hrbrmstr's Daily Drop

Archive

  • Bonus Drop #48 (2024-05-12): Long Form Links

    The Weekend Drop covers three main topics: the challenges of intuitive user interfaces, the history of the hamburger menu icon, and the importance of concise and accessible alt-text for images. Each presents valuable insights into user experience design, user interface history, and web accessibility concerns. The articles provide comprehensive information for designers and developers to…

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  • Drop #462 (2024-05-09): Happy ThursdAI

    Today’s Drop reveals details of AI spending and its impact on various sectors; an open-source alternative to Perplexity offers local language models and different search modes; and a resource for Apple Silicon Mac users wanting to do (mostly) frustration-free “AI” on Apple Silicon

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  • Drop #461 (2024-05-07): Typography Tuesday

    Today’s Typography Tuesday edition of the Drops has some font intrigue, improved ways to wield web fonts, and an update to a Drop fav typeface.

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  • Drop #460 (2024-05-06): Do You Know The Times

    Today’s Drop discusses Rust-based utilities and a C bundle for handling time at the CLI, highlighting `tu`, `when`, and `dateutils`. `tu` simplifies expressing times and dates in human-readable formats, `when` assists with time zone conversions, and `dateutils` offers a suite of tools for date and time manipulation.

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  • Bonus Drop #47 (2024-05-05): Publisher DoS Recovery Edition

    The Drop is off of hiaitus! Today, we cover Debian’s efforts to address the “2038 problem” by transitioning to a 64-bit time_t, the benefits of the REST Client extension for VS Codium, and the value of curated, opinionated lists of programming tools and libraries.

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  • Drop #459 (2024-04-26): It’s All Fun And Games

    Today’s game-centric Drop features Lantern, Hexcodle, and JS Challenger. Lantern uses JavaScript and D3 for a reimagined Zork I experience, Hexcodle tests RGB knowledge, and JS Challenger provides JavaScript coding tasks for skill improvement and practice.

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  • Drop #458 (2024-04-25): Design Time

    Today’s Drop discusses the importance of thoughtful URL design, the exploration of avatar creation resources, and the introduction of Bento Grids as a resource for overcoming creative blocks in UX layout design. It highlights creative URL examples, avatar creation tools, and layout styles to enhance the design process.

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  • Drop #457 (2024-04-24): Wednesday Wanderings

    It’s been a minute since a proper Wednesday edition was out! Today we cover SkyBridge, a platform connecting Mastodon and Bluesky social media, Scroll as a new language and static site generator, and Pico, a service allowing content publishing without installations using SSH tools (and mroe). SkyBridge centralizes social media, while Scroll and Pico offer…

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  • Drop #456 (2024-04-23): Typography Tuesday

    The wonk-ish edition of the Drop discusses the influential role of typography across diverse fields, exploring its impact on user experience, legal documents, and video games. It highlights typography’s power in enhancing readability, evoking emotions, and guiding user behavior. Additionally, it sheds light on the historical and developmental significance of game fonts. The insights offered…

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  • Drop #455 (2024-04-22): Monday Morning Grab Bag

    Today’s Drop discusses three spiffy tools: Duckling, neko, and tv. Duckling is a data management app for viewing and querying multiple data sources. Neko is a remote desktop tool for private web browsing and collaborative projects, while tv is a command-line tool for pretty-printing CSV files. Each tool offers unique features for data enthusiasts and…

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  • Drop #454 (2024-04-18): Happy ThursdAI!

    Today’s AI-focused edition of the Drop discusses the usefulness of a Rust-based disk-usage tool, dua, for managing space occupied by AI models. It also explores a concerning development where LLM agents can autonomously exploit one-day vulnerabilities and a new experimental extension, DuckDB VSS, that accelerates vector similarity search using DuckDB’s new fixed-size ARRAY type.

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  • Drop #444 (2024-04-16): Typography Tuesday

    Today’s Drop dares asks and explores the question “Why Do We Need More Typefaces?”. We then take a look at “Legibility” by Mary C. Dyson which will 100% help you craft better communications. And, we end with a bit of fun from The Washington Post’s interactive piece that explores the impact of different fonts on…

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  • Drop #443 (2024-04-15): Monday Morning Grab Bag

    Today’s Drop features three different command-line tools: xh, xq, and lowcharts. xh is a modern command-line tool for HTTP requests, xq is a Golang-based tool for XML/HTML processing, and lowcharts is a CLI charting tool for numerical data. Each tool has unique features and use cases for command-line operations.

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  • Drop #442 (2024-04-12): Moreutils; Rats in Realtime

    The Friday edition of The Drop features moreutils, a collection of Unix utilities designed to enhance the standard toolset, and Realtime, a platform providing live data visualizations and reports across various topics, including NYC 🐀 sightings. Could be a great source for folks participating in the #30DayChartChallenge.

