Introducing BoxLang – Scripting for the JVM / / No Comments The last week or so I’ve been playing with a new language, which honestly is one of the most fun things I get to do. BoxLang is a dynamic scripting language that runs on the JVM although you don’t really need to know a thing about Java to make use of it. It’s currently in beta and moving towards an official 1.0 release, but you can absolutely kick the tires on it now (as I have!) and I thought I’d share a bit about what I’m doing with it. BoxLang is open source and free, with the company behind it, Ortus Solutions, offering professional services on top. If you come from the ColdFusion world, you know Ortus has been around a while and has created a huge amount of... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: BoxLang, Introducing, Scripting
Building a Resume Review and Revise System with Generative AI and Flask / / No Comments The last two sessions of my live stream, Code Break, have been really interesting, at least to me anyway. I’ve been discussing generative AI with Google Gemini and building a relatively simple example while doing so – a resume review and revisement system. This started off pretty simply with a Python script and then iterated into a proper Flask app. I thought it would be fun to document the code here a bit and share it with those who couldn’t make the streams. If you would rather just watch the recordings, I’ve got them embedded at the bottom. Feel free to skip to that. Step One – The Script For my first iteration, I built a simple Python script that: Uploaded the... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: building, Flask, Generative, Resume, review, Revise, system
Links For You (2/8/25) / / No Comments In my last Links For You post, there was snow outside from a completely unusual snow storm down here in Louisiana. Two weeks later, my AC is running and I’m near back to wearing shorts again. Sigh. I’ve said it before and will say it again, I cannot wait to get out of the south. With those complaints out of the way, let’s get to the links! Python Tips As I’ve made it a mission this year to get Somewhat Good at Python, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for good Python tips and tutorials. I’ve subscribed to, and recommend, the Python Weekly newsletter, where I found this great video embedded below. ArjanCodes covers ten good tips for new Python developers, and I’m... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: 2/8/25, links
Doing Evil Things with Generative AI and Recipes / / No Comments Let me preface this blog post with a very clear and direct message. Do not do what I did. This is a bad use of generative AI. This is pure silliness with no real practical value whatsoever. This is a really, really, bad idea. But it was fun as hell, so here goes. Last year I did two investigations into recipe parsing on the web. As we all know, most recipe sites go out of their way to make the actual recipe, you know, the thing you want to read, obfuscated and buried beneath a lot of stuff that is… well not the actual recipe. I first investigated JSON-LD and using that to parse web recipes into data: Scraping Recipes Using Node.js, Pipedream, and JSON-LD. This worked really well. I then... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Doing, Evil, Generative, Recipes, things
Automating Image Improvement with Cloudinary / / No Comments Earlier this year, no, wait, last year (time is kinda crazy), I wrote up the process of automating background removal using Adobe’s Firefly Services. This post described a Pipedream workflow that monitored a Dropbox folder and… On a new file detected, generated a readable link Passed it the Lightroom API to improve it Downloaded it to another Dropbox folder Today, I’m going to look at a similar workflow using Cloudinary. Unfortunately, Adobe’s Firefly Services still have no kind of free trial so it’s difficult for developers to test it out. Everything I’m showing today however can be done with a free Cloudinary account (and Pipedream as well). Let’s... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Automating, Cloudinary, Image, Improvement
Automating Media Asset Creation with Cloudinary’s GenAI Transformations / / No Comments I’ve been happily using Cloudinary on my blog for a few years now, but it’s been quite some time since I’ve blogged about them. For folks who don’t know, CLoudinary provides media APIs (image, video) that work via URLs. So for example, I can craft a Cloudinary URL that transforms a picture to resize it to a particular size. Or add text. Or compress it. Pretty much anything you can imagine doing with an image or a video, and probably a lot of things you can’t think of, are all possible, and literally enabled by crafting a particular URL. It’s shockingly powerful and easy at the same time. More recently, they announced a set of AI capabilities, including – Generative... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Asset, Automating, Cloudinary's, creation, GenAI, Media, Transformations
Generative AI Images with Gemini and Imagen – an Introduction / / No Comments I’ve been waiting for this to launch for a few days now, and while technically this isn’t quite yet available in Gemini, only Vertex, it should be testable in Gemini in the very short term. You can now use Google’s APIs to generate really high quality images via their Imagen 3 technology. I’ve got a few blog posts planned that will demonstrate these features (and from what I’ve been told, even more powerful stuff is coming), but I thought I’d start off today with a simple short example. To begin, and remember this may not available just yet, take a look at the docs, Imagen 3 in the Gemini API. First, let’s consider the sample code, that I’m going... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Gemini, Generative, Imagen, images, Introduction
Using Generative AI to Help in Customer Service / / No Comments Ok, before I begin, let me be absolutely clear. I do not think AI can replace customer support. I do think it can supplement and help customer support however, and I’d like to share an example of what this could look like. Imagine your service has a customer service form or email address. Typically, you type in your question, send it off, and wait. But what if you could provide an AI generated answer immediately while the person waits? At worse it doesn’t help. At best, it could be exactly what they need and the request could be terminated saving everyone time. Let’s consider an example of this. Setting up the AI/RAG System Let’s start with the most complex part, the AI/RAG... more → Posted in: JavaScript Tagged with: Customer, Generative, help, service, using