Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

 A list of AI coding assistants - 1. GitHub Copilot   2. Cursor 3. Windsurf  4. Claude Code 5. Replit   6. v0 from Vercel 7.  Bolt 8. Base44 9. Firebase Studio 10. Lovable  - suited for non-coders 11. Kiro  (preview) is an agentic IDE  built and operated by a small, opinionated team within AWS . Kiro turns your prompt into structured requirements, design, and tasks that are then implemented by agents. Kiro’s agent hooks help you scale your work by delegating tasks to agents that run in the background, such as updating docs, generating unit tests, or optimizing your code for performance. Also see - A comparison of AI coding assistants

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This Week I Learned -  * The Web Platform Status web site allows web developers to query and track features shipped in major browsers. *  Appwrite.io  is an open-source, all-in-one development platform that provides built-in backend infrastructure and web hosting, all conveniently managed in one place.  *  GitHub Apps are tools that extend GitHub's functionality. GitHub Apps can do things on GitHub like open issues, comment on pull requests, and manage projects. They can also do things outside of GitHub based on events that happen on GitHub. For example, a GitHub App can post on Slack when an issue is opened on GitHub. Once you authorize a GitHub App, the app can act on your behalf. The situations in which a GitHub App acts on your behalf vary according to the purpose of the GitHub App and the context in which it is being used. For example, an integrated development environment (IDE) may use a GitHub App to interact on your behalf in order to push changes you ...

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There are many free and discounted certifications, software bundles, tools, services, and learning resources available for students and some for the general public too (marked with asterisk) - Oracle University is offering 5 free certification exam attempts * as part of its Race to Certification Challenge 2025 that will run till October 2025 and 3 always-free Foundation course certifications *. GitHub Student Developer Pack : Github offers curated bundles, tools, services and learning resources. Below is the list with a link to the dedicated landing page (where available) for that tool's GitHub student offer - Developer Tools & IDEs GitHub Copilot Student Offer JetBrains Student Pack Appwrite Student Education Plan GitLens Student Pack GitKraken Student Pack GitHub Desktop Polypane GitHub Student Bootstrap Studio Student Pack Termius GitHub Student Offer SQLGate GitHub Student Offer WorkingCopy GitHub Student Offer Tower Pro for Students ...

Whats In A Name is a simple Flask app that uses the Sonar API from Perplexity.ai to fetch interesting, cultural, and historical facts about names. Enter a name, get a fun fact. That’s it! If you're getting started with Perplexity’s Sonar API, this is a very basic example you can try by just placing your own Perplexity Sonar API key at the point specified in the code shared on GitHub . Based on the scenario, you can use any of the following Sonar models: sonar (lightweight search)  sonar-pro (advanced search) sonar-deep-research (exhaustive research) sonar-reasoning (fast reasoning) sonar-reasoning-pro (premier reasoning) You can deploy Flask apps on the web using one of the many options like Anaconda's  PythonAnywhere . With a limited Beginner account, you can host one web app at your-username.pythonanywhere.com with restricted outbound Internet access from your apps at low CPU/bandwidth. 

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Did you know GitHub isn’t just for code - it can show your maps too?  If you upload a file in the GeoJSON format (a popular, text-based way to share map data), GitHub will instantly display it as an interactive map right in your browser without having to code anything. Just add your .geojson file to a GitHub repo. Click it, and you’ll see your locations appear on a pan-and-zoom map. Each feature (like a city, region, or route) can be clicked for details, thanks to GeoJSON’s properties. This feature is powered by Tom MacWright 's Mapbox technology under the hood. I created a GeoJSON file from “ Memoirs of My Working Life ,” mapping places tied to Sir M. Visvesvaraya’s travels and achievements. 

This Week I Learned -  * After OpenAI’s $3 billion Windsurf deal collapsed, Google invested $2.4 billion while also hiring its CEO Varun Mohan and key staff. Cognition, the AI startup behind the viral AI coding agent Devin, has officially acquired Windsurf in a deal that will include the coding company's IP and user base. *  AI Agent School - An interactive educational platform for understanding AI agents * S Anand created an Amar Chitra Katha-style comic story based on his Vipassana experience  and also shared how he prompted ChatGPT to generate it. *  Agents (LLMs running tools in a loop) can think only for ~6 min * Nvidia controls more than 80% of the market for the chips used for building AI systems *  Adrien Friggeri  has been running every day for the past 15 years & making beautiful charts from the data he collects. * Micronations, sometimes also referred to as model countries and new country projects, are small, self-proclaimed entities ...

