AB's Reflections

Category: Tips

  • Installing n8n on Raspberry Pi 3B

    Installing n8n on Raspberry Pi 3B

    I recently decided to set up n8n on my Raspberry Pi 3B to automate my social media workflow, thanks to n8n’s availability for self hosted setups.

    The Pi was already running Pi-hole 24/7 as my network’s DNS server, so I wanted a solution that wouldn’t interfere with it. Here’s what I learned after trying the standard approach and eventually succeeding with Docker.

    The Failed Attempt: Direct Install

    I started with a guide designed for newer Raspberry Pis (Pi 4/5), following instructions from various tutorials that suggested a direct npm installation. The process seemed straightforward:

    bash

    # The approach that DIDN'T work on Pi 3B
npm install n8n -g
n8n start

    What went wrong: The installation would start, but then freeze the entire Pi. The limited 1GB RAM on the Pi 3B couldn’t handle the build process. I had to force restart the Pi multiple times. Even the uninstall and update commands wouldn’t work properly, leaving me to manually remove the n8n folder.

    The Solution: Docker Installation

    After the npm failures, I switched to Docker following instructions provided by Claude. This approach uses pre-built images, completely bypassing the resource-intensive build process. Here’s the complete setup that worked perfectly.

    Step 1: Install Docker

    bash

    # Install Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh

# Add your user to docker group (avoids needing sudo)
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

# Log out and back in for group changes to take effect

    Verify Docker is installed:

    bash

    docker --version

    Step 2: Install Docker Compose

    bash

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y docker-compose

    Step 3: Create n8n Directory and Configuration

    bash

    # Create directory for n8n
mkdir -p ~/n8n
cd ~/n8n

# Create docker-compose.yml
cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
version: '3.3'

services:
  n8n:
    image: n8nio/n8n:latest
    container_name: n8n
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "5678:5678"
    environment:
      - N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false
    volumes:
      - ./data:/home/node/.n8n
EOF

    Note on version: I initially used version: '3.8' but got an error about unsupported version. The older docker-compose on Pi 3B required version: '3.3'.

    Step 4: Fix Permissions (Critical!)

    bash

    # Create data directory and set proper permissions
mkdir -p ~/n8n/data
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 ./data

    This step is crucial. n8n runs as user ID 1000 inside the container and needs write access to save workflows, credentials, and configuration files.

    Step 5: Start n8n

    bash

    docker-compose up -d

    Check if it’s running:

    bash

    docker-compose ps
docker-compose logs -f n8n

    The startup takes 30-60 seconds on a Pi 3B. Once you see logs indicating n8n is running, you can access it at http://[your-pi-ip]:5678 from any device on your network.

    Press Ctrl+C to exit the logs view (this doesn’t stop n8n, just stops viewing the logs).

    Key Configuration Choices

    Why N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false?

    By default, n8n requires HTTPS for secure cookies. Since we’re running locally without SSL, this setting allows access from other devices on your network. This is perfectly safe for a home network setup.

    Why restart: unless-stopped?

    This ensures n8n automatically starts when your Pi reboots. Docker is configured to start on boot by default, and it will automatically restart any containers marked with this policy.

    Coexisting with Pi-hole

    The beauty of this setup is that n8n and Pi-hole run completely independently:

    • Pi-hole typically runs on port 53 (DNS) and 80/443 (web interface)
    • n8n runs on port 5678
    • Both use Docker’s default network, with no conflicts
    • Combined RAM usage is manageable on the Pi 3B

    Managing n8n

    Here are the essential commands (run from ~/n8n directory):

    bash

    # Stop n8n
docker-compose stop

# Start n8n
docker-compose start

# Restart n8n (useful after config changes)
docker-compose restart

# View logs
docker-compose logs -f n8n

# Update n8n to latest version
docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d

# Complete removal
docker-compose down
rm -rf ~/n8n

    Handling OAuth Credentials

    One challenge I encountered was setting up OAuth credentials (Google, LinkedIn, etc.) when accessing the local n8n from my MacBook. Many OAuth providers require the redirect URL to be either HTTPS or localhost.

