Just Five Mins!

Well, a boring episode no doubt, but is prompt engineering still a thing? What do you think? I will be running a series of courses soon. Everything from getting started with modern coding to using AI to help code and also baking AI into your own code! Click here to join the waitlist! Hey, subscription to this podcast is FREE if you want to subscribe! Of course, if you wish to or must pay, then ple...

Taking the Raspberry PI concept a little further and providing a Linux platform, the Mecha Comet is (hopefully!) going to change how I look at Linux computers for sure! It has a modular design, snap-on extensions and lots of cool stuff! It can be a phone, games machine, electronic fiddling machine, you name it! Definitely worth checking out! Hey, subscription to this podcast is FREE if you want to...

Oh goodness me, what a way to start 2025! Agentic systems - AI Agents - are indeed getting better and better (or worse?). Today we look at Magentic One and Autogen. We also discuss the split of Autogen from the original founders. Take a listen to learn more! Magentic One Autogen Hey, subscription to this podcast is FREE if you want to subscribe! I hadn’t realised before it forced you to pay ;) Of...

Well, although I am a long-term user of OneNote, UpNote might just tempt me away ! UpNote has an app for every platform (even Linux no less!) and syncs across seamlessly. A free version exists but also a very cheap monthly version as well as a really cheap lifetime deal. Worth a look? well, take a listen to learn more :) Hey, subscription to this podcast is FREE if you want to subscribe! I hadn’t...

Just a ramble about 2024 and the ever present AI goldrush… Hey, subscription to this podcast is FREE if you want to subscribe! I hadn’t realised before it forced you to pay ;) Of course, if you wish to or must pay, then please feel free with a paid subscription or via https://patreon.com/justfivemins?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink Or...

So, Figma has been around for a while. A designer tool for creating layouts of all kinds be it websites, mobile UI’s and so on. With AI, and specifically GitHub Copilot Vision, can you build user interfaces? and take that one step further to actually generate the code? Figma link here GitHub Copilot Vision here Hey, subscription to this podcast is FREE if you want to subscribe! I hadn’t realised b...

Hey welcome again! Okay, this time around is all about coding from anywhere. Why would you want a cloud development environment? Well, you can develop in the same environment no matter where you are or what computer you are using - even tablets like Android or iPad’s. Take a listen to learn more :) Thanks again to my good friend Tim for this suggestion! Unicorns drink a lot of coffee. Consider a o...

YAAICE! (Yet another AI Code Editor) Yep, there are lots of these IDE/Code Editors popping up all based on VS Code since it is open source, and why not! We covered cursor.ai a few weeks back which caught me out as I just thought it was VS Code with a different skin, but oh no, it was much more than that . Windsurf is from the excellent Codeium company. Again, we covered Codeium a while ago. Codeiu...

Don’t worry, as long as no one creates an AI agent called “Smith”, I think we are all safe! FOMO time again perhaps, but AI agents ARE going to change the way you live and work. Like everything, it can be a positive or a negative - you choose, but choose wisely :) Hey, subscription to this podcast is FREE if you want to subscribe! I hadn’t realised before it forced you to pay ;) Of course, if you...

Well, I did a podcast back in Episode 22 (crikey! 2022) covering a few of the key points regarding Docker vs WASM. It seems WASM (Web Assembly) and WASI (Web Assembly Infrastructure) is continuing to gain strength. WASM containers could be a more lightweight option and will run anywhere - no need to switch from Linux to Windows containers. Anyway, take a listen to find out more! :) Some links that...

Well, I originally took a look at Retool a while ago. It is a really rich application builder that allows self-hosting too (as a Docker container). I liked the idea of this given a company might want to have control of apps within their own infrastructure. Retool as come along leaps and bounds and now : * Still has an amazingly rich application building interface with lots of integrations options...

Well, AI is certainly helping in all areas of life, for better or worse! I decided to give GitHub Copilot a run for its money to attempt to create, or at least help, a command-line tool in dotnet to extract XML schema information (yes, they are still a “thing”) to generate SQL creation scripts i.e. table create / stored procedures and so on. As a bonus, even though I know nothing of the Rust langu...

