Blog
Tools, tips, and how things actually work under the hood.
How to calculate work hours with lunch breaks and overtime
A clear, worked guide to turning clock-in and clock-out times into paid hours — deducting unpaid lunches, applying daily and weekly overtime, and handling biweekly periods.
June 16, 20265 min readcalculatorspayrollHow to remove line breaks from text (and why pasted text breaks in the first place)
Why copied text arrives full of hard line breaks, the difference between a newline and a carriage return, and how to flatten or rejoin lines cleanly without mangling paragraphs.
June 16, 20264 min readtextexplainerHow to decode a QR code and see what's actually inside it
How to read a QR code from an image, screenshot, or camera — what kinds of data come out, and how to check an unfamiliar code is safe before you act on it.
June 16, 20265 min readqrexplainerHow to crop a photo for Snapchat (in the app or in your browser)
Snapchat crops everything to a 9:16 full-screen frame, and photos that don't match get cut off in surprising places. Here's how cropping works inside the app, and how to pre-crop any image so it posts exactly the way you framed it.
June 11, 20264 min readimagessocialguideHow to calculate hours worked with a lunch break (with examples)
Subtracting a lunch break from a time card sounds simple until decimal hours, paid breaks, and overtime get involved. Here's the exact method, with worked examples for weekly and biweekly periods.
June 11, 20265 min readworkpayrollexplainerHow long would it take to crack your password?
From instant to longer than the age of the universe — real crack-time numbers for common password patterns, how attackers actually get those speeds, and the two changes that move you off the fast end of the table.
June 11, 20265 min readsecurityexplainerHow PDF compression actually works (and why your file is so big)
A PDF can be 50 KB or 50 MB for the same number of pages. Here's what actually takes up the space, and what a compressor can and can't do about it.
June 3, 20267 min readpdfexplainerHow much house can you actually afford on your salary?
The 28/36 rule, front-end and back-end DTI, and a full worked example on a $90,000 salary. Plus why the bank's maximum approval is almost never the right budget for you.
June 2, 20266 min readfinancemortgageexplainerRegular expressions: a practical primer you'll actually remember
Character classes, quantifiers, anchors, groups, and alternation — explained with worked patterns for emails, phone numbers, whitespace cleanup, and capture-group reformatting. Plus greedy vs lazy and the pitfalls that bite everyone.
June 1, 20266 min readdevregexexplainerAmortization explained: where your loan payment actually goes
Your loan payment is the same every month, but the split between interest and principal shifts every single time. Here's the math, a real schedule, and why extra payments are so powerful.
June 1, 20266 min readfinanceloansexplainerHashing vs encryption vs encoding: three things people constantly confuse
Base64 is not encryption. Hashing is not reversible. Encryption needs a key. Here's the clear, correct mental model — with a worked example of each.
May 31, 20266 min readsecuritydevexplainerCompound interest, explained: how small monthly amounts become large
Compound interest is the one piece of math that quietly decides whether you retire comfortable or stretched. Here's how it works, why starting early beats saving more, and the numbers to prove it.
May 30, 20265 min readfinanceinvestingexplainerBMI explained — what it measures, and the better numbers to track
BMI is a quick height-and-weight ratio with real value at population scale and real blind spots for individuals. Here's the formula, the WHO categories, where it goes wrong, and why waist-to-height ratio is often a better personal metric.
May 30, 20267 min readhealthexplainer15-year vs 30-year mortgage: which actually saves you more
The 30-year is the default, but the 15-year can save six figures in interest. Here's the real math, run on a $400,000 loan, and how to decide which fits your budget.
May 30, 20265 min readfinancemortgageexplainerAPR vs APY: the difference that quietly costs (or earns) you money
APR ignores compounding; APY includes it. On the same nominal rate, that gap decides whether a number flatters a savings account or hides the true cost of a credit card. Here's the math with worked examples.
May 29, 20265 min readfinanceexplainerWhy a password generator must run in your browser, not on a server
A password generated on a server is a password you've already shared. Here's why client-side generation with a cryptographic RNG is the only design that makes sense.
May 28, 20266 min readsecurityprivacyexplainerJPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF: which image format should you actually use?
A practical chooser for the four formats that matter. Stop guessing — match the format to the image and the audience, with rough size numbers for each.
May 27, 20266 min readimageformatsexplainerPassword entropy: measuring real strength in bits
Entropy turns 'is this a strong password?' from a gut feeling into a number. Here's the formula, worked examples, and why a long passphrase beats a short cryptic mess.
May 26, 20266 min readsecurityexplainerIs it safe to upload your photos to AI tools? What 2026 is teaching us
An AI photo app leaked user images, models, and source code in 2025. Meanwhile browsers learned to run AI on-device. Here's how to tell which tools are safe — and why the safest ones never ask you to upload.
May 25, 20265 min readprivacyaisecurityHow QR codes work and what data they can actually hold
Those black-and-white squares are a clever little file system. Here's what's inside a QR code, why a scuffed one still scans, and how much data really fits.
May 25, 20267 min readqrexplainerBase64 encoding explained: what it is, how it works, and when to use it
Base64 turns arbitrary binary data into plain text. Here's the 3-bytes-to-4-characters trick behind it, the 33% overhead, data URIs, URL-safe variants, and why it is not encryption.
May 24, 20267 min readdevencodingexplainerWhat HEIC actually is, and how we convert it in your browser
Apple's HEIC format is smaller and better-quality than JPEG — and a hassle if you don't have an Apple device. Here's how we decode it locally.
April 2, 20263 min readimagesexplainerBrowser-based tools vs cloud tools: when to use which
Cloud tools have advantages. So do browser-based ones. Here's an honest breakdown of when each makes sense.
March 8, 20263 min readarchitecturecomparisonJSON gotchas every developer hits at least once
A short tour of JSON pitfalls — trailing commas, NaN, integer precision, and the difference between JSON and JavaScript.
February 20, 20263 min readdevjsonHow to compress images for the web in 2026
A practical, format-by-format guide to image compression — what to use, what to avoid, and where the wins really come from.
February 1, 20263 min readimagesperformanceWhy our online tools never upload your files
How modern browsers let us run PDF, image, and developer tools entirely on your device — and why that's a better default than the cloud.
January 15, 20263 min readprivacyarchitecture