    Solution: SSH Tunnel

    bash

    # On your Mac/laptop, create an SSH tunnel
ssh -L 5678:localhost:5678 pi@[your-pi-ip]

# Then access n8n at http://localhost:5678 in your browser

    This makes your browser think n8n is running locally, which satisfies OAuth requirements. Once credentials are saved, you can close the tunnel and access n8n normally via the Pi’s IP address. You only need the tunnel when initially setting up OAuth credentials.

    Performance Notes

    The Pi 3B handles n8n surprisingly well for automation workflows:

    • Startup time: 30-60 seconds after reboot
    • Workflow execution: Perfectly adequate for scheduled tasks
    • Web interface: Responsive enough for editing workflows
    • RAM usage: n8n + Pi-hole combined use ~45%, leaving headroom

    For workflows that need AI processing (like my LinkedIn post generator), I’m calling LM Studio running on my MacBook over the network. The Pi handles the orchestration, while the heavy AI work happens on more powerful hardware.

    Troubleshooting Tips

    If the container keeps restarting: Check permissions on the data folder. The error logs will show “EACCES: permission denied” if this is the issue.

    If you can’t access from other devices: Make sure you’ve set N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false in the environment variables and restarted the container.

    If Docker isn’t starting on boot: Enable it with sudo systemctl enable docker

    Final Thoughts

    The Docker approach transformed what seemed like an impossible task into a straightforward 10-minute setup. While the Pi 3B isn’t powerful enough to compile n8n from source, it’s more than capable of running the pre-built Docker image alongside Pi-hole.

    If you’re running a Pi 3B and want to add n8n to your home automation stack, skip the npm route entirely and go straight to Docker. Your Pi (and your sanity) will thank you.

    Complete Setup Script

    For reference, here’s the entire setup in one script:

    bash

    #!/bin/bash

# Install Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com -o get-docker.sh
sudo sh get-docker.sh
sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

# Install Docker Compose
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y docker-compose

# Create n8n directory
mkdir -p ~/n8n
cd ~/n8n

# Create docker-compose.yml
cat > docker-compose.yml << 'EOF'
version: '3.3'

services:
  n8n:
    image: n8nio/n8n:latest
    container_name: n8n
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "5678:5678"
    environment:
      - N8N_SECURE_COOKIE=false
    volumes:
      - ./data:/home/node/.n8n
EOF

# Create and set permissions on data directory
mkdir -p data
sudo chown -R 1000:1000 ./data

# Start n8n
docker-compose up -d

echo "n8n is starting up. Access it at http://$(hostname -I | awk '{print $1}'):5678 in about 60 seconds."
echo "View logs with: docker-compose logs -f n8n"

    Save this as install-n8n.sh, make it executable with chmod +x install-n8n.sh, and run it with ./install-n8n.sh. Note that you’ll need to log out and back in after the script runs for Docker group permissions to take effect, then run docker-compose up -d from the ~/n8n directory.

  • The Law of Leaky Abstractions & the Unexpected Slowdown

    The Law of Leaky Abstractions & the Unexpected Slowdown

    If the first rush of agentic/vibe coding feels like having a team of superhuman developers, the second phase is a reality check—one that every software builder and AI enthusiast needs to understand.

    Why “Vibe Coding” Alone Can’t Scale

    The further I got into building real-world prototypes with AI agents, the clearer it became: Joel Spolsky’s law of leaky abstractions is alive and well.

    You can’t just vibe code your way to a robust app—because underneath the magic, the cracks start to show fast. AI-generated coding is an abstraction, and like all abstractions, it leaks. When it leaks, you need to know what’s really happening underneath.

    My Experience: Hallucinations, Context Loss, and Broken Promises

    I lost count of the times an agent “forgot” what I was trying to do, changed underlying logic mid-stream, or hallucinated code that simply didn’t run. Sometimes it wrote beautiful test suites and then… broke the underlying logic with a “fix” I never asked for. It was like having a junior developer who could code at blazing speed—but with almost no institutional memory or sense for what mattered.

