for your informationhttps://alec.fyi/Wed, 12 Oct 2022 17:30:00 +0000automated proxies with NordVPN Machttps://alec.fyi/nord-mac-automation.html<p>tl;dr: how to use a cheap personal VPN for scraping (<a href="https://github.com/alecbw/NordVPN-Automation-Mac">code here</a>)</p> <p>cost: $0 (+ NordVPN free trial or subscription of your choosing)</p> <p>build time: 15 minutes (MVP)</p> <p><br/></p> <h3>disclaimer before jumping into this</h3> <p>This post and my work are not sponsored by Nord. I've found it nice to work with …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonWed, 12 Oct 2022 17:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2022-10-12:/nord-mac-automation.htmlpostssoftwarehow-toscrapingpythoninternal tools[External] understanding DynamoDB pricinghttps://handbook.vantage.sh/aws/services/dynamodb-pricing/<p><br/></p> <p>Thanks for reading. Questions or comments? 👉🏻 <a href="mailto:alec@contextify.io">alec@contextify.io</a></p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonSat, 31 Jul 2021 04:18:31 +0000tag:handbook.vantage.sh,2021-07-31:/aws/services/dynamodb-pricing/postssoftwareAWSreferencebuild business tools with GPT3https://alec.fyi/build-business-tools-with-gpt3.html<p>tl;dr: Use GPT-3 to automate data collection, enrichment, and standardization</p> <p>cost: $0 to start; up to $400/mo at scale</p> <p>time: 30 minutes</p> <p><br/></p> <h2>table of contents:</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#background">background</a></li> <li><a href="#pricing">pricing</a></li> <li><a href="#auth">auth</a></li> <li><a href="#prompts">prompts</a></li> <li><a href="#classification">classification</a><ul> <li><a href="#classification-implementation">classification implementation</a></li> <li><a href="#classification-results">classification results</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#summarization">summarization</a><ul> <li><a href="#summarization-implementation">summarization implementation</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#synthesis">synthesis</a><ul> <li><a href="#synthesis-implementation">synthesis implementation</a></li> <li><a href="#enrichment-implementation">enrichment implementation</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="#biz-implications">business implications</a></li> </ul> <p><br/></p> <h3 id="background">background</h3> <p>The company OpenAI …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonTue, 13 Oct 2020 18:10:30 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-10-13:/build-business-tools-with-gpt3.htmlpostsgptpythonhow-tointernal toolsauthunderstanding Google authshttps://alec.fyi/understanding-google-auths.html<p>tl;dr: I explain several ways to create and use Google API Console auth</p> <p>read time: 10m (skim), closer to an hour to implement and test</p> <p>cost: free</p> <p><br/></p> <p>The <a href="https://console.developers.google.com">Google API Console</a> is home to a baffling array of 305 APIs (at time of writing), including Google Docs, Sheets, Drive …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonTue, 15 Sep 2020 18:32:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-09-15:/understanding-google-auths.htmlpostsauthhow-tosoftwarepythonanatomy of a HN hithttps://alec.fyi/anatomy-of-a-hn-hit.html<p>tl;dr: screenshots of data from HN traffic</p> <p>read time: 8 minutes</p> <p><br/></p> <p>This past Sunday, I posted <a href="https://www.alec.fyi/dorking-how-to-find-anything-on-the-internet.html">an article</a> to Hacker News</p> <p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24101889">They seemed to like it</a>. It got 554 points, 194 comments, and stayed on the front page for about a day and a half. It drove 24,000¹ …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonWed, 12 Aug 2020 12:50:30 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-08-12:/anatomy-of-a-hn-hit.htmlpostsfunnel analyticsgrowth hacksnon-technicalorganic socialscraping tweets for fun and profithttps://alec.fyi/scraping-tweets-for-fun-and-profit.html<p>tl;dr: find spontaenous interactions by scraping tweets with given keywords</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>build time: 5 minutes (MVP)</p> <p>Twitter can be a great way to connect with alike minds. But if you're here, you're (probably) not yet a Thought Leader™. Let's walk through a quick way to speed that up …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonThu, 23 Jul 2020 11:33:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-07-23:/scraping-tweets-for-fun-and-profit.htmlpostssoftwarenon-technicalpythongrowth hacksscrapingdorkinghow-toorganic socialtalk the talk (a tech glossary)https://alec.fyi/talk-the-talk-a-tech-glossary.html<p>tl;dr: learn the language of tech niches</p> <p>read time: 10m (skim), closer to an hour top to bottom</p> <p><br/></p> <p>Below is a condensed glossary from my time working in early stage VC, growth, and software engineering.