Ibrahim Sowunmi
Reading Time: 9 Minutes

PadCanvas: drawing on my screen, with a lot of LLM wrangling

I wanted to bring together two things I really, really love: drawing and technology. So I built PadCanvas, a shared canvas for your Mac. This is how it works, what was painful, and why I’m charging about a fiver a year.
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Reading Time: 4 Minutes

How to Duplicate a Schlage 9691T Fob on macOS with Proxmark3 easy

Complete walkthrough for duplicating dual-frequency RFID fobs (125kHz + 13.56MHz) using Proxmark3 Easy on macOS. Covers setup, firmware flashing, and the crucial cload command for Gen 1a cards.
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Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Delivering AI Education to the kids in my community

Reflections on teaching AI skills to students from lower-income backgrounds and how the right education can help level the playing field in an AI-driven world.
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Reading Time: 1 Minutes

How to Get PlatformIO Running on Windsurf

PlatformIO is a powerful development environment for embedded systems, but getting it to work properly in Windsurf can sometimes be challenging. This guide will walk you through the process of installing and configuring PlatformIO in Windsurf.
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Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Why C++ Gives LLMs a Headache

When a dev complains that a language is “hard,” they’re almost never talking about the parser. They’re talking about how many separate things they have to keep in their head at once. The same rule applies to large language models. This post explores why C++ presents unique challenges for LLM-based code generation and how Windsurf’s features help tame the complexity.
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Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Stripe and ElevenLabs to Power Voice-Driven Merchant Operations - Proof of Concept

This writeup explains the Terminal management operating system powered by Stripe, ElevenLabs, and conversational AI agents. It’s a high-level walkthrough of our architecture, tools, and techniques, designed to get you up to speed on building voice-driven merchant operations.
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Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Implementing Stripe Payment Element and Express Checkout in Next.js 14 (App router)

This project focuses on developing a simple Next.js 14 (app router) application that facilitates one-time Stripe payments. We’ll use Stripe Payment Intents alongside the Payment Element and Express Checkout Element.
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Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Redirect to Stripe Checkout in Next.js 14

How to redirect to checkout in Next.js 14 with Stripe API. This had me stuck for a few minutes and I intent to share all my hurdles online. Inspired by flaviocopes.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Stripe Connect Explained Simply

The Stripe documentation explains Stripe Connect far better than I ever could, but I have a mental model of Connect that I use to explain the concept in 5 minutes or less.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

How to Transcribe Your Own Audio for Free on macOS X Using WhisperAI (Whisper.cpp)

How to Transcibe audio for free on your local machine using whisper.cpp. Good for blog, interviews, etc.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

How to Embed a RSS Substack Feed into Your Hugo Static Site

Integrate your Substack RSS feed into Hugo using shortcodes and Hugo Pipes. No server needed, automatically updates on deploy.
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Reading Time: 5 Minutes

A Hacker's Guide to LLMs

A hackers guide to LLMs. Learning in public. With the assitance of Jeremy Howards course on fast AI. This is a summary of his 1.5hr lecture on getting LLMs up and running quickly with some of my thoughts and clarifications interspersed.
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Reading Time: 1 Minutes

Moving to Substack

Posts on here are dated. Check the substack. Link inside.
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Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Trends - You Will Be Broke - Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) & Youth

Thinking through some trends. I’ve been in a bit of a bad mood lately, too much news. I have to remind myself of the macro picture. These are my ramblings on some short, medium and long term trends. In this piece I talk about the economic consequences of the artifically low interest rates from the central banks, and why we’re seeing mass asset inflation as a result. Money isn’t free. Banks are now tightning their belts and we’re feeling the fallout.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Writing in the era of GPT

AI tools make content creation easy but strip away voice and style. Despite the flood of GPT-generated posts, high-quality blogging is a strong-links problem, only the best rises to the top, so keep writing.
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Reading Time: 2 Minutes

How to create Disney Style 3D avatars for free (without midjourney)

Learn how to create a Disney-style 3D avatar for free using a combination of AI tools. This guide walks you through the process of generating and enhancing your avatar, utilizing Wondershare, Dall-E, Upscale AI, and Remove.bg. Ideal for adding flair to presentations or personal use, this method provides a budget-friendly alternative to paid tools like Lensa and Midjourney.
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Reading Time: 7 Minutes

Ibs' Tips: Interview Framework

A practical interview prep framework covering three essentials - your Pitch, Personal SWOT analysis, and Transformation Stories. Nail the first 7 minutes.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Architects in the Salesforce ecosystem

