My sweater is weird but it is special and important to me.
I love my single-purpose devices, and I got another one for distraction-free writing called the BYOK!
How I switched from Less to Sass to CSS Modules to PostCSS nested and nesting to finally, at last, using pure CSS.
I had to set up my Sony a6400 fresh, and here's all the settings I used!
I combined some fun CSS techniques to make a little diving board drawing!
If you're not sure about the ins and outs of passkeys, here's a little primer.
Catch me on YouTube and Twitch, y'all.
Turns out just asking for help gets you help? Who knew? Here's how I increased my newsletter open rate.
You can make cool beveled, rounded, notched, scooped, and elliptical borders with the new CSS corner-shape property!
Context switching between terminals can be a mental lift, and this function to add touch to PowerShell has helped me a bunch!
After learning that people were finding my content via LLMs, I tried using said LLMs to make them find me even more often!
I made a game called Code Wave for the GitHub Game Off 2025, here's how I did it!
I've always loved Cassatt's art, but it hits differently now that I have kids of my own.
It's tempting to just let tools think for you, but you still need to be able to think for yourself and stay sharp.
I spoke with students at Haverford College and Bryn Mawr College about tech careers, AI, and networking.
2025 is over! Let's recap.
Don't be sad that Blogvent is over, be happy that Blogvent happened. Here's all the posts I wrote in December 2025!
The creation of an unflinching look at the survival period of "working" during the holidays.
When you generate an HTML blockquote from markdown, your resulting HTML needs some styling love.
Sometimes the software we see out there doesn't need to be further updated. Sometimes it's just good enough!
I really like nice pencils and pens and it's not a problem, I am totally in control? But I probably have too many now.
The .github folder (and .github repository) is special for customizing your projects to your liking. Here's what you can do!
My chores and tasks are piling up... and so are my emails.
There's so much I want to learn and so little time in the day!
Here's a few questions I ask myself before I start blogging.
You can be a leader without a fancy title... and hopefully that gets you the fancy title eventually!
I'm backing up my photos and videos with Ente now, and it's pretty good.
Vibe coding gets the job done, but there's no thrill in the build.
I don't listen to many podcasts, but the ones I do are pretty solid!
What happens when you compromise too much?
If you wanna eat more than a hot dog and deep dish pizza when you visit Chicago, I got you!
When your CSS animations need a break, you can work with the output of the getAnimations() method!
I made a simple case for an e-reader as my first sewing project in a long time!
This is a short and sweet way to get feedback on your work in a specific, helpful way!
What is the food and drink that represents you?
An old feature request on a repo has me in my feelings!
The CSS clamp() function is a clean way to make your apps and sites responsive. Here's how!
Codemods, or code modification tools, are automated scripts to help transform code to match newer, updated systems. They're handy!
Sometimes you might need to change when a commit happened. Here's how!
Sometimes things get old and unmaintained. Don't we all? But we can fix that in your projects!
How I helped family recover from a clever email scam that hid behind sneaky account settings
I did a livestream about how reducers work, and now, I give it to you.
Humans and LLMs are both non-deterministic, probabilistic entities when it comes to work... but humans actually are held accountable for mistakes.
My 2.5 year old Nadia told me some lovely sentiments as we walked today.
My maternity leave is over, I'm back at GitHub, and I'm ready to go. Kinda.
I like to test AI image and video generation tools with this prompt. It's very effective.
My latest iteration in how I take notes on mobile is using the Notebook Navigator plugin and the Cupertino theme in Obsidian!
I used the app Poop Map for over 5 years, for the memes. A tale of perseverence and triumph.
When a pursuit becomes a drag, here's some questions to help you figure out why, and what to do about it.
I made a fun little gif with this handy animation tool!
Not like a nature tree, but the data structure tree, I made one of those things.
Anything can be anything! Until the next game starts, of course.
I built Ductts, an app for tracking how often you cry. Here's how!
I designed and laser cut a screen-swappable wooden phone for my baby to play with!
Here's how to make a per-letter fade and blur effect on any HTML element's text with just one CSS class and a bit of JavaScript.
I spoke at Chicago's biggest mechanical keyboard meetup!
Using tools like #changes (and others) can make your Copilot workflows much easier.
You can make your GitHub Copilot Chat responses match your preferences with custom personal instructions. Here's how!
Developer experience is changing, because humans aren't the only ones doing development work anymore.
Saying yes to ideas and requests is fun, but isn't always strategic.
I built my own solution for social sharing images for my blog, and you can too!
Sometimes Puppeteer fails during Netlify builds or in serverless functions, but there's a couple options to fix it!
I built a website for Alinea's 20th anniversary, and it was a cool learning experience!
