Installing WordPress with Helm
One of the many advantages of Helm is that it gives you a one-command installation method for many popular apps. It would take a while to create all the nece...
Posts by Year
2022
Getting Started with Helm
So far in this series, we’ve created some very simple Kubernetes applications. If you built something more complicated, with dozens of manifests, it would be...
Creating a Kubernetes Service Manifest
Last time, we created a simple manifest to launch a Kubernetes deployment. Although we found a Pod lurking in minikube dashboard, we couldn’t actually see an...
Creating a Simple Kubernetes Manifest
In my previous post, I showed you how to create a Kubernetes deployment imperatively at the command line. Although this is a quick method, it’s not a good ch...
Creating a Jekyll Site with Docker
Although it only takes a minute to create a Jekyll site, you could easily spend a large chunk of your life installing the environment. A query on the Write t...
Creating a Kubernetes Deployment with minikube
One of my first tasks as a technical writer was to document a Kubernetes-based release orchestration tool. Not daunting at all. At that time, I could provide...
Creating and Running a Docker Image of Your Website
Introduction
Previewing Jekyll Sites with Docker
Introduction
2021
How to Capture Web Snippets with Hypothesis
In this demo, I’ll show you Hypothesis, a free Chrome extension for managing web snippets and annotations. It also syncs with Readwise.io, which means you ca...
How to Take Really Long Screenshots
Capturing long webpages is a pain. In this short demo, I’ll show you how you can save them easily with a paid Chrome extension called GoFullPage.
How to Create a Square Video for Social Media
In this demo, I’ll show you how you can change the size and shape of your videos, first in Camtasia, and then with an online tool called Canva.
How to Create an Interactive Checklist in InDesign
In this short tutorial, I’ll show you how you can create a checklist in InDesign that’s both interactive and printable. I’m assuming you already know the bas...
How to Create a Content Library with Readwise
If you’re anything like me, you consume all sorts of content: books, blog posts, newsletters, and podcasts. It’s hard keeping track of it all. In this short ...
How to Accelerate Your Learning with Vivaldi
It’s hard to manage multiple web-based tools, especially for online learning. With the Vivaldi browser, you can display tabs in panes. I’ll show you how in t...
How to Use a Second Camera in Zoom
In this 90-second demo, I’ll show you a little-known setting in Zoom that allows you to use a second camera. This is great for sharing objects and techniques...
Capture Handwritten Notes with a Rocketbook
There are lots of great note-taking apps out there, but sometimes you just want to scribble with a pen and paper. In this short demo, I’ll show how the Rocke...
Conquer Boring Tasks with the Pomodoro Technique
We all have tasks we avoid doing. For some, it’s writing blog posts, while others struggle with keeping on top of email. Nearly everyone, though, will do any...
How to Remove a Photo Background in Canva
Transparent backgrounds are highly versatile, but quite tricky to achieve in tools like Photoshop. In this short demo, I’ll show you how to remove a photo ba...
Boost Your Productivity with TextExpander
We spend a lot of our day typing the same stuff over and over again, sometimes getting it wrong in the process. Although it might only be 10 minutes of repet...
Quick and Easy Video Captions with Sonix
If you’re making videos, you need to start creating captions, too. They’re vital for accessibility and also some of your audience will watch videos with the ...
Easy Noise Reduction with Audacity
Once you get into audio and video recording, background noise will drive you absolutely mad. Although there are lots of solutions out there, most of them are...
How to Edit Audio with Descript
With Descript, editing audio is as easy as editing a Word document. You import your file, allow the app to transcribe it, then you can start tweaking the tra...
Insights from 2020
I started the year feeling tired. I was running an awful lot of workshops around the south east, many of them weekend events. Thanks to the vagaries of our r...
2020
The Art of Deliberate Practice
One of my favourite cartoons shows a despondent chicken telling his violin teacher, “I don’t want to practice! I want to skip to the part where I’m awesome.”...
How to Turn Your Phone into a Webcam
One of the many challenges we’ve faced during lockdown is the difficulty of obtaining technical gubbins. At a time when many of us are reliant on video confe...
My Favourite Books of 2019
One of my many resolutions for 2019 was to read more books. Although some of the other resolutions were quietly abandoned, I’m pleased to report that I read ...
2019
Open Up: The Power of Talking About Money by Alex Holder
Who knows how much you earn? One person? Two? Maybe nobody apart from Human Resources. Research shows that nearly 50% of couples have no idea of each other’s...
The Kindness Method by Shahroo Izadi
When we want to quit a destructive habit, it’s common to be hard on ourselves. We don’t just start with a gentle 20-minute canter around the block, it has to...