Notes, commentary and thoughts from the code coalface.

Intro: Artificial intelligence - AI - is one of those phrases that feels like it's everywhere right now. It shows up in headlines, marketing copy, sci-fi movies, and the tools we use every day. People talk about it with excitement, fear, confusion, or revulsion.

Intro: An in depth review of how I'm using AI in my developer workflow in 2026 including build, git integration, debugging and more.

So you have some commit messages you want to update? You need git-filter-repo! git filter-repo is a versatile tool for rewriting history, which includes capabilities I have not found anywhere...

When I have some git branches left unmerged it can be useful to compare what commits are on one branch and not the other. To check if a branch has...

It’s alive! I’ve moved to Jekyll. Why? I fooled around with MiddleManApp, Sitepress and BrigeTown however I just prefered Jekyll. It has all the data and collection powers I need...

Intro: AWS sucks, but we all have to deal with the beast sometimes. Here is a Cheatsheet to get basic stuff done so you can go have more breakfasts.

Intro: Rails makes it easy to implement simple, common features very quickly. Ordering items in a list using an intuitive drag-drop interface? Easy Peasy!

Intro: Add a rich text area where users can enter formatted content using a simple text-editor interface. ActionText bundles the Trix editor tightly with rails for a great user experience.

Intro: Date and DateTime formatting is even better with Rails 6. Find out how to set formats for your app and for different locales.

Intro: Ruby versions on your development machine need to be carefully managed so you can work on different projects with the right ruby version.

Intro: Adding maps to your web applications is easy and powerful. Dive into Maps, Rails, GeoJSON and more.

Intro: There are some really useful gems that make rails a great environment to build geo-aware applications.

Intro: Rails ActiveStorage system is very nice. It standardises uploads, so going forward you will want to be able to write tests that take it into account.

Intro: Setting up hosting on a linux VPS with Ubuntu and apache is not too hard, as long as you stay on the path.

Intro: When mandril effectively shut down I needed a new transactional email system. Hosting my own SMTP for assorted clients is not my idea of a good time.

Start session psql List databases \l Create database createdb some_database Choose DB to work with \connect flex_development List all the tables \dt Get columns info for a table \d+ admin_users...

Intro: Middlemanapp.com is a Ruby based static site generator. It is incredibly flexible, allowing the designer to use any of the ruby based templating languages, HTML or Markdown to build a site & content. Easy to set up, work with, source control and deploy it uses all the shortcuts and tools in modern web development. It is really very nice.

Intro: JS frameworks are fun, but for most apps a sprinkling of JavaScript and Rails RJS gets a lot done, it's simple to use and easy to maintain.

Problems with Node? It’s not uncommon. So, have you got the latest version? node -v v0.10.28 npm -v 0.01 OK, that’s not good. Even if you have newish versions though...

If you want to set up a simple static site, amazon’s s3 service is a great choice. S3 is simple to use, reliable and very very cheap. Ideal for simple...

You made a change to your DNS. You wanna test it. Is it workin? To clear the DNS, do this: sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder then go to chrome://net-internals/#dns and click...

Regular Expressions are used to match patterns to strings. They are super powerful and very scary. If you use them badly your code can become totally un-maintainbale and confusing. When...

<3 Your Terminal Is terminal in your Doc? do you use it? If not you are missing out as a web professional. Learning a few commands, or at least being...