DEV Community: obiabo Immanuel

I Got Laid Off Recently, So I'm Letting Go of the Project I Believed In the Most

obiabo Immanuel — Thu, 08 May 2025 16:09:50 +0000

A tough pill 💊 to swallow.

A few months ago, I got laid off.

I spent the whole night trying to migrate a legacy codebase, wrestling with ancient Redux Toolkit patterns and chasing weird bugs, only to wake up the next day to a layoff I never saw coming. Long story. But that’s how quickly things flipped, both my day and finances.

Since then, I’ve been applying to jobs, following leads, and doing what I can to stay afloat, even diving deeper into Rust, building side projects like daemons and SDKs to keep growing. But there’s one thing I kept thinking about, a project I’ve poured months of love into: Potatoe Squeezy.

It actually started from a small birthday idea, why can’t people just tip you on your birthday via GitHub using Solana, maybe through a Chrome extension? The same way Telegram lets you gift Premium, or X fills your screen with balloons.

From there, the idea evolved: What if GitHub Sponsorships were global, borderless, and hassle-free?, That’s how Potatoe Squeezy was born.

Sponsorships are slow and gated, most bounty platforms delay payouts or feel overengineered, and even Buy Me a Coffee is too tied to fiat and borders.

So I built Potatoe Squeezy, think GitHub Sponsors meets Buy Me a Coffee, but borderless, crypto-native, and frictionless.

🥔 What is Potatoe Squeezy?

Potatoe Squeezy is a fast, no-hassle platform for tipping and rewarding open-source developers with crypto, and you don’t need in-depth knowledge of crypto to use it. Even my Abulito (grandfather) could use it!

It works in two ways:

🛠 On GitHub

A bot listens to issues and pull requests:

💸 Maintainers tag issues with a bounty (e.g., /bounty 10 USDC)
✅ When a contributor closes the issue, the bot auto-pays them ( They just need to add their Solana wallet address)

No setup, no dashboards, no friction. Just GitHub + crypto.

🌐 On the Web App

For non-coders or direct supporters:

You can tip anyone on the platform
🧠 No crypto experience required, contributors just link a wallet once
🔐 Payments are P2P, which makes them secure and fast. All you need to do is click "Tip User" and select or input the amount you want to tip.

It’s built to make supporting devs effortless, even for casual users or non-technical sponsors.

🌍 Why This Matters

Open source is global. Recognition and rewards shouldn’t be gated by borders, payment processors, or fiat systems.

Potatoe Squeezy was designed for GitHub users everywhere, whether you're a maintainer in Berlin, a contributor in Lagos, Manila, Buenos Aires, the Caribbean, or even the Arctic Circle.

If you’ve ever wanted to pay/reward someone for fixing your bug, adding docs, or helping out, this makes it easy, no matter where they are in the world.

💔 Why I’m Letting It Go

The truth is: I can’t keep it alive right now. With the layoff, my focus has to shift to finding work and staying financially stable.

So, I’ve decided to sell Potatoe Squeezy.

It’s live, fully functional, and at the MVP stage. Everything is clean and ready to be handed off:

🧱 Well-structured code (TypeScript + Solana)
💻 GitHub bot + web app
🧾 Docs and deployment guides

I would have loved to continue building it, as I am so bullish on it, but I’m biting the bullet and selling to get some funds to stay afloat. Yea, it’s a very difficult and hard decision.

I tried uploading to marketplaces like Acquire.com, but it was rejected because the project is pre-revenue and still in the early stage. So, here I am, reaching out to anyone who might be interested in taking it to the next level.

Potatoe Squeezy has also gotten some good traction: it was top 1 in the Web3 category of the week on Product Hunt in its first week of launch, and top 10 on the first day.

📬 Interested?

Check the project: [https://potatoesqueezy.xyz/]

DM me on Twitter: obiabo_immanuel

Or email: [rootkit.obiabo@gmail.com]

I’ll provide the code, docs, support, and a smooth handoff.

