Writing
Guides and short deep-dives on the tools we build and the problems they solve.
A complete guide to reading cron expressions the five fields, every special character, real examples decoded, a cron cheat sheet, and the timezone gotcha that breaks scheduled jobs.
What PEM and DER actually are, when to convert between them, and how to decode an X.509 certificate's subject, issuer, and validity without OpenSSL memorization.
How tokens map to cost and context limits for GPT and Claude — and how to estimate spend before you ship a prompt-heavy feature.
Convert colors between HEX, RGB, and HSL, build CSS gradients you can paste, and check contrast against WCAG AA/AAA before the design review does.
Catch Dockerfile smells, scaffold Helm values.yaml, and turn .env files into Compose environment blocks — before the cluster tells you what you missed.
Regex debugging, text diffs, Markdown to HTML, case conversion, and word counts — the text transforms that show up in every sprint.
UUID, NanoID, and ULID compared: length, sortability, and database index performance. Includes when to use each and a quick decision guide.
MD5 and SHA-1 are broken for security. Compare MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 — speed, collision risk, and which to actually use.
CIDR notation packs a network address and subnet size into one string. Here's how to read it, calculate ranges by hand, and where people get it wrong.
Base64 and URL encoding solve different problems. Here's the actual difference, where each one breaks, and which one to reach for.
Decoding, inspecting claims, checking expiry, and validating structure — the JWT tasks that come up daily and how to handle them without a library.
Pasting a token into a random website is a bad habit. Here's what actually happens when you decode a JWT, and why it should never leave your device.
Base64 encoding explained simply: what it actually does, why it's not secure, and when to actually use it vs when you shouldn't.
Validating, diffing, converting, and minifying JSON is a daily task. These five patterns cover almost all of it.