Arnold Gamboa

I'm a weekend warrior. I'm a "bi-vocational" pastor, and for most who are not familiar with the term, that means I volunteer as a pastor of a Christian church but has a full time job. But on top of that, I also develop web apps, mobile apps and productivity tools on a weekends..

Have you looked into OpenClaw yet? It’s quietly changing how small businesses and creators use AI. Instead of constantly opening ChatGPT in a browser, OpenClaw is a private, open-source AI assistant that you fully own and control. Here’s why it’s becoming so popular: 💬 Native Access — You can text your AI directly from WhatsApp, Telegram, or Slack. 🔒 Absolute Privacy — Your business data and prompts never go to a third-party server. ⚙️ True Automation — It doesn’t just chat; it runs tasks and manages workflows 24/7. But there’s a catch.
If you run OpenClaw on your personal laptop, your AI goes offline the second you close your screen. To make it a true 24/7 assistant, you need to install it on a Virtual Private Server (VPS). If you have the technical chops to handle Linux, Docker, and API configurations, spinning up OpenClaw on a $10/mo VPS is one of the highest-ROI weekend projects you can do. If you don’t? I’ve got you covered. I handle flat-rate, end-to-end OpenClaw server setups for non-technical founders who just want the benefits of a private AI—without the tech headaches. Curious if OpenClaw makes sense for your specific workflow? Let’s figure it out in a free 15-minute chat. openclawsetup.arwendigital.net

You might have already figured this out, but my cheapo set up is a $10 VPS + Dokploy + Codex (riding on my $20 subscription). Safer, cheaper as Codex has a generous plan. What's your Openclaw stack?

I added three client stakeholders to our project management tool. Our monthly bill jumped. That was the moment I realized — per-seat pricing isn't a feature. It's a penalty for growing your team. Basecamp figured this out. Their Pro Unlimited plan is flat-rate, unlimited users. But at $299/month, it's priced for large organizations, not growing agencies. So I'm building ArwenHQ. Same unlimited-user model. Open source. Local-first, so it's fast. And at a fraction of the cost. I wrote about the frustration that started it, the technical bets I'm making, and what's still unfinished. Full post 👇 arnold.gamboa.ph/why-im-buildin…

A client called me on Christmas Day. Not an emergency. Just a demand — fix this, now — like a decade of work meant nothing. I fixed it. Then I walked away. Ten years. I built her business from scratch. Helped her through financial struggles. Absorbed unpaid invoices during the pandemic. Around the same time, another client I'd worked with just as long — a newsletter business — went through an ownership change after the founder passed away. I'm still serving them today. Same duration. Completely different relationships. Duration isn't loyalty. Some relationships persist simply because you haven't had the conversation that would end them. The Christmas call was that conversation. → Full story: arnold.gamboa.ph/good-clients-b…

The best client feedback I ever got midway through a project: "I've stopped thinking about it between our calls." Not because they didn't care. Because they trusted it was being handled. That's what good communication actually produces. Not impressed clients. Clients who stop worrying. Here's what made it work: — Async updates on Basecamp. Every decision, every question, on record. — Questions surfaced early. Before they became problems. — Weekly calls. Same time, every week, thirty minutes. — WhatsApp for anything urgent. Yes, including evenings. That last one isn't best practice. I know it. But after 23 years running agencies, here's what's true: clients who feel reachable trust you faster. A 3-minute reply at 8pm buys more goodwill than any status report. Communication isn't a courtesy you offer clients. It's a feature you build into the project. Design it before the work starts. Not after things get tense. 🔗 Full post on the blog: arnold.gamboa.ph/client-communi…

@PhillySharp1 @SpikeEskin That's accountability if OKC culture. He will only improve in that environment

@SpikeEskin coach also took him off the floor mad at him for his defense and he hasnt played since

Looks just like the stuff he did last year. Why do this when you can have him stand in the corner like a kid who is playing because everyone on the team has to play 8 minutes.

A client came to us with a broken e-commerce site. Hundreds of users. Crawling performance. Lost sales. Their diagnosis: "We need a full rebuild." Our diagnosis: the backend was fine. The frontend wasn't. So we kept WooCommerce handling the data layer — inventory, orders, products — and replaced only the front end with NuxtJS. Result: significantly faster load times. A shopping experience that actually converted. A profitable site — on a limited budget. "We need a rebuild" is a conclusion, not a diagnosis. Before you blow up the whole thing, find the line between what's broken and what's working. Then fix only what's broken. It's almost always a shorter line than you think. 🔗 Full breakdown on the blog: arnold.gamboa.ph/dont-throw-awa…

@ItsAlexhere0 Cloudflare

Devs, help me out—where do you usually grab domains from? Hostinger GoDaddy Namecheap Dynadot

23 years running agencies. Tried everything. I keep coming back to Basecamp. Wrote about why — and the two problems I've been silently working around for years. (Something is forming because of it) 🔗 arnold.gamboa.ph/23-years-runni…

3 years without writing code at work will do something to you. I started building again — evenings, weekends, whatever time I can carve out. AI tools made it possible to actually ship things. Documenting all of it here: arnold.gamboa.ph

@xoaanya Cloudflare.

