Diagnosing High CPU in Unrelated Windows Processes Caused by Filter Drivers

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A monitoring agent, powershell.exe, and Process Explorer showing high CPU simultaneously may actually be caused by a kernel filter driver inspecting their file activity. Because minifilter pre-operation callbacks run in the context of the originating thread, the time is charged to those processes rather than the driver. The article describes checking privileged versus user time counters, a baseline comparison, and listing filter drivers with fltmc to identify them. It then explains how to map the driver file and vendor using Win32_SystemDriver, and use Process Explorer thread stacks with symbols to find the same third-party driver across unrelated processes.

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Analysis of SaaS website designs that drive sales and high conversion rates

A look at several well-known SaaS websites examines how their design choices aim to boost sales and conversions. Zendesk, a support ticket tool used by over 20,000 companies, pairs customer segmentation and oversized photography with playful cartoons to appeal to both enterprise and small business buyers. Campaign Monitor, an email marketing platform for web designers, uses a simple layout with a contrasting background to direct attention toward signing up for a free account. Basecamp's stripped-down black-and-white design, refined through extensive A/B testing, keeps the focus on its project management benefits, while Squarespace and Box.com rely on clean typography, white space, and content layouts that highlight key selling points. The article concludes that recurring patterns across these sites include solid backgrounds, strong contrast, and a customer-centric focus on core business benefits.

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Launch of MT26 midterms forecast uses separate Claude Code sessions with written rules and public grading

MT26, a free forecast covering all 506 US House, Senate and governor races in the midterms, was built and launched with several Claude Code sessions, each handling one job. The author describes shared logs, a written rulebook requiring their explicit approval for public posts and deploys, and a permission check that blocked one unapproved deploy. The forecast was fingerprinted and archived publicly before the first polls closed, so its results can be checked against it. The article also recounts errors found along the way, including a string-matching bug and a traffic count inflated by a scraper.

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Converting Word DOCX Files to Markdown with Python's Standard Library

Many organizations keep important content such as refund policies, onboarding guides, and SOPs in Word files, which are hard to use in LLM prompts or knowledge bases. Markdown preserves structure like headings, lists, and tables while being easier to chunk, diff, and review. The article presents a Python converter that relies only on the standard library, so it can run in CI jobs, containers, or serverless functions without installing packages. The tool reads the DOCX's internal XML to handle headings, formatting, links, nested lists, tables, images, and tracked changes. The author notes that the post is published by Appie.run, which offers its own Word conversion tools, though the script does not depend on them.

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Cutting an AI Agent's MCP Stack to Only the Servers It Needs

A guide from the Zenrows blog argues that trimming an agent's MCP server stack changes its behavior for the better. Each connected tool consumes context, and a crowded tool list can lead an agent to choose the wrong one, especially when two servers overlap in function. The recommended approach is to keep a single server per capability, such as Zenrows for web data and browser automation, Mem0 for memory, GitHub for code, and Supabase for databases. Remote servers connect via URL with OAuth, while local ones run as subprocesses through npx or Docker. The article presents these recommendations as a practical way to make agents more reliable.

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