Tech Talk with Toni

 This iconic graphic mark cleverly morphs a traditional heart symbol into a subtle "L" for Lovable.   Lovable has heavily popularized the concept of "vibe coding" and this Sunday morning I decided it was finally time to try it for myself. I fought off the doomscrolling demons and searched YouTube for an hour-long Lovable tutorial. This is something I'd wanted to do since a free DataCamp session about it a month ago, but life kept getting in the way: work, travel, chores.  That's also why I haven't posted since May 31st ! But today, I'm bringing you my first published vibe-coded landing page: a site for a fictitious space exploration company I lovingly named Soucouyant  after the Caribbean folklore figure who sheds her skin at night and flies off as a ball of fire.  Felt fitting for a rocket company The prompt I used: Create a website for my space exploration company called Soucouyant. The color scheme is red and black. Make it include the following...

Feedback is the breakfast of champions   Imagine driving down the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway at 100 km/h. You don't just point the steering wheel straight, lock your arms, and close your eyes. You are constantly making micro-adjustments based on a continuous stream of visual feedback, whether it's a slight curve in the road, a pothole, or the car ahead tapping its brakes. Obstacles are inevitable... But the sooner we become aware of them, the smoother the drive! The world around us is constantly changing, and we need to keep our eyes open and adjust accordingly to avoid running off the asphalt. In an era where data and information are generated at breakneck speeds, cruising on autopilot is a massive disservice to yourself. To stay on the road, you must remain fully aware of who you are and what is happening around you. That constant adjustment on the highway is a real-time feedback loop in action: you take in data, process it, and adjust your behavior to stay on track. These lo...

“The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask yourself and others.”  — Tony Robbins Last Thursday, I attended CIBC’s Women in AI Event at UWI St. Augustine, and one of the most memorable parts of the experience was the Q&A session. The room was filled with thoughtful questions on topics such as data collection, AI history, performance metrics, and accountability. It was the kind of discussion that could have easily been its own event. While many of these topics were already familiar to me, it was refreshing to be in a space with women asking critical questions about the future of Artificial Intelligence. One question stood out to me most:  What are you doing to support the community when it comes to AI? That question stayed with me long after the event ended. Today, I’m using this blog post to reflect on that question and summarize three others raised during the session, blending key ideas shared in the room with my own perspective. F...

They open in the same app. That’s where the similarities end. As someone who works with large amounts of data (and has made a lot of mistakes), I'm writing this for anyone still fuzzy on the fundamental differences between Excel (.xlsx) and Comma-Separated Values (.csv) files. If you’re expected to automate data flows , please don’t ignore this one. This post is for you! On the surface, these two look like identical twins: Tomayto.xlsx Tomahto.csv But if you look closely, you’ll notice the first difference. If you noticed that Tomayto.xlsx is 7× bigger in Size than Tomahto.csv —you’re right! And here’s the key detail: both files are EMPTY . So, what's going on? They both look the same to us, but the computer sees it differently. 

  "You have not because you ask not" - James 4:2 Today’s inspiration comes from a recent conversation I had with a friend about AI. It took about five minutes for us to agree on one thing: AI is a supercharged dictionary. It retrieves, remixes, and summarizes information that already exists at blistering speed.  Where AI Shines (And Where It Doesn’t) AI is already doing useful, practical work across industries: In finance , it scans transactions for anomalies—very useful when you’re trying to spot fraud faster than a licensing officer giving out a ticket. In education , it tutors students on demand, explaining concepts in multiple ways without getting tired (or vex). In government and utilities , it helps analyze reports, policies, and data trends that would otherwise sit unread in a folder labeled “Final_Final_v7”. But notice the pattern. AI accelerates known work . It doesn’t decide what work matters. It doesn’t wake up one morning and ask, “Why does this system feel i...

"Life is hard, but that's what makes it interesting" - Dad It's time to break the silence once more! Things did not go as I planned, but it makes for a good story.  So you're probably wondering... " Toni, what happened? I thought you were coming back? " and to that I would say, I thought the same. I thought that I would get back in my groove and post blog 109 weeks ago! My simple hardware failure quickly escalated into a complex and costly international shipping disaster. It all started on November 7th at about 5 AM while I was clacking away on my keyboard, the display for my newly purchased Zenbook S16 decided that it was time to say goodbye. I made every attempt to reilluminate it by doing the famous "turn-it-off-and turn-it-back-on" trick and confirmed that it was a hardware issue with Asus Helpdesk. I still held a warranty , which was a relief. However, I had to send the laptop to the States so the manufacturer could fix it and send it ba...