Because I had to focus solely on the documentation than on the development for the product documentation (like customising the documentation code for whatever reason) I had to go with the default theme or use any pre-made theme that the tool supports natively without 0 edits from my side.

All three content format are in MarkDown and stored in .md files.

MkDocs is by far the oldest among the three and very widely used in the past. But I found customising the look and feel a bit overwhelming. I had to edit not just CSS but config files. If you are using the existing default theme or a pre-made theme like material, then you’re good to go. Maybe if I had spent some more time editing theme source files I could’ve achieved the desired output - but time was a contraint.

Pelican is a really cool tool - but its under-rated - it has a plethora of read-made themes at https://pelicanthemes.com but I didn’t find any super good design-wise. I feel like, designers seem to be excluded from this project. Had there been some designers this would showcase cooler looking themes. One theme I particularly like is papyrus which utilised pretty new stuff - https://github.com/pelican-themes/papyrus - Papyrus is a fast and responsive theme built for the Pelican site generator. It is styled using Tailwind CSS. It supports dark mode as well as site search via a plugin. Other themes can be found at https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes

Docusaurus is by Meta (Facebook) and is therefore 100% React based and has no server-side dependency since the build creates a directory of static files that can be deployed to any host that does not support any server-side processing like GitHub Pages and Amazon S3. Design-wise, the default design itself looks awesome and has a default content that we can use as a boilerplate to edit. has a nice page showcasing sites using Docusaurus which looks good - https://docusaurus.io/showcase - and for documentation for users to read as a tutorial and/or for reference should look ultimately good UI wise since its sort of a manual. And there is a plugin to convert to PDF : https://github.com/jean-humann/docs-to-pdf - this does not seem to be exclusive to Docusaurus but all the examples shown relate to Docusaurus only.

I ended up using Docusaurus which has a faster launch life-cycle.

Also my former colleague mentioned this to me : “I personally love Docusaurus; very user-friendly as compared to other static generators out in the market.”

PS 1 : I loved the UI of gitbook (gitbook.com) but I couldn’t get the open-source version of GitBook (https://github.com/GitbookIO/gitbook) to install & run (Module not found: Can't resolve '@gitbook/emoji-codepoints). But if you’re not looking for self-hosted one and are ready to pay for a managed one, then try GitBook’s paid plans as a service.

PS 2 : If you don’t want to code in MarkDown and / or you’re not a tech person to write docs other than in Word, then you must checkout writage.com which is a one-time paid ($29) plugin for Microsoft Word that you can export your documentation from Word DOCX to .MD format.

Find the interval in which f(x) = 3 − 2x + x^4 is increasing or decreasing.

Microsoft Co-Pilot :

Google Gemini :

Anthropic's Claude :

ChatGPT :

Does one still need an explanation as to why ChatGPT is far far better off ?

I used phpdocx.com about 8 years ago and it served the purpose really well. It's in PHP (7, 8) and they support a wide range of features of converting HTML to DOCX (and also to PDF). I didn't use the HTML to PDF conversion as mPDF does that well enough. But the to DOCX conversion is neat and pretty quick. But pricing of PHPDOCX makes sense only if your revenue is at a much higher level and not for startups esp if not funded.

Arrives ApyHub ! They claim to be "Introducing a New Era of Simplified APIs"

ApyHub’s HTML to DOCX is a direct drop in replacement for PHPDOCX (which was costing close to a thousand dollars). And an update to the next version would result in an upgrade price. On the other hand, an external API to perform document conversions eliminates the need to setup a software and run it locally or our server. At $10 a month subscription was a boon to reduce complexities and allows developers to focus on the core application development. And at $10 a month, you can perform 5M atoms / month and HTML to DOCX costs 120 atoms - so that's 41,666 conversions in a month. Pretty neat if you're not using any other API services which would cost atoms.

This would not seem feasible if the data you want converted should not be sent to an external service for privacy of data.

One thing I am not into is getting my hands dirty on a raw server. So I had to choose a control panel for these new Laravel projects. All have git integrations and all have a free tier which I won't be getting into. I assume this is for serious business and hence no free lunch.

