Blog
Posts on FOSS, AWS, n8n, IoT, cybersecurity, and what I'm building.
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Life Update
Eight months later: a busted laptop, no job, hackathons that saved my mental health, and the plan to start writing here again.
2 min readpersonalstudent-lifeMy First Mechanical Keyboard
Unboxing the AWS-prize mechanical keyboard - my first one ever - and weighing up future mods like the tempest tape mod.
1 min readmechanical-keyboardspersonalWinning and Losing
Winning the AWS Rift Rewind hackathon with a League-of-Legends-themed site, then frying my laptop swapping an SSD without unplugging the battery.
1 min readawsgamingpersonalLinux Installation Party
MUKTI's Linux installation party for students getting their first taste of a Linux distro. Full write-up on the FOSS United forum.
1 min readlinuxfossmuktiDay 7 of the Rift Rewind Challenge 1, Building a Website
Day 7 of the Rift Rewind Challenge: build write-up on a League-of-Legends-themed website using the Riot API. Live at gaming.praneel.tech.
1 min readawsgamingweb-devIndia FOSS 2025
Notes from India FOSS 2025: MUKTI updates and what we've been building, with the full write-up over on the FOSS United forum.
1 min readfossmukti
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Life Update
Eight months later: a busted laptop, no job, hackathons that saved my mental health, and the plan to start writing here again.
2 min readMy First Mechanical Keyboard
Unboxing the AWS-prize mechanical keyboard - my first one ever - and weighing up future mods like the tempest tape mod.
1 min readWinning and Losing
Winning the AWS Rift Rewind hackathon with a League-of-Legends-themed site, then frying my laptop swapping an SSD without unplugging the battery.
1 min readLinux Installation Party
MUKTI's Linux installation party for students getting their first taste of a Linux distro. Full write-up on the FOSS United forum.
1 min readDay 7 of the Rift Rewind Challenge 1, Building a Website
Day 7 of the Rift Rewind Challenge: build write-up on a League-of-Legends-themed website using the Riot API. Live at gaming.praneel.tech.
1 min readIndia FOSS 2025
Notes from India FOSS 2025: MUKTI updates and what we've been building, with the full write-up over on the FOSS United forum.
1 min read"Resist", The Resistance Checker
Resist is a Flask + OpenCV web app that reads resistor colour bands from a photo and returns the resistance value in Ω, kΩ, MΩ, or GΩ.
1 min readMy n8n Rabbit Hole
Falling down the n8n rabbit hole: automating blog publishing via Discord triggers and Gemini chat models, hosted in Docker on my laptop.
1 min readAI Automation with n8n
An n8n automation that writes and commits this blog post to GitHub end-to-end, with no manual git or browser interaction at any step.
1 min readDay 7 of AWS Builder Challenge #2,"How I Took a Next.js App to Production on AWS "
Day 7 of the AWS Builder Challenge: reflection and write-up on taking a Next.js app to production on AWS, ending a week of building in public.
1 min readDay 6 of AWS Builder Challenge #2,"Contact Form-Making Your Website Interactive"
Day 6 of the AWS Builder Challenge: wiring a Next.js contact form to AWS Lambda and SNS, and debugging an env-var typo that broke the whole flow.
3 min readDay 5 of AWS Builder Challenge #2,"Professional Deployment-GitHub, Amplify, and Modern Web Development"
Day 5 of the AWS Builder Challenge: connecting GitHub to AWS Amplify so every push auto-deploys, plus a custom 404 rewrite rule.
2 min readGet Your Free Domain with the GitHub Student Developer Pack (and connect it to AWS Amplify)
How to redeem a one-year free domain (.me, .tech) via the GitHub Student Developer Pack and point it at an AWS Amplify deployment.
3 min readDay 4 of the AWS Builder Challenge #2,"Global Distribution-Making Your Website Accessible Worldwide"
Day 4 of the AWS Builder Challenge: putting CloudFront in front of a private S3 bucket to serve a website globally while keeping the origin locked down.
1 min readSuccess
Switching this site from Vercel to Amazon S3 + CloudFront: Next.js static export, a URL-rewrite CloudFront Function, and cache invalidation gotchas.
2 min readDay 3 of the AWS Builder Challenge #2,"Web Content-Building Your Personal Website Files"
Day 3 of the AWS Builder Challenge: customising an HTML/CSS template with a dark-mode toggle and uploading the site files to a private S3 bucket.
1 min readDay 2 of AWS Builder Challenge #2,"Private Cloud Storage-Creating Your Secure S3 Bucket"
Day 2 of the AWS Builder Challenge: creating a private S3 bucket, uploading a file, and confirming public access is correctly blocked by default.
1 min readDay 1 of AWS Builder Challenge #2, "Secure Foundation-Setting Up Your AWS Free Tier Account"
Day 1 of the AWS Builder Challenge: setting up an AWS Free Tier account with MFA, an IAM admin user, and a $5 budget alert before anything else.
1 min readUpdate on this Blog/Site
Announcement: moving this site from Vercel to AWS as part of the AWS Builder Challenge, with planned improvements to design, performance, and SEO.
1 min readBuild your own blog from this template
A step-by-step guide to cloning this Next.js blog template, customising the layout and posts, and shipping your own personal site in minutes.
2 min readJava Based Command Line Interface RPG!
Building a Java command-line RPG themed around the Mahabharata to relearn inheritance, file I/O, and finishing projects with just the fundamentals.
3 min readSecuring Yourself Online
A technical guide to staying safe online: browser choice, uBlock Origin, Pi-Hole DNS sinkholing, DoH/DoT, and good security hygiene.
2 min read