    The “context elephant” is real. As sessions get longer, agents lose track of goals and start generating output that’s more confusing than helpful. That’s why my own best practices quickly became non-negotiable:

    • Frequent commits and clear commit messages
    • Dev context files to anchor each session
    • Separate dev/QA/prod environments to avoid catastrophic rollbacks (especially with database changes)

    What the Research Shows: AI Can Actually Slow Down Experienced Devs

    Here’s the kicker—my frustration isn’t unique.

    A recent research paper, Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity, found that experienced developers actually worked slower with AI on real-world tasks. That’s right—AI tools didn’t just fail to deliver the expected productivity boost, they created friction.

    Why?

    • Only about 44% of AI-generated code was accepted
    • Developers lost time reviewing, debugging, and correcting “bad” generations
    • Context loss and reliability issues forced more manual intervention, not less

    This matches my experience exactly. For all the hype, these tools introduce new bottlenecks—especially if you’re expecting them to “just work” out of the box.

    Lessons from the Frontlines (and from Agent Week)

    I’m not alone. In the article What I Learned Trying Seven Coding Agents, Timothy B. Lee finds similar headaches:

    • Agents get stuck
    • Complex tasks routinely stump even the best models
    • Human-in-the-loop review isn’t going anywhere

    But the tools are still useful—they’re not a dead end. You just need to treat them like a constantly rotating team of interns, not fully autonomous engineers.

    Best Practices: How to Keep AI Agents Under Control

    So how do you avoid the worst pitfalls?

    The answer is surprisingly old-school:

    • Human supervision for every critical change
    • Sandboxing and least privilege for agent actions
    • Version control and regular context refreshers

    Again, Lee’s article Keeping AI agents under control doesn’t seem very hard nails it:

    Classic engineering controls—proven in decades of team-based software—work just as well for AI. “Doomer” fears are overblown, but so is the hype about autonomy.

    Conclusion: The Hidden Cost of Abstraction

    Vibe coding with agents is like riding a rocket with no seatbelt—exhilarating, but you’ll need to learn to steer, brake, and fix things mid-flight.

    If you ignore the leaky abstractions, you’ll pay the price in lost time, broken prototypes, and hidden tech debt.

    But with the right mix of skepticism and software discipline, you can harness the magic and avoid the mess.

    In my next post, I’ll zoom out to the economics—where cost, scaling, and the future of developer work come into play.

    To be continued…

  • The Thrill and the Illusion of AI Agentic Coding

    The Thrill and the Illusion of AI Agentic Coding

    A few months ago, I stumbled into what felt like a superpower: building fully functional enterprise prototypes using nothing but vibe coding and AI agent tools like Cursor and Claude. The pace was intoxicating—I could spin up a PoC in days instead of weeks, crank out documentation and test suites, and automate all the boring stuff I used to dread.

    But here’s the secret I discovered: working with these AI agents isn’t like managing a team of brilliant, reliable developers. It’s more like leading a software team with a sky-high attrition rate and non-existent knowledge transfer practices. Imagine onboarding a fresh dev every couple of hours, only to have them forget what happened yesterday and misinterpret your requirements—over and over again. That’s vibe coding with agents.

    The Early Magic

    When it works, it really works. I’ve built multiple PoCs this way—each one a small experiment, delivered at a speed I never thought possible. The agents are fantastic for “greenfield” tasks: setting up skeleton apps, generating sample datasets, and creating exhaustive test suites with a few prompts. They can even whip up pages of API docs and help document internal workflows with impressive speed.

    It’s not just me. Thomas Ptacek’s piece “My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts” hits the nail on the head: AI is raising the floor for software development. The boring, repetitive coding work—the scaffolding, the CRUD operations, the endless boilerplate—gets handled in minutes, letting me focus on the interesting edge cases or higher-level product thinking. As they put it, “AI is a game-changer for the drudge work,” and I’ve found this to be 100% true.