Kids do really say the darndest things.
I made a date-sharing app called PocketCal. Here's how I did it!
What is flattening an array, and why would you do it? I'll tell ya!
If you want a custom-styled icon for HTML date/time types, there's some options for you.
I had a c-section recently and delivered my second baby! It was a lot.
I'm no longer writing the Stack Overflow newsletter or on the podcast, but it was fun while it lasted!
I've been asked a few times about the keybindings I use in Visual Studio Code. Here's a list!
When you want your images to look good in Markdown on GitHub, you might have to adjust for the UI around them.
I traded in my iPad for a new one, and wanted to share all that I wish I knew!
It feels like everyone is talking about how the Model Context Protocol is a big deal... but why?
I really cannot "do it all" right now, but I can do some. A bit.
Sometimes you just want an image to be more in your face, you know?
How do people do this everyday?
Our world of instant gratification and convenience has made us impatient and... kinda lazy.
I do too much thinking about what I want to make, and not enough actually making the thing.
It's amazing how reading the docs is actually effective. Who knew?
Here's a CLI command for helping you convert a screen recording in VS Code from dark mode to light mode!
When your Git commits are not in the right order, never fear, rebase is here!
You can use CSS to add some simple functionality to HTML elements!
I hacked together tools to make my app live once again!
You can edit files directly, make new ones, and mooore with Copilot!
2024 is over, let's recap.
A metaphor for the building blocks of web development.
Don't be sad that Blogvent is over, be happy that Blogvent happened. Here's all the posts I wrote this month!
Being able to potentially win things is one of my favorite things.
I love the Obsidian plugin Dataview, which lets me index and query my notes!
One of my favorite Obsidian plugins is Templater, which lets you create reusable templates in your notes vault!
Why is everyone so dang busy? Stop that! I am tired!
I made a couple browser extensions this year that have saved me time and frustration!
If you want to flex your funny muscles, come on down and see how I do it!
I like nice pencils and pens! But only a totally reasonable amount!
I've enjoyed being able to show my new team who I am... with documentation!
Life is too short for ugly XML.
If you have an Astro website needing some updates, here's a technical peek about what you need to know for version 5.0, Collections, and globs.
This blog is getting some much-needed updates to keep it running smoothly!
Even when the comment section is tempting, it's better to step away.
Every so often, opinions about developer relations swing around, and it's my turn to share MY current opinions!
The small details in everything, from code to life itself, are worth noticing, if we choose to.
Passively learning a given language can work, but active effort takes you far.
How do you value your time? How do you track that?
When you do more manual work, it can be slow, but more valuable than you think.
For my 33rd birthday, please enjoy some partially written jokes
You have a unique voice, and you should use it to build what you can.
Writing content for developers can be challenging, and there's some tips that might help.
I put some tools together to make something handy, and you can do the same!
Sometimes we take notes just to have notes, rather than for a purpose.
You can limit how people interact with your repositories to fight spam!
Planned depreciation of hardware is annoying when you don't need a new device.
Sometimes the new and shiny thing is way more fun than the thing that I genuinely want to ship... later.
I've been working at GitHub for two whole months!
I tried out the Waymo driverless car service and it was pretty nice.
Being a puzzle editor is fun, but incredibly hard, thankless work, and it's time to move on.
Never take sleep for granted. Never.
You can build your own Copilot extensions now! Here's how to make them and test them.
It's good to have some side quests and passive hobbies in your back pocket.
I keep busy, because I know no other way!
How karaoke preparation turned into self-discovery, through singing lessons!
The browser has some nice built-ins for building a microphone recording component, so you don't have to use third-party libraries!
The way JavaScript assigns and references variables is sometimes weird, let's learn why.
You can layer CSS gradients as background images, even for text! Check out how I did it for making a marker-like highlight.
Here's my current recommendations and gear for traveling to events as a techie!
I like being able to do things without relying on the algorithms and connections in the world!
I built myself a digital typewriter!
I should make more money, right?
It can be a pain to put in more effort on job applications, but it takes you further than you think.
Cassidy's current "stack" of task-tracking, calendar, and note-taking apps
I spoke at Figma Config 2024 in San Francisco!
What is a girl to do when her startup goes kersplat? Why, she blogs about it, of course!
Sometimes I am floored by how much money some people have.
I went to Berlin for the first time and spoke at The Merge, a developer experience conference!
I don't actually have anything to say, but I want to type on my keyboard right now
I merged my personal website and my blog into one beautiful baby—er, website.
I spoke at Front-end Design Conf in St. Petersburg, Florida, and it was great!
The internet today reminds me of when I used to live in Seattle.
New parents often are given very baby-oriented gifts, and here's some that are more about them.
