João Freitas

2025-09-17 • political satire pdf authentication humor

The blog post humorously explores the concept of a 'Login with PDF' authentication method, inspired by a satire video. It outlines a hypothetical process where users can authenticate by uploading a digitally signed PDF document, w...

2025-08-28 • open source self-hosted services technical support software development project management

The author reflects on their experience as an open-source maintainer of a project called zero-monitor, an agent-based monitoring tool. Initially excited about the project, they detail the challenges faced in maintaining it, includ...

2025-06-11 • experiment browser extension vibe coding cursor

The author describes an experiment of using LLMs to vibe code a mobile browser extension, discussing the process, the good and bad aspects of the experiment, and the overall experience.

2025-01-09 •

The text is a list of abandoned projects that the author has worked on over the years, ranging from web apps to APIs to games and more. The author reflects on the ideas and why they were abandoned.

2024-12-16 •

The Zero Monitor is a lightweight, cross-platform server monitoring tool based on the ZeroMQ protocol. It allows for easy supervision of multiple machines from a single dashboard view, and is distributed in the form of two binarie...

2024-10-12 •

Instagram Archiver is a tool that automates archiving Instagram user stories, allowing users to rewatch them after they expire. The tool is built using Golang, Cloudflare Workers, and Google Cloud Storage, with a traditional layer...

2024-09-17 •

The text discusses the dotfiles movement, which encourages developers to share their customized workspace configuration files. The author shares their own configuration files and provides a script to replicate their environment on...

2024-03-24 •

The author discusses the issue of scripts becoming obsolete and unmaintainable when written in Bash or Python, and suggests that scripts should be written using the main language of the project to reduce time and effort, leverage ...

2024-03-20 •

The author explains why they prefer using a terminal editor to write commit messages instead of passing the message flag in Git. They list seven reasons in favor of using a terminal editor, highlighting the limitations and issues ...

2023-12-31 •

The author shares their experience of reading a technical article every day for a year, summarizing and archiving them on their blog. They also provide statistics on the keywords used in the articles and discuss the difficulties f...

2023-12-31 •

The author deleted 80% of the codebase for Jovian in just three days, simplifying the application and making it easier to use. The code represented about 70% of the frontend codebase, and the author was able to remove it without b...

2023-12-30 •

The text is an introduction to Flight Recorder, a profiling tool built into the JVM to measure the performance of a Java application. It discusses the use of JDK Mission Control to import recorded profiling sessions and analyze me...

2023-12-29 •

The text is a summary of the 2023 earnings for a dual developer indie company creating macOS apps and selling them in different app stores. It includes pre and post tax sales earnings, the largest costs of running such a business,...

2023-12-28 •

The author explains SSH to the reader using an analogy of a VR headset and the Metaverse. They discuss the importance of SSH for developers, how it is used, and its history. The author also provides a brief guide on how to use SSH...

2023-12-27 •

The text is a visual story telling of a software engineer's attempt to explain Kubernetes to an Uber driver after attending a 3-day Kubernetes event. The engineer uses a kitchen analogy to describe Kubernetes concepts such as cont...

2023-12-26 •

The text provides a summary of how much people spend per hour on various streaming services and entertainment options, ranging from $0.25/h for Xbox Live to $70/h for CGP Grey.

2023-12-25 •

The text discusses the abundance of information in the modern age and the difficulty of finding the right information. It highlights the impact of streaming services on music and the challenges of discovering new content in variou...

2023-12-24 •

The article discusses the idea of creating technical documentation for a house, providing examples of questions that can be answered with such documentation, and recommending a framework for organizing the documentation. It also i...

2023-12-23 •

The article provides an overview of how browsers render a webpage, focusing on the importance of fast loading and smooth interactions. It discusses issues related to latency and the single-threaded nature of browsers, as well as t...

2023-12-21 •

The article explains how to test a website for accessibility in an automated and manual manner, using Google Lighthouse for automated testing and manual testing with keyboards, and how to fix identified issues. It also provides a ...

2023-12-20 •

The author shares the story of how he created a 2kB state manager using JavaScript Proxy API, which led to job offers. He explains the inspiration behind creating the state manager, the struggles he faced, and how he used JavaScri...

2023-12-19 •

The text is a review of the amount of writing a Netflix Software Engineer puts in a on-call week. The author discusses the importance of communication and empathy in the software engineering field, and provides a detailed breakdow...

2023-12-18 •

The text discusses the author's search for alternatives to GitHub, evaluating GitLab, SourceHut, Codeberg, and self-hosting Gitea. The author expresses concerns about GitHub's Copilot offering, and the limitations of the alternati...