Topics /
The most popular blog posts about tools & productivity on Hacker News. 546 posts.
Back in 2019, I started collecting all kinds of metrics about my life. Every single day for the last 2.5 years I tracked over 100 different data types - ranging from fitness & nutrition to social life, computer usage and weather.
Bodging a rotary dial into a mechanical keyboard
One of the things that I like to do in my projects, is to make the git history as linear as possible.
When I was in junior high, my friends and I discovered that a Command Prompt command called net send was enabled on our school network. AIM and similar services were blocked, but if we wanted to send messages to each other we could open up the Command Prompt and type something like: net send lab2126-24 test and get an…
What’s the shortest URL for which content is served on the internet? There are quite a few single-letter second-level domains that are used in very short URLs, such as Google’s http://g.co or Facebook’s https://m.me. But we can go shorter than this: there’s nothing stopping TLD registry operators serving A records at…
The systematic thinking in our industry is that settings are the result of design failure. As designers, our goal is to create product experiences that don’t require any adjustment by the user. So offering customization options is often seen as a failure to make firm product decisions. I think there is a…
See why you should never use pixelation for redacting text and why it is a surefire way to get your data leaked. Learn from security researcher Dan Petro.
We like lists because they are an objectively good way to organize information. They allow readers to quickly and easily get what they want.
So we have yet a new UI overhaul. This time, bringing consumer-grade UI practices to the world of professionals. Announcement: https://blog.jetbrains.com/idea/2022/05/take-part-in-the-new-ui-preview-for-your-jetbrains-ide/ We're professionals. We can handle the complexity and the density
If your favorite way to update your friends about life disappears in 24 hours, we’ve got some happy news for you. Stories are now available on Signal for Android and iOS, with Desktop coming soon!
Is Grammarly a keylogger? Here's what to consider so employees can reap the benefit of this valuable tool without compromising data security.
Here’s a scenario. First, you download an app for a service that has some sort of in-person component, like picking up an order or meeting a driver at the curb. When using that app for the goal, be it that order or that meeting, it’s very helpful to have notifications, since they give you the current status and it can…
Take an in-depth look at the different computational models of zq and jq.
Despite Mozilla’s best efforts, I’m still using their browser nearly 20 years on. Here are my tips.
Long story short: a couple of my articles got really popular on a bunch of sites, and someone, somewhere, went “well, let’s see how much traffic that smart-ass can handle”, and suddenly I was on th...
Astro 1.0 is out now! Astro is a web framework for building fast, content-focused websites. Performance powered by Astro next-gen island architecture. Learn more about Astro 1.0 release, our new website, and what people are saying about Astro.
Here's how to download all of Wikipedia (6M+ articles) onto a USB flash drive for offline access. After hours of trying and failing, here's what worked for me
calibre: The one stop solution for all your e-book needs. Comprehensive e-book software.
A summary of the best ideas from Atomic Habits by James Clear
Recently I got a feedback from a user, who has suffered from Notepad++ for several years: Feeling sorry and guilty, I replied him with all my compassion: My bad conscience has been relieved for Tom. But then I think of other Notepad++ users in pain.
I recently discovered a simple step-by-step process that significantly increased my personal productivity and made me happier along the way.
How do you create a Python package? How do you set up automated testing and code coverage? How do you publish the package? That's what this article...
When I was kids, I draw my perfect laptop PC to note. At that time, I couldn’t have the laptop. But, now I can start my project!
