Google Analytics is hard to beat: it’s super easy to implement, it’s the market standard for analytics, it provides valuable insights and on top of that, it’s free.

That being said, Google Analytics comes with a hidden cost. Google Analytics has become ubiquitous and with that, so has Google surveillance.

For a long time, it was hard to find a good alternative to Google Analytics. But now, Matomo Analytics (formerly Piwik) deserves your serious consideration if you value your visitor’s privacy (and your own).

Note: I’m not affiliated with- or paid by any of the companies discussed in this article (Matomo & Google).

The ICO (.ico) icon format is a Windows icon format and as a web developer, I only see it used in the favicon.ico file. So when I was asked to export a logo in the ICO format for use in a desktop application, I had to do some homework. Since I couldn’t find it within a few minutes, here’s my contribution for anyone looking for a quick solution.

When working with local development servers, a message like this might look familiar:

Error: listen EADDRINUSE: address already in use 127.0.0.1:8888
    at Server.setupListenHandle [as _listen2] (net.js:1300:14)
    at listenInCluster (net.js:1348:12)
    at doListen (net.js:1487:7)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:81:21)

This doesn’t really give us much information to work with. Since I couldn’t find a solution on the web within a few minutes, this is my contribution for anyone running into the same problem.

At some point I found myself wanting to convert a PNG image to Base64 to embed it in a stylesheet. I’m not a big fan of online tools, therefore I decided to check if there is a CLI (command-line interface) available. Turns out it’s already installed on your machine if you’re using a Mac.

Since I couldn’t find all the information right away, this is a complete writeup of the information I needed.

At some point I found myself wanting to move/copy my GPG keys. Since I didn’t find the exact answer I was looking for, this is a quick writeup detailing the steps required.