I re-designed my blog template using a new CSS framework called Bluma, re-developed all JavaScript without jQuery and customized some plugins. This was quite a journey, so this post is going to be quite long too!

If you've had fun with Docker containers, I now introduce you to Kubernetes and wish you the best of luck. I'm still learning myself! I decided to install IBM Cloud Private Community Edition following the Installation guide at IBM's Knowledge Center.

If the preceding posts on Node.js and MongoDB have been too complex for you, let me introduce you to a simpler drag-and-drop “flow-editor,” Node-RED.. It was developed and open-sourced by IBM, and is now hosted by the OpenJS Foundation (the same foundation that hosts projects like jQuery, and Dojo). I’ve used Node-RED for quick prototypes and demos, as it’s easy to explain each step of the flow. It saves a lot of coding effort and reduces errors buy providing built-in and pre-built third-party “nodes”.

Previously, I described my development environment setup using Docker containers. I do it in a totally different way from most tutorials, which I don’t believe leverage containers and complicate things by having to build images for development.

Here I explain how I wire up (i.e. network) a few containers - a MongoDB database, a Mongo Express User Interface to manage the database, and a Node.js container using JSON Web Tokens (JWT) to authenticate users against the database.

In this post I share with you how I set up a simple Docker container for Node.js development. I’ve never found a simple tutorial for beginners that meets my needs!

My requirement is to do all development debugging in a container, so I am assured of consistent behaviour in any environment. I do not want to install Node.js or npm locally on my mac! I cannot be bothered to use a Makefile or Dockerfile to build images - this is only required in the final stage for production!

I’m usually quite pedantic when it comes to minimizing code and optimizing web page performance. I was a bit surprised to find that this blog’s page speed was far from ideal! Google PageSpeed Insights returned a very low score for this blog. Back when I started this blow, I must’ve neglected optimization, as I was too busy learning Grav, modifying my template, etc.

If, like me, you use Parallels Desktop Lite, then I have bad news for you. It's no longer free to run macOS or Linux, so DON'T update it if you still want to use it!

Want to remove macOS services (a.k.a. daemons)?

Recently, I posted about my Karabiner-Elements Complex Modification Rule to map a key to Escape. Here, I make a small tweak to use it to launch an application too!

Today I tried to copy files and folders off a USB hard disk (NTFS formatted) on my Windows 7 desktop. I encountered multiple files with permission problems. The manual method to change permissions is very tedious, so I created a script (DOS batch file) to do the same.

As in my previous guides for enabling Apache and PHP on Sierra 10.12 and El Capitan 10.11 before that, this post will update the instructions for macOS Mojave 10.14.2 which comes with Apache 2.4.34 and PHP 7.1.19.

So you miss the physical Escape key on your brand new MacBook Pro with Touch Bar? Here's my fix to re-map a seldom used key to Escape.

I know this is very late, but I wanted to post two things I noticed with macOS Mojave regarding the new Screenshot.App tool and Dark Mode.

I got macOS Mojave 10.14 / 10.14.1 installed in Parallels very easily! But encountered some graphics issues with certain apps... and managed to find a workaround.

Did you know you can (sometimes) shrink the size PDF files by apply lossy compression to images? This is a built-in capability with macOS - no third party tools required. Read on...

Well, it turns out that after creating a PowerShell script to list deleted files (part 1) and another PowerShell script to monitor for deleted, renamed or moved files (part 2), I've decided to revert to a simple, batch file instead because running a batch file is so much easier than PowerShell!

This is part 2, of my attempt to "sync" photos I deleted on my desktop to my SD card (you can read part 1 first). In this post, I try to use PowerShell with .NET framework to (try) monitor for file system changes, and output to a batch file that "replicates" the ren (rename) and del (delete) to files and folders.

I have an unusual workflow when copying photos from my camera's SD card to my Windows desktop. For any photos I my desktop, I want to also delete on the SD card. In this post (part 1 of 2), I describe my PowerShell script to "repeat" what I deleted on the desktop on the SD card. In my next post, part 2, I expand the PowerShell script to (try) monitor for file system changes instead.

I recently bought a Fujifilm X-E3 interchangeable lens camera to "replace" my Sony NEX-6 (links to DPReview). I'm very happy with the camera and impressed at the plethora of customization options. Here is a table I created to familiarize myself... obviously I like tables!

In my post yesterday, I inserted a chart using Chart.js. I didn't plan to, but after 5 minutes reading the documentation, I was convinced to try - and it turned out to be easy! Here's how it's done.