1. OpenLayers - Grayscale, dark maps and more with CSS Filters

    This week, I needed to render a simple map with some markers on it, and I felt that it would be great to have it shown in grayscale. While looking for that, I stumbled on the weird and wonderful world of CSS filters and how they can be used to style web maps.…


  2. Quick Notes about Structurizr - Part 1

    For the past few months, I have been using Structurizr Lite for documenting my architectures as code. While doing this, I have had to find out some things. This is just a collection of these things.…


  3. Windows Batchfile Programming Notes - Part 1

    I’m converting a shell script to a Windows batchfile and had to search up a few things to fill in the gaps. These are notes for me to be able to find these details again.…


  4. Portable setup for PostgreSQL on Windows (Pg16 Edition)

    The normal method for using PostgreSQL on your Windows machine is to download the installer and then set it up. It’s easy and will do all the necessary things that you need for it. It will also set up services and other things that you might need. On the other hand, if you’re someone who uses PostgreSQL only some times and do not want it running all the time, or if you want to use different versions and want to have them switched on from time to time, or if you just want a portable setup that you can copy to any computer and get it running, then this post is for you.…


  5. Windows: Name your command windows

    If you use Windows and the Command Prompt, you can sometimes get lost in the different command prompt windows/ tabs that are open. This is a simple thing you can do to make it slightly easier to know which window is for what.…


  6. Rails 7.1 automatically loads lib! Now, what?

    All the directories under app are automatically loaded by Rails in production. Further, since Rails 7.1, it’s quite easy to get Rails to automatically load all the files in the lib directory. This is enabled by having this obvious sounding line in config/application.rb


  7. Fix: Rails main Rubocop Error on Windows

    In an earlier post, we saw how to install and use Rails main on Windows for developing your web application. This post describes an error related to Rubocop and how to fix it.…


  8. Using Rails main for Development

    This post covers how to run on Rails main rather than a released version for developing your web application.…


  9. JRuby 9.4 on Windows: Day 0 - install and Hello World

    JRuby is a Java implementation of Ruby that runs atop the Java Virtual Machine. The JRuby wiki has this to say:…


  10. Ruby Tips 13 - Find code that has not been documented with YARD

    I use YARD for documenting my Ruby and Rails code. One of the things that it does when it runs is that it gives you the stats of your documentation coverage. I often forget how to find what has not been documented and this is to help me remember it.…


  11. Rubymine warning - Typo: in word

    When using Rubymine, you will invariably reach the point where it starts complaining that a word that makes sense to you is considered a typo by Rubymine and highlighted as a warning. I normally try to keep these clean if I can.…


  12. Ruby Tips 12 - Simplify your code with Ruby Array values_at

    A programming language like Ruby comes with lots of features and capabilities which we often don’t learn in detail and instead end up rewriting things in our application code. This post shows how values_at in the Ruby Array class can simplify your code in some cases.…


  13. Textile, RedCloth and Jekyll

    Most people use Jekyll with Markdown as a converter, but I prefer to use Textile. In this post, I note down the steps needed to make Jekyll work with Textile and how configuration is done.…


  14. Making Mermaid Sequence Diagrams Prettier - Part 1

    I like Mermaid but I find the rendered diagrams do not look at pretty as some of the other tools, so I set out to find out more on how the diagrams could be styled to look different. In this post, I summarise my findings and approach for styling sequence diagrams (the diagram that I want to use the most).…


  15. Ruby Learning by Reversing: Native Gems, Part 7

    The first series of Learning by Reversing examines a Ruby native gem to understand how it works. Part 7 examines how native code is documented.…


  16. Escaping Liquid Tags in Jekyll

    If you need to show a piece of Liquid markup in a code sample in Jekyll, you need to escape it. The way to do it is to enclose it within another tag raw and then end that with endraw so that it is not interpreted as tags.…


  17. Rendering Mermaid Diagrams in Textile pages in Jekyll

    Recently, I have taken a strong interest in Diagrams as Code and specifically, I have been looking at Mermaid, Structurizr and C4 models. I want to be able to include some diagrams in this blog but wanted to do it without using extra gems. This post explains how to do it if you’re writing pages for Jekyll using Textile markup.…


  18. Ruby 3.3 on Windows: Day 0 - install and Hello World

    Ruby is a dynamic, open source programming language with a focus on simplicity and productivity. It has an elegant syntax that is natural to read and easy to write (from the Ruby web site). On Christmas Day 2023, the core team released version 3.3 with major improvements and new features included. Now that RubyInstaller 3.3.0-1 has been released and is available for all to try, it’s a good time to set it up on Windows and try the features of Ruby 3.3. This post will help you get started with Ruby 3.3 on Windows, and covers the basics of installation. This post is along the same lines as the JRuby Day 0 post from earlier.…


  19. Die Hard is a Christmas Movie

    Every year, I receive messages and see numerous posts debating whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Every year, I respond with the same messages and the strong conviction that it is indeed so.…


  20. You're probably not using your Calendar enough

    Just over six years back, I wrote up my 6 tips for travel, calendars and time zones to share what I have found to be helpful while travelling. When travel resumed after COVID-19 and I started to travel again, I realised that I have started to use my calendar on the phone even more to help when I travel. This is a follow-up post with my new learnings.…


  21. Rails 7.1 with Ruby 3.2 on Windows: It just works!

    Rails 7.1 was released a couple of days back and as a Ruby user primarily on Windows, I was keen to see if it works and runs on Windows.…


  22. Ruby Learning by Reversing: Native Gems, Part 6

    The first series of Learning by Reversing examines a Ruby native gem to understand how it works. Part 6 examines how the benchmark is run to compare the performance of the native version with the original Ruby version.…


  23. Ruby Learning by Reversing: Native Gems, Part 5

    The first series of Learning by Reversing examines a Ruby native gem to understand how it works. Part 5 digs looks at the C code needed to interface with the Ruby code.…


  24. Ruby Learning by Reversing: Native Gems, Part 4

    The first series of Learning by Reversing examines a Ruby native gem to understand how it works. Part 4 digs into the development Makefile and how it supports different activities during development.…


  25. Ruby Learning by Reversing: Native Gems, Part 3

    The first series of Learning by Reversing examines a Ruby native gem to understand how it works. Part 3 continues the exploration by looking at what is included in the gem and how it is set up so that the native extension is built and available once the gem is installed.…




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