Guides
The explanations behind the tools: what each one is actually doing, when to use it, and where it stops being the right answer. Every guide is grounded in the code that runs the tool, checked by hand, and signed.
Latest
How to Add a Drawn Signature to a PDF or Document
Draw once, save as a transparent PNG, and drop it into PDFs, Word files and email signatures. Plus what a drawn signature does and does not prove.
Sep 25, 2026Generators guideHow to Name a Business: A Working Method and a Generator
A repeatable way to go from a blank page to a shortlist: constraints first, then volume, then the checks that kill most names before you fall in love.
Sep 25, 2026Developer guideBinary, Hex and Octal: Why Programmers Use Other Number Bases
How to read a hex color or a binary flag by hand, why one hex digit is four bits, and where 53-bit precision limits ordinary converters.
Sep 22, 2026Generators
How to Add a Drawn Signature to a PDF or Document
Draw once, save as a transparent PNG, and drop it into PDFs, Word files and email signatures. Plus what a drawn signature does and does not prove.
Sep 25, 2026Generators guideHow to Name a Business: A Working Method and a Generator
A repeatable way to go from a blank page to a shortlist: constraints first, then volume, then the checks that kill most names before you fall in love.
Sep 25, 2026Generators guidePassword Length vs Complexity: The Entropy Math, Worked Out
Why a longer password beats a cleverer one, with the entropy formula, a table of real numbers, and what the strength meter on the generator is measuring.
Sep 3, 2026Generators guideQR Codes Explained: Error Correction, Size and Why SVG Beats PNG
What the L, M, Q and H settings do, how much damage a code can survive, how big to print one, and when to export SVG instead of PNG.
Sep 3, 2026Generators guideHow Fair Random Picks Work: Wheels, Name Draws and Dice
Why Math.random is not enough, what rejection sampling and a Fisher-Yates shuffle fix, and how to run a draw that nobody can dispute.
Sep 3, 2026Developer
Binary, Hex and Octal: Why Programmers Use Other Number Bases
How to read a hex color or a binary flag by hand, why one hex digit is four bits, and where 53-bit precision limits ordinary converters.
Sep 22, 2026Developer guideCSV Quoting Rules That Break Imports, and How to Fix Them
Commas inside values, quotes inside quotes, line breaks in cells: the RFC 4180 rules most exports get wrong and how the converter handles them.
Sep 13, 2026Developer guideRegular Expressions for Non-Programmers: A Practical Starter
The dozen regex symbols that cover most everyday searches, with patterns for emails, dates and phone numbers you can test live.
Sep 13, 2026Developer guideUnix Timestamps: Seconds, Milliseconds and the 2038 Problem
How to tell a 10-digit timestamp from a 13-digit one, why timestamps have no time zone, and what happens in January 2038.
Sep 10, 2026Developer guideWhy Your JSON Is Invalid: The Errors Behind Most Parse Failures
Trailing commas, single quotes, comments, unquoted keys and the other mistakes that break JSON, how to spot each in the formatter, and how to fix it.
Sep 10, 2026Developer guideUUID v4: What the Random Bits Mean and Whether Collisions Happen
How a version 4 UUID is built, which digits are fixed, how many you can generate before a collision is plausible, and when to use one.
Sep 7, 2026Developer guideBase64 Explained: What It Is and Why Files Grow by a Third
Base64 is not encryption. Here is what it actually does, why output is always 4/3 the size, what the padding means, and the places it belongs.
Sep 7, 2026Developer guideHow to Verify a Download With a SHA-256 Checksum
What a checksum proves, what it does not, how to compare one in the browser, and why SHA-1 and MD5 no longer count.
Sep 3, 2026Images
Favicon Sizes You Actually Need (and the Ones You Can Skip)
Which favicon sizes browsers, tabs, bookmarks and home screens really use, what to put in the HTML, and how to generate the set from one image.
Sep 22, 2026Images guideJPEG vs PNG vs WebP: Which Format to Use, With Real File Sizes
The honest tradeoffs between the three formats every browser understands, measured on the same image, and a simple rule for choosing.
Sep 3, 2026Images guideHow to Shrink an Image for the Web or Email Without Wrecking It
Resize first, then compress: the order matters. Target sizes for email, web pages and social uploads, with measured results from the compressor.
Sep 3, 2026Text
How to Compare Two Versions of a Text and See What Changed
Line diffs, what an LCS algorithm does, why whitespace trips people up, and a workflow for reviewing edits to contracts, code and copy.
Sep 19, 2026Text guideMarkdown Basics: The Syntax You Will Actually Use
Headings, lists, links, emphasis, code and tables in plain text, why Markdown exists, and the gotchas the previewer will show you.
Sep 19, 2026Text guideURL Slugs: The Rules for Clean, Shareable Links
Lowercase, hyphens, no stop words or accents: the conventions behind readable URLs, why they matter, and how the slug generator applies them.
Sep 16, 2026Text guideWord Counts, Reading Time and Speech Length, Worked Out
How many words fit in a five-minute talk, how reading time is estimated, what counts as a word, and how to size an essay, script or post.
Sep 3, 2026Design
How these are written
Each guide starts from the source code of the tool it covers, so the numbers and behaviors it describes are the ones you will actually see on the page, not a generic description. Worked examples are run through the real tool and screenshotted. Claims about standards link to the standard. When a tool has a limit, the guide says so rather than glossing over it. If you spot a mistake, the contact page reaches Nathan directly and corrections are dated on the page.