Scripts, workflows, and tools designed to remove friction from knowledge work. This is where I share the specific automations that keep my digital life running on the rails.

The idea of passwords may be flawed as pointed out in this educational and scary piece by Matt Hohn. Kill the Password: A String of Characters Won’t Protect You

In this article, Matt talks about how his entire life was hijacked by malcontents. All of his devices were wiped, every account hacked, and he lost every single photo of his daughter. Reading this was scary enough for me to take my password game seriously for the first time.

The rest of this post is the result of my research.

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Situation

So my friend Josh and I have been building a website and online presence for the program we teach in (The PLTW Biomedical Sciences Program at Bel Air High School) for a few years. We were tasked this summer to do the same thing for the whole school. Because of URL availability, we decided to brand Bel Air High School as myBAHS.

I’ll write more about the overall process later, but today I am going to share a basic trick to make free branded links to any online resource using something called .htaccess.

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Person wearing wireless earbuds while organizing pantry shelves with glass storage containers, illustrating productive multitasking with podcast listening

I am a huge fan of podcasts. I listen to them all the time, in the car (unless my son objects), doing chores around the house or classroom, and any other time I can.

I used the built-in iOS podcast app for a while, but it was not amazing by any means. I found Overcast, and I never looked back!

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Photos flowing upward from a smartphone screen into an organized grid pattern, illustrating automatic cloud backup and photo organization

These days, most of us walk around with a fantastic camera in our pocket. Your smartphone has capabilities that tower over many cameras that cost thousands of dollars just a few years ago! While they may not have the ability to keep up with today’s high-end DSLRs, a smartphone is how most people document their lives these days. No matter what, the best camera on the planet is the one you have with you, so snap away with your smartphone.

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