Curious Mints is a one-person studio where I make things and help other people make theirs.https://curiousmints.com/enhttps://curiousmints.com/getting-captive-portal-wi-fi-to-work-on-omarchy/https://curiousmints.com/getting-captive-portal-wi-fi-to-work-on-omarchy/I was traveling and trying to connect my Omarchy laptop to the hotel Wi-Fi.Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/typefully-has-an-mcp-server/https://curiousmints.com/typefully-has-an-mcp-server/Not sure how I missed this, but Typefully has an MCP server.Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-i-point-digitalocean-app-platform-apps-to-my-own-subdomains/https://curiousmints.com/how-i-point-digitalocean-app-platform-apps-to-my-own-subdomains/I keep forgetting this, so here’s the short, clear version for future me.Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/i-locked-myself-out-of-ghost-and-the-one-flag-that-got-me-back-in/https://curiousmints.com/i-locked-myself-out-of-ghost-and-the-one-flag-that-got-me-back-in/I moved this Ghost site from Ghost(Pro) to a self-hosted setup on DigitalOcean Droplet.Fri, 26 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/i-got-tired-of-claude-code-update-errors-so-i-wrote-a-fix/https://curiousmints.com/i-got-tired-of-claude-code-update-errors-so-i-wrote-a-fix/Kept running into update errors every time Claude Code had a new release.Fri, 01 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-to-build-ios-macos-apps-in-vs-code-cursor-windsurf-with-claude-code-sweetpad/https://curiousmints.com/how-to-build-ios-macos-apps-in-vs-code-cursor-windsurf-with-claude-code-sweetpad/I wanted to use Cursor/VS Code with Claude Code so I could get LLM power inside my editor and build apps the way I do for Python and web stuff.Sun, 13 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/creating-reusable-prompts-in-claude/https://curiousmints.com/creating-reusable-prompts-in-claude/I’ve been using Claude a lot to refine code, generate checklists, and just generally help me move faster.Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/adding-a-cms-ui-to-hugo-with-tinacms/https://curiousmints.com/adding-a-cms-ui-to-hugo-with-tinacms/I love that my personal site, ajot.me, runs on Hugo.Tue, 04 Feb 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/install-homebrew-on-m3-mac-short-guide/https://curiousmints.com/install-homebrew-on-m3-mac-short-guide/So, I wanted to install Homebrew on my new M3 Mac.Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/quick-guide-installing-and-setting-up-virtualenv/https://curiousmints.com/quick-guide-installing-and-setting-up-virtualenv/Here’s how to install virtualenv and troubleshoot if it doesn’t work initially.Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/setting-up-powerlevel10k-with-oh-my-zsh/https://curiousmints.com/setting-up-powerlevel10k-with-oh-my-zsh/Here’s how I quickly customized my terminal to make it colorful, useful, and fun with Oh My Zsh and Powerlevel10k.Tue, 10 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/setting-up-papertrail-for-a-flask-app-on-digitalocean/https://curiousmints.com/setting-up-papertrail-for-a-flask-app-on-digitalocean/I’ve been running a Flask app on DigitalOcean that processes receipts sent via email and adds them to Airtable.Fri, 06 Dec 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/managing-environment-variables-on-pythonanywhere-with-python-dotenv/https://curiousmints.com/managing-environment-variables-on-pythonanywhere-with-python-dotenv/So, I wanted to quickly jot down how to use python-dotenv on PythonAnywhere for managing environment variables.Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/untitled-3/https://curiousmints.com/untitled-3/So, I wanted to set up a scheduled task in PythonAnywhere and make sure it used my virtual environment.Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-i-built-a-quick-apple-shortcut-to-send-emails-with-resends-api/https://curiousmints.com/how-i-built-a-quick-apple-shortcut-to-send-emails-with-resends-api/I’ve been playing around with Apple Shortcuts for a while now, setting up little automations here and there.Wed, 30 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/building-a-simple-alfred-workflow-to-show-whats-playing-on-spotify/https://curiousmints.com/building-a-simple-alfred-workflow-to-show-whats-playing-on-spotify/I wanted a quick way to see the song playing on Spotify without switching apps.Thu, 24 Oct 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/setting-up-inbound-email-processing-with-postmark-aj-guide/https://curiousmints.com/setting-up-inbound-email-processing-with-postmark-aj-guide/So, I wanted to set up inbound email processing using Postmark, where I could send an email and have my app do something with it.Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/simple-butler-service-to-automate-everyday-tasks/https://curiousmints.com/simple-butler-service-to-automate-everyday-tasks/I've been working on something new that I'm calling Simple Butler Service.Thu, 01 Aug 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/quickly-toggle-the-group-to-dos-by-project-or-area-setting-in-things3-using-applescript-and-keyboard-maestro/https://curiousmints.com/quickly-toggle-the-group-to-dos-by-project-or-area-setting-in-things3-using-applescript-and-keyboard-maestro/💡Note [August 10, 2025]: Some folks noticed the script wasn't working quite right.Thu, 11 Jul 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/generating-a-seinfeld-episode-with-langchain/https://curiousmints.com/generating-a-seinfeld-episode-with-langchain/I was tinkering with LangChain and OpenAI to create a new guide for a "Hello World" app.Fri, 21 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/setting-up-environment-variables-for-python-projects/https://curiousmints.com/setting-up-environment-variables-for-python-projects/I wanted to make sure I could use my API keys across multiple Python projects without having to specify them every time.Mon, 17 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/automating-python-project-setup-with-raycast-extension/https://curiousmints.com/automating-python-project-setup-with-raycast-extension/In an earlier post, I shared a shell script to quickly set up new Python projects.Sat, 08 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/implement-microsoft-to-do-like-reset-my-day-feature-in-things-app/https://curiousmints.com/implement-microsoft-to-do-like-reset-my-day-feature-in-things-app/I've been using the Things app for over a decade.Fri, 07 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/display-spotify-song-info-on-demand-with-raycast/https://curiousmints.com/display-spotify-song-info-on-demand-with-raycast/I recently switched to Raycast after hearing good things from friends.Sun, 02 Jun 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/building-a-monolith-app-with-flask/https://curiousmints.com/building-a-monolith-app-with-flask/I had several small Flask apps costing me each month, so I consolidated them into one monolithic app using Flask Blueprints. This post walks you through how I did it, making the setup modular and easy to maintain.Tue, 28 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/changing-the-featured-image-size-in-ghost/https://curiousmints.com/changing-the-featured-image-size-in-ghost/I was working on my Ghost blog and realized that the featured images for each post were just too large.Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/streamlining-tax-season-with-a-simple-email-hack/https://curiousmints.com/streamlining-tax-season-with-a-simple-email-hack/Every year, as tax season rolls around, I find myself frantically looking through emails and apps to track down tax-deductible expenses.Fri, 19 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/integrating-prism-js-with-custom-styling-in-ghost-blog/https://curiousmints.com/integrating-prism-js-with-custom-styling-in-ghost-blog/I wanted to enhance my Ghost blog's code snippets with syntax highlighting and a convenient copy-to-clipboard feature.Sat, 30 Dec 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/deploying-a-hugo-website-to-github-pages-using-github-actions/https://curiousmints.com/deploying-a-hugo-website-to-github-pages-using-github-actions/After setting up Ghost for my personal website, I was looking for something a bit simpler.Sun, 24 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/dynamically-updating-your-tidbyt-display-with-rest-api-data/https://curiousmints.com/dynamically-updating-your-tidbyt-display-with-rest-api-data/I recently bought a Tidbyt, a fascinating retro pixelated display that can do everything from showing the weather to displaying memes (h/t to Greg Baugues for the recommendation).Thu, 21 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-to-automatically-run-shell-scripts-on-a-mac-using-cron-jobs/https://curiousmints.com/how-to-automatically-run-shell-scripts-on-a-mac-using-cron-jobs/I wanted to run a shell script at regular intervals to update a greeting image on my Tidbyt device.Fri, 15 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/building-a-hello-world-app-for-tidbyt-retro-style-display/https://curiousmints.com/building-a-hello-world-app-for-tidbyt-retro-style-display/I recently bought a Tidbyt, a fascinating retro pixelated display that can do everything from showing