Blog
-
Meshing with Unifi networks
When setting up a Unifi network, especially if it’s at home or somewhere that’s not commercially wired, it’s pretty common to run into a room where you just can’t get a good signal from the nearest wired Unifi AP. The logical next step it to put a new Unifi AP in between this room and…
-
Why use findthetime.app ?
I used to use Calendly, and as a paid user, I was pretty happy with it. It worked, but one evening I thought I could create a system that would be easier to use, cheaper, and I could add features as fast as I could think of them. And thus, findthetime.app was born. At its…
-
AI Can’t Design Code
AI is everywhere today, but for people who want to create an application, where is it really helping? As a person who codes, I can’t imagine any coder not using it, just as I can’t imagine typing a text without auto-complete. For a non-coder, AI can build a prototype for you if you carefully know…
-
Monitoring PlanetScale from Zabbix v7.x
PlanetScale is a hosted MySQL database SaaS, and while it’s got great uptime, you should be monitoring it for metrics if nothing else. While PlanetScale offers lots of features beyond your average MySQL install, monitoring it is surprisingly the same.
-
Laravel
I’ve been coding in PHP for a few decades, mostly using the CodeIgnitor, which I have grown to love. But today, I’m breaking from the old ways and adopting a framework that’s been on the rise for many years: Laravel. Ironically, I’ve layered on many of the basic features of Laravel over CodeIgnitor as I…
-
Running Engineering in a Vacuum
Wouldn’t it be great if you could be in a section of an office, surrounded by intelligent people, working on projects that really mattered to you personally, and never having to interact with the rest of the company? I know a lot of people who would consider that a dream job. I would hate it.…
-
Getting the Weather via an API the Easy Way
If you’re coding and need to find the local weather, there are a lot of places you can go to get it. Most are complex and require you to create an account, and generally don’t offer much. If you’re looking for one that’s simple and based on GPS, try https://api.pulsewise.com/environment/weather/42.3388/-71.0726 , which is free for…
-
Letting a Customer Out of Their Contract
I’ve run a few companies over the years, and one inevitably wants out of contact with you. Maybe they’re going out of business, or their business has changed and they no longer need your services. To make this decision, you need to weigh some data: What is the value of the contract they want out…
-
Everything you could possibly want to know about Internet Email – Part 1
In this series of posts, I’m going to share what I know about email. Over the last 20 years, I’ve learned to set up, diagnose, and do just about everything with email that you can imagine at any scale. In this series, I’ll be talking about email over the Internet, which uses protocols like SMTP…
-
Figuring out US TIme zones
Twice a year, many people in IT often get mixed up by time zones in the US. Understandably, as it is a little tricky to wrap your head around. Here are some tips when sorting it all out in the US. Timezones in the US change twice a year, in the fall and spring, with…