The Blog

WakaTime is a time tracking app to build metrics about coding. From inside the code editor it sends metadata (coding time, language, project, operating system) to a WakaTime account. This way you can see how much time you spend programming.

Die Energiewende findet seit kurzem auch im eigenen Heim statt - auf dem Dach unseres Hauses befindet sich nun eine Photovoltaik-Anlage. Damit kommt der im Haus benötigte Strom größtenteils aus der Solarenergie und nicht mehr aus der Verbrennung von Kohle, was unabhängig von der Frage nach der finanziellen Rentabilität eine gute Sache ist - und außerdem für einen Web-Entwickler eine interessante Herausforderung darstellt, über die ich berichten möchte.

A BlurHash is a compact representation of a placeholder for an image. It can be used to display a preview while the browser is loading the entire image. In this article, I want to show how to encode the BlurHash in a Ruby on Rails application and how to use it for progressive image loading in a Vue.js frontend.

Many of the Rails applications I build these days are deployed as Docker images. Unfortunately, building Docker images usually takes a long time. This article describes how the build process can be accelerated by a factor of 2-3.

When building web applications, it may be necessary to process incoming webhooks. With UltraHook these requests can also be received during development on the local computer.

Some time ago I wrote about using Portainer for Docker hosting and using GitLab as container registry. Due to the further development of Portainer there is an interesting improvement regarding the installation of updates.

Creating API documentation is an essential task that should not be done separately from implementation. The risk that implementation and documentation may diverge should not be underestimated.

Rails 5.2 introduces Active Storage, which can replace external file uploading gems like CarrierWave, PaperClip or Shrine. There are some helpful articles and tutorials about it, e.g. by Evil Martians, GoRails or Drifting Ruby. I want to demonstrate how to add one more feature.

Building a lean Docker image for delivering a single-page JavaScript application is simple. But it is not that easy when it comes to configuring with environment variables.

Building a Docker image for a given Rails application is easy – unless you want the Docker image as small as possible. Docker is awesome, but handling large files is annoying. Read how I have reduced the image size of a Rails application from 1.6GB to 329MB.

An automated build process is essential for software development. After every single change in the source code – no matter how small – the software is completely assembled and tested automatically. In my case, the result is usually a Docker image.

Nothing lasts forever: A few days ago, Docker Inc. announced the end of “Docker Cloud”. This article describes the migration of my single node installation to Portainer – an open-source lightweight management UI for Docker.

Once again, after several attempts in the last century, I’m starting a blog about my life in the world of software development.