Devtools

I wanted a scratchpad that lives with the code but never in Git. SideNotes is a tiny shell helper that gives every repo a persistent notes that are already available in your editor. It shows up as a SideNotes folder in your project tree, but the notes live outside the repo and are globally git ignored. Why Mostly because I always use VS Code for scratch notes anyway Keep brainstorming and temporary thinking near the code without polluting commits or PRs One consistent place for notes across all repos Fast to open and create notes from the shell Plain Markdown on disk, editor‑agnostic How it works Per-project notes live under a central directory (e.g. ~/Code/SideNotes/<project>/) A SideNotes symlink is created in your repo so notes appear in your editor’s file tree Git ignores the SideNotes symlink globally, so nothing lands in version control # Create a new note note first-idea #=> Created: SideNotes/2025-08-08_14-22_first-idea.md # Disk location ~/Code/SideNotes/your-repo/2025-08-08_14-22_first-idea.md # You and your editor see ./your-repo/SideNotes/2025-08-08_14-22_first-idea.md # Git sees git status #=> On branch develop #=> nothing to commit, working tree clean Commands notes_init [project_name]: Initialize notes for the current repo (optional custom name) note <slug>: Create a timestamped Markdown file and open it (e.g. note performance-sweep) notes: Show usage and list notes newest‑first notes_latest: Open the most recent note notes_projects: List all projects with notes and counts Tips Set your editor with export EDITOR=vim (or nvim, nano, etc.) Want a different base directory? export SIDENOTES_DIR=~/Notes/Projects The symlink name (SideNotes) can be changed in the script if you prefer something else Why not keep notes in the repo? Documentation should be kept in the repo but can’t keep every little thing in there for someone else to review. ...

Full screen is super annoying on OS X lately. I use SizeUp which gives me a shortcut for expanding the windows instead of using the green button but i’m still having random encounters with full screen mode because of the shortcut ctrl+shift+f. So here’s how to disable that..or at least make it harder to do by accident: # Change full screen shortcut to Shift + Ctrl + Opt + Cmd + F defaults write -g NSUserKeyEquivalents -dict-add "Enter Full Screen" "$~^@F"

If you need read only access to a google docs spreadsheet it’s much faster and easier to use an exported version. Just go to File > Download As > Web Page and it’ll open a new window with the fully loaded spreadsheet. Here’s a public spreadsheet if you want to try it out.

At Starbucks or McDonalds, on airplanes, at libraries or anywhere else they have free wifi you get popups asking you to accept terms and conditions and click a [Connect Now] button. If you ever have problems getting these screens to display it’s almost certainly because you’re using non-default DNS servers. The solution for me was to go to System Preferences > Network and create a new Location called “Default DNS”. ...

The VM for the Bitnami Ruby Stack doesn’t have the correct credentials for postgres anywhere that I could find. Incorrect credentials that I saw on the Bitnami site, in the docs hosted on the VM, or on the internet while searching for a solution: user: root pass: user: root pass: root user: administrator pass: bitnami user: bitnami pass: bitnami user: postgres pass: user: postgres pass: bitnami user: postgres pass: postgres I never found the correct combination but instead simply installed postgres via apt-get and moved the bitnami postgres installation outside of $PATH in case I need it in the future. ...

The save hotkey in Chrome needs to be changed for all the same reasons I disabled the Print hotkey. I hit it by accident a few times a week thinking some other application is active and then I have to wait for it to load to get out of it. It’s only a few seconds but it’s an easily fixed annoyance. The Fix Changing the Save hotkey for Chrome is pretty simple and it’ll work similarly for other browsers. Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Application Shortcuts. Add custom shortcuts for: ...

If whenever you press the space key your mac shifts focus to a finder window you should be able to fix it by hard booting Finder. Open terminal and run: killall Finder

Brew is always saving the day. # Install p7zip brew install p7zip # extract 7z x file.7z

There’s a few plugins for hiding the WordPress admin bar that shows up on top of your site when you’re logged in but it seems like overkill. If you don’t care about preventing it from loading you can drop this in your stylesheet at wp-admin/themes.php?page=editcss to hide it. html { margin-top: 0!important; } #wpadminbar { display: none; }

Log into Facebook and go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps. Register as a developer if you haven’t yet This process is a pain and involves entering your phone number and receiving a confirmation text. Check for invites You should get a notification at the top about any pending invites. Click through and confirm.