Blog¶

Discovering VidBee: A modern GUI for yt-dlp

I download a lot of videos for offline reference. Usually, I use yt-dlp in the terminal. It works great. But recently I discovered VidBee, an open-source video downloader built by nexmoe.

How to add a directory to your PATH

I installed a new command-line tool the other day. The instructions said to add its directory to my PATH.

I remember this being confusing. You edit a file, but which one? And what do you add? If you get it wrong, you might even break some of your existing commands.

So let's look at how the PATH works and how to change it safely.

Kibibyte (KiB) vs Kilobyte (KB): What's the Real Difference?

Have you ever wondered why your computer's storage space seems smaller than what was advertised? Part of the answer lies in how data size units like Kibibyte (KiB) and Kilobyte (KB) are defined. Although they sound similar, they represent different amounts of data — and knowing the difference can help you avoid confusion.

Dang it! Built the indie app, forgot the marketing (again)

I often spend way too much time building and forget about marketing or reaching out to early users. For the past 6 months, I’ve been working on collector.dev — a Chrome extension that turns your new tab into a productivity launchpad. The MVP was ready in the first 2 months... but then I spiraled.

I spent months obsessing over the right color scheme, fine-tuning animations, and endlessly polishing things. The goal was always to build something truly useful — something that solves real problems and gives me that quiet satisfaction of “yeah, I made that.”

Why Async Functions Don't Belong in Promise Executors

When working with JavaScript, you might feel inclined to use an async function inside a Promise executor. While this may appear convenient, it is actually discouraged for several reasons. Doing so can lead to subtle bugs and potential memory leaks. Let's delve into why this practice is problematic.

Cloudflare has made it too easy to access your homelab on the internet

I remember back in 2017 when I started running a homelab. It was so difficult to access it outside the local area network because I didn't have a static IP. Even if you managed to get a static IP from your ISP, they would put it behind a CGNAT or something that just breaks it. I had so many issues with uptime only because the routing was messed up.

Depression and perception

These illustrations are abstract, but if you think about it enough, especially on difficult days, they reveal profound meanings:

Lost. Desolation. Drifting. Burdened. Abyss. Forsaken.

Yet, the same illustrations can also evoke: Discovery. Peace. Freedom. Determination. Aspiration. Reflection.

I drew these to remind myself of how depression affects perception. I've learned to avoid concluding moments in my life too quickly and instead, leave them open-ended to see where they take me.

Beginners guide on securing your linux server

Will be looking into the essentials of securing a Linux server as part of my daily write-up of creating a Newsletter Service for Engineers.

I wanted to get set up the Infrastructure first before having a working building pipeline instead of rushing my way through in the end trying to get the server up and running quickly.

Building a newsletter for engineers (#1)

It's been a long time since I have built something small, stupid, and fun. I'm planning to build a newsletter service for engineers that aggregates the data from popular engineering blogs and articles and gives a curated list of weekly updates. If you have used Feedly you know what I mean but rather than going to maintain stream content we are going to focus on blogs that primarily focus on system design, philosophy in programming, and various mature engineer discussions.

How to choose the right database for your project?

Choosing the right database is one of the most important decisions you have to make when starting a new project. It should be the first building block when deciding on the tech stack.

Nowadays, you have a lot of choices than the usual RDBMS (MySQL or Postgres) which are great and tend to solve most of the problems but you should understand the advantages and disadvantages of different technologies. So down the line, you don't regret making a wrong choice.

The article aims to give you a framework/process for choosing a database instead of exploring technologies and comparing them.