Technical insights and practical observations on software development, digital craft, and the evolving technology landscape.
Expect content that balances technical insight with measured reflection, seasoned with just the right amount of humour. These ideas and observations refused to stay quietly in mind, now shared to spark meaningful discussions and fresh perspectives.
All (22)
The complete archive across all years—from hands-on infrastructure and tooling guides to opinionated takes on architecture, quality, and the forces reshaping the craft.2026 (3)
AI copilot scrutiny and microservices cost reckonings opened 2026—popular engineering choices faced overdue questions about whether fashionable solutions create more problems than they solve.2025 (11)
Reproducible build pipelines, calmer velocity metrics, and unapologetic debt triage defined 2025—ambitious launches stayed trustworthy for teams and clients alike.2024 (5)
Lightweight dnsmasq tweaks, tmux muscle memory, and a renewed obsession with simple tooling made 2024 about clearing friction so experiments actually shipped.2023 (3)
Grounding habits around uptime math, disciplined dotfiles, and dependable SSH pathways kept 2023 focused on humble craft that scales when incidents inevitably strike.Topics (12)
From architecture and security to productivity and industry trends—explore articles organised by subject rather than date, across all topics.
22 November 2024
Avoiding overkill: embracing simplicity
A contact form implemented with React, Redux, Webpack, TypeScript, and elaborate CI/CD pipelines—2.3MB production bundle for three fields and a submit button. Two days to set up the development environment. Thirty-five minutes to change placeholder text. This is overengineering: enterprise solutions applied to problems that need HTML and a server script.
5 November 2024
Terminal multiplexing: beyond the basics
Network drops during critical database migrations. SSH connections terminate mid-deployment. Terminal crashes destroy hours of workspace setup. tmux decouples your terminal interface from persistent sessions that continue running independently—network failures become irrelevant interruptions rather than catastrophic losses, whilst organised workspaces survive crashes and reconnections.
15 July 2024
SSH keys in 1Password: eliminating the file juggling ritual
SSH keys scattered across machines create a familiar nightmare—copying files between systems, remembering which key lives where, and the inevitable moment when you need to connect from a new laptop without access to your carefully managed ~/.ssh directory. 1Password's SSH agent transforms this by keeping encrypted keys available everywhere whilst ensuring private keys never touch disk outside the vault.
9 April 2024
Turbocharge development: the magic of SSH port forwarding
Security policies block database ports. Firewalls prevent external connections. Remote services remain inaccessible except through carefully controlled channels. SSH port forwarding creates encrypted tunnels that make distant services appear local—you connect to localhost whilst traffic routes securely to remote resources, maintaining security boundaries without compromising workflow efficiency.
17 January 2024
Streamlining local development with Dnsmasq
Testing on localhost hides entire categories of bugs—cookie scope issues, CORS policies, authentication flows that behave differently on real domains. These problems surface after deployment, when fixing them costs hours instead of minutes. Dnsmasq eliminates this gap by making local development behave like production, turning any custom domain into localhost whilst preserving domain-based security policies.