An Architect. It’s an intimidating title. Salesforce architect just adds another level of abstraction. So let’s break it down and place some descriptions around what a Salesforce Architect actually looks like.
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Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Introduction to Architects

A breakdown of the architect role in software, what they do, the three main titles (Solution, Technical, Enterprise), and how seniority and compensation stack up across them.
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Reading Time: 7 Minutes

Salesforce Forecasting Explained

I wanted to take some time to go over standard Salesforce forecasting at a high level. This written especially for new Salesforce SEs so some information may be omitted, or may not make the most sense.
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Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Simply Conceptualising CRM

CRM explained through the hub-and-spoke model. Think of it like iCloud for businesses—customer data at the center, products as spokes.
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Reading Time: 4 Minutes

How I Created This Site

I rebuilt my website. I wanted something that was easier to work with, faster, sleeker and more futureproof than my previous website. I’m not exactly sure what all of those would entail but I guess that’s the purpose of future proofing. I’ll be doing a series of posts about the obstacles I faced whilst building the website. Pointing to resources, that worked FOR ME, to get out of technical ruts. Of which there were many.
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Reading Time: 4 Minutes

Getting Better At Writing

I want to get better at writing. Like any process, you want to get better at there are two golden rules (not weighted equally). Research, and then actually doing it. I guess I’m doing it.
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Reading Time: 2 Minutes

Breakdown of Hedgefunds For Normies

Hedge funds broken down into five buckets, Style, Asset Class, Market Exposure, Diversification, and Management Structure, so you can finally understand what these secretive firms actually do.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Moving domain to Netlify from AWS Route 53

I had a website hosted on AWS. I built a <weird-domain-name>.netlify.app. I wanted to connect my stuff over. Reconfigure the DNS. It was quite simple but I’m assuming people are like me and look at blogs sometimes before docs.
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Reading Time: 1 Minutes

A Hugo and TailwindCSS3 boilerplate

Stuck setting up Hugo with TailwindCSS3? Here’s a boilerplate that sidesteps the common config headaches. Pro tip - use Prose for readable formatting.
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Reading Time: 2 Minutes

The Power of Twitter and why you should use it (I don't use it but still)

A reflection on why Twitter is invaluable for micropreneurs despite my general distaste for social media. Building a network and distribution channel matters more than most technically-minded people realize, your Twitter following can be the unfair advantage that kickstarts your next project.
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Reading Time: 5 Minutes

Thing I intend to accomplish - FY22

A list of things I will be focusing on in the upcoming year. I usually send these to myself 1 year ahead with the futureme email service. At the end of most years I receive an email from my past self holding my current self accountable. This is essentially that, but in public.
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Reading Time: 8 Minutes

The CV guide I wish I had

Imagine this. You’re 18. You have no experience and what feels like no skills. You’re flung into an environment ­­where, unbeknownst to many people, you’re building the foundation for the rest of your life. Well what do you do? This dude says get some experience... That dude said build a CV... That other other dude said leverage your network? The f*** does that even mean? It is confusing. Fortunately, you’ve got a lot of time to think and a good head on your shoulders.

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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

What is a Solution Engineer?

A breakdown of what Solution Engineers actually do—it’s a sales role with technical depth, bridging product, strategy, and customer needs.
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Reading Time: 5 Minutes

You are what you consume

How social media consumption shapes your thinking. A look at echo chambers, negativity, and practical tips for curating a healthier online diet.
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Reading Time: 1 Minutes

Hugo BaseURL with custom domain redirects

How to properly configure Hugo’s baseURL in config.toml when using GitHub Pages with a custom domain, include the protocol and avoid leaving it blank.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

My first foray into SEO

Frustrated that my own name didn’t surface my website on Google, I dove into SEO basics, prerendering with react-snap, backlinks, and PageRank fundamentals, to climb from page two.
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Reading Time: 6 Minutes

Financial Illiteracy

A student’s crash course on investing, covering the three types (fundamental, technical, sentimental), why dollar-cost averaging beats timing the market, and why your job should be your primary wealth vehicle. Includes resources, hot takes on Tesla and crypto, and a healthy dose of self-aware humility.
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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

Beginnings

Starting a blog to carve out my own corner of the internet. Written during final year of university as an attempt to stay interesting, organize thoughts, and build something that’s actually mine.
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