Are you stuck in whodunit limbo; wedged between companies with no way out? One company claims its product fails because another company broke theirs. A company breaks a product with an API policy change. Traditionally two companies refuse to take responsibility for their software failures. What a counterproductive place to be, and it’s not your fault. Software development teams must take responsibility for their products. It’s not your fault they bet on the wrong API. It’s untenable that you’re in this position. This position has bitten me before as a user and a developer; it’s not fun. ...

Whiteboarding is a skill that I’ve neglected over the years. While that’s true, I’ve passed interviews using a whiteboard to present my ideas and lines of code. I prefer to articulate complex problems verbally, with digital documentation and understandable code. However, that’s not an excuse, so it’s time to get whiteboarding. My first step is to find great markers. Quartet Dry-Erase Glass Board Markers The Quartet is an excellent marker with a smooth writing experience that looks bold and clear. The only downside on my XBoard Magnetic dry-erase Whiteboard is the residue the dry-erase ink leaves behind during clean-up. This feature is tolerable but could be better. ...

MagicMirror is an open-source project used to create a customizable full screen display. I recently read Scott Hanselman’s article about building a Wall Mounted display for your home. I’ve had a Raspberry PI for a while, so I bought a Sceptre E205W-16003R 20" on Amazon for the screen. I also purchased a VideoSecu Tilt Rotation TV Monitor Wall Mount Bracket to mount a wall and rotate to portrait mode. The main configuration options I changed immediately were as follows. These edits are all in the ~/MagicMirror/config/config.js file, where you installed MagicMirror. ...

Software reliability is essential. I told my wife that I would download something. I told her it would take 10 minutes. More than an hour later, I’m still downloading the file due to software bugs. I only wanted to download a file, that’s it, but asking for software reliability was too much to ask. I’m sure someone will tell me to not make promises I cannot keep. I agree, but it doesn’t excuse liars that claim their software works. ...

Lastpass went to the past. In my last article, Lastpass to Bitwarden - Part 1, I wrote about my decision to try Bitwarden. I’ve been using Bitwarden for several weeks, and here are my experiences. The desktop client could be more straightforward. For example, moving an entry to a new folder doesn’t let you drag and drop but instead makes you edit an entry and then change the folder. The Android client has the necessary options and does the job. When attempting to take a screenshot of the options, it securely prohibited that, so I had to use another camera to take the screenshot. ...

Visual Studio Code and open the program that is associated with the file’s extension. This article covers both Mac and Windows. Mac CMD-Shift-P Tasks: Configure Task Add this JSON to the task { "version": "2.0.0", "tasks": [ { "label": "Open file", "type": "shell", "command": "open", "args": ["${file}"] } ] } Windows Ctrl-Shift-P or F1 Tasks: Configure Task Add this JSON to the task file { "version": "2.0.0", "tasks": [ { "label": "Open file", "type": "shell", "command": "explorer.exe", "args": ["${file}"] } ] } References How to view my HTML code in the browser with Visual Studio Code? ...

This article is the first in a series of deadly cuts I’ve experienced and my proposed solutions. Software Documentation Gaps I use Google to find documentation. Clicking help sometimes gets the job done. Unfortunately, most of the time, feature documentation is garbage. I tried Apple’s Photos app. First, I searched for Keep Folder Organization documentation when importing pictures. I thought this would help, but I was wrong. I searched for Import and found prospective documentation. I chose Import photos and movies from your camera to my Mac, which was different from what I was trying to do. However, this was the best documentation I could find at that moment. Unfortunately, the article contained little about keeping a folder organized. ...

Terraform is an alternative to cloud-specific resource management tools. CloudFormation and Azure’s Resource Manager template maintenance are boons for automation. I work with Amazon Web Services, so I tried the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK). The CDK sounds like a great idea on paper, but the documentation is abysmal. While sifting through GitHub repositories is fun, it is not a fun full-time job. Most of my time spent using the CDK required digging for examples rather than writing code. ...

If you receive this message when attempting to clone a repository. git@github.com: Permission denied (publickey) This article assumes you’re using a Unix-based system like Linux, macOS, or Windows Subsystem for Linux. Try the following: eval "$(ssh-agent -s)" # This command should output: "Agent pid [process pid]" # Add your ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file to your GitHub keys if it's not already there ssh-add ~/.ssh/id_rsa # The command should output "Identity Added"

I’ve tried the Hyper terminal because iTerm was giving me grief. One of my goals included opening it with Finder on macOS. Follow these steps. The Automator -> Services option does not exist in new versions of macOS. If that doesn’t work, try using Automator -> Quick Action instead. Now we can open Hyper terminal from a file or folder like the native macOS terminal app.