Tools
-
Everyone crashing out over OpenCode situation. Why not just use Claude Code (2.1+)? Or you know, there’s AMP. AMP exists too, and it looks equally interesting to me.
/ AI / Tools / Development
-
Claude Code has been working great for me. OpenCode looks interesting, but uh, Opus 4.5 access is necessary for real work. I’m not doing any sketchy workarounds to get it running, and API pricing isn’t appealing either. So for now, OpenCode stays firmly in the “interesting” category.
-
Claude Cowork: First Impressions (From the Sidelines)
Claude Cowork released this week, and the concept seems genuinely useful. I think a lot of people are going to love it once they get their hands on it.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get it working yet. Something’s off with my local environment, and I’m not entirely sure what. Claude Desktop sometimes throws up a warning asking if I want to download Node and I usually say no, but this time I said yes. Whether that’s related to my issues, I honestly don’t know. I did submit a bug report though, so hopefully that helps.
Here’s the thing that really impresses me: Anthropic noticed a trend and shipped a major beta feature in about 10 days.
That’s remarkable turnaround for something this substantial. Even if it’s not working perfectly for everyone yet (hi, that’s me), seeing that kind of responsiveness from a company is genuinely exciting.
I’m confident they’ll get it sorted before it leaves beta. These things take time, and beta means beta.
I have explored using the CLI agents outside of pure coding workflows and so I think there’s a lot more flexibility there than you might expect.
For now, I’m watching from the sidelines, waiting for my environment issues to sort themselves out.
-
OpenCode | The open source AI coding agent
OpenCode - The open source coding agent.
/ AI / Programming / Tools / links / agent / open source / code
-
Amp is a frontier coding agent that lets you wield the full power of leading models.
/ AI / Programming / Tools / links / agent / automation / code
-
/ Tools / links / notes / digital organization
-
Why Airtable Killed Google Sheets for Me
It’s 2026, you should probably stop using Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel for most things. What follows is my attempt at explaining why Airtable (and other similar products) are better.
Data Integrity Actually Exists
In Google Sheets, a cell can be anything. A string, a date, a number, whatever you accidentally paste into it. There’s no real way to enforce data types beyond formatting tricks or functions that break when someone inevitably ignores them.
In Airtable, you define what a column is. It’s a date field. It’s a number. It’s a single select. And it stays that way. No more spreadsheets slowly devolving into data hellscapes where row 47 has a phone number stored as text and row 48 has it as a number.
Relationships Without the Visual Basic Nightmare
Want to connect data across multiple sheets in Google? Get ready to write formulas. You’re essentially writing code, Visual Basic or Apps Script, just to link your tables together.
In Airtable, relationships are native. You click a few buttons, link two tables, and boom, you’ve got the equivalent of a SQL join without writing a single line of code. The data stays connected, and you can traverse those relationships naturally.
Attachments That Don’t Suck
Google Sheets handles attachments by letting you paste a link to a file somewhere else. Maybe it’s in Google Drive, maybe it’s on some random server. Either way, it’s just a URL sitting in a cell.
Airtable lets you drag files directly into a cell. They get thumbnails. They’re actually attached to the record. Sure, on the backend it’s probably still stored in a bucket somewhere, but the interface abstracts all that away. It just feels like the file belongs there. Good file, that’s a good boy, go sit in your cell.
Views That Make Sense
In Sheets, you get a grid. Maybe you can set up a filter view if you know how. That’s about it. Airtable gives you options out of the box: grid view, Kanban board, calendar, gallery, timeline.
You can look at the same data in completely different ways depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. Want to see your projects as cards on a board? Done. Want to see them as events on a calendar? Also done. No formulas, no hacks. Notion has entered the chat
Automation Without Writing Production Code in a Spreadsheet
This one really gets me. Want to automate something in Google Sheets? Time to open Apps Script and write JavaScript. I hope you’re comfortable debugging code that has no unit tests, no version control, and will silently break at 2 AM when you’re asleep.