Devs where do you usually buy your domains? - GoDaddy - Hostinger - Dynadot - Namecheap

Here's my new AI coding workflow ... and why -- Planning for a feature - Claude Opus 4.5/4.6 on Google Antigravity. I tell it to save the plan on an md file. Opus is like you senior engineer who understands the problem, the concepts, the solutions needed. He's bright. But expensive. Actual work - I switch to GPT-5.3-Codex. I ask it to read and follow the plan created by Opus. Codex is like your diligent worker. He's slow, but precise. If you ask it to do something for you, he'll do it without you thinking that he'll drop you in mid-air telling you he's tired, and maxed out -- just like Claude Sonnet 4.5. He's cheap but get's the job done. If I have some bugs that Codex couldn't figure out, I go back to Google Antigravity with Gemini 3 Pro. For some reasons, I feel like Gemini 3 Pro really is very good at finding solutions to bugs. It does things differently. You can say, it thinks differently, has a different strategy in fixing bugs. Actually if Opus is maxed out, Gemini 3 Pro is also really good in planning. That's my $40/mo work flow -- Antigravity $20 and Codex $20. I'm cheap. I'm just doing this on the side. I don't pay Claude Code's $100 or worse, $200. It just isn't worth it at this point. In fact, I can drop Codex and get Github Copilot's $10 so I can run Codex with it. That'll bring me down to $30/month. What do you think of this work flow? What's yours?

@vivoplt Convex has some promise. Things are done differently, it it does sit on top of PostgresSQL

Honestly, is there any alternative to supabase ?

I'm currently working on a SaaS that I will eventually open source. It's on early stage, so I'm still ok to do a tech stack pivot. Currently I'm on NextJS + MySQL. However, this app is websockets heavy. I thought for ease of development, @convex would be a great backend for this. The only problem I'm seeing is the developer reception. I'm interested to know how is the developer support in the Open Source community if Convex (in particular) is used vs traditional databases?

I've been using Basecamp for years and genuinely love it. I've tried Linear, Asana, ClickUp — they all feel pretty similar to me. Powerful, sure. But also bloated with features I'll never use. Basecamp feels different. It's simple, opinionated, and just works for small teams and agencies.​ But after years of use, I'm hitting real pain points. It's great until it's not. Things like: No time tracking Limited reporting Clunky calendar (everything's an all-day event?) No cross-project views Can't see team workload I keep thinking about building an open-source alternative. Something that keeps Basecamp's philosophy — simple, calm, focused — but fixes these gaps.​ Self-hostable. No vendor lock-in. Built for small teams that want power without complexity. For those using Basecamp (or struggling with other PM tools): What are your biggest pain points? What features do you wish existed? Where does your tool break down? Genuinely curious what's working and what's not. If there's real demand, I might actually build this.

@KDTrey5 @bballbreakdown .@KDTrey5 replying to Twitter discussion is so much fun. 😆

@bballbreakdown I observe that you’re wrong. He told the ref that I was passing and I shouldn’t be shooting free throws…it’s all good bballbreakdown, we all make mistakes

LaMelo observes that KD "don't pass the ball" and asks KD to acknowledge this. KD finds it funny.

Transform your Easter preparation with 10 ready-to-use AI prompts for sermon planning, visitor follow-up, Holy Week services, and volunteer coordination. churchprompt.directory/blogs/10-essen…

@PlayoffDude 😭

“Top 5 defensive rating leaders in the NBA: 1. Jaylin Williams 2. Ajay Mitchell 3. Chet Holmgren 4. Cason Wallace 5. Isaiah Hartenstein” Look at how they’re getting away with all these fouls. 💀

@heyblake regubrief.com GDPR Enforcement Intel 24-48 Hours Before Mainstream News

Drop your project URL Let’s drive some traffic

@territoryseeker @cristiancofino_ 😀😊😂

Infairness sa Filipino crowd, marunong sumunod sa rules, hindi tulad sa Australian match ni Alex Eala na super wild cheer kahit napapagalitan ng umpire plus I love the attitude of the crowd, they really cheer also the opponent 😂🫶 #WTA125Manila