FIELD NOTES / CUSTOM CODE LABS
Ideas worth
building on.
Lessons from the work.
Practical thinking on software, AI,
and the business of building things.
THE JOURNAL / BY RICHARD GABELA
How to Audit a .NET Website for Injection Vulnerabilities
A practical guide to auditing .NET applications for SQL injection, XSS, command injection and related risks—with code searches, safer implementation patterns and evidence-based testing.
Read the storyHow to Choose Your Technology Stack: Real Projects, APIs, and Honest Tradeoffs
A practical guide to choosing web, mobile, backend, and database technologies—with stack comparisons, API examples, and the tradeoffs that matter after launch.
Read the storySelf-Hosted Postiz Emails Not Arriving? Setting Up Amazon SES and Fixing the Nodemailer Message Format
Learn how to connect self-hosted Postiz to Amazon SES, trace activation emails across Temporal and SMTP, and use a plain-text-only Nodemailer fix when Gmail hides the real transactional messages.
Read the storyHow to Create a Free Oracle Cloud Ubuntu Server in 2026
A complete, current 2026 walkthrough for creating an Oracle Cloud Always Free Ubuntu 24.04 server — the VCN, public subnet, internet gateway, route table, security list, SSH keys, and first login, with the exact settings that avoid the grayed-out public IP problem.
Read the storyTailwind v4: Icons Not Showing After Upgrade? bg-opacity-* Was Removed
Upgraded to Tailwind CSS v4 and your icons vanished, overlays went opaque, or tinted backgrounds turned solid? The bg-opacity-* utilities were removed in v4, the official upgrade tool doesn't rewrite them, and they fail without a single build error. Here's how to find every instance and fix it safely.
Read the storyCodex Mojibake on Windows: Why It Happens and How to Stop It Permanently
Learn why Codex can produce mojibake on Windows, how PowerShell 5.1 corrupts UTF-8 text, how to repair it safely, and what to put in AGENTS.md.
Read the storyTailwind CSS v3 → v4 on Next.js: Why Your Site Looks Broken After Upgrading (and the 3 Fixes)
We upgraded a production Next.js 16 + Turbopack app from Tailwind CSS 3.4 to 4.3 and the layout collapsed — everything left-aligned while the colors stayed fine. Here are the three real bugs the upgrade tool doesn't fix, the symptom that identifies each, and the exact fix.
Read the storyGiving Our Hermes Agent a Real Memory: Why We Chose Hindsight (and How to Set It Up)
Hermes Agent forgets between sessions. We added an external memory provider called Hindsight — a knowledge graph with a cross-memory "reflect" tool — and the agent finally started remembering our projects. Here's why we chose it over the eight other providers Hermes ships with, and exactly how to set it up, including which mode to pick on a tiny free-tier VPS.
Read the storyClaude Mythos: Anthropic's Most Powerful Model — The One They Won't Release
In late March 2026, leaks revealed that Anthropic had built its most powerful AI model ever — and decided not to release it. This is Claude Mythos. It is too good at cybersecurity to be safe, and interpretability research caught it scheming. Here is what we know.
Read the storyThe OpenClaw USER.md File: A Complete Guide With Real Examples
USER.md is the single most important context file in your OpenClaw workspace. It teaches your AI agent who you are so every session does not start cold. This guide explains exactly what it is, what to put in it, what to leave out, and shows a real production example used to manage five businesses.
Read the storyThe Complete Ubuntu Server Hardening Checklist for 2026
A real, exhaustive Ubuntu server hardening guide based on what we actually run in production. Firewall, SSH, fail2ban, kernel sysctl, audit logging, malware scanning, file integrity, automatic updates — every layer, with actual commands.
Read the storyPerplexity Computer: The 19-Model AI Agent That Wants to Replace Your Workflow
On February 25, 2026, Perplexity launched Computer — an AI agent that orchestrates 19 different models in parallel to run multi-step workflows for hours, days, or even months. Here is what it actually is, how it works, what it costs, and whether it is worth the 200 dollar a month subscription.
Read the storyOpenClaw: How to Set Up Your Own Self-Hosted AI Assistant on a Cloud VPS
A comprehensive, real-world guide to deploying OpenClaw — the open-source AI gateway with 68K+ GitHub stars — on a cloud VPS. Covers architecture, secure SSH tunneling, Telegram integration, browser automation, Gmail webhooks, and the hard lessons we learned along the way.
Read the storyVibe Coding with Claude Code: How to Start a Project Right (And Avoid the Pitfalls)
Vibe coding is not magic — it is a discipline. This is the practical guide to using Claude Code seriously: how to start a project right, the rules that separate good vibe coding from chaos, common pitfalls, and when to put the AI down and write code yourself.
Read the storyHow to Get a Free Server Forever with Oracle Cloud
A complete walkthrough — from signing up to a running server with 4 CPU cores, 24GB RAM, and 10TB of monthly bandwidth. All free. Forever. Includes the real obstacles you will hit and exactly how to get past them.
Read the storyThe Complete SEO Guide: Meta Tags, Schema, Sitemaps, and Everything In Between
A comprehensive, step-by-step guide to optimizing your website for search engines. From meta tags to schema markup, sitemaps to backlinks, this covers everything that actually matters for SEO in 2026 — with code examples and a full checklist.
Read the storyHow to Send Email From Your Server in 2026: AWS SES + Postfix Relay
A complete, practical guide to sending email from your own server using AWS SES as the SMTP relay. Domain verification, DKIM, SPF, multiple sender domains, and the credential gotchas that trip everyone up — based on actual production setup.
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