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  • Drop #441 (2024-04-11): Thursday Three Letter Trio

    pet; tuc; nip Today, we cover three (well, four, really) tools/services that are each 3-letters in length, do one thing, and do it bonkers well. TL;DR (This is an AI-generated summary of today’s Drop.) pet If you’re even remotely like me (in the following aspect), you likely execute repetitive commands or scripts on a fairly…

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  • Drop #440 (2024-04-09): (Tardy) Typography Tuesday

    On yet-another Tardy Typography Tuesday Drop we cover The Font Matrix (a tool for pairing and categorizing typefaces), Phosphor Icons (a vast collection of open-source icons) and Hauora Sans (a condensed version of Manrope).

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  • Drop #439 (2024-04-08): Late Lecture Links

    This very late Monday Drop notes new (to me) resource called ecosyste.ms, which provides open data and APIs to analyze and secure open-source software. Additionally, a cautionary thread about the “zi” Zsh plugin manager is highlighted, exposing potential security risks and deception. Lastly, VNC Resolver is introduced as a website showcasing insecure VNC servers worldwide.

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  • Bonus Drop #44 (2024-04-07): Combined Make-Up Bonus + WPE Drop

    Today’s Bonus + WPE Drop is cull of ctags crunchy goodness. Universal ctags is a tool that generates an index file for programming languages to enable easy navigation within text editors. Geany, an IDE with extensive functionality, showcases the usage of ctags. Quickwit, an alternative tool, allows users to retrieve code-level information from projects using…

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  • Drop #438 (2024-04-04): Snow Day Shellmageddon

    Today’s blizzard-proof Drop explores the ‘has’ utility for checking installed command line tools; introduces the ‘w3m’ text-only web browser; and, discusses the use of ‘tmpmail’ for generating temporary email addresses. Stay safe out there New Englanders!

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  • Drop #437 (2024-04-02): (Tardy) Typography Tuesday

    Today’s (late) Drop discusses the release of Ubuntu Sans, a humanist-style variable font designed for the Ubuntu operating system by Dalton Maag. Typographica, founded in 2002, offers detailed typeface reviews and insights. FontID is a community-driven platform for identifying typefaces, emphasizing human expertise over automated models. These resources provide valuable insights into typography.

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  • Drop #436 (2024-04-01): TUI Trek

    Today’s Drop features three TUI tools aiming to simplify command-oriented operations. “Who Let The Pods Out?” introduced k9s, enhancing productivity in managing Kubernetes clusters. “Lollygagging Pods” highlighted lazydocker for Docker container management. “Git Outta Here” focused on tig for efficient Git repository management, emphasizing its simplicity and effectiveness in handling Git workflows.

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  • Drop #435 (2024-03-29): Everything Is Broken

    Today’s (late) Drop (lightly) covers the xz debacle, an event which has caused a major setback in open-source software, raising concerns about security. “likes” provides a decentralized, privacy-focused alternative to traditional social media platforms. Serviceman simplifies running programs as system or user services, while pathman manages the system PATH environment variable across different operating systems…

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  • Bonus Drop #36 (2023-12-16): Knowl-Edge Drop

    The content discusses setting up self-hosted “edge” functions using Deno and Supabase FOSS. It explains the concept of “Serverless Edge” and provides examples of creating random data and placeholder images as edge services. The goal is to inspire and simplify the process of setting up edge microservices.

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  • Drop #433 (2024-03-25): Typography Tuesday

    Today’s Drop features the Typst Examples Book, paying tribute to renowned typographer Phil Baines, and introducing the new font Fixel. The Typst Examples Book enables easy and logical document creation with a focus on typography, while Baines’s legacy encompasses innovative designs, educational contributions, and his exploration of public lettering. Fixel, a new free font, offers…

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  • Drop #432 (2024-03-25): Monday Morning Grab Bag

    In today’s Daily Drop, we have the regular Monday grab bag of resources. We highlight Fedica, a platform for posting to Mastodon and Bluesky, the Navy’s Solar Eclipse Computer, and Vanilla Breeze, a tool for converting Tailwind-classed HTML tags to semantic CSS.

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  • Bonus Drop #46 (2024-03-24): Method To The Madness

    Today’s Drop discusses 3 resources, madonctl, csvlens, and DuckDB, and how they can be combined for data FUN. madonctl is a Mastodon client for the terminal, csvlens is a CLI tool for viewing CSV files, and DuckDB is a powerful database system that is quite magical.

