# handy (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 4 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover handy. Page: Feed: --- ## [Checklist Before Formatting Windows](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/checklist-before-formatting-windows) _2026-08-18 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ If you plan to reinstall Windows or maybe switch over to Linux, here's a few things to check and confirm before wiping your drive. ## [Using Your Monitor as a Key Light with Bash and a Wallpaper Tool](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/using-your-monitor-as-a-key-light-with-bash-and-a-wallpaper-tool) _2026-08-11 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ This is handy for when you're on video with a webcam and want to control the lighting on your face in a quick way. ## [Getting PagerDuty's Latest vCard with curl and awk](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/getting-pagerduty-latest-vcard-with-curl-and-awk) _2026-08-04 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ This is a really low tech / low effort solution to solve a specific problem, you can apply this for whatever 1 off use cases you have. ## [SMART Stats for Your SSD and HDD on Linux, macOS and Windows](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/smart-stats-for-your-ssd-and-hdd-on-linux-macos-and-windows) _2026-07-28 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ These stats let you see the health of your drives along with useful stats like temperatures and how long it's been powered on. ## [How to Back Up PostgreSQL in Docker (Local, S3, and Plakar)](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/how-to-back-up-postgresql-in-docker-local-s3-and-plakar) _2026-07-21 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ We'll cover doing backups and restores with and without Plakar and show how you can save money along the way. ## [Customize Tumbler's Thumbnail Entries on Arch Linux](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/customize-tumblers-thumbnail-entries-on-arch-linux) _2026-07-14 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ We'll go over how to detect mime types and customize ffmpegthumbnailer to support additional mime types for certain files. ## [Watch Out for Data Loss When Redirecting to a File in a Shell Script](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/watch-out-for-data-loss-when-redirecting-to-a-file-in-a-shell-script) _2026-07-07 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ There's a number of subtle things going on when you redirect output to a file, here's how to do it safely and verify it with strace. ## [Install Docker on Arch Linux with and Without Docker Desktop](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/install-docker-on-arch-linux-with-and-without-docker-desktop) _2026-06-30 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ You don't have to miss out on Docker Desktop features on Linux, it's pretty painless to install either the CLI or Docker Desktop. ## [Visually Create Video Clips with mpv, FFmpeg and a Lua Extension](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/visually-create-video-clips-with-mpv-ffmpeg-and-a-lua-extension) _2026-06-23 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ We'll take advantage of using temporary mpv chapter markers and FFmpeg to avoid needing to re-encode the video. ## [Prevent Kdenlive from Producing Millions of Log Lines on Linux](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/prevent-kdenlive-from-producing-millions-of-log-lines-on-linux) _2026-06-16 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ We'll go over how to disable Kdenlive's noisy logs so when you run journalctl it's not overtaking your output. ## [CLI-first decentralized GPU compute (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/gFLaHCMVVFLq) _2026-06-15 · **Sponsored**_ Pay workers or run your GPU for FFmpeg transcode and AI inference. ## [tmux: Swapping Windows and Rotating Panes](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/tmux-swapping-windows-and-rotating-panes) _2026-06-09 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Here's a few handy shortcuts so you can rearrange whatever you're working on. ## [8 Useful Ways to Configure Your Zsh History](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/8-useful-ways-to-configure-your-zsh-history) _2026-06-02 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Being able to search your shell history is important, this will help you control where and how your commands get saved. ## [Hardening Yarn Against Supply Chain Attacks](https://tim.alby.fr/posts/hardening-yarn-supply-chain/) _2026-05-27 · timothee@alby.fr (Tim Alby) · Tim Alby_ A few lines in .yarnrc.yml and a small package.json allowlist that buy you real protection against the kind of supply chain attacks that have been hitting the JS ecosystem lately. ## [Hardening npm Against Supply Chain Attacks](https://tim.alby.fr/posts/hardening-npm-supply-chain/) _2026-05-26 · timothee@alby.fr (Tim Alby) · Tim Alby_ A few small changes to .npmrc, a shell wrapper and a couple of dev dependencies that buy you real protection against the kind of supply chain attacks that have been hitting npm lately. ## [Remap a Second Mod Key in niri's Config Without Extra Tools](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/remap-a-second-mod-key-in-niri-config-without-extra-tools) _2026-05-26 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Having a second pathway to press the default mod / super key is a nice choice to have available. ## [Locked Out of Sudo on Arch Linux? Skip the 10 Minute Wait](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/locked-out-of-sudo-on-arch-linux-skip-the-10-minute-wait) _2026-05-19 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ This could happen if you've fat fingered your password too many times, we'll go over how to reset it and configure the limits. ## [DotFriedRice: niri / Arch Desktop Environment with Modern CLI Tools](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/dotfriedrice-niri-arch-desktop-environment-with-modern-cli-tools) _2026-05-12 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Configure most systems with modern command line tools and optionally an Arch Linux niri based desktop environment. ## [Walking Through a Minimal Arch Linux Set Up with archinstall](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/walking-through-a-minimal-arch-linux-set-up-with-archinstall) _2026-05-05 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ We'll spend some time going through most of the options, in the end you'll have confidence to set up a system to your liking. ## [Create Bootable Arch USB on Linux / macOS with cat (Rufus on Windows)](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/create-bootable-arch-usb-on-linux-macos-with-cat-or-rufus-on-windows) _2026-04-28 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ You can use this to install Arch Linux or act as a recovery disk. Technically this method works for most Linux installers. ## [Combine Tmux, btop and a GPU Monitoring Tool for System Monitoring](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/combine-tmux-btop-and-a-gpu-monitoring-tool-for-system-monitoring) _2026-04-21 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Here's a quick way to get your system's overall health and it uses a nice trick to programmatically create tmux sessions or windows. ## [Realtime AI Arbitrage Terminal (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/Zs1flKglDIYY) _2026-04-20 · **Sponsored**_ Realtime auto-trading across exchanges with scored setups, backtesting, and risk controls. ## [Differentiate Between an Empty or Unset String Variable with Bash](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/differentiate-between-an-empty-or-unuset-string-variable-with-bash) _2026-04-14 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ We'll go over a POSIX compliant solution using parameter expansion as well as a Bash 4.2+ variable existence check. ## [Custom dmenu / fzf Picker to Set Your Timezone with Geolocation](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/custom-dmenu-fzf-picker-to-set-your-timezone-with-geolocation) _2026-04-07 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ I wanted a fast and dependable way to set my system's timezone when traveling to new places with a laptop running Linux. ## [Bash Nameref: Mutate Function Arguments (Pointer-Like Behavior)](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/bash-nameref-mutate-function-arguments-pointer-like-behavior) _2026-03-31 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ This is the type of thing that's really handy when you need it but you may not need it too often. ## [Awesome Git Diffs with Delta, fzf and a Little Shell Scripting](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/awesome-git-diffs-with-delta-fzf-and-a-little-shell-scripting) _2026-03-24 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Spotting differences in code is an important part of what we do, Delta is by far the best CLI diff tool I ever used. ## [Quickly Get Your Local and Public IP Address from the Command Line](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/quickly-get-your-local-and-public-ip-address-from-the-command-line) _2026-03-17 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Occasionally I want to get either my local or public IP address and wanted to stop having to parse command outputs or Google for it. ## [A Shell Alias for Getting Outdated Packages in Arch, Debian and macOS](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/a-shell-alias-for-getting-outdated-packages-in-arch-debian-and-macos) _2026-03-10 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ I run this from time to time because it's faster than starting a system update and then canceling it if I only want to see the updates. ## [mpv Is the MVP of Video and Image Viewing](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/mpv-is-the-mvp-of-video-and-image-viewing) _2026-03-03 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ Since I switched to native Linux, I really missed IrfanView for image viewing but mpv is filling that gap quite nicely. ## [Fix Input Device Is Not a TTY with Docker Compose in CI](https://nickjanetakis.com/blog/fix-input-device-is-not-a-tty-with-docker-compose-in-ci) _2026-02-24 · nick.janetakis@gmail.com (Nick Janetakis) · From Development to Production on Nick Janetakis_ We'll get things to dynamically work with stdin and stdout and allow reusing Docker Compose commands when a TTY is available. ## [25 Questions to ask yourself every year](https://gourav.io/blog/yearly-review) _2025-12-31 · Gourav Goyal · Gourav Goyal_ 25 questions to ask yourself every year ## [My Open-Source Chrome Extension for Notion Has Made Over $9K](https://gourav.io/blog/notion-boost) _2024-10-17 · Gourav Goyal · Gourav Goyal_ What started as chrome extension to solve my own issues has now made over $9K, all while remaining open-source. ## [Recipe PDFs Ready Fast (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/8pqA8uabzraU) _2024-10-16 · **Sponsored**_ Turn online or personal recipes into clean, printable PDFs in seconds. ## [Characteristics of the Best UX](https://gourav.io/blog/ux) _2024-10-07 · Gourav Goyal · Gourav Goyal_ There’s a core human behavior you should never forget: ## [The art of organizing code](https://gourav.io/blog/organize-code) _2024-09-18 · Gourav Goyal · Gourav Goyal_ How to organize backend and frontend code for better readability and easier maintenance.