What changed, and what it changed for you
When Formula Guide began, it was a scrapbook of commands I’d memorized to fix my own machines. No structure, no audience—just notes to myself. The first few posts were raw: copy-pasted from forums, with no explanations, no warnings about what could go wrong.
If you landed on a page, you either knew what you were doing or got stuck halfway.
Now, every guide starts with a question: *What happens if you run this wrong?* The site checks for assumptions upfront. A reader who opens a Linux terminal guide isn’t dumped into a wall of text; they’re asked if they’ve used `chmod` before.
If not, they’re linked to a 90-second primer before the main steps begin. Even the error messages are rewritten to point to fixes—no more dead ends.
| It used to be | Now it is |
|---|---|
| A wall of commands with no intro. | A guide that asks *why* you’d need this, then shows the safest way. |
| Screenshots of error messages with no context. | Code blocks with line-by-line explanations and common pitfalls. |
| Posts that assumed you knew the OS. | Guides that test your knowledge and redirect if needed. |
| No updates after the first publish. | Every guide is revisited every six months—commands, links, and warnings. |
The one that took years
The biggest waste was time spent fixing things that shouldn’t have broken in the first place.
For years, I’d write a guide to automate a task, then spend hours answering comments like *‘This didn’t work on Windows 10’* or *‘The script crashes if the file path has spaces.’* I’d patch the guide, but the next reader would hit a different edge case.
It was like debugging someone else’s code—except I was the one who’d written it.
The turning point came when I realized most ‘how-to’ sites treated commands like spells: *‘Say the words correctly, and it works.’* No variables. No real-world testing. I started recording every command I wrote, then ran it through a dozen setups—different OS versions, permissions, even simulated network failures.
It added weeks to each guide, but the comments stopped breaking. Now, a guide isn’t done until it’s been stress-tested on three machines that *shouldn’t* support it.
The cost? Two hours of testing per guide, now. And the trade-off: some readers complain the guides are ‘too careful.’ But the ones who actually run the commands? They don’t come back asking *why it didn’t work.*
Meet the author
I spent my teens disassembling my dad’s PC to see what made the fans spin faster.
By twenty, I was writing batch scripts to automate my school’s broken grading system—only to have the IT department shut them down because *‘students shouldn’t modify system files.’* I learned two things early: first, that most ‘expert’ advice online was either outdated or written by people who’d never tried the commands themselves.
Second, that the real problems weren’t the tools, but the assumptions about who’d be using them.
I’d write a guide, then realize I’d skipped the part where you explain *why* a command needs `sudo`—or worse, assumed the reader knew their way around a terminal.
The worst was a PowerShell script I posted for backing up files; it worked for me, but half the comments were from people whose paths had spaces in them, and the script just failed silently. I deleted it the next day.
What changed was the day I stopped writing for myself.
Now, I run Formula Guide to break down tech into steps that work the first time. Ramon Rivas writes every guide here—testing commands, fixing edge cases, and making sure the reader doesn’t get stuck.
The goal isn’t to sound smart; it’s to make sure the next person who Googles *‘how to fix a corrupted Windows update’* doesn’t have to spend three hours figuring it out.
What did not change
The site still refuses to explain things that don’t need explaining. If a command is straightforward—like `cd ..` to move up a directory—it gets one line. No fluff. The other rule that hasn’t budged: every guide must work on the oldest supported version of the software.
No *‘this works on Windows 11 only’* disclaimers. If it’s worth documenting, it should work for the person who’s stuck on an old laptop with no upgrades.
The tone hasn’t shifted either. No corporate language, no fake urgency (*‘Hurry! Learn this command before it’s obsolete!’*). The site exists for the person who’s Googling at 2 AM because their computer just blue-screened, not for the one scrolling through polished demos.
That’s the only thing that’s stayed the same: the assumption that the reader is already frustrated.
What is still being fixed
Right now, we’re rewriting the troubleshooting guides to include *what not to do.* Half the time, a ‘fix’ online makes the problem worse—like using `chkdsk /f` on a drive that’s already failing.
The next step is adding a ‘last resort’ section to every guide: the nuclear option, and when it’s the only thing left. It’ll slow down the guides further, but at least readers won’t brick their systems by following bad advice.
If you’ve got a command that keeps breaking, or a guide that’s missing something obvious, the contact page is the place to tell us.
Things that would help
- A command that works for you but fails for others—with the exact error message.
- A guide that’s clear but could use a real-world example (e.g., *‘How to use `grep` to find logs’* with a sample log file).
- A tool or shortcut you’ve built that solves a common problem no one’s documented yet.
The guides are grouped by category: App, Coding, Hardware, Operating System, Outlook and PowerPoint.