Articles
Write-ups from the work. MCP servers, AI workflows, content engineering, search, and the occasional tangent. Most of these come from problems I hit on real engagements, written up so the next person does not have to figure it out from scratch.
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· Claude · geminiWhich AI is right for your job? ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot, task by task
Everyone's talking about AI assistants - ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot - and if you've a real job to get through, you mostly want to know one thing: which of them will build Monday's deck, sort the badly-exported spreadsheet, write up the meeting, and clear the inbox? Here's the answer, task by task.
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· gpu · hardwareMuse Glimmer 30B vs qwen: my day-one local benchmark on a dual RTX 4090 rig
Meta dropped Muse Glimmer 30B and I spent the day trying to unseat my qwen daily driver on the dual-4090 rig. Four apparent hangs, one day-one bug, and a same-harness bench later, I had my answer - and it wasn't the coronation I'd half expected. So, is it better than my daily driver?
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· claude-code · AI codingHow to Plan and Begin Your First AI-Assisted Coding Session
You don't need to know how to code to build something with AI - but the calm ten minutes you spend planning before you start is what keeps your first session from spiralling. Here's the whole thing, gently: what the tools are in 2026, how to plan, and exactly what your first session looks like.
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· claude-code · PRDHow to Write a PRD an AI Can Build From (with a template)
A PRD is the difference between an AI coding tool that guesses and one that builds the thing you meant. Here's what a PRD is, a copyable seven-part template, a worked example, and the two lines that do most of the work - written for the era where the thing reading your spec is an agent, not just your engineering team.
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· claude-code · mcpHow I work with Claude Code: PRD to deploy
I write the PRD, we agree an execution plan, pick the environment, get the keys out of the way, prototype, then test. Six steps, same order every time. Here's the real workflow with the files from two things I've shipped, and which model I hand each job to.
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· claude-code · local-llmThe best local coding setup isn't one model: how I route across Claude, Kimi and my own rig
The question I get asked is which local model is best for coding. Wrong question. The setup that works routes three tiers - Claude reasons, Kimi builds, and a Qwen coder on my own rig does the volume for nothing. Here's the whole thing, wired up.
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· local-llm · vllmHow to set up vLLM in Docker: serve an open-weight model on your own GPU
vLLM in Docker, from empty machine to an OpenAI-compatible endpoint you can curl: the compose file I run, the flags that survived benchmarking, and the deadlock that hides behind a healthy /health check.
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· claude-code · mcpMoving houtini-lm to vLLM: What I learned
I decommissioned Hopper (my local LLM bootstrapped server) and moved my local models to a two-card 4090 rig with vLLM on Docker. It's so much faster - but houtini-lm spat its dummy. Two bugs, one hiding behind the other, and how v3.2.1 fixes it.
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· Claude · claude-codeFrom Chat to Deploy: How to Fully Understand Claude, AI Assistants and Claude Code
I started in the chat box like everyone else. Three years later the boring parts of my work run themselves, from PRD to deploy. This is the ladder, stage by stage, with a starter task for each rung.
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· mcp · claude-desktopHow to Do a Technical SEO Audit with Claude
A free, step-by-step technical SEO audit with Claude: your Search Console history and a first-party crawl merged in one local database, ranked by recoverable clicks - the Screaming Frog alternative you run by conversation.
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· local-llm · gpuTuning vLLM on a Modded 48GB RTX 4090: From 18 to 133 Tokens per Second
Three days of benchmarking vLLM on a modded 48GB RTX 4090: the quantisation trap that costs Ada owners 40% of their speed, the free 1.9x from speculative decoding, the KV compression that never served once, and what cutting 120 watts costs you. Every number measured, every failure kept.
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· claude-code · mcpGiving Claude a Local Sidekick: a vLLM Journey Update
I want Claude to have a powerful local sidekick through houtini-lm. I'm not there yet, but this month I got noticeably closer - a vLLM rebuild, a benching spree on the 48GB 4090, and a face-off that deleted two models in an evening.
