Tech Tidbits & More

Welcome to the Internet Home of John M. Wargo; I created this site back in 2009 so I could post articles about things that interested me. Herein you’ll find articles on a lot of different topic areas: Mobile development, Web development, Internet of Things (IoT), and a lot more. Every time I learn some new technology or complete some cool or interesting development or IoT project I publish an article here.

You’ll also find information about my books, source code projects on GitHub, and articles published in or on other sites or magazines, even videos of my many conference presentations or project demonstrations. I’m also especially fond of the series of Stupid Developer Tricks posts.

You can view all articles in reverse chronological order, or you can find articles by category. Of course, if you can’t find what you need in those views, use Search to find anything anywhere on the site.

Recent Posts

• Note: An AI Generated pill displayed in the list below indicates that the post description displayed on the page was generated from the post content using Generative AI (GenAI). The post content itself was written by a human (me).

• Update Amazon Payment Information Scam

  Sunday, April 19, 2026 at 03:19 PM  | Categories: Phishing

  AI Generated   I got a phishing email that looked very convincing on my phone, but once I read it closely I saw it was fake. The subject claimed I needed to update my Amazon payment information, while the body said my account was locked for unusual sign-in activity and then oddly told me I could ignore the email. I also noticed the reply-to address was clearly not Amazon, and the fake copyright notice at the bottom was another giveaway. The main takeaway is to be cautious and never click links in suspicious emails.

• Really Stupid Phishing Attempt

  Tuesday, April 7, 2026 at 04:56 PM  | Categories: Phishing

  AI Generated   I got a clearly phishing email pretending to be a password reset notice for my domain. It was easy to spot because it used my domain in a way that didn’t match how my hosting actually works, had no branding or personal greeting, and the links pointed to a completely unrelated URL.

• The Fumbly Workshop

  Sunday, April 5, 2026 at 06:37 AM  | Categories: Woodworking

  AI Generated   I’ve been spending more time on woodworking than tech lately, so I launched a separate site for those posts called **The Fumbly Workshop**.

• Inappropriate GitHub Solicitation

  Saturday, April 4, 2026 at 09:24 AM  | Categories: Miscellaneous, Phishing

  AI Generated   I got a suspicious email from someone named James Ferry proposing a “partnership” where I’d use my profile to land US jobs while he did the work and we’d split the money. At first it just seemed shady and unprofessional, but then I noticed red flags.

• Eleventy Generate Posts Utility Updates

  Friday, March 20, 2026 at 07:29 PM  | Categories: Eleventy, Node.js

  AI Generated   I updated my Eleventy Generate Posts utility after the random-word API it depended on stopped working. I switched to a new API, cleaned up a few things, and added an option to write timestamps to front matter in version 0.0.7.

• Randomly Crashing An Arduino

  Tuesday, February 24, 2026 at 06:16 PM  | Categories: Internet of Things (IoT)

  AI Generated   I was building a NeoPixel throttle gauge for an Autocross car and kept running into random Arduino resets. After debugging, I discovered that the problem was a stupid developer trick, allowing the loop index to drop below zero.

• Biscuit Joiner Jig

  Wednesday, February 4, 2026 at 08:26 PM  | Categories: Woodworking

  AI Generated   I recently purchased a new table saw and decided to create a plywood cover for it. To ensure a secure assembly, I used biscuits to connect the legs to the top. Since working with a large piece of plywood posed challenges, I designed a 3D printed jig to help with cutting biscuit slots accurately. The jig has clamping pads and a guide for alignment, making the process easier and more reliable. Overall, the jig provided a solid solution for cutting biscuit slots in the plywood cover for my table saw.

• Designing a Vertical Slat Positioning Jigs

  Tuesday, February 3, 2026 at 05:42 PM  | Categories: Woodworking

  I recently build a love seat/bench for my driveway using plans I purchased from Rockler. I designed and 3D printed a set of jigs I used to enable me to easily position and attach the vertical slats for the back of the bench.

• Free Password Generator for Windows

  Sunday, January 25, 2026 at 04:35 PM  | Categories: Delphi, Microsoft Windows

  AI Generated   I built a simple Windows Password Generator app for my PC because I wanted an easy way to create passwords outside of my browser. The app lets me choose the password length and other options, then generate a new password with one click.

• Added Eleventy-Fetch to the Site

  Tuesday, January 13, 2026 at 07:13 AM  | Categories: Eleventy

  AI Generated   The article discusses how the Eleventy Fetch plugin can be used to cache API requests in al 11ty site. By making a few changes to the code, the plugin handles data processing automatically. This simplifies the code and reduces the need for manual data conversion. Additionally, the plugin supports custom headers and options for more complex API calls. Overall, implementing the Eleventy Fetch plugin can improve performance and reduce the risk of rate limiting when making repeated API requests on a website.