Here were my options from which I ended up choosing ServerAvatar :

Laravel Forge : forge.laravel.com - this is right from the makers of Laravel ! Must be the #1 choice right? Maybe when they started but there are other players, who are solely focused on server infrastructure and provisioning that maybe it's worth checking others out too. Moreover, forge's plan starts at $12 a month for a single server and the business plan is at $39 a mo.

Ploi : ploi.io - Seems to be run by mainly one person from Netherlands, who contributes a lot to the Laravel project. They are even tightly integrated with Tenancy for Laravel - $199 SaaS boiler-plate code which is a multi-tenancy package for Laravel. Ploi's basic plans are at $10 a month and upto $36 a month for all features. They are actively on discord to lend support by means of chat.

MezoHub : mezohub.com - This is a new kid in the block from Bangalore, which restricts the user from viewing the control panel before connecting to a server provider like DigitalOcean, Linode or AWS, which I was reluctant to do in the first place. Their pricing slabs are $5 and $15 a month.

ServerAvatar : serveravatar.com - Surat-based company - but an amazing UI for their control panel - so much that I wouldn't be surprised if more effort was spent on the UI than on the code for provisioning servers and setting up the applications. They have a single pricing option which is at $6 a month which goes well for starting up. But instead of keeping a higher tier for their higher-end customers, they have a $100+/month support plan which I think is far more important and useful than having to upgrade to a plan that has more features. If any of the Laravel projects picks up big time, then the $100+ / mo customer support plan would be of immense use.

(How I wish this was a paid promotion article!)

I was to purchase a 16" MacBook Pro M2 MAX with 12‑core CPU, 38‑core GPU and 16‑core Neural Engine and 96GB RAM which was costing a bomb even after a ₹47,000 (~$575) student discount. Then I changed my mind to M2 Air and then I decided to wait for the M3 Air this year. But I kept wondering ... is it really worth to go for a $5,500 MacBook to supplement my existing 2018 edition 16GB/512GB i7 MacBook Pro ? I don't see any performance degradation on my current MacBook Pro and I only need to delete some files to free up space.

Then I came across a particular model on Flipkart that was well under ₹1L ($1200) - 12th gen i9, 32GB LPDDR5 RAM and 1TB SSD. I was like - this is min $4000 if you opt for the Dell Precision - only thing is, this model on Flipkart is from Infinix, a smartphone mobile manufacturer from China.

At first, there was a sense of doubt but I later realized that it's okay as long as the product features are good. It was a bet indeed and so I took the bet. I ordered the Infinix ZERO BOOK ULTRA Series Laptop Intel Core i9 12th Gen - (32 GB/1 TB SSD/Windows 11 Home) ZL12 Business Laptop (15.6 inch, Grey With Meteorite Phase Design, 1.80 Kg, With MS Office).

The design is superb and sleek - The keyboard has backlit keys but the keys are smaller when compared to a Dell or HP laptop (last I checked). Since I am not used to typing on a laptop keyboard, I have an external Dell keyboard and mouse. And since I intend on using the laptop as a desktop device I have it attached to an external Dell 27" monitor. The reason why I didn't choose a desktop (chassis) instead? There are power fluctuations in India (which is common) and if the power suddenly goes out I would not be able to keep the system on all the time long even when I have to go out for some errands. (Inverters would take more ground space and resources to maintain in the first place).

It has a fingerprint sensor to switch on the laptop either from off-mode or from sleep. My MacBook Pro requires the password when switched on from boot. But Infinix allows you to boot with the fingerprint directly.

One thing that kept me thinking was the username. I logged in to my already existing Microsoft account (which by the way cannot be a school / work Microsoft 365 account which was a bummer for me considering one of my primary domains is on a 365 account), a Hotmail account and everything got set up automatically which was a super smooth experience. But my username is anjan and not anjanesh which I would've preferred. No biggie, but I think the username was stipped from my Hotmail address which is my login by default.

I don't play games, so no comment on speed on that part. But this laptop doesn't have GPU which isn't so much of a bother unless I start doing something in Machine Learning.

I did install some 20 or so applications for web development. I am yet to install WSL since I would be waiting for Ubuntu 23.04 to be released this month.

This does come with the Home edition of MS Office which is more than enough for me.

