Technical Tutorials & Developer Education Archives

Vibe Coding a WordPress Plugin – What Worked and What Didn’t, plus What I Paid Attention To

I use vibe coding more and more lately as see opportunities to safely leverage it. There are areas where I’m hesitant to use it though. Not because I didn’t think it worked, but because of information security concerns. I’ve spent enough time writing code across different languages and environments to…

Hidden Data Risks When Recycling Old PCs

Besides the obvious risk posed by an old 3.5 inch hard drive, there are several easy to miss ways that retired computers can leak sensitive information. These mistakes can expose intellectual property, customer records, or employee data to the public, or worse, to competitors. The resulting spear phishing attacks…

API Guides Are Not Textbooks, Don’t Expect Your Users To Use Them That Way

January 18, 2025 High Level Tech Intro Startups Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

Your users will come to your solution with a wide variety of experiences and knowledge. They’ll also enter the documentation on a specific page likely based on their initial query into Google. This isn’t a call to better leverage SEO in your API docs, nor is it one to dumb…

ChatGPT Coding – I Did It, and Have No Regrets

August 30, 2024 Attitude High Level Tech Intro Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

I first learned to program in the 6th grade. Since then I’ve spent time as an IT Engineer and System Architect. Prior to joining Cisco, I worked with Perl, shell scripting, Aspect, Expect, Tcl/Tk and a few others I’ve forgotten. We started with Perl when I was at Cisco, then…

In the IoT Space, Is It a Microcontroller or What?

April 23, 2024 Creative Projects High Level Tech Intro Random Notes Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

I’m working on an introductory article related to building IoT devices. With that I’m trying to use simpler and non-threatening language that is reasonably accurate. Since I’ll be referencing some common open source hardware as a way of getting started learning, I’m having a hard time with how to classify…

Getting Started Learning Programming

October 30, 2023 High Level Tech Intro SE Skills Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

HelloWorld() Several recent articles have listed Programming as a top skill to learn. Even if you don’t intend it as a career, there are many advantages to at least a BASIC* (pun intended) understanding of it. As someone who learned to program in elementary school, I’ve seen the lifelong benefits…

Learning to Program and Interact with Hardware – and Perhaps Building That Minimally Viable Product

March 31, 2023 High Level Tech Intro Raspberry Pi Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

Want to learn to program? Combine that with learning electronics? Perhaps your goal is to get hired or get promoted. Maybe so you can build an MVP (Minimally Viable Product) with which to get funding or attract a startup team? Let me tell you about an inexpensive circuit board…

Rasa Conversational AI – Getting Started

January 22, 2023 Conversational AI High Level Tech Intro Startups Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

Originally tried out in January of 2023. The installation process may have changed since this was published. If you want to implement Conversational AI (CAI) and have some developer cycles available it is well worth your time to take a good look at Rasa Open Source. Especially if a CAI…

Enhancing your Raspberry Pi Experience

June 22, 2022 Raspberry Pi Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

A few years into working with RaspberryPi Single Board Computers (SBCs) I’ve come across a few items that enhance the experience. The systems are already remarkably inexpensive, and for a few dollars more you can become even more efficient working with them. Good For All The first item I ran…

Conversational AI Automation Hands-On

May 1, 2022 Conversational AI Technical Tutorials & Developer Education No Comments

As a disclaimer here, I currently work for Cognigy as a Sales Engineer. During the interview process I signed up for their Free Trial and Academy. The experience there was a huge part of my desire to work there. What follows is my guide for getting started with Conversational AI.…

Eric Burns Online

Category: Technical Tutorials & Developer Education