Guides
Plain-English explainers on the concepts behind the tools — from how a JWT works to what your photos reveal about you. Each guide is practical, jargon-light, and links to a tool you can try right away.
Security
What Is a JWT and How Does It Work?
A plain-English explanation of JSON Web Tokens — their three parts, how signing works, and what they should and should not be used for.
5 min readWhat EXIF Data Reveals About Your Photos
The hidden metadata cameras embed in photos — including GPS location — and how to remove it before sharing.
4 min readHashing vs Encryption: What Is the Difference?
Two concepts that get conflated constantly. When to hash, when to encrypt, and why passwords are hashed but not encrypted.
5 min readHow to Choose Strong Passwords (and Why Length Wins)
What actually makes a password strong, why length beats complexity, and the two habits that matter more than any single password.
4 min readHTML Entities and Escaping: Preventing XSS
Why some characters must be escaped in HTML, how entities work, and how escaping stops cross-site scripting.
4 min readHMAC and Webhook Signatures Explained
How services prove a webhook really came from them, and how HMAC verifies both integrity and authenticity.
5 min readWeb & APIs
Base64 Explained: Encoding vs Encryption
What Base64 actually does, why data grows by a third, when to use it, and the critical reason it is not a way to hide anything.
4 min readHTTP Status Codes Every Developer Should Know
The five status-code classes, the codes you will actually see, and the ones people mix up like 401 vs 403 and 301 vs 302.
6 min readUTM Parameters: A Practical Guide to Campaign Tracking
What UTM tags are, what each parameter means, and how to keep your analytics clean with a consistent naming convention.
4 min readYAML vs JSON: When to Use Each
Two ways to write the same data. How they differ, where each shines, and the YAML gotchas that catch people out.
4 min readURL Encoding Explained (Percent-Encoding)
Why URLs need encoding, what %20 means, and the difference between encodeURIComponent and encodeURI.
4 min readDev Basics
Understanding Cron Syntax (With Examples)
How the five cron fields work, what the special characters mean, and a set of ready-to-copy schedules for common jobs.
5 min readchmod Explained: 644 vs 755 and Unix Permissions
How Unix file permissions work, what the numbers mean, and when to use 644, 755, 600, and 700.
5 min readUUID v4 vs v7: Which Should You Use?
What UUIDs are, how unique they really are, and why the newer time-ordered v7 is often better for database keys.
4 min readRegular Expressions: A Beginner's Guide
A gentle introduction to regex — the core building blocks, quantifiers, character classes, and groups — with practical examples.
6 min readBinary, Octal, and Hexadecimal Explained
What a number base is, why computers use binary and hex, and how to read each one.
4 min readCharacter Encoding: ASCII, Unicode, and UTF-8
Why text sometimes turns into garbled symbols, and how ASCII, Unicode, and UTF-8 fit together.
5 min readDesign
CSS Easing and cubic-bezier Explained
Why linear animation feels wrong, how easing curves work, and how to read and build a cubic-bezier timing function.
4 min readWebP vs JPEG vs PNG: Choosing an Image Format
The strengths of each web image format and how to pick the smallest one that still looks right.
4 min readHEX, RGB, and HSL: Color Formats in CSS
Three ways to write the same color, what each is good at, and why HSL is the easiest to adjust.
4 min readColor Contrast and WCAG: Readable Text for Everyone
Why contrast matters, what the WCAG AA and AAA thresholds are, and how to check your colors.
4 min read