uppinote

Writes about software, gardens, bread and reading. This is the demo site for the Ieum theme.

24 posts Website
  1. DevEnv/Shell

    Zsh Functions I Actually Use Every Day

    I've deleted dozens of clever shell functions over the years. These are the small, boring ones that actually stuck around.

    2 min read Featured
  2. Backend/Postgres

    Postgres Indexing That Actually Moves the Needle

    Adding an index and hoping is not a strategy. Here's how I actually diagnose slow queries before I touch the schema.

    2 min read Featured
  3. Ghost/Setup

    Ship It 3/3: Self-Hosting Ghost on a Small VPS

    Ship It, part three: the build was reproducible and the release script was solid. All that was left was an actual server to put it on.

    2 min read Featured
  4. Frontend/React

    Optimistic Updates in React Without the Footguns

    Optimistic UI feels great until two requests race each other. Here's a small hook I use to keep it predictable.

    2 min read Featured
  5. Automation/Scripts

    Ship It 2/3: Turning the Release Checklist Into a Script

    Ship It, part two: I had a release checklist in a text file that I re-read every time and still managed to skip a step eventually. So I stopped trusting myself.

    2 min read Featured
  6. Projects/Kitchen

    Six Sourdough Starters Later

    My first five sourdough starters all quietly died. Here's exactly what was different about the sixth one, step by step.

    2 min read
  7. AI/Prompting

    Prompting Patterns That Cut My Token Bill in Half

    Most of the token savings didn't come from clever wording. They came from structural changes to what I was sending on every single call.

    2 min read
  8. Tools/Editors

    My Old Vim Config, for the Record

    This is the plain Vim config I used for years before switching to Neovim. Keeping it around mostly out of nostalgia and as a before/after reference.

    2 min read Featured
  9. DevEnv/macOS

    Taming macOS for a Distraction-Free Dev Setup

    Most "productivity setup" advice is aesthetic. These are the handful of changes that measurably cut down how often I got pulled out of focus.

    2 min read
  10. Automation/CI

    Ship It 1/3: From Laptop to a Reproducible Build

    Ship It, part one: before automating anything else, I had to fix the fact that my build only worked reliably on my own laptop.

    2 min read