See more of my AI co-creations Image description by Mistral Small 3.2 24B model - The image is a black-and-white cartoon. In the scene, a man seems frustrated or urgency and is speaking to a humanoid robot assistant who appears to be multitasking with gadgets. The man is sitting at a table with a laptop, holding a coffee cup in one hand, and has his other hand raised in a gesturing manner. He is saying, "I don't have time for an executive summary. Just beam the info straight to my brain!" The robot is standing and holding a notepad with what appears to be a graph or chart and a coffee cup. Behind the robot, there is a sign saying "HUSTLE HARDER" mounted on the wall. The scene is set in an urban office environment, with a view of city buildings through the window. The image seems to convey the theme of time pressure, efficiency in work, and the desire for instant information, a common sentiment in fast-paced corporate environments.

Airtel is providing its 360 million customers in India with a complimentary one-year subscription to Perplexity Pro, which is typically priced at ₹17,000 per year (approximately $200 annually). Airtel users can avail this offer by logging-on to the Airtel Thanks App.  What can you gain from it? Instant, Cited Answers : Every answer comes with inline citations and sources, making fact-checking easier and more reliable for research or data-heavy tasks. Real-Time Information : Incorporates live web search by default, ensuring answers reflect the latest data and events—something most rivals only offer in premium modes or with manual browsing. Supports Multiple AI Models : Users can select from leading LLMs (like GPT-4o, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity’s proprietary models) for more control and flexibility As of October 2025, you can select from the following models - Sonar - Perplexity's fast model Claude Sonnet 4.0 - Anthropic's advanced model Claude Sonnet 4.0 Thinking - Anthropic...

When you copy rows in Google Sheets, even if columns are hidden, the default behavior is to copy all the data, including what's in the hidden columns. Pasting this directly into Excel will usually bring over everything. As Google Sheets doesn't have a direct "copy visible cells only" option like Excel, a quick way is to use an OCR tool like ABBYY Screenshot Reader to copy the desired area of the table in Google Sheets and paste just that visible portion to Excel. If there are just a few hidden columns you can manually delete the unwanted columns in Google Sheets to perform a visible-column export to Excel.

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Svyatoslav Kotusev explains where The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) came from, why TOGAF “succeeded” despite being inadequate and what happens with TOGAF now.  He also debunks three other popular misconceptions around enterprise architecture: 1) That enterprise architecture originated only in the late 1980s 2) That current EA frameworks descend from the Zachman Framework 3) That architecture initially was purely technical and only recently expanded into the realm of business The evolution of enterprise architecture planning, started in the early 1960s with methodologies like IBM's Business Systems Planning (BSP) , which laid foundations for current-state, future-state, and action planning.  Numerous consulting firms developed similar approaches, including Arthur Andersen (now Accenture) , Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) , and Deloitte & Touche (now Deloitte) , but these methods were often laborious, produced incomprehensible deliverables, and were rarely implem...

This hour-long video covers not just the maths behind LLMs but also the history. Complex topics are well explained.  * Training a large language model is like constructing a skyscraper, where every   brick is placed by an army of specialists working around the clock. But here, the bricks are data, the mortar is mathematics, and the blueprint is a complex interplay of algorithms.  *   LLMs don't truly understand. They excel not through cognition, but through colossal computation. *  Mathematics is the invisible backbone of these 'thinking machines'. *  N-grams - A statistical method used by early language models that broke down text into small sequences of words to predict the next word based on common combinations in a dataset. *  Transformers - A groundbreaking architecture introduced in 2017 that revolutionized the field by enabling machines to grasp context at an unprecedented scale , allowing models to pay attention to all parts of a se...

The simplest way to geocode hospital names/addresses and show them on a map is to use Google My Maps - it's free, requires no coding, and handles everything automatically. Go to mymaps.google.com Click "Create a New Map" Click "Import" and upload a CSV file with columns like: Name, Address City Hospital, 123 Main St, Anytown County Medical Center, 456 Oak Ave, Somewhere Google automatically geocodes the addresses and plots them on the map in most cases where the address is partially available. The tool provides an editable data table to fix records which are highlighted in red due to inadequate address details. You can customize colors, add descriptions, and share the map. There are also free & paid tools available to geocode addresses in bulk.

This Week I Learned -  * AI can be used to reverse-engineer an application without having access to its source code. However,  AI is an accelerator, not an automator . AI is a powerful force multiplier. * If you're working with technical documentation, software development, or any field where visualizing processes and systems is important, Mermaid syntax can be a very powerful and efficient tool. It is a Markdown-inspired text-based language for generating diagrams and charts. Instead of dragging and dropping shapes in a visual editor, you describe your diagram using plain text, and Mermaid then renders that text into a professional-looking visual. Mermaid supports a wide range of common diagrams, including: Flowcharts: For processes, workflows, and decision trees. Sequence Diagrams: To show interactions between different components or participants over time. Class Diagrams: For object-oriented programming structures. Gantt Charts: For project planning and timelines....

