DEV Community: Tim Apple

Pin Dartpad for easy access

Tim Apple — Thu, 15 Jul 2021 11:40:22 +0000

I made a quick video showing how I pin Dartpad to make it easier to use. It was short enough to just make a quick video. I hope some of you find it useful.

Cheers!

Freelancing and your email?

Tim Apple — Tue, 08 Jun 2021 17:08:46 +0000

I was wondering what freelance and self employed devs do for email. Do you use a free service still like Gmail? Or do you host it with Office 365, Google Workspaces, or maybe something else. I was just curious to what seems to be the most common practice?

100 Days of Code Check Sheet

Tim Apple — Sat, 01 May 2021 13:40:34 +0000

I wanted to have a check sheet to hang on my wall to keep me accountable for coding. I saw some themed ones for Python and Web but wanted something more generic. So I just made one myself. I thought I would share it for those who would like to print one themselves.

Hundred Days Of Code Check Sheet

Cheers!

The State of Operating Systems (Controversial I'm Sure)

Tim Apple — Sat, 01 May 2021 00:56:52 +0000

Historically

So I've been around for awhile now, at least a few decades of adulthood. Most of that time I was a die hard Linux user. I had stints of using Windows, especially back in the "World of Warcraft" days. But most of my early years I was setting up PPP connections to my isp in Slackware. My opinions on operating systems has changed drastically now and I thought I would jot down what I am thinking about the topic at this time.

Linux

Linux my dear old friend. I used to defend you with all I had. No matter how difficult you were I would suggest you to everyone. Then as years went on the difficulty went away. I think most anyone can successfully get some version of Linux installed with very little effort. Not to mention it is fairly easy to find preinstalled on a machine if need be.

...But, I find most applications inadequate for me these days. All the best apps seem to be things created for other OS's ported over or they are just web apps anyway.

Linux is much more a toy to tinker with to me these days. Of course there is no denying it's versatility and performance on the server side, nothing compares to be honest. On the desktop though, it's to fragmented, the applications mostly to simple or to buggy. I just can't bring myself to use it consistently.

Now do not be angry with me. I do love it, it's just not for me anymore and I have become much less a freedom fighter in my old age.

Windows

The cursed enemy to all! Well not anymore. With close to a decade of new leadership this boat has changed course completely. Not that it's all rainbows and unicorns, but they are way more open, the OS is less buggy, and in general it's actually become a pleasant experience.

Now with WSL if I do need to scratch that itch I can. I mostly open it and sudo apt update && apt upgrade . Then I close it again. For development Python, Rust, Flutter/Dart, Node, and of course .Net all run native and well for that matter. Not to mention the new Windows Terminal really is an improvement. I like it much more than most of the Linux terminals I've used.

All in all, I gotta say I like them these days and will continue to use it as my daily driver.

ChromeOS ##

Isn't that Linux? Well technically it is, but it's pretty well hidden. This is my new love. I'm typing this on it now. It's fast, smooth, pretty much trouble free. The occasional time I do bugger it up I can literally reset it and be back to work in about 5 minutes.

On the Dev side, I can run GUI Linux apps on it. I actually run VSCode and Android studio on it for Flutter development. With the bonus of being able to run/test Android apps on it. I've also run Node, Deno and Rust on it no problem.

Needless to say, ChromeOS is slowly becoming my favorite and I spend just about as much time on it as I do on my main Windows machine. And again, if I feel the urge to see packages update I can run my sudo apt commands on it.

Android

This is my mobile operating system of choice, I really like the ecosystem, I develop for it, and a couple other reasons to be mentioned below. Besides the variety and price points I can get a real good phone at.

The Apple Ecosystem

So all the Apple stuff. Just because I share a name with them doesn't mean I have to like them. But I confess, I agree that they're hardware is amazing. I have used iOS in the past and it's damn good. But they are not necessarily the best. I find them more trendy than anything.

But the main reason I don't use them is elitism. I call myself a developer and I want everyone in the world, no matter where they are located or what their income is to have the opportunity to take advantage of whatever awful software I may create in the future. I really am not interested in using products that only the wealthier people in the world can take advantage of.

Mind you, I have nice things. And they are expensive. I use a high spec Surface Laptop. My Chromebook is a Pixelbook Go with real good specs. But I know anywhere in the world the hardware and OS are available to the general masses, maybe without the performance, but they can use the stuff.

Conclusion

So as you may have noticed, this was very opinionated. It's literally just where I am at with my computer use. I've used most operating systems and like and dislike things about all of them. I do think opensource and proprietary systems can coexist and that they both have their own unique places they fit in the world. No reason to hate either.

P.S. BSD people, don't feel bad. I've used your OS also. And an honorable mention for Haiku. Cheers!

Setup Javascript Dev on ChromeOS

Tim Apple — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 15:23:53 +0000

I recently bought myself a Pixelbook Go so I could play with ChromeOS and I was pleasantly surprised at how great it actually was. This made me want to do some development on it. The set up was pretty easy and I thought I would share it here.