    The Fragility Behind the Hype

    But here’s where the illusion comes in. Even with this boost, the experience is a long way from plug-and-play engineering. These AI coding agents don’t retain context well; they can hallucinate requirements, generate code that fails silently, or simply ignore crucial business logic because the conversation moved too fast. The “high-attrition, low-knowledge-transfer team” analogy isn’t just a joke—it’s my daily reality. I’m often forced to stop and rebuild context from scratch, re-explain core concepts, and review every change with a skeptical eye.

    Version control quickly became my lifeline. Frequent commits, detailed commit messages, and an obsessive approach to saving state are my insurance policy against the chaos that sometimes erupts. The magic is real, but it’s brittle: a PoC can go from “looks good” to “completely broken” in a couple of prompts if you’re not careful.

    Superpowers—With Limits

    If you’re a founder, product manager, or even an experienced developer, these tools can absolutely supercharge your output. But don’t believe the hype about “no-code” or “auto-code” replacing foundational knowledge. If you don’t understand software basics—version control, debugging, the structure of a modern web app—you’ll quickly hit walls that feel like magic turning to madness.

    Still, I’m optimistic. The productivity gains are real, and the thrill of seeing a new prototype come to life in a weekend is hard to beat. But the more I use these tools, the more I appreciate the fundamentals that have always mattered in software—and why, in the next post, I’ll talk about the unavoidable reality check that comes when abstractions leak and AI doesn’t quite deliver on its promise.

    To be continued…

  • Disable Windows Hello for Smooth Autofill in Chrome

    Disable Windows Hello for Smooth Autofill in Chrome

    If you are a regular user of Chrome on Windows like me and have the auto-fill password manager enabled, you may be getting the Windows sign in prompt every time that you try to auto-fill any forms.

    Looks like it is the “Use Windows Hello” setting in the Google Password manager (accessed from Settings -> Autofill and passwords -> Google Password Manager) which was causing this. Turned it off and no more prompts. You would want to leave it on if you are sharing the Windows account with others of course.

    Thanks to this forum post.

  • Fixing newsletter readability on Inoreader

    Fixing newsletter readability on Inoreader

    I have been using Inoreader as my main feed reader for quite a while now after having tried feedly for a few years. I even upgraded to their Premium plan for the power user and additional newsletter limits.

    I subscribe to a few newsletters as it is easier to get all the content in one place. There had been one rendering issue that I had been facing with Matt Levine’s Money Stuff newsletter ever since the recent update to Inoreader where the last few characters in each line would get cut off in the pop up reader view, like so:

    I tried reaching out to support, but they were not able to do much. So, I did a bit of research and found that Inoreader has a custom CSS feature in its power user setting that some folks have used to personalise the interface. The newsletter contents were being rendered in an HTML table which I discovered by inspecting the source (hit F12 on the browser or go to the dev tools).

    I did a bit of experimentation in the custom CSS settings, and found that setting the table width to 85% fixed the issue:

    table {
  width: 85%;
}

    I’m sure this is a very obscure issue which is for users like me who have subscribed to a particular newsletter in a feed reader, but documenting it in case others face something similar.

    You could of course just read the newsletter in your email inbox or through a service like NewsletterHunt, or just change the view to full article in Inoreader.

  • Dubai Diaries: Staying active via VR

    Dubai Diaries: Staying active via VR

    The second device (the first was of course the gaming laptop that has been doing double duty as a GenAI device) that I purchased in Dubai after relocating in 2022 was the Meta Quest 2 VR headset.

    Picking it up towards the end of the year has its advantages as the apps and games are usually discounted due to the Christmas sales. In fact I got Beat Saber as a freebie with my purchase. This was the game that sent me down the Meta VR App store rabbit hole where I found a bunch of sports games like:

    There are also games for boxing, fishing, shooting, Star Wars (becoming Darth Vader’s apprentice) among others. They are a big departure from the typical computer, mobile or console gaming as they require you to move around and give you a decent workout.

