Samuel's Blog

Mostly tech stuff, but I'm working on that

Recently, YNAB (You Need a Budget) has been overwhelming my wife and I making it difficult to get a clear picture our finances. We've been using it for about 2 years now so I figured it was time to do a full evaluation of the budgeting space again and make sure we are using the best tool for our situation.

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I made something cool in anticipation of the launch of Starfield! It's a simple play-through generator to help you get started on your next save file. Check it out at starfieldroulette.com.

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I find the possibilities of AI fascinating. Haven't had a need to use it for any “real” project yet, but I keep coming back to mess around with it on my own time. Here's a simple guide to getting Stability AI's stable diffusion running on your own Windows machine.

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I bought my Pebble Time from a friend at work way back in 2017. Ever since then, it has been working flawlessly (over 5 years now!). But with my move from Android to the lovely walled garden that is iOS, I no longer have easy access to the Pebble app (Apple, in it's infinite and perfect wisdom, removed it from the store a few years ago).

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Productivity is important to me. It's a satisfying feeling to plan ahead and slowly accomplish that plan by degrees over the course of the day. I've been all over the place in my habit of planning and that's one of the areas I'm working to improve in my life right now. To this end, I've been designing a template for myself that pairs well with my weekly rhythms of planning.

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I got a new keyboard recently! I really admire the craftsmanship mentality of other disciplines like woodworking, writing, etc. and how having great tools and taking good care of them can make a huge difference. Taking a small step in my craft of software engineering by investing in a solid keyboard that is ergonomic for long term use and one I can swap keycaps and switches out as I grow.

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Need to use different Firebase projects depending on the current build configuration of your Xamarin app? Google has some basic documentation on this use case, but it didn't quite cut it for me. Hopefully this quick rundown of an MSBuild config helps you out!

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