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  • Drop #431 (2024-03-22): hrbrtips & hrbrtricks

    Today’s Drop shows how to convert data from Postgres to Parquet safely & painlessly, shows how to hack x-callback-urls @ the CLI for inter-app communication on macOS, and enhancing Bash scripts with LLM/GPTs. It emphasizes technical details and tools for each topic, providing insights and tips for data professionals and developers.

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  • Drop #430 (2024-03-21): Resources Unconstrained

    This edition of The Daily Drop highlights visual resources for creative projects. “Icônes” offers instant icon searching and filtering, while SVGRepo/svgfind provides quality open-license SVGs. Pexels hosts over 3.2 million free stock photos and videos for personal and commercial use. These resources can elevate your next creative endeavor.

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  • Drop #429 (2024-03-19): Typography Tuesday

    Today’s Drop showcases the importance of typography in modern design, emphasizing meticulous cleaning of text, discussing the impact of typography on visual narratives, and introducing a unique connected script typeface called Dash. It highlights the significance of typography in effective communication and offers insights and resources for improving typographic endeavors.

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  • Drop #428 (2024-03-18): Monday Morning Grab Bag

    In today’s Drop, we have a macOS-only app for managing the default handler for URL schemes is discussed, highlighting the importance of responsible package management and understanding the limitations of npm. Mihael Ankerst’s Observable Notebook showcases the versatility of Plot through various chart types, offering a comprehensive guide for creating high-quality visualizations. And, an experiment…

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  • Bonus Drop #45 (2024-03-17): Command & Conquer: JavaScript Edition

    Today’s Drop discusses the use of Thorium and mprocs for efficient web development, as well as the VS Code remote debugging experience. It emphasizes the importance of using the right tools for productivity and enjoyment. It also provides examples of configurations for different types of projects in VS Code. These tools and practices aim to…

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  • Drop #427 (2024-03-15): Beware The IDEs Of March

    Today, we have a (somewhat) light and (hopefully) informative overview of modern and past integrated development environments (IDEs). It introduces Theia IDE, an open-source environment for building custom IDEs, and Replit Desktop, a standalone application offering a distraction-free coding environment. It also reflects on the evolution of IDEs over the past 30 years and the…

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  • Drop #426 (2024-03-14): Design Time

    This issue is all about “design,” featuring unDraw’s open-source illustrations, Design Spells’ micro-interactions and animations, and Design System Surf’s comprehensive catalog of design systems. unDraw, created by Katerina Limpitsouni, provides a vast collection of customizable illustrations. Design Spells showcases design details to create moments of joy and wonder, while Design System Surf catalogs and organizes…

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  • Drop #425 (2024-03-12): Typography Tuesday

    Three fontastic resources await intrepid Drop readers! The Canva Engineering Blog discusses the complexities and security concerns of font processing software and formats, highlighting vulnerabilities like CVE-2024-25081 and the importance of tools like OpenType-Sanitizer for protection. Fontpreview is a command-line tool for quickly previewing fonts, while UNCUT.wtf is a free typeface catalogue featuring 152 contemporary…

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  • Drop #424 (2024-03-11): Monday Morning Grab Bag

    Today’s Drop features three resources: Reqable, a closed-source freemium app for API development; The Minimum Vi(m) You Need To Know, a guide for Vi(m) users; and Ahab’s Leg Dilemma, an intriguing exploration. Reqable acts as a GUI on top of MITMproxy, offering various features. The Minimum Vi(m) provides essential idioms and a helpful cheat sheet,…

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  • Bonus Drop #44 (2024-03-09): WebR + Observable Framework

    The post highlights Framework’s new features like raw SQL cell support, Node.js v18.x compatibility, and Apache ECharts integration. It also introduces modern WebR integration for enhanced plotting and data manipulation. For detailed examples and source code, visit https://hrbrmstr.app/webr-framework/. Follow @dailydrop.hrbrmstr.dev on Mastodon for more content.

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  • Drop #423 (2024-03-08): Timeless

    The content delves into three tools: khal, a CLI calendar program; vdir/vdirsyncer, for syncing calendars and contacts; and neofetch, a system information tool. khal aligns with Vdir format, vdirsyncer offers flexible syncing solutions, and neofetch adds flair to system information display. Users can seamlessly manage their calendar and contact data across platforms and enhance their…

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  • Drop #423 (2024-03-07): Happy ThursdAI

    Today’s Drop has 3 main topics: the introduction of the CLI tool Dripgrep, a debate on AI understanding, and the impact of generative AI on creative industries. Dripgrep combines ripgrep with ChatGPT for experimental use. Robert Wright challenges skepticism about AI understanding, noting that large language models exhibit elements of understanding. And, Ethan Marcotte examines…

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  • Drop #432 (2024-03-05): Typography Tuesday

    Typodarium offers a typeface-a-day calendar with 366 new typefaces from 292 designers across 34 countries, celebrating linguistic and artistic diversity. K.73r is a geometric sans typeface designed by Lauren Graycar, inspired by modernist traditions and Mozart’s canons. Jonas Type offers free-to-try fonts including Scope, Fictional, and Indicate Mono.

