Category Archives: Ask J.D.

Claude Session Handoffs: How to Keep Context Across Conversations

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TL;DR: Even with memory and context compaction, AI assistants still lose the detailed state of your project between sessions. A simple two-file system plus a handoff prompt takes seconds at the end of a session and saves minutes of re-explanation at the start of the next one. This works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, or any AI assistant. Don’t want to read the whole post? Copy this one line. Paste it at the end of any AI session. That’s it:

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I Tested 13 Local LLMs on Tool Calling: March 2026

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I built a deterministic eval harness and tested 13 local LLMs on tool calling (function calling) to find out which models work decently well for agentic tasks. The result that surprised me most: a 3.4 GB model scored higher than everything else I tested, including models five times its size. If you’re running a local AI stack with Open WebUI, LM Studio, or any OpenAI-compatible frontend, tool calling is one of the key features that enables agentic behavior. It lets

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How to Make a Post Sticky in WordPress (Pin to Front Page)

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If you want to pin a blog post to the top of your WordPress front page so it always shows up first (regardless of when it was published), WordPress has a built-in feature for that called “sticky posts.” Here’s how to do it and a few things worth knowing. ⚡ TL;DR Go to Posts > All Posts, hover over the post you want to pin, click Quick Edit, check “Make this post sticky”, and click Update. That’s it. The post

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How to Drag Files into Claude Code in VS Code (Paste with Context)

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TL;DR: In the Claude Code VS Code extension, hold Shift while dragging a file from the Explorer panel into the Claude Code prompt box. This attaches the file as context so Claude can read and reference it directly. Without Shift, VS Code just opens the file in a new tab. Hold Shift and drag a file into the prompt. The “Hold Shift while dragging to drop files into Claude Code” tooltip confirms you’re doing it right. What Is Paste with

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How to Change Claude Code Effort Levels in VS Code (/effort)

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TL;DR: In the Claude Code VS Code extension, type /effort in the prompt box and press Enter to cycle through four reasoning levels: Low, Medium, High, and Max. Each level controls how deeply Claude thinks, how many tool calls it makes, and how many tokens it burns. On Windows, it’s just /effort, Enter, done. The effort level picker in Claude Code for VS Code. This shows Max with all four dots lit up. What Are Effort Levels? Effort levels control

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Gmail to Claude: Line Breaks Disappear on Paste (Fix)

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TL;DR: When you copy text from Gmail and paste it into Claude (or Claude Code), all your line breaks disappear and the text runs together into one giant wall of text. The fix: right-click and choose “Paste as plain text” (or press Ctrl+Shift+V on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+V on Mac). Your line breaks will be preserved. The Problem You’re working in Claude and need to paste an email from Gmail. You copy the text, hit Ctrl+V, and… all your carefully formatted paragraphs

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TurboTax Adding Rental Property Depreciation to the WRONG State Return

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TL;DR: If you file in multiple states and have rental property in TurboTax Desktop, check your Asset Entry Worksheets. TurboTax may silently add state depreciation entries for every state on your return, not just the state where the property actually exists. The fix: go to the Asset Entry Worksheet, scroll to the State Depreciation section, and set “Include asset in state return” to No for any state where the property is not located. The Problem I have a commercial rental

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Google Drive file won’t sync? (SOLUTION)

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Recently a client had a compressed .7z file that just would not sync in Google Drive desktop edition. It was a pretty normal backup file and was not huge (just a couple hundred MB and their internet connection was fast enough to back that up without issue). It just refused to sync. I retried, restarted and everything else to no avail. Eventually, I renamed the file and that FINALLY caused it to sync successfully for the client. ✅👍 Just posting this

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