Airtable’s automation is point-and-click. Set a trigger, define actions, connect to integrations. It’s like Zapier or n8n built right into your database. When this field changes, send that notification. When a record is created, add it to another table. No code required.
The Row Editing Experience
This might seem minor, but it’s not. When you want to focus on a single row in Google Sheets—really dig into one record and edit multiple fields—you’re clicking into cells and scrolling horizontally to find column 30 while trying not to lose your place.
Airtable has an expanded record view. Click on a row and it opens up vertically, showing you every field in a clean, organized layout. You can actually see what you’re editing. Nice.
Look, Google Sheets isn’t going anywhere, and we should all probably be happy it still exists….. but yeah, the spreadsheet paradigm had a good run and it’s time to move on.
For anything that resembles actual data management, where you need integrity, relationships, and a UI that doesn’t fight you, Airtable (or Notion, or similar tools) should be your first choice.
What do you think? Have I missed anything?
/ Productivity / Tools / Airtable
-
The Markdown Mode Manifesto
Google Docs is for grandma. Markdown is for actual work.
I know that sounds harsh, but hear me out.
Developers love Markdown because it’s extremely portable. It’s just a text file with some agreed-upon formatting symbols.
No proprietary binary format, no vendor lock-in, no mysterious corruption when you open it in a different app. If you want your writing to survive the digital apocalypse, Markdown is your best bet.
This isn’t a post explaining what Markdown is, the point of this post is simpler:
Google Docs sucks for anyone who wants real Markdown support, and I wish Google would actually fix this.
Their current “Markdown support” is a joke. When Google Docs detects something that looks like a heading, it helpfully deletes your Markdown syntax and converts it to rich text. Thanks, I hate it.
It’s basically impossible to write in Markdown in Google Docs because the app fights you every step of the way. The only real support they offer is exporting to Markdown format. That’s not what I want. I want to write in Markdown, not just export to it after the fact.
In a real Markdown editor like Obsidian or 30 other options, you can toggle between source view and preview. You see the raw text with all its formatting symbols, then flip to see the rendered result.
It’s clean, it’s simple, it works. In Google Docs? There’s no source view. It’s only rich text, forever and ever, amen. They built the whole thing to mimic Microsoft Word, and that’s all you get.
I don’t need another Word clone. I’ve got, brought to you by Copilot Word, if I want Word.
I would gladly sacrifice whatever bloated features necessary to get rid of all that stuff I don’t care about, as long as it has real Markdown support.
What “Real Support” Would Look Like
- A source/preview toggle (like literally every other Markdown editor)
- Stop auto-converting my syntax into rich text formatting
- Let me paste Markdown without it being “helpfully” transformed
- Native
.mdfile handling, not just export
Is that so much to ask?
All this is to say: we probably need a new product entirely. Google’s not going to rebuild Docs from the ground up, and Microsoft’s not going to make Word understand that some of us don’t want 47 ribbon tabs and a formatting pane that takes up half the screen.
But, you know, whatever. I guess the best we get these days is another VS Code clone.
If you’re a fellow Markdown Apostle stuck in a rich-text world, I feel your pain. Until then, I’ll be over here editing in Obsidian for some things and Cursor for others.
/ Writing / Tools / Markdown / Google-docs
-
Cabina.AI: All-In-One AI assistant platform | Best AI chat workspace for you needs
Free access to GPT-4 O1, Claude, LLama, Runway, Flux, Lumalabs, Stability, Gemini & more. Chat with PDF (RAG), analyze files, AI transcribe audio, generate video & images, AI Summarizer & In-Paint editor: all AI tools in one place. Generate AI content easy or compare LLMs in one chat or test & improve your prompts. Start free with Cabina.AI workspace now
-
Just discovered DB Pro, a new desktop app for SQLite and LibSQL databases. Looks pretty promising. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for DataGrip to get proper LibSQL support. Come on JetBrains, just give me Turso already!
-
Shadcn Studio - Shadcn UI Components, Blocks & Templates
Accelerate your project development with ready-to-use, & customizable 1000+ Shadcn UI Components, Blocks, UI Kit, Boilerplate, Templates & Themes with AI Tools.