The Chromebook is an actual Linux machine running Gentoo, but we still have to install a Linux VM to get access to Linux. Luckily they make this ridiculously simple on ChromeOS.

Go to your settings and look for Developers and you will see the toggle to install Linux.

It doesn't get much easier than that. You just wait a minute or two and let it do it's thing.

Next we can install Visual Studio Code from this link. Just click on the link to download the .deb file as seen below.

Once you have it downloaded it should show in your Downloads in the file manager. You just then double click it and it will install.

You will be able to find VSCode in your Chrome Menu or through desktop search. You can run it and pin it to the taskbar if you wish.

At this point you can install your favorite extensions and be productive. But let's customize a bit and get Node.js installed and running.

Your Terminal app should be easily accessible in the ChromeOS menu. You can see it circled below.

Once we open the terminal we will be doing some text file editing so we will need to install an editor, I prefer nano.

$ sudo apt install nano

Next we will install the .zsh shell. I do this because it makes it easier to manage node with plugins.

$ sudo apt install zsh

Let's install a couple tools to make sure you have them also.

$ sudo apt install wget git

Now we install Oh-My-Zsh
$ wget https://github.com/robbyrussell/oh-my-zsh/raw/master/tools/install.sh -O - | zsh

$ cp ~/.oh-my-zsh/templates/zshrc.zsh-template ~/.zshrc

$ source ~/.zshrc

We'll add the plugin 'zsh-autosuggestions' this is very handy by using past commands to help you auto fill future ones. The command for install is..

$ git clone https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-autosuggestions ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-autosuggestions

And zsh-nvm will help us keep a current node install and even change versions if needed.

$ git clone https://github.com/lukechilds/zsh-nvm ~/.oh-my-zsh/custom/plugins/zsh-nvm

Once you have done all of the above commands we will edit our .zshrc. First make sure your in your /home directory by typing cd and pressing enter. Next run nano .zshrc.
we want to add the plugins we installed earlier. This is a little further down the config. Just enter them as I have in the picture below.

Once this is done you will press ctrl + o to write the file and ctrl + X to close nano.

Now type source .zshrc to load your plugins and theme.

And now we install the LTS version of node simply by typing nvm install --lts

Now you can create a directory in you Linux environment using the terminal or your file manager. Then just right click it to open in Visual Studio Code.

You should be more than on your way now. If there are any details I may have missed let me know and I'll edit this document. I hope it helps. ChromeOS is very nice and light with battery power lasting ages. Great for when your out and about.

9 April 21

I learned that syncing your VSCode is troublesome. The issue is no key-manager installed by default on the ChromeOS vm. This fixes the issue and seems to add the least amount of packages.

sudo apt install gnome-keyring

Rustacean does Javascript

Tim Apple — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 14:24:38 +0000

To be honest I am not the most stable person when it comes to what software and tools I use. I tend to be a bit emotional and biased on my choices. As of late I have changed up my Javascript environment to be a bit more Rusty. It's a language that facinates me and I have become quite the fanboy of it. So since I mainly do web development, I like to keep rust as close as I can. So I have made some changes to how I work which makes things much more Rusty.

The first change I made is replacing my default shell with Nushell. The reasoning behind it.

It's written in Rust
It's cross platform
It's easy to install
It's got major geek cred!

My second change is moving from node to Deno for my Javascript environment. I am mainly running little scripts and such, so the main difference for me is I go from typing node script.js to deno run script.js. Of course deno run is a little more typing so I have already made an alias that has me just typing dr script.js.

So far, my work is the same, nothing else has really changed other than the above. It's almost not noticible at all. I just get to have that warm fuzzy feeling that I'm running a bunch of Rust all day. To those who will complain in comments, yes I know this post is a little pointless, but it's fun.

If anyone is really interested in this, I can do a post on getting it all setup. It's pretty simple.

Install Rbenv and Ruby on elementary os, quick and dirty.

Tim Apple — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 18:03:35 +0000

I couldn't find a solid set of instructions on how to do this so I decided to write it up quick. I did find a lot of tutorials for Ubuntu, but they seemed to encounter errors on elementary OS.

This is basically a lot of copy paste. I've gone through all the steps on elementary and it works like a charm.

cd
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/rbenv.git ~/.rbenv
git clone https://github.com/rbenv/ruby-build.git ~/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build
Open your .bashrc with nano nano .bashrc
make sure you type or past the following lines into the bottom of your .bashrc

esac
# rbenv
export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(rbenv init -)"
export PATH="$HOME/.rbenv/plugins/ruby-build/bin:$PATH"

ctrl-o to save
ctrl-x to quit
source .bashrc
rbenv install 2.7.1
rbenv gloabal 2.7.1
Verify ruby -v

From here you should be able to install Rails or any other gems you wish.

Like I said, quick and dirty. I hope this helps people so they don't have to dig around as much for instruction.

