Blog

  • Exploring .NET (a.k.a. ASP.NET)
    Today I was asked if I’d be interested in learning ASP.NET. I’ve heard of this framework, since I’ve spent decades on Windows platforms, but I hadn’t actually used it. So I took a look at it today, and I was surprised to discover that under the hood ASP.NET (which I suppose is called just .NET […]
  • my FastAPI demo (a simple URL shortener) is up and running
    I say it’s simple, but it does have a couple of cool features. It tracks usage statistics like how many times the short URL has been used. And it provides the requester of a short URL with an admin key that can be used to retrieve usage stats and even delete the short URL. I […]
  • Hayfevr.ly — scrape daily pollen readings for Austin, Texas
    I created Hayfevr.ly (GH repo here) to solve a problem I was having. Two local allergy clinics and a TV news station posted daily pollen readings on their websites, so I had to keep re-checking three different websites each morning to find out what was making me sneeze each day.
  • Timbo’s “Hacker News” Reader (thnr.net)
    I discovered Y Combinator’s Hacker News aggregator in early 2021, and browsing HN quickly became part of my daily routine. But it was hard to pick which articles I wanted to read efficiently because the stock HN interface provides very little information.