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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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Swapping the Engine: How to Run Claude Code on Local Silicon for Zero Pennies
Claude Code's real power isn't the Anthropic model sitting behind it, it's the agentic : the file-system access, the tool use, the way it chains tasks together without you babysitting every step. I figured this out the expensive way. I ran…
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A Beginner's Guide to Claude Computer Use
I've been letting Claude control my mouse and keyboard on and off to test this feature for a little while, and the honest answer is that it's simultaneously the most impressive and most frustrating AI feature I've used. It can navigate…
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A Beginner's Guide to AI Mini PCs - Do You Need a DGX Spark?
I've been running a local LLM on a variety of bootstrapped bit of hardward, water-cooled 3090's and an LLM server I call hopper full of older Ada spec GPUs. When NVIDIA, Corsair, et al. all started shipping these tiny purpose-built AI…
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Using a Local LLM to Audit Your Codebase - What Qwen3 Coder Next Catches (and Misses)
I run a local copy of Qwen3 Coder Next on a machine under my desk. It pinned down a race condition in my production code that I'd missed. It also told me, with complete confidence, that crypto.randomUUID() doesn't work in Cloudflare…
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How to Make SVGs with Claude and Gemini MCP
SVG is having a moment. Over 63% of websites use it, developers are obsessed with keeping files lean and human-readable, and the community has turned against bloated AI-generated "node soup" that looks fine but falls apart the moment you…
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How to Make Images with Claude and (our) Gemini MCP
My latest version of @houtini/gemini-mcp (Gemini MCP) now generates images, video, SVG and html mockups in the Claude Desktop UI with the latest version of MCP apps. But - in case you missed, you can generate images, svgs and video from…
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The Best MCPs for Content Marketing (Research, Publish, Measure)
Most front line content marketing workflow follows the same loop. Find something worth writing about, dig into what's already ranking on your site, update or write it, run it through SEO checks, shove it into WordPress, then wait to see if…
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LM Studio Setup Guide 2026: Install, First Model & Settings
Install LM Studio on Windows or Mac in under 10 minutes, download your first model, and tune the hardware settings (developer mode, GPU offload, context length) for the rig you've actually got.
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Cut Your Claude Code Token Use by Offloading Work to Cheaper Models with Houtini-LM
I built houtini-lm for people worried that their Anthropic bill might be getting out of hand. I'd leave Claude Code running overnight on big refactors, wake up, and wince at the token count. A huge chunk of that spend was going on tasks…
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How to Create LinkedIn Carousel Slides with Gemini and Claude
A developer workflow for turning blog posts into LinkedIn carousel slides using Gemini SVG generation, Puppeteer PDF conversion, and a four-line Python merge script. No Canva, no SaaS tools.
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How to Improve Your AI Prototype Designs with Skills, Prompts and Gemini
I build a lot of single-file HTML prototypes with Claude Code. They work, but they all end up looking the same. I tested three approaches to fix this - Claude Skills, manual prompt engineering, and Gemini MCP feedback.
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How to Run Free AI Text Detection Locally with Python and an NVIDIA GPU
I've been curious about AI content detection for a while. Not how to beat it - but how it works under the hood. Did you know "the best" model in the world is completely free, runs on any PC, and nobody seems to know about it? Everyone's…
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Claude for Excel: From Beta First-Impressions to GA - What Works, What Still Bites, and a Workbook You Can Steal
Claude for Excel went GA on May 7, 2026 as part of the Claude for Microsoft 365 suite. The Beta-era chat-history problem is fixed, the permission-edits issue still bites by default, and Microsoft 365 Copilot now embeds Claude as a model choice. Three workflows from a real PIM data audit, plus a downloadable workbook + prompt library you can fork.