    I also picked up some accessories like the hard case to store & transport the device in a safer manner, along with the head strap replacement. The head strap in particular is a big upgrade and almost necessary if you want to use the headset for even a moderate amount of time.

    Most have been around for several years now and have gotten a boost in terms of features & quality thanks to the renewed focus on AR & VR with the launch of the Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest 3 over the last year or so.

    Here’s my experience with some of these apps that have helped me stay more active, especially during the Dubai summers when it gets pretty difficult for outdoor activities. One thing to note is that most of these apps/games require some dedicated space – typically 6″ x 6″ – to play safely, though some can be played standing in one place.

    iB Cricket

    This game has been developed by a team from India, and you can see that they have done their share of partnerships with some of the mainstream cricket events over the years. It is mainly a batting simulator where you can play as a bunch of teams at varying difficulties and it also has multiplayer options & leagues if you like to compete against other players.

    They sell a bat accessory that can be used with the Quest 2 controller to give you an easier and more authentic experience. This was in fact something that I picked up during one of my India trips and it really makes the gameplay much better.

    VZFit

    This year, I also picked up a subscription to the VZFit app which can be used with an indoor bike to stay fit. By default they have a fitness experience that you can perform using just the controllers, but the virtual biking is what piqued my interest. The app allows you to bike around different locations in Google Maps using the Streetview images in an immersive form.

    Here’s a sample from one of my rides along the Colorado river:

    There are a bunch of user curated locations that can be quite scenic. Some even come with voiceover to direct your attention to places of interest. They also have regular challenges and leaderboards if you like to compete, and integration with a bunch of online radio stations to keep you entertained. You also have a trainer who can accompany you on a bike and guide you with the workout.

    You mainly need to connect a compatible bluetooth cadence sensor to your Quest headset so that it can detect the bike activity. As for the stationary bike, you can get your own or use one in the gym. I got the Joroto X2 spin bike which seems to be pretty good value. A battery powered clip-on fan can also be pretty handy to keep you cool and also simulate a breeze when you are virtually biking.

    Beat Saber

    Beat Saber is possibly one of the most well known VR games. After all, it’s not every day that you get to dual-wield something akin to light sabers and chop things up with a sound track to match.

    It is basically a virtual rhythm game that has been around for several years where you wield a pair of glowing sabers to cut through approaching blocks which are in sync with a song’s beats and notes. This can give you a really good workout as it also involves ducking and dodging in addition to the hand movements.

    Eleven Table Tennis

    Given the size of the Quest controllers and in hand feel similar to a TT bat, table tennis feels like a natural fit. This was one of the first sports games that I picked up on the Quest, and I have seen this game evolve within a few months of my purchase. Currently it has a host of options ranging from practice to multiplayer with different levels of difficulty.

    The multiplayer part is also pretty interesting and immersive as it can use your Meta avatar for the in game player. It also has voice chat so you can talk to your opponent. The in game Physics is also very realistic due to which you sometimes forget that there is no actual table in front of you.

    Vader Immortal Series

    This is a 3 episode game on the Quest, and doesn’t actually need you to move around as much as the other sports games that I have mentioned. However, if you are a Star Wars fan, this is pretty much a must try game as it gives you your fill of light saber fighting sequences starting a training involving with those mini floating droids and leading up to enemy fights standing beside Darth Vader.

    If you loved the Jedi Knight series on the computer or one of the recent Star Wars games involving Jedi, then this is pretty much a no brainer to try out. Oh, and you do get to use the force push/pull powers as well.

  • Dubai Diaries: The Dubai move and Golden Visa

    Dubai Diaries: The Dubai move and Golden Visa

    It’s been exactly 2 years since I joined my regional role in Boehringer Ingelheim in Dubai. I rarely blog about my personal life, but I thought now would be a good time to share some of the experiences around this move.

    The move to Dubai was in itself fairly straight forward as it was through an internal move. I started off with a regular employment based residence visa valid for 2 years. My family also relocated in the middle of last year, and their visas were completed through the office pretty quickly.

