Recently, we integrated Redis through AWS ElastiCache to power real-time updates in our AI-driven menu recommendation system. Our initial cloud setup was straightforward: a Rails 8 application deployed with Kamal on a t3a.small EC2 instance ($27.07/month) and RDS for the database ($32.47/month), totaling around $70/month across environ...

A quick intro to Kamal: it offers zero-downtime deploys with super simple config. The best part? Kamal works with any containerized web app. It’s convention over configuration - much like Rails! After using various deploy pipelines, Kamal's simplicity wins for most cases, including mine. When first deploying my Rails app in production,...

Ever since I was introduced to the "/shrug" command in Slack, I fell in love with it - I used it way more than I should've! I love this ASCII art over the shrug emoji 🤷🏼♂ - so much that I wanted this to be global on all my devices - iPad, iOS, and macOS. Enter text replacements (for Apple devices) All apple devices come with a "Text Re...

I have always had the urge to write and blog. But I have never been diligent of either writing or sticking to a blogging platform. I have always jumped platforms - from my first custom PHP site hosted on my school's internal network to Google Sites to Wordpress to my latest "gig" - Github Pages, just to name a few. All these platforms,...

“Father, Husband, Software Engineer who loves to code 👨🏻💻! Challenges? Bring ‘em on, because "It's possible" — that’s my motto.” 💻 Tech Gear • Productivity • 1Password Families - the best password manager that I have used to date. • Basecamp Personal to organize my family and personal life • HEY for email. Made by creators of basecamp ...