Category Archives: tech

22 Oct
2020

Keyboard-only Web Browser

I haven't used a pointing device in over a decade, and I get a lot of questions about how I navigate the web using only the keyboard. The short answer is: Vimium and funnily enough, it's a productivity tool rather than an accessibility tool. Curious? Let me show you around! Continue reading →
21 Oct
2020

Combine Multiple Field Tags in Go

I work a lot with JSON APIs in my Go projects, so almost every struct has some field tags on it to translate AccountID into account_id and that sort of thing. Then one day I needed to load data from config using mapstructure and it took a few attempts with the search engine to find the syntax I needed, so it's here for next time I need it (or in case you need it too). Continue reading →
13 Sep
2020

Create .desktop files for Ubuntu

Having created a couple of .desktop files lately to make launching apps easier, I thought I'd write myself a quick reminder of what I did and how it works. If it's useful to you too, then great! I have one application in a weird path, and another that needs a specific environment variable set for it to work. Continue reading →
17 Aug
2020

Sharing Screen and Camera from Android to Linux

With all the video calls, twitch streaming and product demo work I've been doing recently, I've been building up a library of tricks for using my android devices within the video content I produce from my laptop, so I thought I'd share. I've worked remotely for many years but I think there's more of us not going back to the office any time soon, so strong video communication skills are important! Continue reading →
08 Aug
2020

An Intro to Your ESP8266

I've been using a microchip on my neopixel shelf project but I kind of set it up, changed one thing, and didn't look at it again until this week. I'd like to have my neopixels do something more interesting than one solid colour or another, so I needed to remind myself of what this thing is and how I do it. These are my notes, for my Ubuntu platform, but you're more than welcome to them!

strip of pink LEDs embedded in a shelf, with an esp8266 on a wire in the foreground

Continue reading →

06 Aug
2020

Creating a Simple OpenAPI Spec

Having API descriptions in your workflow is a game-changer, but how do you get from nothing to a functioning spec in the first place? I recently made a very simple spec for a very simple API, and thought it might make a good example for anyone looking to create a spec for the first time. OpenAPI specs are very verbose so this very tiny API makes quite a manageable example! Continue reading →
23 Jul
2020

Using Environments in Postman

I'm using Postman more lately and showing off the Environments feature really often. I really like this feature for giving easy ways to handle values I use frequently, but it seems to be a bit of a hidden gem, so I thought I'd write about when I find it useful, in case you do too! Continue reading →
22 Jul
2020

Planets and Webhooks: a simple Flask app

As a Developer Advocate for an API company, I spend a lot of time talking about APIs and webhooks and HTTP in general. Recently I've been focussing on HTTP tools, but I really wanted a very simple example API that I could use that would return JSON but really let me focus on the tools, not the API. So I created a "Planets and Webhooks" API with a couple of GET endpoints to return JSON data, and another endpoint to receive and log incoming webhook data. Continue reading →