Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

This Week I Learned -  * OpenAI is set to acquire Windsurf, formerly Codeium, for around $3 billion.  *  NLWeb or Natural Language Web is an open project developed by Microsoft that aims to be the fastest and easiest way to effectively turn your website into an AI app, allowing users to query the contents of the site by directly using natural language, just like with an AI assistant or Copilot. NLWeb was conceived and developed by R.V. Guha who is the creator of widely used web standards such as RSS, RDF and Schema.org.  * AI coding agents aren't just faster ChatGPT. They're junior developer who never sleep. They run tests and pushes actual branches. With clear requirements and good reviews, they're productive. - S Anand *  There's An AI For That (TAAFT) is a website for finding AI tools for different use cases. *  Agentic Tribune is an experimental AI-powered news site. All of the articles are written by AI. *  Advice from engineering manager...

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See more of my AI co-creations

Tips and suggestions for breaking into and succeeding in the Data Visualization field, drawn from the VizChitra panel discussion: Leverage Your Existing Skills - Panelists noted that many people stumble into data visualization from diverse backgrounds like visual design, consulting, science, and journalism. The skills acquired in these fields, such as visual design principles, data-driven communication from consulting, making complex ideas accessible from science communication, and applying new skills like data analysis from journalism, are highly transferable and valuable in data visualization. "I don't think anyone chooses data viz, data viz happens to them". "My journey started as a visual designer... and at some point I realized that there's so much of information that is out there that there's got to be a better way to present this information". Prioritize and Develop Soft Skills like   Curiosity   (especially continuous curiosity) , the ab...

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This Week I Learned -  * Hosting local AI models on the web, via existing solutions based on WebNN or WebGPU, may require domain-specific AI/ML expertise and lead to high model download costs for users and developers (since models aren’t shared across domains). Microsoft has introduced experimental web APIs in Microsoft Edge that make it possible for web developers to integrate AI into their web applications. The Prompt API and Writing Assistance APIs - now available as developer previews in Edge Canary and Dev channels - give you access to a powerful small language model, Phi-4-mini, that is built into the Edge browser . Whether you’re trying out prompt engineering, summarizing and modifying content, or generating text, these APIs are designed to help you bring AI to your web code with a few lines of JavaScript. * Devstral, an agentic LLM for software engineering tasks developed by Mistral AI and All Hands AI, is now available on Kaggle Models. Devstral is open-sourced under the ...

Notes from a talk by S Anand: What is vibe coding? It's where we ask the model to write & run code, don't read the code, just inspect the behaviour. It's a coder's tactic, not a methodology. Use it when speed trumps certainty . Why it's catching on Non-coders can now ship apps - no mental overhead of syntax. Coders think at a higher level - stay in problem space. Model capability keeps widening - the "vibe-able" slice grows daily. How to work with it day-to-day Fail fast, hop models - if Claude errors, paste into Gemini or OpenAI. Cross-validate outputs - ask a second LLM to critique or replicate; cheaper than reading 400 lines of code. Switch modes deliberately - Vibe coding when you don't care about internals and time is scarce, AI-assisted coding when you must own the code (read + tweak), Manual only for the gnarly 5 % the model still can't handle. What should we watch out for Security risk - running unseen code can nuke your files. Quality ...

  Cartoon co-created with ChatGPT.  See more of my AI co-creations  

See more of my AI co-creations Prompt used: Please create a black and white pen drawn cartoon in a single panel for this scene - Two scientists in lab coats stand amidst a mountain of plastic waste that stretches into the sky. The plastic is varied and includes bottles, bags, containers, and other discarded items. One scientist points wearily at the plastic pile, while the other holds a clipboard and pen, looking equally overwhelmed. The scientist pointing at the plastic says, "It may be easier to move to a different planet than dispose of all the plastic we are accumulating on Earth." The style should be reminiscent of a classic newspaper comic strip, with exaggerated expressions and a focus on visual humor.

This Week I Learned - * OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 is now the new default model for Copilot Chat, Edits, and agent mode. * With the Vision Input feature in GitHub Copilot, you can: - Add screenshots of errors with Copilot to have it interpret the image and suggest solutions for the issue. - Share mockups of new designs, and Vision will help you bring them to life. - Ask questions about architecture diagrams. - Share a screenshot of a code snippet and ask Copilot to explain the code. - Share a flowchart and ask Copilot to describe the processes shown in the image. - Share a screenshot of a web page and ask Copilot to generate HTML for a similar page. * "People who use AI will replace those who don't" - Shantanu Narayen, Adobe CEO * EU will withdraw a provision that allowed citizens to sue AI companies for damages caused by their systems and required extensive reporting and disclosure. Critics accused regulators of defanging the AI Act to appease U.S. - The Batch * Gretchen Rubin is...

