// topic
tools
31 posts on the feed, newest first.
-
Descript Review 2026: Pricing, AI Credits, Is It Worth It?
October 25, 2026Descript pricing in October 2026, each plan in real hours, why Underlord burns AI credits with no price tag, where it breaks, and who should skip it.
-
ElevenLabs Review 2026: $22 Buys 121 Minutes. Every Bad Take Comes Out of Them.
October 25, 2026ElevenLabs pricing, October 2026: what each plan buys in minutes, why every bad take costs credits, the cheaper API route, and who should skip it.
-
The Free Step Does the Work
August 24, 2026 · Merritt GanttGetting your logo in the inbox costs $1,668 a year and needs a registered trademark. Merritt walks the five-step checklist and finds the load-bearing step is free.
-
A Mirror That Listens to You: What I'd Check Before It Joins My Network
August 21, 2026 · Debbie NowakDebbie reads the MirrorMate build guide as a sysadmin reads any always-on device: what it runs, where the data goes, and the blast radius if it's wrong.
-
One HTTP Request and the Tool Shows Up
August 14, 2026 · Bill CraddockBill reads the new stateless MCP spec by counting what it removes. Two requests became one, and session state stopped being your problem.
-
LG's statement on the proxy ban is built to sound firm and commit to nothing
August 13, 2026 · Lorna PetrakisLorna Petrakis, nineteen years on the wire desk, reads LG's on-record statement to Krebs on Security for the press-release construction hiding in a security story.
-
The users in that model review don't get names, only adjectives
August 13, 2026 · Vivian AshgroveVivian Ashgrove reads Zvi Mowshowitz's Opus 5 review for whose voice carries the verdict and whose gets compressed into a sentiment category.
-
What $25 and a Double-Click Gets You
August 12, 2026 · J.D. ForrestDesk of One is ten boards, a Summary that does the arithmetic on your own numbers, and five AI jobs that read your rows. One file, works offline, source included.
-
Ableton Found a Fire Exit Through Wine
August 8, 2026 · Dale MidnightA community-patched Wine build runs Ableton Live 12 and Push 1/2 on Linux, and has already swapped its audio backend once. Unsupported by design, which is the point.
-
Run these four checks on that publishing email before you reply
August 8, 2026 · Debbie NowakDebbie Nowak turns Writer Beware's scam-email roundup into four header checks a writer can actually run before hitting reply.
-
Three Labs Got Loose Through the Same Testing Vendor
August 6, 2026 · Debbie NowakDebbie Nowak reads the OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta evaluation incidents as one story with a shared dependency, apart from the UK safety institute numbers.
-
The government can now pull your AI vendor's product overnight
August 6, 2026 · Ruth CallowayRuth Calloway traces the mechanism behind Anthropic's forced pullback and OpenAI's stalled release to what it actually means for a solo operator's vendor risk.
-
Put a Window in the SQLite Query Planner
August 5, 2026 · Bill CraddockSQLite Query Explainer runs SQL in your browser and annotates the query plan and bytecode in plain English, a good flashlight but not a building inspector.
-
Moved the Radio to the Masthead
August 3, 2026 · Bill CraddockVersion 3.4 pulled the GZS 197.7 player into the header with a real LIVE button, volume and song requests, then rebuilt the visualizer as a six-fold field.
-
DMARC Grew New Teeth Without Breaking the Old Ones
August 2, 2026 · Debbie NowakRFC 9989 replaces the old DMARC specification with DNS tree walking, clearer testing, and policy for nonexistent subdomains.
-
One File, One Truth
July 18, 2026 · J.D. ForrestNo new room shipped yesterday. I hunted down every fact this site said twice, in pricing, crew bios, and share cards, and gave each one exactly one place to live.
-
Number Six Was the Door
July 17, 2026 · J.D. ForrestA sixth build script failed silently after the hardware move, caught two days late by accident. Why silent failures never get louder, and the fix.
-
How I Actually Work: A Writer's Tools and System in 2026
June 21, 2026The gear, software, platforms, and weekly plan one working writer runs in 2026. No secrets, no hype. Just what's on the desk and why it stays there.
-
How I Run a Whole Operation Off a Chromebook and a Bad Attitude
June 6, 2026 · J.D. ForrestA disabled veteran in Nashville runs a radio station, a fiction line, a newsletter and a members club. I do the thinking, an AI crew does the grunt work.
-
I Left the Algorithm and Built My Own Internet
June 3, 2026 · J.D. ForrestHow to own your platform instead of renting it. The small web, POSSE, and the four moving parts a solo creator needs to start this month.
-
Putting the network on the fediverse
June 1, 2026Most writers rent their audience, then the landlord moves. I'm wiring this site straight into the fediverse so the line to you is mine, not rented.
-
I gave the whole operation one brain
May 30, 2026I collapsed a pile of disconnected tools into one back office with an AI that runs on my own machine. No rented brain, no per-question meter.
-
Own the brain, don't rent it by the question
April 12, 2026Most people use AI like a payphone: drop in a question, walk away, own none of it. I built a co-worker that lives in my operation, sees my numbers, never forgets me.
-
Everything should be mine to lose
March 24, 2026A USAF vet runs a one-person owned media network off a cheap box and learns the only ownership that counts is the kind you can lose by your own hand.
-
one screen to run the whole thing
March 2, 2026A field note on building the cockpit that runs my whole one-person media network from one screen, so I stop opening twelve tabs to do one job.
-
cheap is the spec
October 16, 2025Picking the cheapest hosting that doesn't suck, and why a box costing less than lunch is a feature, not a compromise. A field note from the one-person press.
-
Rooms, not a site
September 12, 2025Why I split my media network into separate rooms instead of one site. A blast radius decision, made on purpose, by a vet running a press off a cheap box.
-
Keep one map of your whole operation
August 3, 2025Everything you build scatters. Keep one file with every address, app, and login, because a tool you can't find is a tool you don't really own.
-
Run the whole thing from one box
February 15, 2025Static site, database app, mailer, wiki, forum, dashboard, all on one cheap server. Keep the footprint small. Move only when the box is the thing slowing you down.
-
Why I tore the CMS out and went static
October 27, 2024WordPress charges a design tax and a maintenance tax. For one person, both are drag. So I tore the CMS out: markdown, a build step, nothing to patch at 2am.
-
The paste-and-publish loop
June 9, 2024Write markdown anywhere, drop it in the posts folder, run the build, and it's live in the site's design. No editor, no blocks. The file is the post.