</p> <p>It is designed to approachable for everyone, especially those without a prior background in …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonSun, 05 Jul 2020 18:32:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-07-05:/talk-the-talk-a-tech-glossary.htmlpostsnon-technicalreferencemake your own personal CRM (for free in 20 minutes)https://alec.fyi/make-your-own-personal-crm-for-free-in-20-minutes.html<p>tl;dr: don't miss important personal moments with your own personal CRM</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>build time: 20 minutes (MVP)</p> <p><em>Update August 2020: the trick that enabled easy data import has been disabled. you can still use this build, but it will be more manual to set up</em></p> <p>Hey friends,</p> <p>if …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonFri, 19 Jun 2020 01:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-06-19:/make-your-own-personal-crm-for-free-in-20-minutes.htmlpostsnon-technicalgoogle sheetshow-tohow to make Alfred Workflows (& the ones I use)https://alec.fyi/how-to-make-alfred-workflows-the-ones-i-use.html<p>tl;dr: create automations and workflows in Alfred</p> <p>cost: $0 after one-time $31 cost</p> <p>build time: 2 minutes (download existing) / 20-60 minutes (build your own)</p> <p><br/></p> <p>you may remember me raving about Alfred in my <a href="https://www.alec.fyi/my-personal-saas-stack.html">SaaS stack article</a>. (If not, it's a cool software that has a bunch of neat features …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonThu, 11 Jun 2020 01:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-06-11:/how-to-make-alfred-workflows-the-ones-i-use.htmlpostssoftwarenon-technicalbashpythoninternal toolshow-tomy personal SaaS stackhttps://alec.fyi/my-personal-saas-stack.html<p>tl;dr: Use free &amp; free-ish software and save lots of time</p> <p>cost: (generally $0; in-line for each item)</p> <p>read time: 10 minutes</p> <p><br/></p> <p>All listed softwares have (at minimum) a free trial. All recommendations are products I use and have not been incentivized to promote.</p> <p><br/></p> <h4>productivity</h4> <p><a href="https://www.alfredapp.com">Alfred</a> ($31 onetime) - This is …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonMon, 18 May 2020 01:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-05-18:/my-personal-saas-stack.htmlpostsnon-technicalSaaSset up Google Tag Manager (and track anything in Google Analytics)https://alec.fyi/set-up-google-tag-manager-and-track-anything-in-google-analytics.html<p>tl;dr: Manage your website events and pixels easily in one place</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>time: 15 minutes</p> <p><br/></p> <p>Google Tag Manager is the most approachable¹, most scalable², and most commonly used 'event' management system for a budding website/webapp. It is free and can be easily³ shared with non-technical collaborators once …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonWed, 29 Apr 2020 05:11:30 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-04-29:/set-up-google-tag-manager-and-track-anything-in-google-analytics.htmlpostsnon-technicalhow-tofunnel analyticsgoogle analyticsgoogle tag managerdorking (how to find anything on the Internet)https://alec.fyi/dorking-how-to-find-anything-on-the-internet.html<p>tl;dr: Use advanced Google Search to find any webpage, emails, info, or secrets</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>time: 2 minutes</p> <p><br/></p> <p>Software engineers have long joked about how much of their job is <a href="https://localghost.dev/2019/09/everything-i-googled-in-a-week-as-a-professional-software-engineer/">simply Googling things</a></p> <p>Now you can do the same, but for free</p> <p>Below, I'll cover <code>dorking</code>, the use of …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonSat, 04 Apr 2020 04:10:30 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-04-04:/dorking-how-to-find-anything-on-the-internet.htmlpostsdorkingnon-technicalhow-toscrapinggrowth hacksreferencemastering Colabhttps://alec.fyi/mastering-colab.html<p>tl;dr: How to use and productionize Google Colab, a free Jupyter Notebook service</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>build time: 15 minutes (MVP)</p> <p><a href="https://colab.research.google.com/notebooks/basic_features_overview.ipynb">Google Colaboratory</a> (or just <em>Colab)</em> is a recently popular cloud-ish implementation of <a href="https://jupyter.org/">Jupyter Notebooks</a>.