Tools

Practical utilities for systems work

A growing catalog of small tools, dashboards, and experiments built to make troubleshooting and operational analysis easier to repeat.

Featured Tool

SARkart

A browser-based SAR/sysstat viewer for turning raw Linux and Unix performance data into charts, findings, timelines, and copy-ready support notes.

Performance triage without uploading data

SARkart runs in the browser and keeps parsing local to the user’s machine. It is built for support and operations work where evidence needs to become a clear next step quickly.

TypeScript Preact Plotly.js Linux SAR Client-side parsing
  • Interactive charts for CPU, memory, disk, network, load, and process activity.
  • Differential diagnosis and incident timeline views for faster triage.
  • Ticket-ready summaries, PDF export, heatmaps, and local-only analysis.
SARkart differential diagnosis dashboard with sample SAR data loaded

Catalog

Tools by category

Everything here is organized by the same four topics as the articles: media, networking, Linux, and AI.

Media

Video pipelines, codecs, and segmented streaming.

GOP Size Calculator

Find GOP and segment durations that keep video frames and AAC audio packets aligned for HLS, DASH, and CMAF — with exact support for NTSC rates like 29.97, plus an animated explainer of the math.

Open calculator

Networking

Switching, routing, transport, and the tooling to debug them.

Solar Power Calculator

Size off-grid solar + battery power for remote radio sites — equipment loads, days of autonomy, recharge time, NEC breaker sizing, and NREL solar data lookup by zip code. Born on a Wyoming WISP, where the tower sites outnumbered the power lines.

Open calculator

Linux

Systems administration, performance analysis, and observability.

SARkart

Browser-based SAR/sysstat viewer — interactive charts, differential diagnosis, incident timelines, and ticket-ready summaries, with parsing that never leaves the machine.

Launch SARkart Project page

linuxify-color

Turns the macOS terminal into a GNU/Linux one — the real GNU userland ahead of BSD on PATH, colored ls, grep, diff and man pages, an Ubuntu-style prompt, and an uninstall that only removes what it installed.

Project page View source

AI

Practical helpers built around models and automation.

In the works

Evaluation harnesses and workflow automations are being shaped into shareable tools. The useful pieces will land here as they stabilize.