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How to Make Charts and Data Visualisation with the Data Commons MCP
This morning I found myself tasked with analysing a dataset for a client. While the analysis will be via SEMrush data exports and Python scripts to format the data I need, I was slightly procrastinating at the thought of having to draw…
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Content Marketing Using AI: the Right Way
You can't get away with AI copy if you want your SEO performance to be reliable. My conclusion: AI should be used to enhance human productivity - it can't replace human creativity. But, I do think we can use AI to build interesting…
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Working with AI: Using Gmail in Claude
I've got a client over in Australia who are *just* warming up after a lengthy Christmas break. It's an SAP B1 integration with Shopify and Onetimpim - many moving parts! My client emailed this morning asking for a catch-up meeting and…
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RAG Without RAG: How to Make a Content Research Index for Claude
This weekend's project started with a simple need: collect the transcripts from around 20 YouTube videos from my client's Youtube channel, for a research corpus. The goal was to accurately use the Youtube data to reference in the content…
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Automating Tax Receipt Downloads with Gmail API and Docling
Featured image: Docling analysing 200+ pdfs and converting to simple markdown How does anyone keep track of business expenses for UK self-assessment? For me, this started because I run multiple projects - SimRacingCockpit, this site…
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Create an XML Feed with Google Sheets
I recently had the challenge of facilitating regularly scraped data into an XML feed. In the past, I've devised all sorts of ways to scrape, and prepare data, for example, for retailer and affiliate feeds. So, if you need to be able to…
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Desktop Commander MCP: Give Claude Full Control of Your Computer (2026)
Desktop Commander is the MCP that gives Claude full read-write access to your computer - files, terminal, code. The setup guide that's missing from the docs, plus the gotchas that catch people on day one.
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Claude Desktop Makes a Brilliant Coding Assistant - Here's How to Set It Up
Everyone says if you want AI coding help, you use Cursor. Or Cline. Or GitHub Copilot. Basically anything that hooks into your IDE with inline autocomplete and tab-completion magic. Claude Desktop? That's for chat, not code. I respectfully…
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Claude Desktop 2026: Beginner's Guide + System Requirements
Everything you need to install, configure, and start using Claude Desktop in 2026. System requirements for Windows and Mac, MCP server setup, the features that actually matter, and the gotchas that catch people on day one.
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The Rinse / Repeat Technique in Efficient LLM Context Window Use
I've found lengthy prompt threads cumbersome, particularly in Sonnet 4.5 , where, for some reason Claude absolutely loves to create lengthy summary documents and then, a summary of the summary. This is all incredibly content hogging stuff…
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How to Set Up Claude Desktop with Google Search Console MCP
Claude Desktop's ability to support access to API services using Model Context Protocol (MCP) is impressive stuff. And yes, that means you can get Claude connected to the Search Console API and query it to answer your questions. Better…
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GEO Analyser: Analyse Your Content for Generative Engine Optimisation
I've been watching AI search traffic for the past year, and it's become impossible to ignore. Not because traditional Google is dead - it's not - but because ChatGPT referrals jumped from 14,500 visits per month in early 2024 to over…
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How to Setup the DataForSEO MCP with Claude Desktop
DataForSEO is an API service that gives you programmatic access to the type of SEO data you'd normally have to click through tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to access. Data like search engine listings, LLM visibility, keyword volumes…
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Chrome DevTools MCP: AI-Powered Website Debugging
Learn how Chrome DevTools MCP transforms website debugging from manual detective work into AI-powered analysis. Get expert-level insights on Core Web Vitals, SEO issues, and performance optimization in minutes instead of hours.
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How to Add an MCP Server to Claude Desktop
For almost all of us, the concept of adding an MCP to your AI assistant is completely new. This is ok, if you're reading this, I think you've come to the right place. I'm going to quickly and simply explain how to add an MCP server to…
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Gemini MCP for Claude Desktop
While this might not appear to be my first post on Houtini, it is a particualrly special one. I've had Houtini-LM live for around 3 weeks, built a website, written the user guide, so all in all I've had a very productive time. But, now the…
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