</p> <p>In addition to Jupyter features you're familiar with - cell based execution, shared state across cells …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonSun, 22 Mar 2020 00:30:48 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-03-22:/mastering-colab.htmlpostssoftwarehow-topythonjupyterdata scienceETLset up a microservice in 5 minutes with Serverlesshttps://alec.fyi/set-up-a-microservice-in-5-minutes-with-serverless.html<p>tl;dr: write serverless infrastructure as code</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>build time: 5 minutes (MVP)</p> <p><br/></p> <h3>overview</h3> <p>Serverless, confusingly, means two things.</p> <p>There's serverless <em>the concept</em> - your infra provider dynamically spins up compute at invocation time and (spins it down after). This means no more worrying about managing (or scaling) compute - it's …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonFri, 13 Mar 2020 01:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-03-13:/set-up-a-microservice-in-5-minutes-with-serverless.htmlpostssoftwareAWSlambdahow-tomastering Google AppScripthttps://alec.fyi/mastering-google-appscript.html<p>tl;dr: write Javascript in Google Sheets to build advanced automations</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>build time: 10 minutes (MVP)</p> <p>updated: 2021-06-23</p> <h3>table of contents:</h3> <ul> <li><a href="#getting-started">#1 - getting started</a></li> <li><a href="#read-gsheet">#2 - reading GSheet tabs</a></li> <li><a href="#write-gsheet">#3 - writing GSheet tabs</a></li> <li><a href="#api-requests">#4 - API requests</a></li> <li><a href="#user-ux">#5 - end user UX</a></li> <li><a href="#gotchas">#6 - gotchas</a></li> <li><a href="#snippets">#7 - snippets</a></li> <li><a href="#sharing-auth">#8 - auth for sharing AppScript …</a></li></ul>Alec Barrett-WilsdonWed, 19 Feb 2020 18:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-02-19:/mastering-google-appscript.htmlpostssoftwarejavascripthow-toappscriptgoogle sheetsreferenceset up Google Ads APIshttps://alec.fyi/set-up-google-ads-apis.html<p>tl;dr: create all Google Ads auth components so you can automate Google &amp; Youtube Ads</p> <p>cost: $0 (you don't necessarily need to run any ads, either)</p> <p>build time: 60 minutes</p> <h3>before getting into it, one (or two) disclaimer(s):</h3> <p>There are two Google ad-related API suites: the <em>old</em> Adwords API …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonMon, 03 Feb 2020 04:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-02-03:/set-up-google-ads-apis.htmlpostssoftwarepythonadshow-toauthset up email sending (anywhere)https://alec.fyi/set-up-email-sending-anywhere.html<p>tl;dr: How to set up AWS Simple Email Service, through which you can send emails via many invocation methods</p> <p>cost: $0 per first 62k emails/mo</p> <p>build time: 60 minutes (MVP) + 2 days wait to get out of sandbox</p> <p>Every SaaS product at scale leans heavily on email for …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonThu, 23 Jan 2020 05:54:34 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2020-01-23:/set-up-email-sending-anywhere.htmlpostssoftwarehow-topythonAWSSESbash shortcutshttps://alec.fyi/bash-shortcuts.html<p>tl;dr: bind common commands to shortcuts. save time. love life.</p> <p>cost: $0 or $29 one time with Alfred Powerpack</p> <p>read time: 15 minutes</p> <p><br/></p> <p>Below, I overview the bash snippets I regularly use, and how you can easily invoke them with shortcodes</p> <h2>table of contents:</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#how-to-implement">how to implement</a></li> <li><a href="#general">general</a></li> <li><a href="#virtualenv">virtualenv …</a></li></ul>Alec Barrett-WilsdonFri, 13 Dec 2019 01:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2019-12-13:/bash-shortcuts.htmlpostssoftwarereferencebashset up this bloghttps://alec.fyi/set-up-this-blog.html<p>tl;dr: How to make a static website, built on Pelican, Netlify hosting, Netlify CMS, and Github.