Building a News Aggregator Without an Engagement Algorithm I have been building a project called WeSearch: https://wesearch.press It is a free news aggregator that pulls from hundreds of sources, keeps discovery mostly chronological, adds source/bias context where available, preserves permanent daily archives, and allows anonymous discussion on stories. The project started from a simple frustrat
TL;DR. golang.org/x/net/idna.Lookup.ToASCII runs UTS-46 NFKC mapping 0-9. A pre-IDNA net.ParseIP check rejects the NO_PROXY lists, TLS-SNI routers, and cookie-domain validators that TrimRight + ParseAddr golang.org/x/net/http/httpproxy, the canonical safe pattern, and two I ran into this one while writing a Go HTTP client for a private project. I idna.Lookup.ToASCII canonicalising the host The sha
A deep, opinionated, practical guide for the human running a software business alone. Hard-won lessons, decision frameworks, and the actual mechanics of going from idea → first dollar → first $10K MRR → first $1M ARR — without a co-founder, without a team for as long as possible, and without burning out. If you read only one section first, read §2 Mindset, §4 Validation, and §6 Distribution-First.
Three weeks ago I shipped IndieOps — a free invoicing and client management tool built specifically for freelancers. Here's the honest version of how it went. It handles the boring-but-critical stuff that eats freelancer time: creating professional invoices, collecting payments via Stripe, sending automatic payment reminders, and keeping a client directory. All free. No "upgrade to send more than
I used to send out application after application and hear nothing back. Not a single reply. At first, I thought my resume wasn't impressive enough. So I made it fancier. Added columns. Played with layouts. Tossed in some icons. Still nothing. Then I learned about Applicant Tracking Systems. Companies use software like Lever, Greenhouse, and Workday to scan resumes before a human ever sees them. If
I built Clever Deploy because every time I wanted to ship a small side project, the deploy story turned into a project of its own. 1. Surprise bills. I'd push a side project to a "free tier" 2. Complexity. I've setup Jenkins in Kubernetes for clients - believe me, you don't want that kind of complexity. What I wanted was simplicity and no unexpected bills. A deploy platform with two rules: Click D
When setting up infrastructure for a startup, cost control is not something to “add later.” It has to be built into the foundation from the very beginning. AWS operates on a pay-as-you-go model. That flexibility is powerful, but it also means that a small misconfiguration, an unused resource, or an unexpected traffic spike can quickly turn into a serious bill. On Day 1, we focused on security (roo
When I first started building my real-time chat platform, most of the focus was on the core experience: instant access no signup low friction fast WebRTC connections Initially, almost all traffic went to the homepage. But over time, I realized something important: Instead of targeting only broad keywords like: anonymous chat random video chat I started creating country-specific and intent-focused