Brandon Sanderson books have brought me back to loving a good adventure story!
I built an app for generating Form W-9s for U.S. contractors and freelancers, here's how!
JavaScript can't target pseudo-elements, but that doesn't mean you can't mess with them!
Using the power of Supabase and Netlify Build Plugins, I was able to make Jumblie a bit cleaner under the hood!
I took a workshop from LinkedIn about how to post well, and they had helpful insights!
Here's a step-by-step guide for quickly testing browser extensions locally in Edge or Chrome.
If you're tired of your git branches being alphabetically sorted, you can change that!
If you want a quick styling win, you can set a color for your input and progress HTML tags!
Make your HTML more "self-aware" with a fun little trick to get its own index.
Sometimes the defaults your web browser gives you aren't very cute. Here's a lil snippet I use to fix that.
Just a little ranty rant about my fave JS library, ya know.
Where are my internet friends? And where are their weird blogs?
Today is the 100th Jumblie puzzle day!
I tried out the ElevenLabs Beta!
Cassidy Williams, this one, here, is the real one, don't listen to the others!
2023 is over, let's recap.
Here's some advice around stock options and why they are... the way that they are!
This is how I publish to my Git-based blog straight from Obsidian (kind of)
Sometimes our success is pushed to the side when the conditions aren't right, but that's okay.
I can't "do it all" right now, but I can do some. Sometimes.
Here's how you can add single line breaks in your markdown documents!
I've got some gift suggestions for the nerds in your life!
I built Jumblie, a jumbled word search game. Here's how!
I found an unexpected use case for the newly, fully supported :has() selector!
I participated in the 2023 Chicago Rapid Open!
You can add co-authors to the TinaCMS bot now more easily
When you render lists in React, you need to use keys.
I made a game called Thirteen Potions for js13kgames, here's how I did it!
I'm trying out TinaCMS to make it faster and easier to post here!
When you want to call an API at runtime in an Astro component, you have to import it in a different spot!
Sometimes you want to be able to credit others in a single Git commit, and luckily that's possible!
Astro is the latest framework on the block that I've really been liking!
The shows that I've watched during my maternity leave
A letter to my past self about the roller coaster of emotions I've been through.
We should build and use software that uses open standards, and be careful about the companies in which we place our trust.
Sometimes when you have a bunch of anchor tags, the trailing spaces around them are underlined. Here's how to fix that.
Learning to focus on what I did do, rather than what I didn't.
I had a c-section recently and delivered my first baby! It was a lot.
If you need to set headers in your Astro site to deal with CORS or custom requests, here's a few ways how!
My current 'stack' of task-tracking, calendar, and note-taking apps
Memorizing quotes is probably one of my favorite easy 'life hacks'.
I am precious about stickers to a fault, so it was fun to do a little project to use one!
useEffect can be challenging to understand, and manipulating exactly when it runs is a good skill to have!
I love the weird things that remind you that you're home.
Making Netlify Redirects work with Astro is a quick one-line change!
I have a love/hate relationship with my GitHub streak.
Sometimes I can't really share what I work on, and I just gotta deal with that and be happy!
With create-react-app, it was easy to import SVG files as components. Now with Vite, you can do the same!
2022 is over, taking a lil look back on how it was.
I think in one language when I hear another, and... I have no idea why.
I've been at Contenda for about two months!
When you want to pass Markdown components to a non-Astro component (while using Astro itself), you need slots!
How to manage and document the collective knowledge across your teams
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet (but for real)
My vision sucks... for now, with LASIK on the horizon!
I learned a lot about moose and need to tell people, namely you, about them
A leader's guide to managing and reducing technical debt
Cassidy updated her Zsh prompt to have some fun colors, the date, and git information. Here's how!
Sometimes when you're working with the GitHub UI, you need to rename a folder before cloning it to your computer. Here's how!
Sometimes you just want those pesky newline characters to actually work!
If you don't want to use plain bullets, the ::marker psuedo-element is for you!
The power of being there for others
Cassidy's current "stack" of task-tracking, calendar, and note-taking apps
Updating your Next.js sites to have a language set for screen readers is important for accessibility, and only takes a few lines of code!
Why being instantly understandable can be an advantage.
Astro is the latest new framework that seems pretty dang nice!
They kept us in Suspense!!
Shallow routing isn't a deep topic. Heh. Heh heh.
A little update on how some of my learning is going!
It's always good to lead with pizzazz when you're ending a call.
Next.js is very, very serious and you should never, ever joke about it. Ever.
You must appease the SEO gods.
Babel presets and plugins help you add even more functionality to your code!
Both human and React children could use some help being understood.
There's pros and cons to calling APIs at different times!
