Category: Technology

On Local Timelines

I came across a post from Kev Quirk this morning about Mastodon potentially removing the local timeline which linked to a different post by R Scott... Read more

Extending Comments on the Blog

Something came over me this week and I decided to extend my little commenting system to allow for threaded replies. Backend I detailed adding comme... Read more

This is a Scheduled Post

This is a scheduled post! One thing I miss from a CMS blog is the ability to schedule posts for publication. It turns out a lot of other people run... Read more

Installing Helix on a Chromebook

Update November 2024 The post below details how to build Helix from source. This doesn't really provide much of a benefit other than being able to ... Read more

Fixing Helix Colors on a Chromebook

Success! I've been using Helix on my Chromebook for almost a year and I was finally able to get editor themes working correctly. Helix has a great ... Read more

What's With My Domain Name?

I was perusing some blogs today and saw a post from Juha-Matti Santala in which he described his domain and others who inspired him to write his st... Read more

Open for Comments

Well, I did a thing. I built a little service to add comments back into my blog. This was a little bit of a project because I had to build a backen... Read more

Downgrading Files for a Road Trip

We have a trip to Kentucky coming up and for the first time in a while, we don't have a general-purpose iPad to use for some in-car entertainment. ... Read more

Lifesaver Chrome Extensions (for a Teacher)

I'm procrastinating on finishing my final exam, so here are two Chrome extensions which make my life much, much easier. Reader View for Chrome. Thi... Read more

Leaning Toward Codespaces

I'm prepping a revamp of the computer science class we have available at school for next year and my first task has been to figure out a cloud runt... Read more

Google Classroom Things that Kind of Work Well

This is my first year teaching with Google Classroom. It's tough to counteract the kool-aid that is Google stuff in schools, but it's safe to say t... Read more

Better Mobile Blogging Setup

A couple weeks ago, I managed to write a post from my phone because I finally took the time to get my site build process pushed to the server. Toda... Read more

I'm Writing From My Phone

The other day, I got my blog moved solely to my VPS and buildong from a git push. That will let me write from either of our home computers instead ... Read more

Not Everything Needs to be a Service

I often fall into the trap of thinking, "Maybe I should publish this thing for other people to use." And I almost always regret it. I'm a full-time... Read more

Remembering Anchor CMS

On a whim, today I searched for Anchor CMS, an old PHP CMS I tried out after I jumped off WordPress the first time. As soon as I started reading, I... Read more

Lowest Necessary Requirements

A goal of mine this year is to ride my bike more. I'm starting a new job that is bike-commutable, which is a big deal when you live in a rural area... Read more

Moving from beach to nh3

I happened to see a post about bleach, a text input santization library, deprecated in January. I have a couple of apps which use this library to s... Read more

Leaning Hard into Vivaldi Browser

I've been a Vivaldi user for several years, but this year, I pushed hard into making it as efficient and usable for me as possible. Some of this wa... Read more

Digital Notes Aren't for Me

I want to take digital notes well, but I can't seem to find a system I like. With so many moving pieces to my work, notes are really important. I'm... Read more

Using Vivaldi Over Arc

I've been bouncing between Arc and Vivaldi as the browser of choice for non-work related Internet things. I think I've finally settled on using Viv... Read more

This Was Written with Helix

I'm writing this blog post using Helx. This is the first time I've really committed to using a terminal-based text editor, focusing on keyboard com... Read more

Sort a Google Sheet with Vertically Merged Ranges

This is a quick tip, but if you've ever tried to sort a sheet with vertically-merged rows, you've probably been disappointed. Here's an example: If... Read more

Systems of Trust and web3 in Education

This post has been percolating in my mind for several months. It started as an opus that sat stale in my drafts because I didn't want to wrestle th... Read more

Sending System Audio to Google Meet

In 2013, I wrote up how to record Google Hangouts in high quality for podcasting or whatever. This post is how to essentially do the same, but for ... Read more

Lemonade Factory

The LMS isn't perfect, but it's what we have. We've gone through a sea change over the last four years. It started with opening Google Apps for all... Read more

The Great YouTube Migration

It's begun. This summer, YouTube deactivated brand accounts for GSuite Education domains. A brand account is essentially a shared account for teams... Read more

The Boot Loop Returneth

I have an aging Macbook Pro. It's older than my children and starting to show it's age. Before I remove Mac OS and replace it with Linux, I'm tryin... Read more

Creating a Curated RSS Feed with TinyTiny RSS

I've been using Tiny Tiny RSS (TTRSS) for several months now and I'm finally getting into some of the more advanced uses. It's more than just an RS... Read more

Google's Narrow Focus on Digital Literacy

“We are helping them become more knowledgeable about what the digital landscape is like,” Mr. Hodgson said of his students, “so they can make choic... Read more

Twitter's Card Update is Bad For Users

Twitter made a UI change this week with it's card-styled link previews. It's subtle, but the changes have hurt accessibility and hurt the end user.... Read more

Will Hide Ads in Exchange for Bitcoin

Several articles swirled around early this week about Salon.com’s (sorry, not going to link it) new ad-blocking choice to users. You can: Disable y... Read more

Ideas for Apps Script in Google Slides

Google Slides got a big update from Google this week, notably the inclusion of AddOns and Apps Script functionality. The UI updates are nice (grid ... Read more

Outsourcing, EdTech, and 1986

Outsourcing education doesn’t look like robots taking over our classes. It happens when we willingly turn over the tasks of teaching to machines wi... Read more

Digital Teaching and Learning is Great (Until It’s Not)

The nuances of digital teaching and learning are often lost on Twitter and off-the-cuff blogs. Posts long enough to explore some of the finer point... Read more

You Are the Product

The New York Times profiled Google’s rush into education over the last eight years in a long piece this weekend. Some initial thoughts: – The value... Read more

Get in touch

Comments are always open. You can get in touch by sending me an email at brian@ohheybrian.com