See more of my AI co-creations

  See more of my AI co-creations

This Week I Learned -  * The autonomous AI application from Salesforce, Agentforce, provides specialised support to employees or customers. Agentforce interacts with customers through multiple channels around the clock in natural language. It defines security guardrails and knows when to seamlessly escalate to human employees. On Salesforce's own helpline, 84% of the queries are being answered by agents, and the escalation has been reduced by 50%. * Among Salesforce's clients is Air India, which recently adopted Agentforce to enhance its user interface. It claims that the refund process of the airline has been drastically reduced with the use of Agentforce.  * Salesforce India has over 13,000 employees in India. Salesforce has an online learning platform called Trailhead. Its Trailblazer community — including developers, admins, architects, IT leaders, and customer innovators — has over 3.9 million members across India. * Delhi NCR is at the heart of S&P Global, the $...

Paraphrased notes from an interview with Windsurf CEO and Co-Founder, Varun Mohan , based on a summary initially generated by NotebookLM: Key Points: Windsurf's origin traces back to a company called Exaunction, which initially focused on building GPU virtualization systems for workloads like large-scale simulations in robotics and autonomous vehicles. With the advent of large generative models around mid-2022, the company pivoted to focus on the application layer, leveraging their infrastructure background to build code-related tools. The decision to build their own Large Language Models (LLMs) and inference stack early on was driven by the limitations of existing open models, particularly their inability to handle the "fill-in-the-middle" capability crucial for coding where changes are often needed within existing lines or snippets. Evaluating new models for coding use cases is complex due to their non-deterministic properties. Windsurf uses a rigorous evaluation i...

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See more of my AI co-creations

This Week I Learned -  *  The rise of Model Fatigue – " I am feeling both overwhelmed and bored with news about yet another AI model being released by Company XYZ that will be a “game changer” and “leaves the others in the dust”. What we need is fewer news about models and more information what each of them is good for. Right now, it feels much more like a size competition rather than a competition of which is more applicable. It also doesn’t help that the few benchmarks we have continue to be rigged and skewed. I’m much more excited reporting and learning from case studies of people who used different models and found one or the other more appropriate ." - Chris Heilmann * ChatGPT can create Studio Ghibli style images but not xkcd style comic strips * You need to log in to your primary phone every 14 days to keep linked devices connected to your WhatsApp account. * IIT Madras started the world’s first B.S. Degree program in Data Science and Applications. This program is des...

When I had a need to merge 2 PDF files, I turned to my AI assistants to let me know the easiest options that won't require uploading my files to any Web Service. The first option I liked was to use Microsoft Word which I have.  Here are the steps: Go to "Insert" tab in the Text Ribbon Group. Select "Object" and then the "Text from File" option. Select the first PDF.  Repeat the process to insert the second PDF. Arrange the pages as needed. Save the document as a PDF. This technique extracted the text with the same formatting as in the PDF but without the headers and footers. As I wanted the headers, I decided to build my own Python program. ChatGPT generated the following Python script to merge PDFs using the GNU GPL v3 licensed PDF-handling library PyMuPDF (7.1k Stars). Install it using the command before running the script - pip install pymupdf PyMuPDF (also known as fitz) is a powerful and fast  GNU GPL v3 licensed PDF-handling library that support...

The evolution of AI is deeply intertwined with how data has been managed, structured, and ultimately harnessed for intelligence. In this context, the foundational skill of database design remains as relevant as ever although it's often seen as unglamorous due to the somewhat esoteric database jargon.  Grokking Relational Database Design , written by academicians Qiang Hao and Michail Tsikerdekis, is a beginner-friendly guide that explains complex concepts with modern references, relatable examples and helpful design diagrams. What stands out is the authors’ teaching experience, which informs their approach. The book avoids being anchored to a single RDBMS. It references widely used systems like MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, SQL Server, and Oracle, encouraging learners to apply their knowledge using freely available tools like dbdiagram.io and sqliteonline.com . Years ago, when there were far fewer accessible learning resources or real-world data model samples, I often relied on...