerous […]
Automate deleting your tweets with a Raspberry Pi
I’m a tweet deleter. I do not think of Twitter as a great archive of knowledge but more a mere feed and notification system. It is basically an internet wide RSS feed, so no need to treat anything in it too preciously. Delete away everyone. I’ve written a couple of one off scripts previously to […]
Gutenberg can do that!
A new editor is coming to WordPress, the project code name is Gutenberg but at some point it will be just the WordPress editor, for now it is referred to as Gutenberg or the Gutenberg editor. The focus of this article is on some of the new features you can do with Gutenberg. If you […]
Code Syntax Highlighting in Gutenberg
I’ve developed a WordPress plugin which extends the core Gutenberg code block adding color syntax highlighting. If you are using Gutenberg to display code and want some color, install and check it out. It is available at github.com/mkaz/code-syntax-block. I initially started to build as a separate block, but that introduced the issue of converting existing […]
Beyond Ad Blocking
Ad blockers are one way to make the internet a slightly nicer place. However, more can be done, especially when it comes to helping yourself from making bad decisions, like reading the comments. First, you need a browser extension which allows you to run your own CSS. The most popular is probably Stylish which has […]
Reading List 2017
A look back at what I read in 2017, broken into the top fiction and non-fiction books, see previous years 2015, and 2016. You can see my Goodreads Year in Books 2017 for the complete list. I set out with the goal to read 25 books in the year and ended up one book short […]
Running Stats 2017
A year in review for my running in 2017, see previous years 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, and 2016. 2017 was a good year of running, not quite as consistent at beginning and end, but good training in the middle for the Redwood City OktobeRun half-marathon, which I posted my best time in many years. […]
Book Review: Grapes of Wrath
The Grapes of Wrath is an American classic by John Steinbeck written in 1939 about the great depression and a Oklahoma family who lost their farm and packed everything up to try to make a new life for themselves in California. I’m sure I read the novel in high school or at some point, but […]