Tag Archives: AI

AI, Chrome, webdev

Transforming Recipe Chaos with SeasonApp

Some projects start with ambition.

This one started with annoyance.

I was tired of juggling recipes across bookmarks, screenshots, messages, and the occasional scribble in a notes app.
A normal person would’ve organized things.
I opened Cursor.

The plan was simple: a quick weekend hack.
Nothing serious. Just a tiny tool to help me stop losing recipes.

But then it worked. And I liked using it.
Then I showed it to a couple of friends.
Then my family started using it.
Then those friends shared it with their friends.

That’s when the “weekend hack” quietly transformed into SeasonApp—a small but mighty full-stack platform for cooking, powered by AI and built to remove friction from the kitchen.

Why SeasonApp Exists

If you cook regularly, your digital life eventually turns into a disorganized pantry. Tabs everywhere. Screenshots mixed with flight confirmations. Recipe blogs where you scroll past a childhood memoir before finding the ingredient list. And once you finally want to cook something, you can’t find the right recipe—or you’re missing one ingredient and the whole plan collapses.

SeasonApp brings order to that chaos.

It gives recipes a home.
It helps you create new ones.
And it actually understands what you want to do with whatever’s in your fridge.

The more people around me used it, the more obvious the need felt.
Everyone had the same pain; they just tolerated it.
SeasonApp gives them a better way.

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AI

Gemini 3: Your New AI Coding Assistant

Every developer has that moment where they stare at the screen and wish for a magic wand.
Something that can unscramble a legacy codebase, sketch a UI without endless Figma tabs, or summarize a 300-page API doc that reads like… and create some good tests out of nothing.

Google just dropped something dangerously close.

Gemini 3 isn’t another “slightly better benchmark” release. It’s a real step forward—especially for people who build things for a living.

Here’s where it gets interesting:

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AI, webdev

8 Top Tips to Actually Use Cursor (Without Setting Your Wallet on Fire)

TL;DR

Open a new agent/chat for each new request or task, instead of continuing everything in one long conversation.

Keeping unrelated work in a single long chat makes the agent less efficient, increases context noise, and also becomes more expensive because the full conversation history keeps getting processed.

Best practice:

  • One request / task = one new agent
  • Keep chats focused on a single issue or feature
  • Start a fresh chat when switching topics
  • If you can –> Combine Cursor with Ollama + local models

If you’ve been coding anytime in the past year, you’ve probably heard the buzz about Cursor — the AI-powered IDE that promises to write your code, clean your code, and maybe even refactor your soul.

It’s built on top of VS Code, so it feels instantly familiar.
But the moment you hit that shiny AI shortcut, you realize: this thing is smarter than your codebase and hungrier than your wallet.

After a few months of using Cursor — and after accidentally vaporizing a scandalous number of API tokens — I’ve learned how to stay productive and solvent.


And yes, the TL;DR is that you can still combine Cursor with Ollama + local models to get many of these benefits for free.
Here are my 8 hard-earned tips to make Cursor your loyal sidekick within the limits of your budget.

The #1 tip: Control context scope aggressively – This is the biggest win

Cursor auto-includes files, diffs, and history—this explodes token usage.

Do this:

  • Manually select only the exact files/functions needed
  • Avoid “entire repo” context unless absolutely required
  • Use @file and @selection instead of implicit context
  • Clear chat or start a new thread when switching tasks

Why it matters:
Token cost scales with every line in context, not just your prompt.

Below are a bit more tips:

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Chrome, JavaScript, webdev

Building a Real-Time Pull-Up Tracker: How I Taught The Browser to Count Our Pain

It started as a simple idea my son brought up: Can we make a web app that counts our pull-ups during our pull-up games?

Turns out, teaching a machine to recognize human suffering is both hilarious and complicated.
What began as a “let’s make a quick pull-ups app” spiraled into an intense journey through computer vision, browser quirks, and a few accidental infinite loops that made our laptop sound like a jet engine.

The “Simple” Goal

I wanted to automatically count pull-ups using a web camera.

Easy, right?

Just detect a human, see when they go up and down, and count.