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· local-llm · gpuBest GPUs for Running Local LLMs (2026): Memory Bandwidth, VRAM and the Cards Worth Buying
What to buy in mid-2026 for running local LLMs seriously, from someone who has benched most of it. Why memory bandwidth matters more than FLOPS, why the quantisation format can matter more than the card, and the GPUs worth your money - from the used 3090 floor to the modded 48GB 4090s I ended up buying twice.
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· mcp · system-requirementsClaude Desktop System Requirements: Windows, macOS, Linux (2026)
What you need to run Claude Desktop in 2026, after Cowork shipped, the Connectors marketplace landed, and the Opus 4.8 / Sonnet 4.6 generation took over. Anthropic's official specs, what real machines need, and where the install falls over.
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· claude-code · cliClaude Code System Requirements: Mac, Windows, Linux (2026)
What you need to install and run Claude Code on Mac, Windows and Linux in 2026. Anthropic's official spec, what real-world setups end up using, where the install falls over, and the practitioner gotchas the most popular tutorials don't cover.
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· strategy · claude-codeAI for the CFO: variable cost, vendor sprawl, and the playbook that ends the surprise bill
Uber reportedly provisioned 5,000 engineers with Claude Code in December 2025. By April 2026 it had burned the entire annual AI budget in four months. Variable cost is the new shape of the AI line item, and the CFOs who are getting it under control are running the same four-lever playbook. Here is what is on each lever, which platforms are credible, and what to ship in the next ninety days.
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· Claude · strategyAI hallucination, and the boring discipline that stops it being a problem
You have read about lawyers citing made-up cases and chatbots inventing refund policies. The fix is not a new platform or a clever prompt. It is the most boring discipline in software: read what came out and check the bits that matter against a second source. Here is what hallucination is, how we run a Houtini-grade check on every claim, and what would change if your team did the same.
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· Claude · strategyWhat is RAG, and what could it do in your company?
Your AI confidently answers questions about your business with public-internet knowledge. RAG is the architecture that gets your actual contracts, customer list and operating playbook into the conversation, with citations. Here is what it is, where it sits next to long context and MCP, and what it changes if you sponsor the work this quarter.
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The Bitcoin Spiral: How I Built a Live AI-Narrated Dashboard on GitHub Pages
I spent an afternoon building a live Bitcoin dashboard on GitHub Pages with no backend, no paid API key, and a frontier model writing the verdict at the top of the page every six hours. Here's how it works, what it cost (nothing), how to stop the model inventing numbers, and where the architecture goes next when Chrome ships in-browser inference.
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· Claude · claude-codeA beginner's guide to Claude hooks
Claude Code hooks are small scripts that fire automatically at specific moments in a coding session. They give you deterministic control where CLAUDE.md instructions only get probabilistic compliance. This beginner's guide covers what hooks do, the five events you need to know, the exit-code gotcha that catches almost everyone, and the community projects worth installing before you write your own.
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What Are AI Agents? The Plain-English Explanation
An early-user's view of AI agents. Where they fit relative to chat and MCPs, what counts as agentic, and the simplest first agent to build inside Claude Code.
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Claude Code API Key Security: A Guide to Token Hygiene
The simplest possible setup that keeps your production tokens out of AI chat windows. 1Password CLI, op run, and the conversational discipline that makes the rest of it work.
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· ClaudeAI for the Managing Director and CEO - What You Need to Know
If you back your team to identify and ship the work that AI can take off them, you've cleared the biggest barrier to making AI adoption in your company real.
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Agentic Interoperability for Website Owners: AI User Experience (AI UX)
I've been keeping a close eye on the emerging subject of "agentic interoperability" across all my recent build projects. In layman's terms, that's the ability for AI agents to do things for you on your behalf - particularly inside SaaS…
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