Personal on Aamnah - Frontend Web Developer

Imposter syndrome fades away

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0500

Seems to be fading away after having watched videos from Computerphile on fundamentals of programming. Professor Brailsford is awesome. The Python course by Angela Yu and #100daysOfCode is already helping

Maybe what I really needed was stories instead of instructions, I enjoy the stories
Maybe what I really needed was to learn slow. Takes me around 3 hours to grasp 1 topic, or go through 1 day of code.
Maybe what I really needed was to force myself to do one thing at a time
maybe what I really needed was to accept that I am not a genius, and it is hard for me to learn new things
maybe all I needed to know was I need hard work instead of intelligence this time, maybe I am not that smart
maybe consistency is the real key
maybe all I needed was to realize I have limitations, accept my limitations and work on my self

I feel like I have knowledge no-one else has, no lady I know in real life or on the internets that knows origins of UNIX or gets excited by them as much as I do.. I’m not an imposter in my knowledge and fascination of Unix. The fascination is real.

Logitech G512 Carbon vs. GMMK TKL

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 11:43:04 +0500

Logitech G512 Carbon (Romer-G Linear)

Linear is definitely not my thing. Unintended presses even after one year of use
Got keyboard chattering after less than 6 months of use. It does go away if i stop using the keyboard and leave it around for 8-24 hours.. It still is a huge nuisance though. I’m a programmer, i can’t afford the Enter key not working or leaving it aside for 12 or so hours so that it starts behaving again.
Can’t customize the switches or keycaps at all after the purchase. Both the switch and the keycaps are non-standard
The market for custom Romer-G keycaps is pretty much non-existent

Switched to GMMK because of the keyboard chatter (keys not registering) and the typos

Notes on ukulele strings

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 23:25:24 +0500

Breaking in the strings

You have to break in the strings. You’re also like to hear a slight rattle till they completely break in.

This is true when you get a new ukulele as well as when you change your strings. You tune and play, they stretch, you tune again, they stretch, you tune again, they stretch and so on.. I think the first day i played my new ukulele i repeated this tune, play, re-tune cycle around 10 times the first day (1-3 hrs of playing). It’ll keep slipping out of tune for a few days..

Notes on The Creative Brain

Fri, 29 May 2020 20:51:52 +0500

So i watched this documentary called The Creative Brain.. because a) i am a creative, and b) i’m always learning something new.. Here are a few quotes from the documentary that resonated with me..

The world rewards specialization, but specialization comes at a cost. You learn more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing. Nathan Myhrvold

Part of that learning is you have to be confused. So, i’m very often frustrated and confused and think of myself as being really stupid, because i’m not getting it. Nathan Myhrvold

How much data do i need?

Fri, 29 May 2020 20:51:51 +0500

tl;dr: 1 minute of HD video = 1 MB. 1 hour of HD video every day = 17.6 GB of data in a month. Approximately.

This is my setup

iPad Pro
Zong Data SIM

I have a data sim in my iPad Pro, and i subscribe to a monthly internet package. I have tried various packages over the years. Sometimes it’s 60 GB/month, sometimes it’s 3 GB/month. Sometimes i max it out, sometimes i don’t.

Postman is awesome because

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 21:43:49 +0500

The UI is overwhelming and cluttered at first but you get used to where everything after a few hours and it doesn’t feel like the insides of an engine any more (i’m comparing it with the neatness of Insomnia)

Postman is awesome. Because:

documentation is effortless. it took care of everything automatically based on the requests i was saving in my collection.
collaboration is a breeze. i can publish my collections as templates for other people to use
other people, including more than a 1300 companies, have already created and shared their APIs on Postman. i can import an entire API collection published by someone else in two clicks.
everything syncs and stays up to date
all of this is free and cross-platform. I haven’t upgraded the account yet.

Documentation

It automatically syncs my changes and keeps generating a really neat documentation on the fly. I (and anyone on the team) can either make edits from within the Postman desktop app or from the Postman website.

C# - 30 Day Code Challenge

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 23:55:24 +0500

I’ll be doing 30 days (hopefully) of C#, starting with the course on Codecademy. I’ll be happy if i even manage to do two weeks though. A month is a long time to plan for.

Resources:

Day 9

May 18, 2020

Finished the fourth module of C# Fundamentals

Working with Classes and Objects
- Creating a Class
- Adding State and Behavior
- Defining a Method
- Defining a Field
- Adding a Constructor
- Requiring Constructor Parameters
- Working with Static Members
C# for JavaScript developers - part 3

Notes on building a custom mechanical keyboard

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 21:49:15 +0500

Stuff you need

PCB ($35-$60)
Case
Plate ($18-$40) (optional - use 5-pin switches and leave the plate out)
Switches ($3.85 for pack of 10, $5.15 on AliExpress - around $30 for 110 switches)
Stabilizers ($14-$19)
Keycaps

Optional

Teflon grease - $11 for lubing (plastic on plastic)
Dielectric grease - $7 for stabilizers

Software is also needed to customize the keyboard (e.g. QMK, Karabiner for macOS)

A DIY kit on KBDfans cost $129-$299

My first mechanical keyboard

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 11:03:21 +0500

The Logitech G512 Carbon with Romer-G Linear switches.

The reason i opted for a wired keyboard and not a wireless one is because of dual-boot. I have a Windows + Ubuntu system, with Ubuntu being preferred choice. Sometimes i boot into Windows to work on legacy ASP.NET projects. Bluetooth keyboards don’t get connected till after you have passed the GRUB. GRUB is that screen where you have to select between Windows and Ubuntu, and the bluetooth wireless keyboard doesn’t work on it. Meaning, i can not select the OS.. I have had this issue with both of my wireless bluetooth keyboards. (Logitech K480 and Logitech diNovo). So with my mechanical keyboard, i went for a wired one.

How i got this blog site up with Gatsby

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0500

I initially wanted to serve Markdown files, but then made the decision in favor of MDX because of it’s capability to render Markdown mixed with JSX.

1npx gatsby new blog.aamnah.com
2cd blog.aamnah.com
3npm run develop # start dev server http://localhost:8000
4npm run build # build production site
5npm run serve # serve production site you built, http://localhost:9000
6
7npx gatsby help # show available commands
8npx gatsby new help # show help for a specific command

Rendering Markdown files

We need a source plugin to source files from a folder, and then we need a transformer plugin to transform markdown to something Gatsby can query via GraphQL.

Working from Home during the COVID-19 Social Isolation

Tue, 17 Mar 2020 00:00:02 +0500

I have started working remotely from today because of the COVID-19 outbreak. Even if i’m young and healthy and do not fit the profile of people dying, i know and love people that do fit the profile and i don’t want to be the ignoramous who carried the virus to them.

So, brought my system home yesterday, spent some time setting things up, and now i’m sitting in my home office/bedroom writing this up.

Ukulele Notes

Sun, 08 Mar 2020 00:00:00 +0500

There are different sizes, which have names

Soprano (smallest, strumming)
Concert (chords and some single notes)
Tenor (more mid range, more bass, bit louder, longer neck is good for single notes)
Baritone (almost guitar sized - the size of a tenor guitar, bass, louder. The string tunings change. E B G D instead of A E C G on a Tenor)

Smaller doesn’t sound great, doesn’t intonate (stay in tune) well Smaller the body, the higher the pitch (more treble)