I connected it to my iPhone 12 Pro Max via Bluetooth and it worked like a charm.

Recently I tried something very important to me - getting to use the frames (audio and voice) without the need for my mobile phone. I disconnected it from my iPhone and connected it to my Apple Series 7 Cellular Watch. When I went out of range from my phone (I even switched off my phone), I could listen to my music and take/receive calls with my bose frames via my watch! All this is possible because my frames connects to my watch via Bluetooth and Apple Cellular Watch has an eSIM which makes it work without the need for the iPhone. Now I can visit the gym without taking my mobile and still have mobile connectivity! The only issue at the gym was that the gym itself has loud music so it was a nuisance.

But elsewhere, it's useful when taking calls without the need to plugin something like airpods into your ears. Needs to be charged frequently because if you listen to music for ~2 hrs it drains to almost 0%. Actually, it would drain to 0% even if the bluetooth is on for a couple of hours. This is something I would prefer not doing - switching on/off bluetooth on the frames only when I need to connect. I keep my Sony WI-XB400 Wireless Extra Bass in-Ear Headphones's bluetooth on for almost a day without it getting drained out - but I couldn't get my Sony wireless connected to my watch without the mobile. But the frames seem to drain even when the bluetooth is simply on. This would be a bit difficult to manage for power users.

Boult is a Delhi-based audio hardware company.

The casing is a tiny bit confusing probably because of the black color I ordered. I removed the black airpods from the case immediately but didn't notice how it was placed. After checking it out I tried a lot to insert it back in but I found that there was insufficient space in the case for the pods to get in. I got confused - I didn't get to know how it sits in. After some time I noticed the tiny hole in which the pods' "handle" (can't find a better term for this) can get it. The reason why I didn't notice the tiny hole was probably because the entire casing is black and I didn't have sufficient light to notice it (the depth). Anyway, this is probably a one-off case and not for 99% of users.

I connected it to his OnePlus Nord 2T 5G mobile and it was seamless as always for most new Bluetooth devices. The sound is more than good enough for most use cases. The person I bought it for uses only one pod because he says that he can't hear anything from the outside when both are plugged into his ears.

Charging is like once a day for an hour or two max. So far so good.

How to clean it? In washing machine.

Since version 5.0 of WordPress in December 2018, it included a block-based editor named Gutenberg which allows users to customize the page's UI block-wise which can be worked upon by non-coders, and as a result, WordPress services started providing 'builder' services where one can customize a theme based on a builder's block HTML+CSS code within the admin instead of touching source files.

Here are a few of such famous 'builders' where which include starter kits (themes) if someone wants a jump start or else building one from scratch without necessarily touching a pre-made theme file.

I haven't used most of these - people I have associated with in the past, who are digital marketing gurus, use these extensively and got some feedback, so my reviews would be non-first-hand. Most of them have a trial, so please see which fits your requirement. If you are a freelancer or an agency then try going for the lifetime plan.

Elementor - most popular for a very long time - $59 a year per site - oldest in the market, famous for its ubiquitous drag-n-drop

WP Bakery - $56 for a single WordPress website

Elegant Themes - $89 a year OR $249 lifetime, both for unlimited sites

Kadence WP - $129 a year OR $699 lifetime, both for unlimited sites

WP Astra - starting at $47 a year OR $227 lifetime for unlimited sites

Brizy - $49 per year for a single WordPress website

Zion Builder - $39 for a single WordPress website OR $249 lifetime for unlimited sites - newest in the market, makes use of VueJS and claims to make the application and rank high on PageSpeed.

For WordPress, I recommend a combination of DigitalOcean and ServerPilot. DigitalOcean is a server service provider and ServerPilot is a 3rd-party cloud control panel for DigitalOcean. The most economical plan on DigitalOcean is $4 a month and a WordPress site on it via ServerPilot is $5.50 per month - it's actually $5 per DigitalOcean server and $0.50 per WordPress site, so it would be $9.50 per month for one WordPress site, $11.50 per month for 5 WordPress sites and $14 / mo for 10 WordPress sites.

The company behind ServerPilot has 2 WordPress products - datashuttle and heatshield - which are worth looking into for WordPress sites for your clients if they are seriously looking into security.