the weather to displaying memes (h/t to Greg Baugues for the recommendation).Mon, 04 Sep 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/finding-the-current-weeks-start-and-end-dates-in-applescript/https://curiousmints.com/finding-the-current-weeks-start-and-end-dates-in-applescript/While reviewing my week in Day One, I like to kick things off with a heading that reads something like "Week of Date 1 to Date 2." Sounds simple, right?Sat, 26 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/setting-up-sqlite-with-flask/https://curiousmints.com/setting-up-sqlite-with-flask/I wanted to set up SQLite with Flask for a simple, lightweight database solution that doesn't need a separate server process.Fri, 25 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/quickly-cycling-through-and-fixing-spelling-errors-in-vs-code-markdown-files/https://curiousmints.com/quickly-cycling-through-and-fixing-spelling-errors-in-vs-code-markdown-files/I wanted to cycle through and fix all spelling errors in a VS Code markdown file.Tue, 22 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/changing-the-number-of-posts-displayed-per-page-in-ghost-cms/https://curiousmints.com/changing-the-number-of-posts-displayed-per-page-in-ghost-cms/So, I wanted to customize the number of posts displayed per page on my Ghost CMS website using the Dawn theme.Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-to-globally-ignore-files-like-ds_store-in-git-repos/https://curiousmints.com/how-to-globally-ignore-files-like-ds_store-in-git-repos/So, I got tired of adding .DS_Store to every git repo on my Mac.Thu, 17 Aug 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/my-first-chatgpt-app-google-drive-langchain-python/https://curiousmints.com/my-first-chatgpt-app-google-drive-langchain-python/I recently built my very first app using ChatGPT's API.Thu, 20 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/assemblyai-retool-app/https://curiousmints.com/assemblyai-retool-app/I had a great time exploring AssemblyAI and thought it would be cool to create a user interface for it using Retool that lets you easily transcribe audio files.Tue, 18 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/export-todos-from-things-app-using-applescript-2/https://curiousmints.com/export-todos-from-things-app-using-applescript-2/I had a bunch of todos in the Things app that I wanted to move to my notes.Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/start-new-python-projects-quickly-using-a-shell-script/https://curiousmints.com/start-new-python-projects-quickly-using-a-shell-script/As someone who loves experimenting with Python libraries and APIs, starting new projects quickly is important.Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-do-i-get-chatgpt-responses-to-highlight-the-code-in-the-terminal/https://curiousmints.com/how-do-i-get-chatgpt-responses-to-highlight-the-code-in-the-terminal/In a previous post, I played around with ChatGPT to query PDFs stored in Google Drive.Wed, 12 Jul 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/resolving-a-504-timeout-error-on-ghost-with-digital-ocean/https://curiousmints.com/resolving-a-504-timeout-error-on-ghost-with-digital-ocean/Woke up to a 504 error this morning. It's hosted on Digital Ocean, so I reached out to support, which wasn't very helpful.Tue, 26 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/creating-custom-workflows-in-warp-terminal/https://curiousmints.com/creating-custom-workflows-in-warp-terminal/I've been playing around with warp.dev, which is a new terminal app for Mac (Windows coming soon it looks like) with a focus on improving developer productivity.Sun, 24 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/speeding-up-terminal-load-time-how-i-fixed-a-90-second-delay-by-cleaning-up-zshrc-file/https://curiousmints.com/speeding-up-terminal-load-time-how-i-fixed-a-90-second-delay-by-cleaning-up-zshrc-file/This answer on Reddit helped troubleshoot.Sun, 24 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/my-sublime-text-3-setup-aliases-themes-and-terminal-fixes/https://curiousmints.com/my-sublime-text-3-setup-aliases-themes-and-terminal-fixes/Adding an alias to zshrc file Wanted to add an alias to quickly open Sublime Text editor from the command line.Sat, 23 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/playing-with-apis-in-postman-getting-code-samples-and-curl-commands-quickly/https://curiousmints.com/playing-with-apis-in-postman-getting-code-samples-and-curl-commands-quickly/Now that I am playing around a bit more frequently with APIs, especially Twitter’s v2 API, and Airtable’s API, I have found myself playing around a lot more with Postman.Thu, 21 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/playing-around-with-postman/https://curiousmints.com/playing-around-with-postman/I have known of Postman for a while now - it's a tool you can use to explore and test APIs.Wed, 20 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/create-a-content-extension-for-canva-using-flask/https://curiousmints.com/create-a-content-extension-for-canva-using-flask/Saw this Quick Start guide on Canva's developer portal that walks you through creating a content extension for Canva's users.Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-to-deploy-a-flask-app-to-digital-oceans-app-platform/https://curiousmints.com/how-to-deploy-a-flask-app-to-digital-oceans-app-platform/I recently went throught the process to put my side project howbigisthebaby.io on Digital Ocean's new app platform, and wanted to document it in case anyone else found it helpful (or atleastTue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-to-add-a-twitter-cta-at-the-end-of-each-article-on-ghost-cms/https://curiousmints.com/how-to-add-a-twitter-cta-at-the-end-of-each-article-on-ghost-cms/I recently saw a tweet that it's a good idea to have a CTA at the end of each article.Thu, 09 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-i-automated-markdown-and-html-link-generation-for-my-ship30for30-essays/https://curiousmints.com/how-i-automated-markdown-and-html-link-generation-for-my-ship30for30-essays/I had written a bunch of short essays as part of Ship30for30 challenge over the summer.Fri, 03 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/announcing-howbigisthebaby-io/https://curiousmints.com/announcing-howbigisthebaby-io/We are expecting our first baby soon and like most first-time parents, we signed up for a bunch of pregnancy tracking apps that tell you how big your baby is each week.Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/early-thoughts-on-ghost/https://curiousmints.com/early-thoughts-on-ghost/Just setup Ghost on this website (ajot.me).Thu, 02 Dec 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/hello-django-how-to-set-up-your-first-django-web-app/https://curiousmints.com/hello-django-how-to-set-up-your-first-django-web-app/I wrote this for myself whilst setting up Django for the first time.Tue, 30 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/programming-for-lazy-humans/https://curiousmints.com/programming-for-lazy-humans/I have come to realize that "being lazy" is a perfectly legit reason to learn a bit of programming.Mon, 29 Nov 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/spotify-text-expander/https://curiousmints.com/spotify-text-expander/I often find myself wanting to capture the mood of the moment while writing in my Day One journal app.Sat, 10 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/boost-your-typing-speed-focusing-on-the-top-200-english-words/https://curiousmints.com/boost-your-typing-speed-focusing-on-the-top-200-english-words/I can touch type. But my typing speed is no match for my brain speed.Wed, 07 Apr 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-i-consume-podcasts-and-long-form-videos-using-otter/https://curiousmints.com/how-i-consume-podcasts-and-long-form-videos-using-otter/Podcasts 1. Download the MP3 for the Podcast (most provide them on their websites) 2.Wed, 17 Mar 2021 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/hello-swift-my-first-ios-app-using-swiftui/https://curiousmints.com/hello-swift-my-first-ios-app-using-swiftui/It took me some time. Fine, it took me a few years, but I finally got around to creating my first iOS app, using SwiftUI.Fri, 22 May 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/hello-django-how-to-set-up-your-first-django-web-app-2/https://curiousmints.com/hello-django-how-to-set-up-your-first-django-web-app-2/Been meaning to write this post for my future self, who’s invariably going to forget the steps to set up Django on a new machine.Thu, 14 May 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/how-to-make-http-requests-to-an-external-api-from-an-alexa-skill-using-python/https://curiousmints.com/how-to-make-http-requests-to-an-external-api-from-an-alexa-skill-using-python/As a developer, every day we interact with remote APIs and web servers.Fri, 17 Apr 2020 00:00:00 GMThttps://curiousmints.com/creating-an-alexa-skill-using-the-command-line-interface-cli/https://curiousmints.com/creating-an-alexa-skill-using-the-command-line-interface-cli/If you’re into building skills, you’re probably familiar with Alexa Skills Kit’s Command Line Interface, which lets you create and manage your skill using the CLI, like updating the interactWed, 06 Nov 2019 00:00:00 GMT