This week has been a fun one in terms of tinkering with AWS and learning a few awesome tools for the platform. Unfortunately, I feel like I haven’t progressed much on JavaScript. I just finished Chapter 4, and I’m reading through the DOM chapter. Daylight savings “spring forward” has really messed up my internal clock. I am still locked in to the same time schedule, so the time shift has really messed up my sleeping schedule. My evenings have shifted from very productive to 1-3 hour naps, due to lack of sleep (going to bed at 2am when my body thinks its 1am, waking up to sunrise around 7am). I should really buckle down and fix my sleep schedule.

This weekend, I’ll probably be on the road most the weekend. Visiting family and running errands. I’ll probably have time to sneak in a few photo ops and find a hole in the wall coffee shop. Well let’s be honest, there’s a Starbucks on every corner…

This week has been a busy week for me working on AWS instances. I’ve picked up a few tools as a few issues have arisen on a few AWS instances I’ve been working on.

First issue that came up was a few bad queries that were hogging up system resources. I managed to recognize the queries that were causing the server to melt down and curtail the issue.

Outside of that, I’ve been looking at preventing brute forcers from hammering any forms on the web app. I reconfigured mod_security and implemented a few rules that will help curb the issue. I’ve also implemented a few features that will help prevent bots from hitting the forms, but obviously we still have zombies knocking on the door.

Yesterday evening, I didn’t get a chance to play with JavaScript. However, I did watch a few JS videos on YouTube I found to be very informative. Below are a few great videos.

I’m at the point where I am not 100% where to go for more resources asides W3C and continuing to grind through my JavaScript book. I have occasionally searched for YouTube videos on more advanced topics. LearnWebCode definitely caught my eye with his explanation of OOP in JavaScript, it really rekindled what I learned from PHP and got my noodle buzzing. I’m really starting to enjoy coding in my free time as part of my daily exercises. Just so that I don’t lose focus, my number one priority is to get through the JS book front to back before taking a step into a side project. I think my side project will be a custom WordPress theme that I can maintain on github.

Above is another hour long video from Derek Banas that I really enjoyed (the first 20 minutes) at the gym. I decided to put it on my Watch Later list specifically because I’d like to sit down and code along with him. He does get a little nitty gritty and is fast paced, so coding along with him will probably help connect the dots. Having the ability to pause and think is also a plus side too.

Another video I really enjoyed was actually a talk from Anjana Vakil which was held at JSUnconf 2016 about “Learning Functional Programming with JS” - this one really hit the feels and made me miss attending WordCamps. I really need to get back into attending local conferences and even setting aside money to attend conferences down in San Fran.

Jackpot Find

I also spotted a goldmine of a resource I found on Ycombinator - Teach Yourself Computer Science - literally an outline of all books and online lectures you can sponge out on. I’m actually considering spending the time and obtaining these books. Also check out the comments thread for more insightful commentary on this site.

I will occasionally post more interesting resources I find and tag them accordingly.

It’s the end of the week, time for a peaceful afternoon at the local cafe. It seems fairly busy today, probably because it’s not raining in Seattle. I’ve obtained an eBook version of Javascript & jQuery so that I don’t have to lug around a 15lb book (probability says it has a high chance of slipping out of my hands and knocking off an innocent coffee aficionado). I just realized that the ridiculously big typography of the book is great for a fablet screen.

The gf and I were talking about how we should both each buy Nintendo Switches, so that when we go hang out at the local cafe we can throw a LAN Party between the two of us as the local Amazonians scoff at us for taking up bandwidth.

Well, I completed Interactivity with Javascript by University of Michigan. Great introductory course on JavaScipt, it definitely left me hanging after Week 4. It felt fairly short, mostly educated you on how to use the DOM and understanding the basics. I am wondering if I should look into trying out other online courses like CodeAvengers.com - which seems to contain a lot more materials for online classes, including creating games in Javascript and also basic computer science courses. I really do enjoy these online courses, and I will still continue to chop away at my books.

A great thing about playing with a local sandbox repository and keeping this blog updated daily is I can keep track of how often I’m committing to my profile. 18 days in a row, I’ve spent a minimum of 1 hour playing with JavaScript. I would say I’m progressing slowly, however I can say I’ve completed all 4 Weeks of the JavaScript lessons on Coursera.

I’m at Starbucks right now, and since I no longer have a curriculum to work through I can finally sit down and read through more chapters of my JS book. I think how I’m going to do this is use directories for specific types of examples per chapter and reference W3Cschools for better understanding.

A colleague recommended I start using the Enki app for daily practice my knowledge on JavaScript and Git. Apparently I already have an account! I’m pretty sure I created the account back when the app was in beta. Right off the bat, I couldn’t recall a lot of this with Linux CLI and learned a few things I haven’t even seen in JavaScript books.

Another thing I’ve taken a liking for is listening to JavaScript or programming related talks while at the gym. I know I’m falling far behind on my typical YouTube vlogs, but meh, I’m really trying to go all out with JavaScript.

I’ve breezed through Week 4 of the Coursera JavaScript courses and I’m ready to start working on this weeks assignments. I really need to crank these out before Friday night. I don’t want to get distracted with the weekend and forget the assignments are due on the 12th!

The JavaScript book I’m reading through is very dry and the examples are garbage. I guess spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to make the examples work in a browser is what they want you to do even though they don’t really say to try it… they just give you lines of code that doesn’t function alone… like having to build a function or knowing advanced HTML5 and CSS3… Meh, I’m probably going to be pissed once I get to the jQuery chapter if they’re going to assume I know everything. #neckbeards

Outside of my daily JS exercises, I spent the day deploying garbage code. Apparently this premium WordPress theme my company bought queries WP admin-ajax.php with a massive string every time an individual visits the page. Multiple that by 2 (widget appears twice) and 465 individual ip’s during a slashdot - YEAH. It took a long time to figure out wtf was going on! First, 2 pointless sql queries were running. Axed them, database stabilized. After an hour, httpd was on fire with over 100 spawned instances. THEY WERE ALL BECAUSE OF THE AJAX QUERIES! SHIT CODE!

The bright side of this? That silver lining? I learned how to properly SSH into an AWS RDS and regulate, I also learned a few little tricks for quickly gaining access to the error_log and access_log on AWS EC2’s (standard AMI). Well well well, would you look at that? Full stack DEVOP live in the mix. Seriously though, I need to keep cranking away at JavaScript. They don’t pay me enough for something I could probably get triple the salary for…

I don’t know if this is the end, but it seems like a very grim and dark storm is heading inland. I am putting my head down at stepping major projects, I might rekindle them later in the Spring but for now I can’t stand to keep going. I spent so much time building these projects to inspire someone very close to me. It’s hard to do photography as a hobby and not have the drive. I built it for her, now it’s gone.

Back on the Pokemon Go grind! It’s been a while but the past couple weeks I’ve been checking Pokemon Go and picking up a few of the newer Pokemon. The app has greatly improved since I last played it (I believe last November?). I can’t wait for the spring weather to kick in for more walking / biking action. My favorite coffee spot has a pokestop next to it!