    Since my visa was due for renewal this year, I decided to opt for the UAE Golden Visa for salaried professionals which has a relatively easier qualification qualification criteria than the others:

    • Monthly gross salary of AED 30,000 or higher (that seems to be the current consensus, as I have also read of it being the basic salary without allowances in the past)
    • Bachelor’s degree or higher
      • Getting the equivalency certificate for this is typically the most time consuming process

    While my application was managed by my office in DIFC which definitely helped with the clarity around the process, I did find this recent Reddit post by the Amer Centre quite helpful and along with this article in Khaleej Times that explains the process and documentation requirements. I am sharing a simple guide to get the necessary documents ready based on my experience.

    Step by step guide

    The overall process took about 2 months for me, out of which the first 3 weeks went in getting the degree equivalency certificate, followed by 2 weeks for the degree physical attestation and about 2 weeks for the actual visa application, health checkup & Emirates ID issuance.

    You need digitized versions of the following key documents for the application (some like the equivalency certificate require additional documents for the verification) in addition to other documents from your employer:

    • Degree equivalency certificate
    • Bank statement showing the salary credit each month
    • Attested degree certificate (UAE Embassy in university country and MOFA in UAE)
    • NOC from company
    • Current passport and visa
    • Current passport sized photo (white background, no glasses – you can tell the photo studio for the Emirates ID or visa version)

    The equivalency certificate

    Getting the degree equivalency certificate is usually the bottleneck in this process, based on the experience of my colleagues and those who have shared their experience online.

    The process is as below with details on the Ministry site here (they also have a useful document checklist that you can refer to):

    Typically you would need your original degree certificate, the final transcript (official stamped marksheet for the entire duration of the course) and your passport copy. You need to choose one of the official partners (Dataflow or Quadrabay at the moment) for the verification and share these documents with them. It costs around AED 350 for this part of the process.

    The turnaround time is slated to be 30 days, but is completely dependent on the response time of the university. Here are a couple of tips to help speed up the process which worked for me:

    • Keep the details of your university alumni association and key academic departments handy.
    • Once the initial documents have been verified by the partner and sent to the university, if you do not get any update within a couple of weeks check in with the customer support for details regarding the communication with the university.
      • I managed to get the details of the email subject line and the department to which they had mailed this way.
    • Contact the alumni association or academic department with the details you got regarding the verification communication to nudge it along.

    Once the verification process is successfully completed, you will get the notification to complete the application on the Ministry site with the appropriate link. There is another payment involved, and the certificate is generated almost immediately. This completes the most time consuming part of the application.

    Degree attestation and next steps

    The next few steps are quite straight forward, and you could even get the degree attestation done while you are waiting for the verification to happen. You will of course need the physical degree certificate for this, and use an agency like VFS (they have an attestation helpline that you can mail here) to get this done in 2-3 weeks with doorstep pickup and drop-off.

    Once you have these documents you can go ahead with the actual visa application. A few additional tips:

    • In the bank statement (an online statement download should be fine), highlight the salary deposits and make sure that your name & account details are there on every page & highlight those as well.
    • If you are immediately transferring your salary to another account after the deposit, you may need to provide the statement from the other account as well.
    • The photo you submit will be used in the visa and Emirates ID, so you can ask the photo studio to take it accordingly.
    • You will probably be given a slot for the health checkup, but depending on your location you may be able to walk in for the checkup much earlier.
    • Ensure that you are setup on UAE pass so that the authentication on the partner sites is easier.
    • Setup your ICP app as well do that you can access the digital versions of your visa and updated Emirates ID. This uses UAE pass as well for login.
    • Depending on how you have applied, you may need to get the new Emirates ID re-issued.
    • You will need to transfer your dependents’ visas at some point in time as well.

    Hope this helped you, and wish you the best with your Golden Visa application! If this gets a good response, I’ll share some of my experiences and learnings around the Dubai relocation.