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Business, JavaScript, webdev

Craft Exceptional Web Experiences as a Full-Stack Engineer

At EspressoLabs.com, we’re on a mission to redefine the future of IT/Security management through exceptional user experiences and cutting-edge technology.
We believe that enterprise software should not only be powerful and scalable but also intuitive, elegant, and a joy to use.

We’re building a platform that merges AI-intelligence with seamless design—and we’re looking for a Full-Stack Developer who shares our passion for creating meaningful, impactful technology.

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JavaScript, webdev

The Future of Coding: LLMs as Collaborators

The rise of large language models (LLMs) has been one of the most transformative developments in software engineering in decades. Tools like GPT4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, Claude Opus 4, and various AI-powered code editors such as Cursor (or CoPilot) promise to change the way we build software.

But as these tools evolve and mature, the real question isn’t if we should use LLMs—it’s how.

There’s an emerging split in philosophy between two approaches: full automation through AI agents and IDE integrations, or human-led development using LLMs as intelligent partners.

Based on real-world experiences and a critical review of LLM-based coding tools, the most effective path today is clear:

LLMs are best used as powerful amplifiers of developer productivity—not as autonomous builders.

Let’s break down why.

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cloud, webdev

How to Use ngrok and LocalTunnel: Expose Your Local APIs to the World

Intro

As developers, we often face the challenge of testing our local applications with external services, webhooks, or mobile devices. Whether you’re developing APIs that need to communicate with AWS/GCP/Azure services, testing webhook integrations, or simply want to demo your work from different devices, exposing your localhost to the internet becomes essential.

This guide will walk you through two popular solutions: ngrok and LocalTunnel, showing you how to securely expose your local development server to the world.

What Are Tunneling Services?

Tunneling services create a secure tunnel from a public endpoint to your local machine, allowing external services to reach your development server without complex network configuration or deployment.

Common Use Cases

  • Testing webhooks from third-party services (Stripe, GitHub, etc.) — You can connect your local code directly and debug it more efficiently.
  • Sharing your work-in-progress with clients or team members — Instead of pushing it to some remote server. Useful in all the cases, where you are still ‘not ready’.
  • Testing mobile applications that need to connect to your local API — A must have in almost all cases.
  • Integrating with AWS services that require publicly accessible endpoints
  • Cross-device testing and debugging
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webdev

Mastering Clean Code: 15 Key Lessons for Software Developers

Years ago (when Java was ‘new’), I got a recommendation from a good friend to check out “Ah, Clean Code by Robert C. Martin”. He told me, “It’s not just a book; it’s a must-read to anyone who wishes to be a professional software developer.”

He was right. This is still one of the top five books that I recommend developers read. It focuses on some simple but important concepts that will make your Code better, simpler, and easier to debug.

More than aesthetics, clean Code is about clarity, maintainability, and efficiency. Investing in writing clean Code might seem time-consuming, but it pays off exponentially in debugging, collaboration, and scaling efforts.

Think of messy Code as a tangled web: complex to navigate and easy to get stuck in. Clean Code teaches you to weave a well-structured tapestry instead—clear, elegant, and easy to extend.

Here are 15 powerful lessons every developer should carry from this book, with practical examples:

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Business

Leveraging AI for Efficient Code Reviews

In today’s fast-paced development environment, leveraging AI tools for code reviews can significantly enhance productivity and code quality. As developers, we often work in isolation or wait hours (sometimes days) for our colleagues to review our pull requests. Large Language Models (LLMs) like GPT-4, Claude, and others can provide immediate feedback, spot potential issues, and suggest improvements within your favorite IDE.

This blog post explores how to craft effective prompts for LLMs when reviewing your code in VSCode, with specific examples for backend Node.js/Express developers and React frontend developers.

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Business

Securing Your (NodeJS) Backend: A Comprehensive Guide to Preventing Common Attacks

Web security is a critical concern for any backend developer. If you’re building applications using Node.js and Express, it’s essential to safeguard your backend against common security threats such as SQL injections, cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), and other vulnerabilities. This comprehensive guide explores these attacks in depth and demonstrates best practices to prevent them with practical coding examples.

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