I’m open to all reasonable offers , I just want to see it in good hands and need some funds to stay afloat.

💼 Open to New Opportunities

I’m also actively looking for new opportunities. Feel free to check out my portfolio:

https://www.obiabo.tech/

And my GitHub profile:

https://github.com/yhoungdev

And Finally…

I’ve spent countless hours coding, debugging, and contemplating the meaning of life (and whether Solana will ever make it to $1 again). I truly believe in Potatoe Squeezy, and though it’s hard to let go, it’s all about passing the torch to someone who can take it further.

If you’re the one who’s going to take Potatoe Squeezy to new heights, I’ll be forever grateful and will always accept tips in the form of cat memes or Solana (both equally valuable).

And hey, if you want to sponsor me or fund me? I’m always open and available, like you can see the Burj Khalifa or the sun from afar, hard to miss! 🌞

Thank you for reading this far, you’ve earned a virtual high five. ✋

Take care, and may everything you touch turn into success (or at least some good coffee). 😄

How to check the speed of your internet on Ubuntu

obiabo Immanuel — Tue, 19 Oct 2021 08:07:51 +0000

sometimes when our browsing is going slow or moving slowly, we wonder what might be the cause of this, and will like to the speed of the internet.
so in this tutorial we are going to be checking the speed of our internet connection, we are going to use a tool called FAST. Fast is a package used for checking the speed of our internet connection

Installing Fast

we are going to install Fast from Snapcraft
so to install fast from snap
just open your terminal and type

sudo snap install fast

after the installation is completed just open your terminal and type

fast or you can also add the -u flag and this will calculate your speed

How to install Applications on Linux

obiabo Immanuel — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 16:09:12 +0000

Are you a Linux user and you have been looking for a way to install applications ?

Today we are going to learn how to install applications in linux

WHAT IS SNAP

Snap is a software packaging and deployment system created by Canonical for the operating system that use Linux kernel
Snap and it tool snapd works across all range of Linux distro

Installing Snapd in your computer

if you use Ubuntu 16 upward , dont worry you already have snap installed

but incase if you think you dont , you can install it this way ##### To installo snap you need to do this

sudo apt install snapd

now once snap is installed you can check the version , of the snap of have installed by doing this :

Open your Terminal ( CTRL + ALT +T )
type snap version once you press enter you will see the version

How to install apps from snap

snap is very easy and simple to use
installing apps in snap is via the terminal

steps

go to %[ https://snapcraft.io/ ]
click on the search bar , then search for the application you want to install

click on the app you want to install

once you are navigated to the app page
click on the install button , a drop down will appear

*now copy the installation code to your terminal

now press enter and wait for the installation to finish
After installation has finished it will create a desktop entry

Css variable explained for newbie

obiabo Immanuel — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 12:55:58 +0000

Have you have been in a scenario where you have lots of elements , but want them to have same stylings like ( color , font-size , hight , width e.t.c) ?

oooh yes

So what was your move toward the issue ? is it by giving them same sudo property ?

Nope ! The best answer or solution to that is by using CSS Variable

Now Lets get started

WHAT IS A CSS VARIABLE ?

A CSS varibales are variable used for reducing repetition in codes , with CSS variable you can write once and do many

HOW THE CSS VARIABLES WORKS

The CSS Variable works in a very simple way , and clean manner , the CSS variable looks like object in Javascript, and works like a varibale in Javascript also

UNDERSTANDING CSS VARIABLE.

the CSS variable is easy to understand , and in this tutorial we gonna break everything down

BREAKING DOWN

CSS variable is bound in a psudo element in css which is called :root ,
the :root element is where all your defined styles are kept ( wrapped in ) this is how the css variable looks like , below