  • Taking Stable Diffusion for a spin on a basic laptop

    Taking Stable Diffusion for a spin on a basic laptop

    I’ve been quite intrigued by the recent public releases of Dall-E followed by Stable Diffusion which allow you to generate images from simple text prompts, & had been trying them out on the free online platforms. The main limitation of these is that you are limited to a certain quota for free, and to really try an opensource tool like Stable Diffusion locally, you need to pretty beefy system with a high end GPU.

    All that changed when I came across a project on GitHub that lets you run Stable Diffusion on the CPU thanks to Intel’s OpenVINO framework. I promptly took it for a spin on my 4 year old laptop with an Intel quad core 8th gen CPU. The instructions are provided on the GitHub project itself as expected. If you are using Windows like me, you can do the following:

    • Install Anaconda which simplifies the Python setup.
    • Create a new environment in Anaconda for the project.
    • Open the terminal, create a directory for the project & clone the GitHub repository for the project using the git clone https://github.com/bes-dev/stable_diffusion.openvino.git command with the project web URL.
    • Follow the installation instructions on the project page:
      • Install the project dependencies using pip install -r requirements.txt
      • Enable Developer Mode in Windows settings which allows the model to be downloaded on first run.
      • If you plan to use the web interface also install streamlit drawable canvas using pip install streamlit-drawable-canvas, as this module dependency seemed to be missing in the documentation & gave me errors on trying to run the web demo.
    • Run the script as per instructions replacing the prompt if you want (the developer seems to be a GoT/Emilia Clarke fan) – python demo.py --prompt "Street-art painting of Emilia Clarke in style of Banksy, photorealism"

    On my laptop it takes about 8-10 min to generate an image, though a more powerful CPU with more RAM should be able to cut it down to 3-4 min as mentioned in the project page benchmarks. Either way, it is a worthwhile tradeoff to be able to run it locally.

    Here are a couple of results from the prompts I ran on my laptop (I chose a couple of the timeless beauties to see what Stable Diffusion has to offer):

    Street-art painting of Elizabeth Taylor in style of Banksy, photorealism
    Street-art painting of Grace Kelly in style of Banksy, photorealism

  • iOS to Android [P1]: Perks outside the walled garden

    I had never used Android as my exclusive daily driver, and my last proper Android phone usage on the Mi 4 was in parallel with my iPhone 5s around 6-7 years ago. A lot has changed in this time, and a lot has also remained the same especially when it comes to the customizations possible.

    Here’s a quick rundown of the key new features I’ve recently (re)discovered on this side of the fence.

    Ad blocking with Blokada

    Ad blocking apps are of course nothing new on the iOS side, but are largely limited to browsers & webviews at best. This is where Blokada for Android comes in. It sets up a local VPN on the device and does local DNS filtering a la Pi-hole to block ads across apps. There is going to be a slight performance & battery life penalty, but you get ad blocking on the go. You can sideload the full featured version, or just get the Slim version from the Play store. It’s also available for Android TV, in case you do not want to use Pi-hole.

    You can get similar functionality on the iPhone side of things, but need to use cloud services to get similar features which add on subscription costs & connection latency.

    SMS Organizer

    Custom launchers, dialers & SMS apps have been around from the very beginning on the Android side and have also been one of the biggest attractions of the platform. That said, the way we use SMS has changed a lot and it has become more of a platform to get transaction notifications, esp. for OTPs. This of course means that you have to be really careful in which custom apps you choose as a rogue app could easily siphon off your identity or bank balance.

    That said, the SMS Organizer app from Microsoft Garage is a really smart app that makes life much easier and feels like a breath of fresh air after having used the iPhone Messages app for the last several years.

    Transaction messages don’t just get a separate tab, but the notifications are also designed to highlight the key portion. Promotional & personal messages get their own tab as well. Then there’s the tab for reminders, finance & offers – each of which intelligently parse the messages and put the key information in a usable or actionable form. So, you can glance your bank, credit card, EPF, PPF & other such accounts including a transaction list (not completely accurate at times due to duplicate messages), get a reminder of your upcoming bills & travel plans and also surface the coupon codes that get sent in umpteen promo messages.

