This week was one of those “lots of small things that actually matter” weeks. Instead of coding, I was doing the media rounds. This was a super fun week, but also tiring. I don't see how those daily streamers do it.

Live Streaming

This week, I went on two separate live streams, and they are always a little uncomfortable. You cannot edit mistakes away, and you have to think on your feet. But that is exactly why they work, and something can't replace. Yet!

The first one was with the Laravel Cloud team. We swapped the Laravel News site from Forge to Laravel Cloud live.

Thankfully I didn't expose any secrets from the .env file or anything bad. We also over provisioned everything just to make sure we wouldn't have any issues. So I have some work to do to bring those down.

The second live stream was with Laracon India that is happening at the end of the month. This one was different because we had four people on the stream so we had to make sure no one talked over each other. But I think it turned out pretty well and Vishal asked some great questions.

The more I do this, the more I am convinced that live formats are one of the best ways to build trust. People see how you think, how you react, and how you handle things when they do not go exactly as planned. I've already decided I'm going to move my Laravel Creator Series over to doing it live. I think this will help me get them out quicker, and also be a little fun. Plus real time questions from the audience would be fun.

Hitting the 600th Laravel News Newsletter

This is a big milestone. This weekend will mark the 600th issue of my weekly Laravel Newsletter. I made a little short video to celebrate:

🍻 Here's to 600 more!

Laravel News Partners

On Laravel News we make money through partnerships with companies and I'm always looking for ways to bring them more value. One idea we tossed around this week was to try scrolling partner logos (stock ticker style) in our videos. The first one is an interview I did with JMac. I don't think it's too distracting, but it might be if this is a tutorial or code heavy video. This is still a WIP.

That's all for now! Next week I'll have my first live stream that I'm hosting and then I'm off to a little golf trip Wednesday - Sunday. It's supposed to be freezing so send me warm thoughts. 🥶

We’ll be live-streaming from the conference, with coverage during breaks and lunch throughout the event. I’ll be hosting the stream, talking with attendees, interviewing people and companies, and sharing what is happening on the ground. Everything will be done live, in real time.

Over the years, Laracon EU has become one of the most important gatherings in the Laravel community. It’s not just about the talks. It’s the hallway conversations, the side discussions, and the shared sense that we’re all building this ecosystem together.

This year, we wanted to lean into that energy and make more of it visible.

Here’s what I’m most excited about:

• Live streaming directly from the event
• Talking with people from across the Laravel community
• Highlighting companies and tools already supporting the ecosystem
• Sharing more behind-the-scenes moments than we usually do

If you’re attending in person, come say hi. If you’re watching remotely, I’ll be sharing links and updates as we go.

This is an experiment, but it’s one I’m genuinely excited about. I think it’s a great way to bring more people into the Laracon experience, even if they can’t be there in person.

With ScreenFlow, you can use a freeze frame to hide your mic from your talking head scenes.

I've seen the following graphic shared on social media by a few people, and it got me thinking about how my life is the reverse of this.

I have more close friends in my 40s than in high school. All because I enjoy playing golf. Not only do I get to spend hours outside, but we talk about things you'd never imagine bringing up on the internet for the world to see. Beyond the close connections, it also has enormous benefits in knowing people in a wide range of industries. 

Let me give you some examples of local friends:

My truck had a rattle, so I took it to the dealership; they spent 10 minutes looking and said it was fine. It wasn't! Then I took it to a friend who owned a garage, and he spent half his day finding it and fixing it.

One day, my eye was hurting, probably from too much computer time, but I have a friend who is an eye doctor, so I texted him for his opinion.

The heat or A/C goes out in my house. I've got a guy.

I now know someone in almost every industry in my community.

• Electrician
• Chiropractor
• Accountant
• Mortgage Broker
• Real Estate Agent
• Investment Adviser
• City Manager
• Banker
• Beer distributor

Of course, life isn't about what others can do for you but what you bring to the table. However, just by having friends, I've gotten free tickets to sporting events, concerts, and even vacations. ​

I'm mentioning all this because the older I get, the more I realize the importance of getting out of your comfort zone and meeting people. Most are actually nice.

My friends over at the Cheese and Weather podcast were curious what Livermush is and how to cook it, so I made a little vlog :)

As I came into work this morning I went to pull from GitHub and hit the error:

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
@    WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED!     @
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
IT IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY!
Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)!
It is also possible that a host key has just been changed.
The fingerprint for the RSA key sent by the remote host is
SHA256:randomchars.
Please contact your system administrator.
Add correct host key in /Users/username/.ssh/known_hosts to get rid of this message.
Offending RSA key in /Users/username/.ssh/known_hosts:1
Host key for github.com has changed and you have requested strict checking.
Host key verification failed.
fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Turns out GitHub had discovered that GitHub.com’s RSA SSH private key was briefly exposed in a public GitHub repository and more details are in their announcement:

The fix was easy, and I just removed the “GitHub” line from .ssh/known_hosts so it was regenerated. But you can also follow along in that article for updating it manually.

I’ve been playing around with Laravel Filament Tables and as I was building a really complex table with multiple filters, I noticed that I wanted to see what the query being generated was. So I hacked together a little thing to show it:

If, for some reason, you ever wanted to do this, I added a “getDebugSqlProperty” method on the Livewire Component that was taken from this tweet:

public function getDebugSqlProperty(): string
{
    return array_reduce($this->getFilteredTableQuery()->getBindings(), function ($sql, $binding) {
        return preg_replace('/\?/', is_numeric($binding)
            ? $binding
            : "'".$binding."'", $sql, 1);
    }, $this->getFilteredTableQuery()->toSql());
}

Then in the view call this Live computed property like this:

<pre><code>{{ $this->debugSql }}</code></pre>

Happy hacking!

This still holds up 12 years later. Sadly, more true now than even back then.

Golf is hard but that’s why I enjoy it. One day you could play the best you’ve ever played, the next day it could be the worst. To me that is the fun of it. As an amateur I’m always trying to get better and with golf being an individual sport it’s you against you. Of course, you can enter tournaments but even on the tour they are basically competing against themselves until the final few holes.

To make things fun a buddy and I that have about the same game started a new year long event where we try to birdie all 18 holes at our local course. The first to do it wins, and so far neither of us have came close. To help me track this any spreadsheet will work, but Notion is almost perfect with the way it’s designed.

I set up a simple table and then check boxes for each hole I birdie throughout the year.

It’s just a neat way looking back on your results and seeing what holes are your nemesis. Last year I was four away and three out of the four I’ve never birdied. So I have a lot of work to do for this year.

I remember loving playing video games when I was just a little lad. I’d stay up and play Doom on my Sega when I was supposed to be in bed. Then having nightmares of a monster saying, “it is well hidden,” before murdering me. My parents never understood why I loved video games and why I’d rather play those than go outside. Honestly, I still don’t understand but I chalked it up to just being the way I am.

Now, as a parent, I get to experience the same thing. My kids love certain games and I am terrible at them. So I get to lean on them to help me play and solve the puzzles. A lot of it boils down to me not having unlimited time to dedicate to them, but another part is I’d rather them experience the joy that comes from teaching me.

As parents, we are expected to teach and lead our children, but as they grow, more can be taught to kids by reversing the roles and letting them become the master in certain areas. Video games are one of these ways. What better enjoyment as a parent than seeing your kid light up as they explain something they’ve figured out without you?

A neat little excerpt of me from the filming of the Laravel Origins Documentary. Here are some of the behind scenes photos I took that day:

This was super fun to be a part of and thankful to OfferZen for letting me have the chance.