Posts

I’m excited to announce a major update to the Soundbath app on UsefulWebTools.com. This release brings comprehensive preset management, improved styling, and a host of new features that make creating and enjoying soundbath experiences even better. What’s New This update represents a significant evolution of the Soundbath app, transforming it from a simple sound generator into a powerful tool for creating, saving, and replaying personalized meditation experiences. Comprehensive Preset Management System The standout feature of this update is the new preset system that lets you save and recall your favorite soundbath configurations. The system includes two types of presets: ...

I’m thrilled to announce the release of Hac Hack, a comprehensive open-source solution for automating SAP Commerce/Hybris HAC (hybris Administration Console) operations. This project addresses a common challenge for developers and administrators who need to programmatically interact with HAC endpoints while maintaining security and managing VPN connectivity via Tunnelblick. What is Hac Hack? Hac Hack is a Python library combined with a FastAPI-based HTTP API that provides a secure, programmatic interface to Hybris HAC operations. Whether you need to run Groovy scripts or import impex data, Hac Hack offers a streamlined API that handles authentication and security for you. ...

I’m pleased to announce significant enhancements to the settings system that provide users with unprecedented control over their workflow configuration. These improvements introduce a more sophisticated settings hierarchy, personal repository customization capabilities, and enhanced flexibility that adapts to your unique needs. Enhanced Settings Hierarchy and Override Mechanisms The new settings system introduces a powerful hierarchical structure that allows for intelligent configuration management across different levels of your workflow. This enhancement ensures that settings can be both globally consistent and locally customized as needed. ...

I just added a new quality-of-life improvement to the checklist tracking system of my Stream productivity integration to Trello that makes habit tracking a lot easier. Details of change / feature The new Automatic Counter Increment Feature automatically increments counters in checklist item names when items are retained after being checked off. This works with several counter patterns and locations: Counter Patterns Supported End of text: "Exercise routine (1/6)" becomes "Exercise routine (2/6)" Simple counters: "Daily meditation (3)" becomes "Daily meditation (4)" Before colons: "Task (1): description" becomes "Task (2): description" Before colons with fractions: "Task (1/6): detailed notes" becomes "Task (2/6): detailed notes" Time Tracking Patterns The system now also supports comprehensive time tracking by detecting time expressions in various formats throughout the item text and automatically accumulating that time in counter patterns: ...

New Creative Works Added Today Today marks an bit of a milestone in my creative journey as I add several new works to my digital archive. I think this pretty much brings me up to date with all the short stories and poetry I’ve written (that I know about) so great! All now in one place on my own site, not spread all over the internet! This collection covers stuff from around 2019 to 2022 - so just before Covid, and to around the time when we all started to collectively breathe again. ...

Reclaiming My Creative Work from Quora I’ve recently decided to reclaim and archive a collection of stories and poems that I originally published on Quora during the early 2010s. These pieces represent a significant period of creative output for me, and I wanted to preserve them on my own website where I have full control over their presentation and longevity. Quora was a great platform for sharing creative writing during that time (with a group called “Three minute Stories” primarily) - a real sense of community for a while, you actually got to hang out with like-minded (and different-minded) people. I can truly say, it was a truly enriching experience. Until, like any of these platforms that really need to turn a profit at some point, it wasn’t so much, and so around 2016 my contributions waned considerably, and I kind of forgot about all that content I put onto the platform. ...

Reviving My Creative Archive Over the past few days, I’ve been working on bringing back content from my old website that I thought was lost to the digital ether. This wasn’t just a simple copy-paste operation - it involved migrating poetry, stories, and blog posts from my original site that I took offline back in 2013 because I was embarrassed by how “web 1.x” it looked. The Migration Process The process took about a day, squeezed in between other tasks, but it was made possible through the collaboration of several AI tools. I used KiloCode extensively to create scripts for converting various poems and stories by myself and my wife Pat to markdown format suitable for Hugo. These scripts also handled extracting dates and times from the original content. ...

From Basic WordPress to Comprehensive Hugo Framework This weekend, I undertook what turned out to be one of the most productive web development sessions I’ve had in years. In roughly half a day, I went from a few basic WordPress pages that said nothing particularly useful to a comprehensive, professionally structured website with multiple project showcases, automated content generation, and even a second site for my experimental Life Stream program. ...

Welcome to my new website! After months of planning and development, I’m excited to launch this Hugo-powered platform where I’ll be sharing my thoughts on technology, showcasing projects, and connecting with the developer community. Why Hugo? When choosing a platform for my personal website, I had several requirements: Performance First I wanted a site that loads instantly. Hugo’s static site generation means zero database queries and lightning-fast page loads. Developer-Friendly As a developer, I needed: ...

Building APIs that can handle millions of requests while remaining maintainable is one of the most rewarding challenges in backend development. Over the past few years, I’ve had the opportunity to architect and scale Node.js APIs from handling hundreds of requests per day to millions per hour. In this post, I’ll share the key principles, patterns, and practical techniques that have proven most valuable in production environments. The Foundation: Core Principles 1. Design for Failure Every external dependency will fail at some point. Your API should gracefully handle: ...