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  • Bonus Drop #43 (2024-03-05): Adding A Bit More Structure To [Self-Hosted] Framework

    The weekend’s Bonus Drop was delayed due to unforeseen circumstances, and plans to move paid subscriptions to WordPress were disrupted by WordPress turning AI-evil. The post also discusses a new project example involving the CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog and the use of components, data loaders, and Markdown pages to structure the project. The…

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  • Drop #431 (2024-03-04): Mini-Monday

    The post introduces three diverse resources: Daft Social – a minimalist, email-based social platform; modd – a tool for managing daemons in response to file changes; and PROMPT_COMMAND/precmd in Bash and Zsh, with an innovative concept called Eternal Shell History. Each resource offers unique features catering to different user needs and preferences.

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  • Drop #430 (2024-03-01): Just Another Drop

    The latest Drop features Zed, a Rust-based editor aiming to redefine developer expectations. Deno introduces JSR, a modern package registry supporting ESM and TypeScript, potentially unifying the JavaScript community. Bunscape challenges traditional web infrastructure by using DNS records, offering enhanced privacy and decentralization. Each project presents innovative approaches to development and web browsing.

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  • Drop #429 (2024-02-29): Multi-Threaded Edition v2024.02

    The Missing Semester of Your CS Education by MIT offers practical coursework covering essential tools for computer science students and professionals. Positive feedback highlights immediate applicability in internships and jobs. WARC-GPT is an AI tool for exploring web archives, enabling accurate and contextually relevant responses. Web-Check analyzes and secures websites, providing valuable on-demand intelligence.

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  • Drop #428 (2024-02-27): Typography Tuesday

    This post covers three main topics: the typographic heresy of using the terms “typeface” and “font” interchangeably, an AIGA typography crash course, and the Figma design tool community. The typographic discussion elaborates on the differences between typeface and font, the AIGA curriculum offers typography guides, and Figma is highlighted as a valuable resource for designers.

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  • Drop #427 (2024-02-26): What’s Great For A Snack And Fits On Your Back? (🪵)

    This post introduces three resources for handling log files: GoAccess, lnav, and angle-grinder. GoAccess offers real-time analysis and supports various log formats. lnav is an enhanced log file viewer with semantic information usage and SQL query support. Angle-grinder is a powerful Rust-based utility for data parsing, aggregation, and analytics in the terminal.

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  • Bonus Drop #42 (2024-02-24): OrbStack: That’s Where It’s At

    OrbStack is a macOS-focused VM/container manager providing a local Kubernetes cluster, cloud-init support, and quick VM setup. It offers various integrations, native Swift app support, and eBPF, enabling seamless macOS and Linux operation. Orb simplifies Docker setups, while Orbstack linux distros provide easy access to macOS and Linux file systems.

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  • Drop #426 (2024-02-23): Weekend Project Edition

    Give Pixi A Chance (Apologies for no Thursday Drop, again. I got stuck in Kubernetes limbo, which — oddly enough — is a redundant term.) Ev’rybody’s talking about uv, venv, poetry, and renv. Nixs and condas, and Cargos, and spacks. And, aye yai yai (with apologies to Mr. Lennon, RIP). These days, things move way too fast, and that pace of change is a huge…

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  • Drop #425 (2024-02-21): Wednesday Grab Bag

    The Daily Drop featured Phase, an open-source, encrypted platform for managing environment variables; LLRT, an experimental JavaScript runtime by AWS for serverless apps; and Waybackpack, a tool to download Wayback Machine archives. Phase offers CLI for importing secrets and role-based access control, LLRT boasts faster startup and lower costs, and Waybackpack helps scrape old resources…

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  • Drop #424 (2024-02-20): Typography Tuesday

    Andy Kirk’s Visualizing Data newsletter is recommended for its quality. Max Esnée’s web app, Stack & Justify, automates the creation of type specimens, saving time and inspiring creativity in typeface design. BlockFace, a modular typography printing kit by Will Mower, bridges digital and physical creative processes. Glyph of the Day, a blog by Kate Sherwood,…

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  • Drop #463 (2024-05-10): Everybody’s [Workin|Playin]’ For The Weekend

    Today’s Drop features a new markup language called MinTyML that has been introduced, aiming to simplify HTML coding by providing a more concise syntax and reducing redundancy. It further features Go Katas covering various programming idioms to improve proficiency in Go. And, multiplayer Zork allows playing the classic game with friends for an enhanced experience.

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