Well, if I could sell any software, I would be happy to pay for a Jetbrains subscription! However, if you are like me, you can now use Jetbrains Rider (for all things .NET) and Webstorm (for all things Javascript/frontend) freeeeeeeee! I can still seem to ramble on over 5 minutes even with something as simple as this! Anyway, take care. Until the next time… Get full access to Just Five Mins! at ww...

Well, inovation is continuous for sure. Just look at the amount of Javascript frameworks that exist at any one moment! So, we have cursor IDE . A new (ish) IDE (integrated development environment) for coding in whatever language you want. It is built on the same platform as VS code. The key selling point is it is an AI first IDE, meaning it has AI code assistance built in from the get go. Cursor h...

Well, what to say… 100 episodes! yes, polluting the digital airwaves for far too long! Taking a quick retrospective look back - he says, as if 100 episodes is an achievement! Ulysees the Unicorn will be happy to welcome you :) (You can subscribe free by the way!) Get full access to Just Five Mins! at www.justfivemins.com/subscribe

Well, if you have ever heard of NodeJS then this might be of interest to you :) NodeJS has been around for quite some time, and used by a lot of large companies - but it did have some issues (not to mention the whole NPM world!). The creator of NodeJS went away a few years ago to create DENO (yes, switch those letters around!). DENO aimed to fix some of the failings of NodeJS but didn’t support a...

Well now, are you using Docker? never heard of Docker? well perhaps you might want to ask AI to help there. If you do use Docker to create containers of your apps/micro-services then what about Fly.io? Fly.io is a public cloud infrastructure platform . Users deploy applications as Docker images, but Fly.io does not utilize Docker to run the applications. Docker images are actually OCI (Open Contai...

Well, what do you know? back to some frontend web stuff no less! I have been using bootstrap CSS for years, and still do, but when I eventually realised Tailwind CSS was “something”, I have since been trying a few projects out with Tailwind CSS. However, because I am lazy and have been using WordPress with Elementor (page builder), I stumbled across dev dojo and some of their product offerings, on...

We are not talking just chatbots - albeit more intelligent ones! An AI agent/assistant can be tasked to do specific things to reach a goal and work with other agents, either in parallel, or sequential (i.e. do all these things first, then does this). The cool thing is each AI agent can use a completely different model i.e. you don’t have to tie everything into just chatGPT/Open AI. You might find...

Well, for the time being, I am sticking with OneNote as I have so much in there! However, the way Obsidian Notes is moving, is looking tempting. Of course, the notes/data stay on your device which is a plus however, for convenience, you will most likely need the data synchronised to your other devices. It is possible of course! Also, AI is ever creeping in to everything in modern life - love it or...

Okay, two suggestions for the price of one! Both from my good friend Tim Abel who also has a podcast if you wish to take a listen. In fairness, the first GitHub Action thing , I have little idea of what/how this is used and even when I looked at the use case, I was still a little baffled! I guess you need to be “an actual developer” to appreciate this! :) On to the second suggestion, Playwright fo...

VMWare “Player” was always free, but the workstation (or Mac Fusion Pro) used to cost real money (not Unicorn dollars). No you can create VM’s on your laptop/Mac for freeeeeeee Here is the post for VMWare “And now for something completely different”, as Monty Python once said: VS Code Profiles! yes, if you are like me and have far too many extensions in VS Code, maybe use profiles to split up the...

Why? oh why? That is all… Get full access to Just Five Mins! at www.justfivemins.com/subscribe

Okay, free for as long as you have an Azure subscription ;) Still, who doesn’t want a 32gb cloud-based Azure SQL database to play with? Check out the details here Of course you can then use something like Azure Data Studio to work with the database - again for free! it even has a free version of Copilot for Azure Data Studio so you can look like a SQL pro! (I did say “look like” ;) ) Hey and what...

I remember the days when we had to create Docker containers to deploy our apps… Well, you still can use Docker - more on that later. Fermyon Spin (and so much more) is a framework to build WASM (Web Assembly) apps . I covered a little of this back in Episode 65 and an intro to Fermyon a while back. This episode was prompted by my good friend Tim Abel who also has a podcast called Software Should B...