You can use Netlify's snippet injection to add web monetization to any of your apps!
Where will your logs be? Depends on where you call them.
It's faster to deploy from CodePen to Netlify than it is to read this blog post.
Strict mode helps you, help yourself.
Environment variables in Next.js are pretty straightforward, and importing them to Netlify ain't too bad either!
Sometimes you'll want some styles that can be applied across your Next.js applications.
Don't be lost, don't be unfound, a 404 page gives you steady ground!
Get rid of those long, gross import statements in your Next.js apps!
Our team at Netlify loves coding together, remotely!
CSS only gets you so far, sometimes, when you want to pay attention to window sizes!
When things are server-side, there's some tricks to get back to client-land!
Hot module reloading has a new look!
Next.js allows you to both server-side render and statically generate websites. Why would you choose one over the other? Read and find out!
Ever wondered how you should manage state information across your Next.js applications without installing anything extra? Look no further!
Burnout is difficult to describe to people who haven’t felt it. But it was also a valuable lesson. Here's a few tips on how to take care of your ambitious self and avoid burning out.
Using cutting edge tech can help you move fast. But what happens when something breaks and you can't find experts with an answer? There are pros and cons to being a pioneer.
I made an emoji called mild panic and now you can buy it.
I can't wait to start writing for Stack Overflow's newsletter!
I made a cute little dessert out of pure CSS!
I had a blast speaking at these awesome events in Denver and Chicago!
I made a cool light switch toggle with CSS gradients and shadows!
Making things with friends is great!
I made a puzzle game where you need to get butter on all the pancakes in as few clicks as possible!
The Scrabble keyboard has been a passion project of mine, and now it's real!
Just released my latest side project with Electron, React, and Redux!
After a bunch of trial and error, I built and programmed my first mechanical keyboard!
This week was my first week at L4 Digital!
I did a writing exercise using a random Wikipedia page. And puns.
I've been learning about... learning lately, specifically subconscious learning. Here's what I've found!
I built a pure CSS text carousel because I couldn't find one I liked. Here's how I did it, and tweaks for later.
Closures in JavaScript are an important concept that all JS devs should know. So here's a summary for you.
I got the app Sketch Club and have really enjoyed making some fun drawings!
Push these sexy applications in his mind to spice things up and drive him nuts.
Using the Mousetrap library, you can add keyboard shortcuts to your React apps.
I made a Whitney Houston API. Because why not.
I get a LOT of emails from people asking to "pick my brain." Here is how I wish people would approach this.
I've been at Venmo for a year!
The PNG file format has been around forever... sort of. Not really.
The CSS Image Values Spec allows you to cleanly blow up pixel art on the web.
Finding a mentor isn't always as explicit as it seems.
From the negatives we see and experience online, together we can create positives.
I had my first hackathon experience as a Venmo employee this past weekend, and boy was it fun!
I'm leaving Iowa State in a few weeks, which is both a bummer and very exciting.
Some people don't know how to ask for help. Luckily, there's a proper way to do it.
Public speaking is the number 1 fear out there. Let's conquer it together. Lovingly.
Too often people go for the biggest and best laptop out there, when there are reasonable, affordable options. Let's talk about it.
We had the first ever Iowa State hackathon!
Interviews are scary, but they don't have to be. When you're on the spot, it's best to be prepared. Let's prepare you.
As much as I'd like to say that your looks will get you far, sometimes actual information is good to know too.
You might question CS as a major, but I'm here to tell you not to!
I love getting feedback from people. You learn most from it.
I spoke at TEDxDesMoines, come hear what I had to say!
Don't be fooled, I'm coding on Valentine's Day.
This is part 1 of a two-part tutorial for beginners as an introduction to HTML and CSS.
This is part 2 of a two-part tutorial for beginners as an introduction to HTML and CSS.
Here's some of my favorite mashup music of the year!
These are some great quotes that have really helped me out!
People should know what you're about!
What if you could study exactly what you wanted to?
You should be doing that thing. You know that.
It's not too bad to start building the phone app of your dreams!
Because we've all panicked about this at some point or another.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease!
Networking is one of the most important skills you can develop!
I went to PennApps to hack some apps and take some names!
Sometimes you don't feel like you're good enough, and that you're fooling everyone. You're not alone.
We built some fun things at Startup Weekend!
It's the mathiest day of the year!
My sister and I were so thrilled to be included in such a cool event!
My sister and I got some exciting news!
I'm at a huge women in tech conference!
I got to check out the Seattle Facebook offices for their summer hackathon!
I had an incredible day!!
I am a real Spaniard now!
I have an eye disease! I love drawing, though.
I'm studying computer science!
Here's some great free software!
Someone made a wearable keyboard!