Blog
How to install Node.js v15.x on Ubuntu
New Ubuntu and Node.js versions released recently. While neither is a long-term service (LTS) release, they still represent the best that both parties have to offer. Even though Ubuntu 20.10 is here, it's still shipping with an older version of…
Passing a test without assertions with PHPUnit
While it may seem counter intuitive to have a test that doesn't have any assertions, PHPUnit's unique method of sharing data between tests can put you in a situation where you have a test that just doesn't need to actually…
Fixing Chrome/Chromium address bar slowness
I've been back on Chrome (by way of Chromium) since earlier this year and recently, I started to experience some extreme slowness when attempting to type in the address bar. This slowness was enough for me to file this post…
VPS Showdown - October 2020 - DigitalOcean vs. Linode vs. Vultr
Switching things up a bit for Spooktober (doot doot) by running some benchmarks on the CPU-centric plans. Unfortunately, Lightsail and UpCloud are lacking this sort of offering, so they are omitted this month. It's also worth noting that even though…
How to set Redis max memory usage
Redis is one of my favorite data stores. The multitude of data types makes it flexible enough to serve as a simple caching layer (replacing Memcached) or as a full-blown RDBMS replacement if you're willing to jump through a few…
How to remove UHC Motion from FitBit Inspire HR
I had high hopes for the UHC Motion program. Earning some cash just by doing what I was already doing, being active. The problem for me was in terms of how much data they wanted access to. Even though the…
reflector.service exists in filesystem (owned by reflector-timer)
I've been a bad Arch Linux user recently. Even though I speak highly about being able to run the most cutting edge software, I've been slacking and didn't run an update for a while. This was primarily because I didn't…
VPS Showdown - September 2020 - DigitalOcean vs. Lightsail vs. Linode vs. UpCloud vs. Vultr
Bringing things back around to the price point that I had started with many moons ago, the $20 plan. While the lower priced systems are sufficient enough for a lot of use cases, moving up to a meatier server instance…
Looping through an array in shell script
Generally speaking, when I need to work with an array or dictionary type of variable, I tend to reach for something other than Bash / shell scripting. This primarily stems from the fact that Bash didn't support arrays until version…
How to comment source code
One of the biggest offenses that I've seen over my entire software engineering career is a total disregard for code comments. I don't subscribe to the idea that code should be self documenting. I do believe that human are inherently…