Kevin C. Tofel

I've been tinkering with an idea lately in terms of big tech and contact management. This is mainly for two reasons. One: My contacts are basically "held" by big tech. I have them with Apple…

It's been nearly three years since I custom build my last desktop PC. And to be honest, I love that computer. Between the more than good enough AMD Ryzen processor and an AMD Radeon 6800XT GPU, it's…

I know when I'm beaten and this week, I was beaten. I surrendered to Santa's elves after just a few days during the Advent of Code. No more stars for me. At least not for a while; I can always go…

What a long, busy week. I mentioned on Monday that I'm beginning to prep for my first JavaScript assessment. And I put a good 15 hours in on that effort. I also wrote five blog posts about…

Since February of this year, I've been a JavaScript Padawan. If you're not familiar with the term Padawan, it's a reference to a Jedi-in-training, apprenticed to a Jedi Master in Star Wars. I'm not…

Anyone who knows me even a little knows that I can't sit still when it comes to my education. Sure, I'm 52 but there's always time to learn more. That's why I went to my local community college at age…

Well, my first semester in the Georgia Tech OMSCS program is over. And my first semester is also my last semester. I’ve decided to not continue this online Masters program. My decision isn’t because…

As I get older, I'm starting to appreciate "things" more. And by things, I mean particular physical objects that I need, not that I want. See the most excellent new Minimalism documentary on Netflix…

What a slacker. I just realized I haven't posted here since April. And so much has happened since then! Time for a recap from then to the present because I'm literally drowning in C, as in the…

The last time I blogged here was when I applied to the online Georgia Tech Masters in CS program six weeks ago. I'm still waiting to hear if I'm going to be a Yellow Jacket or not. While waiting, I…

I made a big life decision this past month. At age 51, I've applied to an online Masters in Computer Science program at Georgia Tech. Yeah, I'm surprised too. See, I always wanted to teach college…

I've been remiss in following up the series of blog posts on data privacy. I blame my insatiable need to keep honing my programming skills as once class ended in early December, I tackled my own…

We're in the home stretch of the fall semester where I'm taking my first JavaScript (JS) class. After learning most of the syntax basics (which aren't too different from what I've used in the past…

Last week, I shared my current experiment of living without "big tech". I won't recap it in detail but I'm essentially using a de-Googled phone as my daily driver. I explain why in the prior post…

I've been thinking quite a bit about data privacy and the mobile industry lately. They're two separate, but related, topics in my mind. At this point, your mobile device is either going to run…

When I built my $900 budget gaming PC back in June, I never thought it would become a money pit of sorts. The build is now around $2,200, which is up from the $1,500 back in July. Why the big $70…

The Microsoft Surface Duo I ordered two weeks ago arrived late last week. I removed the SIM card from my Pixel 4 and popped it in the Duo this past weekend and have used the Duo as my primary "phone…

Up until three months ago, I'd never written a single line of JavaScript. I still haven't written much outside of a sample web app that shows cryptocoin pricing based on the user's choice of coin…

After noting how easy it is to switch from iOS to Android, I decided to pre-order a Microsoft Surface Duo. Two Duos, actually, although only one is for me. A friend from overseas reached out and…

Earlier this month, I took the SIM card from my iPhone 11 Pro and dropped it in my Pixel 4. I have a Pixel 4 XL too, but it's a bit big for my small hands and pockets. Why do I do this? As long as I…

A few weeks back, I explained how my $900 gaming PC quickly became a $1,200 gaming PC. Would you believe we're up to $1,500 now? Yeah, I'm a sucker. Although at $900, the original system was perfectly…

Why do things just... break? I was all set to share an interesting tech tidbit here this morning and was stopped in my tracks. Instead of blogging from my Chromebook (using Linux with Gatsby in VS…

About a month ago I suggested that most people should build their own PC at least once. That was right after I built a decent gaming PC on a $900 budget. And so far it has served me well, not just for…

After a month of considering a switch of the Static Site Generator, or SSG, that creates the pages for this blog, I decided to make the switch. As of now, Gatsby, which replaces Hugo for me, is the…

Late last month, I said I’d be looking into WSL, or the Windows Subsystem for Linux, which is still a work in progress and available for Windows 10. If you’re not familiar with WSL, it’s an easy way…

I dropped $68 on this Western Digital 250 GB M.2 NVMe drive from Amazon this week and it arrived today. When I built my PC last month, I wanted to keep the budget low, so I put a less expensive 50…

I've gotten away from posting here or continuing my path towards learning Gatsby for blog publishing of late, mainly because of other work, my Chromebook blogging and prepping for my fall JavaScript…

I'm going to answer my own question with a caveat. I think just about everyone should build their own PC at least once in their lifetime. By "just about everyone", I mean everyone who needs a desktop…

Well that didn't take long. I've been thinking about the tools that power this site since my last post because I couldn't insert or embed my demo JavaScript app in it. After doing a good week's worth…

School's out for summer! My spring semster ended about a month ago in a whimper as the pandemic hit smack dab in the middle of March. The college quickly shifted to online learning. My particular…

Testing the Netlify CMS Just added it to my repo and configured it. If this post appears on the public page, that means it's working! :) Here are the technical details of the Netlify CMS. The beauty…

As I noted in my last post, I'm still a n00b developer. So that's my defense in not knowing about Git sub-modules, which have been around for years. What's a Git submodule? Essentially, as I…

Jamstack Conference 2020 Since I'm really only just beginning my delving into being a developer, I haven't yet attended any developer conferences. That changed today. I caught most of the live…

It works This post suggests that I correctly have my Hugo-rendered site up and running. Check the link for more information on the Hugo open-source software, but essentially, it takes Markdown content…