</p> <p>cost: $0/mo (&lt;$1/mo w/ domain)</p> <p>build time: 45 minutes (MVP) / 2.5 hours (with CMS + custom domain name)</p> <p><br/></p> <h3>why static (vs dynamic) sites</h3> <p>With a personal site, less is really more …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonMon, 25 Nov 2019 17:30:00 -0800tag:alec.fyi,2019-11-25:/set-up-this-blog.htmlpostssoftwarehow-tobashpythonmastering BeautifulSouphttps://alec.fyi/mastering-beautifulsoup.html<p>tl;dr: BeautifulSoup selectors and code snippets</p> <p>Once you've become familiar with scraping websites with Python, requests, and BeautifulSoup (if not, <a href="https://www.alec.fyi/how-to-scrape.html">read this first</a>), you'll want to start creating reusable components to speed build time and improve data reliability.</p> <p>Below I've included reference snippets for</p> <ul> <li><a href="#section-1">extracting data</a></li> <li><a href="#section-2">cleaning data</a></li> <li><a href="#section-3">picking …</a></li></ul>Alec Barrett-WilsdonThu, 31 Oct 2019 06:38:25 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2019-10-31:/mastering-beautifulsoup.htmlpostssoftwarepythonscrapingreferencehow to scrapehttps://alec.fyi/how-to-scrape.html<p>tl;dr: Using Python requests and BeautifulSoup libraries to scrape data from most data sources</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>build time: 30 minutes (MVP) / 120 minutes (cleaner v2)</p> <p>BeautifulSoup allows you to navigate through the raw HTML pulled down from a website (in JS, this is called 'Walking the DOM'). Generally, you …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonFri, 04 Oct 2019 04:10:30 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2019-10-04:/how-to-scrape.htmlpostssoftwarepythonhow-toscrapingset up Reddit APIhttps://alec.fyi/set-up-reddit-api.html<p>tl;dr: set up the Reddit API and use it to generate interest data</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>setup time: 5 minutes</p> <p><br/></p> <p>Reddit can be a great place to waste an hour or to explore particular new hobbies. It also can be a valuable source of free information on one's customers. In …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonFri, 20 Sep 2019 09:34:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2019-09-20:/set-up-reddit-api.htmlpostssoftwarehow-toadsauthredditpythongrowth hacksvocabhttps://alec.fyi/vocab.html<p>tl;dr: write down words you don't know</p> <p>I started a mental exercise some time ago: write down every word I came across and didn't understand (within reason; no <code>floccinaucinihilipilification</code>)</p> <p>The below list is provided only to keep myself accountable. I'll update this page periodically.</p> <p><br/></p> <h3>vocab</h3> <ul> <li><code>didactic</code> - intended to teach …</li></ul>Alec Barrett-WilsdonSun, 04 Aug 2019 04:11:32 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2019-08-04:/vocab.htmlpostsnon-technicalreferenceset up Google Sheets APIs (and treat Sheets like a database)https://alec.fyi/set-up-google-sheets-apis-and-treat-sheets-like-a-database.html<p>tl;dr: set up programmatic reads and writes from any Google Sheet you have access to</p> <p>cost: $0</p> <p>build time: 15 minutes (MVP)</p> <p><br/></p> <p>Let's start with a hot take to get the blood boiling.</p> <p>Google Sheets is (probably) the most important database your company uses.</p> <p>Why?</p> <p>Every single employee can …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonThu, 18 Jul 2019 09:30:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2019-07-18:/set-up-google-sheets-apis-and-treat-sheets-like-a-database.htmlpostssoftwarepythonhow-togoogle sheetsauthETLAWSset up Twilio SMS to Emailhttps://alec.fyi/set-up-twilio-sms-to-email.html<p>tl;dr: set up a pass-through phone number that forwards to anywhere</p> <p>cost: $0.0075 per inbound SMS</p> <p>build time: 15 minutes (MVP)</p> <p><br/></p> <h3>overview</h3> <p>Think of all the times you've had to submit a phone number to get a promotional code, or an ebook download, or the love of your …</p>Alec Barrett-WilsdonTue, 25 Jun 2019 08:32:00 +0000tag:alec.fyi,2019-06-25:/set-up-twilio-sms-to-email.htmlpostssoftwareAWSSEStwiliopythonlambdahow-toauth