I've been writing a simple Swift command line tool called QuickSS. It's a single file swift file, that I compile to a standalone binaryusing:

swiftc quickss.swift -o quickss

To distribute it on modern Macs, I need to sign it and then get Apple to notarise it.

Signing the binary

To…

I'm currently writing a script that notarises a macOS CLI app which needs to access a password. Rather than put it in an environment variable, I thought I'd use the 1Password CLI. This is the first time I've used it, so these are my notes.

The 1Password CLI tool is…

Infinite loops in PHP

Sometimes, they are demonized, and sometimes, they are useful. Infinite loops come in a variety of options in PHP, so let’s put them neatly on a shelf, with all theirs variations.

Classic while (true)

To make an infinite loop, the most simple is…

We have an HP all-in-one scanner and printer that is on our local network. Recently, I was away from home and needed to reconfigure the scanning settings for unimportant reasons.

Usually, when I'm not in the office, I use Tailscale to connect back to machines as required, but the printer…

I run a Tailscale network so that remote computers can access local services. I also have a Linux box at home on that network that advertises itself as an exit node and recently noticed that it wasn't working.

I had some time recently to sit down and work out what…

With the release of Junie, the AI coding agent by JetBrains, PhpStorm has entered the realm of agentic IDEs. Now, the PhpStorm IDE doesn’t just provide classical developer productivity tools and AI assistance features, but can also do massive amounts of work for PHP developers autonomously.

Unlike other coding…

I'm a member of a number of groups that publish a magazine, either paper-based or PDF. I prefer the PDF version, so download from the website and then move to the relevant directory.

Recently, I realised that I could use Hazel to do this for me.

To take one example,…

How to make emojis in PHP

You might want to use emojis both in your online comments and your PHP code. The later, mostly to hander the former, although PHP handles emojis gracefully. That are the methods to make emojis in PHP?

Straight in the code

PHP supports code savec…

On a server that I help to maintain, it has postfix installed for emailing results of cron jobs and other status updates. This was set up to relay through SendGrid as they had a 100 email per month plan and we send out significantly fewer than that.

Unfortunately, SendGrid are…

The PHP ecosystem is driven by passionate developers building tools that power everything from content management systems right the way through to testing libraries and database layers. Behind each project is a dedicated team working to modernize code, improve performance, and move the ecosystem forward.

The fact that many of…