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See more of my AI co-creations Elephants' ability to remember faces, places, and experiences underscores their status as one of the most cognitively advanced species on the planet . Elephants possess the largest brains of all land mammals , weighing around 11 pounds ( 5 kilograms ). Their brains have a highly developed hippocampus and cerebral cortex, which are crucial for memory formation and retrieval. The intricate structure of their brains allows for complex neural connections, enhancing their memory capacity.  Elephants have evolved to remember critical details that aid in their survival. For instance, they can recall the locations of water sources and food, which is vital during droughts. Older matriarchs, who have experienced past droughts, often lead their herds to these resources based on their memories.  Elephants are known to recognize individual faces and scents, allowing them to maintain complex social relationships . They can remember other elephants and even hum...

Stop wondering "Where can I watch this?" The BingeBuddy web app instantly shows you which streaming platform has your favorite movies & shows. You can also dive into a celebrity's filmography and the cast & crew details of movies. It's IMDb-lite. I co-created this web app with assistance from the Claude Sonnet 4 model in GitHub Copilot.   Check the code in my GitHub Web Apps repo . It's all in a HTML page powered by The Movie Database (TMDB) REST API and vanilla JavaScript - no libraries! Just get your own TMDB API key, replace it in the code and you can have your own local or hosted version. Your feedback is always appreciated.

The LinkedIn Learning short course Building AI-Ready Applications with Azure Databases and AI by Muazma Zahid, Principal Group PM Manager at Microsoft provides an overview of creating AI-ready applications using Azure's data and AI services. The code related to the course is in GitHub Codespaces .  Highlights: Key services Azure offers - Azure AI Search is a search as a service solution that integrates AI capabilities to enhance search results. It can analyze and understand the content of your data, providing more relevant and accurate search results.  Azure AI Studio is an integrated development environment for building, training, and deploying AI models.  Azure Data Services provide the infrastructure for storing, processing, and analyzing large amount of data. Azure offers a variety of database services, including Azure SQL Database , Cosmos DB , PostgreSQL , and MySQL . These databases are optimized for AI workloads providing high performance scalability and sec...

This Week I Learned -  * Firebase Studio is the fullstack AI workspace from Google that accelerates your development lifecycle.  * Microsoft's Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) guidance for AI implementations provides a structured process for adopting AI solutions in Azure.  * 90% of Claude Code is now written with Claude Code * Cloudflare's hosting service enables users to block visitors from specified countries. * LinkedIn Learning Code Challenges courses are integrated with GitHub Codespaces and powered by CoderPad .  *  Data Feminism  is a book  written by Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein as part literature review, part call to action. It explores how data science and data ethics can be informed by intersectional feminism.  *  Spider-Map ( Open Edition ) shows Euclidean distance and real walking routes on a map helping visualize for example, how far the nearest metro stations feel from anywhere in a city. *  Census Data Viz ...

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Key points from the S Anand's "Data Design by Dialogue - VizChitra 2025" talk : LLMs for Data Democratisation : Large Language Models (LLMs) are rapidly improving, evolving from the intelligence level of an 8th-grade student to roughly a postgraduate in two years. They are seen as the single biggest democratisation of data insights since the advent of open data. LLMs can assist in every step of the data-to-story value chain , including engineering, analysis, and visualisation. Experimentation and Delegation are Key : Due to the "jagged edge" nature of LLMs (highly capable in some areas, less so in others), experimentation is crucial . The speaker advocates for delegating tasks to LLMs at every stage of data processing. Instead of trying to solve problems yourself, ask the LLM to fix it or perform the next step. Handling LLM Mistakes and Reliability : LLMs make mistakes, "kind of like humans". When an LLM makes a mistake, the next time ...

Race to Certification 2025 learning and certification challenge running from July 1 to October 31, 2025 offers an opportunity to earn free professional certification exam attempts for the following exam titles: AI   Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2025 AI Foundations Associate | 1Z0-1122-25 Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2025 Data Science Professional | 1Z0-1110-25 Oracle AI Vector Search Professional | 1Z0-184-25 Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2025 Generative AI Professional | 1Z0-1127-25 OCI  Oracle Cloud Infrastructure 2025 Foundations Associate | 1Z0-1085-25 Orac...