THE BREAKING DOWN EXPLAINED HERE

As we said earlier the CSS styled values are wrapped in the :root element , and we said this is the element the holds the stylings we want
the :root holds all the css styles we want .
in the image above we defined some stylings inside the :root element , and the best things to store inside the :root ( css varibale are , colors , font-size ,background-colors e.t.c )

NOW LETS WORK WITH AN EXAMPLE

In this example we are going to store some list of colors in our :root element

  :root {
     --color:red;
    --color2:yellow;
   }

Now you can see the example above , inside the :root {} we stored our colors there , and there are 2 dashes(-) in frotn of the color names , those dashes are used to tell the :root {} that , this is a variable , hold it do nothing with it , till it is being called back ,
and lets share more light on what variables are in programming : Variables are containers used to hold different kinds of value.
so now the -- tells the browser that anything that comes before it is a variable name

THINGS TO NOTE

the things you should note are there are 2 dashes (--) that comes before the variable name , and after the values that the variable holds there is a semi colon at the end as usual

CALLING THE VARIABLES BACK TO ACTION

Calling the variables to action , means calling the variables back to render the values it holds .
check the image below

in the image above you can see something like this in the first line
var(--color)
NOTE: you can see the 2 dashes , but this time it is wrapped in a bracket ()
this tells your browser that render the value of --color to the property of color.
and when your browser compile it , you will see color:rgba(25,169,236); which is the color code for sky blue

CALLING THE VARIABLE TO ACTION WITH AN EXAMPLE

Let site an example on how the variable is being called to action , like you see above

   /* lets style a div */

  div {
            color:var(--color)
  }

now in the code you can see var() with the variable name inside ,
the "var" keyword stands for variable , and it can only receive a single parameter which is a variable name

    property:var(variable name )

that is how the var works

###### NOW LETS WRITE A FULLCODE BASE ON WHAT WE LEARNT

HTML ELEMENT

<div class="hashnode"> This is a tutorial on css variable </div>

CSS STYLINGS

  /* Lets declear 2 varibales in our root */
   :root {
       --learn:blue;
       --test:30px;
   }

 /*now lets style our div and call the variables back to action */
.hashnode {
     color:var(--learn);
     font-size:var(--test);
}

now when your browser compile this code , you see the CSS like this ,
.hashnode{
color:blue;
font-size:30px;
}

SUMMARY

###### CSS variables are used to hold different styles values ,
###### its write once and do many

the Joy of using CSS varibale is that you can write once and do many
once you edit one value it changes the rest properties associated to that variable

Deploying CRA to Vercel

obiabo Immanuel — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 12:49:10 +0000

Have you ever faced the issue of deploying CRA ( Create react app ) to vercel ?

yeap i do , i faced this issue for 3 days

How frustrating it is to deploy your app and the next thing you see is deployment error

its too painful and frustrating seeing deployment error , when you really need push your app to production

HOW VERCEL TREATS CRA

Vercel sees all CRA warnings and treats them as error , because process.env.CI = true

take a look at this frustrating photo below

i get pissed of and very angry and feel like braking my laptop screen , and i know you felt the same way too , no one likes errors

Don't panic , this is the end of it

be happy cause today you will put a stop to that

STEPS :

go to vercel

now import your CRA app from your github repo you wanna connect

now you will be taking to the deployment page

now click on SELECT to select the account you want

you will be taking to the main deployemt screen

now if we click on deploy it will give us some errors and result in deployment failed , cause my code has many warnings from CRA

`LETS PASS THE WARNINGS AND ERRORS AND DEPLOY OUR APP`

now lets deploy our app even with lots of errors from CRA

`NOW TO DO THAT`

now when you are in the main deployment screen

click on the `build and Output Settings` to open expand the other options

now in the build command input box where you see `npm run build` or `react-scripts build`

*now click the override button to toggle it on

*now you will be given the access to write in the field

*now inside the text field write `CI= npm run build`

*now click on deploy , to start the deploy process

* now wait for the deployment process to finish

Boom our site is ready