Field notes from Petaluma, CA
What’s on my bench right now.
Field-tested tools, works in progress, and honest verdicts from 25+ years of building in IT. What it cost, how long it took, and whether I’d do it again.
01 / Notes
Latest from the bench
Build log
·
I built this site by talking to Claude
No agency, no WordPress expert. Just a voice conversation with Claude and the new Framer connector, with feedback as I went.
Build log
·
Running a private LLM on a Jetson AGX Orin
I tried running private speech-to-text and text-to-speech on a 64GB Jetson. It worked, but a one-to-two second delay told me a lot about when local voice AI makes sense.
02 / Projects
Things I’m building
Including the ones I shelved. Especially those.
Covered arena, rendered on site
Prototype
CAD floor plans in, a 3D render of a covered horse arena out, placed right on a photo of the real building site.
ChatGPT
sonomait.com rebuild
Live
My MSP site, rebuilt from a one-page static site into free tools, a blog, and a real lead source.
Shelley on exe.dev, running GPT-6.1 Sol
Virtual DJ
Live
Retro grayscale turntables in the browser. Load two MP3s, then scratch and mix.
Shelley on exe.dev
Agent memory bridge
Prototype
Long-term memory for my AI agents, with MuninnDB wired into Claude over a Tailscale tailnet.
MuninnDB · Tailscale · Claude
The Shortlist
Prototype
A vetted directory of IT providers, so small businesses can skip the guesswork.
exe.dev · Vercel · Supabase
Shelley-cli
Prototype
A terminal interface built on the open-source Shelley codebase.
Shelley · CLI
03 / Stack
Keep, Watch, or Skip
Every tool I’ve put real hours into, with a verdict. Updated when my opinion changes.
Claude Code
AI · Building
My default for building web projects end to end.
Keep
Littlebird
AI · Assistant
Screen-context assistant I lean on every single day.
Keep
Zo Computer
AI · Personal cloud
A personal cloud computer I build on, and a community I help run.
Keep
exe.dev
Dev · Hosting
Where my prototypes start before they earn a real home.
Keep
Framer
Dev · Sites
Building this site on it. Verdict pending.
Watch
[Tool you dropped]
[Category]
[Why it didn’t make the cut.]
Skip
Newsletter
Get the notes
A short email when I ship something, kill something, or find a tool worth your time. Written for builders and entrepreneurs.
04 / About
Hi, I’m Dave.
Petaluma native with 25+ years in IT. I run Sonoma IT Solutions, a managed services firm for small businesses, nonprofits, and schools across Sonoma County. I’m also a Zo Ambassador and co-host of Zo Computer Club SF.
My friend Shane told me to stop texting him every cool new tool and put them somewhere. So here we are.