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The yaml document from hell — JavaScript edition

I recently came across this blog post from Ruud van Asseldonk titled “The yaml document from hell”. I’ve always heard that yaml has its pitfalls, but hadn’t looked into the details and thankfully hadn’t been affected, mainly due to my very infrequent and simple use of yaml. If you are in the same boat as me, I recommend reading that article now as I almost can’t believe I’ve avoided any issues with it.

Better two factor authentication experiences with WebOTP

Two factor authentication (2FA) is a great way to improve the security of user accounts in an application. It helps protect against common issues with passwords, like users picking easily guessable passwords or reusing the same password across multiple sites. There are different ways to implement two factor authentication, including SMS, using an authenticator application and WebAuthn.

Alias your Mastodon username to your own domain with Jekyll

Mastodon is different to most online services. It is a federated network, so when you set up an account you need to choose a server to use. Your username then becomes a combination of your handle and that server you signed up to. For example, I am currently @philnash@mastodon.social.

How to use the Bitly API in Ruby

Link shortening has been around for a long time and Bitly is arguably the king of the link shorteners. It has support for shortening long URLs as well as custom short links, custom domains, and metrics to track how each link is performing.