    Then there’s the simple but great QoL improvement due to the ability to mark all messages as read and delete old OTP messages after a certain period. It also backs up the messages to Google Drive in case you want to restore later.

    I’ve also been using the Microsoft Launcher which neatly integrates with Outlook and makes it easier to glance upcoming work meetings.

    Windows integration

    Yet another point around a Microsoft feature for Google’s OS. When I had switched to iPhones in 2014, it was from a Lumia 720 and Microsoft was still making Windows Phones at that time. Now, Microsoft seems to have embraced mobile devices & the cloud and their apps have features to further this vision. The Microsoft Phone Companion app on Windows makes it easy to connect to any Android phone, and in my case, the Samsung Galaxy S20FE has the required apps pre-installed.

    Microsoft’s Phone Companion app in action along with the Swiggy app running from the mobile on the laptop

    While it is not quite the kind of integration between macOS & iOS devices, there are many ways this is more fully featured as you can not just control basic settings like volume but also access your phone’s notifications, messages, photos & apps right from a Windows machine. This makes it quite easy to stay tuned to a single device, unless you are a Mac user, or are using a work laptop where this feature is restricted.

    Working on large screens

    This is a perk of Samsung devices with DeX support where you can connect to a larger screen like a monitor or TV (USB to HDMI dongle required) or to a PC (wirelessly or through a USB cable), and then get a desktop like experience.

    I got a USB-C to HDMI adapter which also has a USB A port & USB C pass through charging, which allows me to connect a key + mouse combo along with the monitor to access the DeX mode. This mainly comes in handy when you need a larger screen to edit audio/video/images taken on the phone, or just want a larger screen to view content.

    Also a quick mention of the split screen & hover apps feature on Samsung devices that has been supported since the earliest Galaxy Note devices, and has been available on iPads for a while but not on iPhones.

    Automation

    iOS devices have made great strides on this front with the Shortcuts app which started off as Workflow before being acquired by Apple. This largely pales when one compares to Android veterans like Tasker & Llama that have been around since the early days. Services like IFTTT & Zapier can also do more on Android than iOS. Then, there are the Shortcuts contemporaries like Google Assistant & Bixby routines which provide an easier interface.

    Most of my automations deal with silencing & unsilencing the phone based on different conditions like location & time of the day. This is where the iPhone’s hardware mute switch gets in the way as automations can’t alter its state.

  • Getting rid of ads with Pi-hole

    Getting rid of ads with Pi-hole

    I’ve been using Pi-hole running on a Raspberry Pi 3B+ for the past 2 1/2 years, and it has really spoilt me to the extent that I have forgotten what ads on web pages and mobile apps look like (the limited travel in the last couple of years has also helped). It’s pretty effective in getting rid of the pop-up mobile ads and the in page banner ads on all devices connected to the wifi.

    The setup process is quite simple if you have your own router or at least change the DNS server on the home router:

    • First off, get hold of a Raspberry Pi (even the model Zero is powerful enough for the Pi-hole), and the necessary peripherals like a case, SD card, charger & LAN cable. There are many readymade kits with the OS preinstalled sold online including Amazon, which saves a good deal of time.
    • Initial setup is easier with a monitor & keyboard + mouse attached to the Pi. Once this is done you can connect it to your router using a LAN cable and access it through a Telnet client/mobile app like Putty on any of your devices in the home network.
    • Next, you need to install Pi-hole on the Pi (you can do it during the setup itself), and configure the router to use the Pi as your DNS server. If you are stuck without admin access to your router, then you may need to configure each device to use the Pi separately.
    • You can also install mobile apps to manage the Raspberry & Pi-hole quite easily through your phone. There are multiple apps available for both Android & iOS.

    Once everything is setup, you should have an ad free experience on your devices (not all ads can be blocked of course). I’ve found about 10-15% of the queries on my home network getting blocked, and this includes devices like Android & iPhones, iPads, Android TV, Amazon Echo, Homepods & Windows laptops of course.