You might be thinking there are already enough options for small businesses to create websites, and you’re right - there are a lot of options. You might be thinking platforms have replaced traditional websites for business discoverability, and you’re right - platforms definitely help businesses get discovered. You might think email and websites are dated, unnecessary techonologies, but on that I would strongly disagree. There are many small businesses that don’t realize how valuable a custom, managed website could be for their business.

My first job was working in my dad’s Automotive Shop, Brunsweiler Automotive. I did simple manual labor jobs and minor logistical tasks like giving customers rides to their homes while their cars stayed behind. This time greatly affected the way I look at business and work; I learned several important lessons from my dad. Brunsweiler Automotive LLC 🔗Dad’s mechanic business started with his mornings, nights, and weekends in our rural home’s garages.

In his interview after the FA Cup, Crystal Palace’s Manager, Oliver Glasner, said something that captures a feeling I had not fully realized. He said, “the biggest success we can have is not lifting the trophy, it is giving tens of thousands of South Londoners - our fans - the moment of their lives… Maybe they have problems at home, but we can give them hours and days where they forget those problems.

This http response haunts my dreams. I’ve been looking at it for over a week, scouring the internet to try to overcome it and achieve the screenshot at the top of this article. The stars have finally aligned and I’m happy to share how to implement a very basic ActivityPub Server which can post to Mastodon. Response Code: 401 Response Body: {"error":"Unable to fetch key JSON at https://gioandjake.com/u/actor"} I was stuck on this 401 Response after following the Mastodon Blog’s tutorial How to implement a basic ActivityPub server.

There has been a lot of criticism of smartphones lately due to their addictive applications. For many of us, they have become a source of stress and anxiety. The value of having the internet, communication, navigation, payments, video, and photography all in one place is fading compared to the cost imposed on mental health. Access to the internet and its abundance of human-created content is the most valuable part of my smartphone.

I’m such a delusional Wisconsin Badgers football fan. Every season begins with the belief that we will go undefeated and that first loss of the season always hits hard. The 2024 season was particularly tough for me. As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, I was an undergraduate at UW-Madison in the mid-2010s. I saw the team win three Big Ten - West division titles from the student section while watching records be broken and hearing the buzz about potential Heisman athletes on the team.

After finishing the Madison Marathon I got interested in other endurance sports and decided to pick up cycling. I found a deal on my first road bike - a Serotta Fierte - on Craigslist. This bike allowed me to build up the skill and learn what I wanted in my next bike, which is the topic of this post. A Questionable Trade? 🔗I sold my Serotta and bought a Crux all within 24 hours - with only a $50 price difference between the two!

Generative AI Everything 🔗Tools like ChatGPT have gotten a lot of attention lately due to some major technology companies making huge investments. They offer the ability to create content quickly using natural language processing. For example, Bing Chat can write a 100-line Java program that compiles and produces exact results given a prompt that might only be a dozen, plain-English words. I decided to try to create as much content as possible for my latest project using only Generative AI, and I have some thoughts.

Complete Cost Breakdown of a 12K Destination Wedding in Scottsdale, AZ 🔗Wedding planning today often hits newly engaged couples with a harsh reality - it is incredibly expensive! According to Zola, the average cost of a wedding in 2023 sits around $20,000 to $40,000, while CNN recently found the average in 2023 to be $29,000. There is a lot I don’t know about personal finance, but I know spending 25k or more on one day did not sit right with me.

Software Engineering at a big U.S. technology company is a dream job for most software engineers and computer science students that I’ve met. Some people have concerns about work-life balance or the competitive interviews, but all agree that the benefits and experience are the peak of software engineering careers. I shared these concerns and this dream, and here I am - 6 years into my career with a year of experience at a big tech company - ready to share the story of how I got here and what it’s like now that I’m here.