--Cheers Tim

Linux commands that work in Powershell by default.

Tim Apple — Fri, 22 May 2020 16:17:58 +0000

Some people may not realize there are a lot of Linux commands that work within PowerShell. I thought I would list some of them for people to try. In the future I will do a write up on each one individually. For now, let's just get familiar with them.

cat - Lists contents of files to the terminal window.
cd - Change directory
clear - Clear the terminal window.
cp - Copy file
curl - Retrieves information and files from URLs or internet addresses.
date - Shows current date
diff - Compares two text files and shows differences between them.
echo - Prints a string of text in the terminal window.
exit - Exit your current shell.
finger - Shows information on user.
find - Search for files.
history - Brief list of the last few commands you have used.
kill - Kill a running process.
ls - List the files and folders in the current directory.
man - Show man pages.
mkdir - Create a directory
mv - Move a file or directory.
ping - Tool to help verify network connectivity.
ps - List running processes.
pwd - Prints current working directory to the terminal.
rm - Remove a file.
rmdir - Remove a directory.
ssh - Connect to a remote computer.
tar - Create archives.
wget - Downloads files served with HTTP, HTTPS, or FTP over a network.
whoami - Find out who you are logged in as.

Please play around with these in your terminal. Let me know if there are any I may have missed and I can add them.

Things I found most exciting today for Microsoft Build 2020

Tim Apple — Wed, 20 May 2020 01:27:37 +0000

I did my best to participate in Microsoft Build today. It was rough trying to work and pay attention. But I picked up on a few really cool things.

Windows Terminal version 1 has been released. With a bunch of improvements.
Windows Terminal Preview release was also announced to go with Microsofts more recent habit of have insider and dev builds.
Windows Terminal Docs Page
Github's paid features are free. We can have unlimited private repos. There are some paid support features still.
Demos of Github Codespace were really impressive. Can't wait to play with this one.
Azure now has Jamstack services. Which come with a free year of service and a $200 Azure credit when you register.
Windows has it's own in-house cli package manager winget.

It really is an exciting bunch of stuff. Oh wait, did I mention.... WSL2 will be able to run GUI Linux apps possibly by the end of the year. They demoed it a little. Very cool.

The most exciting accouncements seemed to come from Scott Hanselman's keynote. As soon as there is a link to it I will add it here. Plenty to look into and a day and a half to go.

As promissed here is the link to Scott's keynote.

Keeping the shiny away!

Tim Apple — Sun, 17 May 2020 18:02:32 +0000

Where to start? I have been learning to code for the past year on and off. As they say life gets in the way. My main education comes from the wonderful folks at #VetsWhoCode. The focus being front-end development with Javascript. And I thank them so much. The reason for their choice is getting Veterans into the market as fast as possible with real world in demand skills. And it works.

My dilemma is the lack of love for JavaScript. It never has interested me, but I do see the value. And by no means am I going to veer from becoming a Javascript Ninja. But I do find myself more interested in Rust and Python.

So, my question is, what do you all do about learning what you must and what you want? I am thinking I will give myself one day per week to dedicate to my other interests. I am curious to how others tackle this dilemma. I am sure I am not the only one focusing on something they aren't quite excited about. I also know when learning two different languages can slow progress or create confusion.

What do you all do?

So I made a blog.

Tim Apple — Sun, 17 May 2020 03:46:08 +0000

So, I made a blog using the Stackbit integration here on Dev. I chose Gatsby, well because it's Gatsby.

The main reason I am writing this post is to see if it is pushing from here. And later I will edit this to see if an edit pushes.

So, lets see how it goes.

So this is the edit to see if it pushes here on the next day.

Sharing your project folder with Windows and WSL

Tim Apple — Sun, 26 Apr 2020 22:32:53 +0000

This is going to be short and sweet since it's not that complicated. The main goal is to operate in the same project folders whether you are operating within WSL or Windows itself. The side bonus is it's easier to keep your project folder backed up.

First thing, when I say project folder, what I am referring to is one folder I call Projects and I keep everything I'm working on in there. I do a lot of stuff that doesn't necessarily require me to be in the Linux Subsystem all the time, but I like to always work out of one directory whichever interface I'm in.

First off you need to make your Projects folder or whatever you would like to call it. Again, I like "Projects". I place it in my Windows user folder. It's a little more difficult navigating from within Windows to the subsystem. But from the subsystem to Windows is no problem. And there are some other benefits to keeping it on the Windows side.

Unless you have changed it, WSL usually defaults you to your Windows home directory instead of the Linux user directory.

So the first think we want to do is document that path..in mine it's /mnt/c/Users/timap we're just going to add our Projects folder to that path assuming you created it in your Windows Home. So, mine would be /mnt/c/Users/timap/Projects.

So what I do next is make an alias to my path in my .bashrc or .zshrc depending on which shell your using. The steps are the same.

cd - Brings me to my Linux home Directory.
nano .zshrc - Will open up my zsh config in the nano editor. You could also do nano .bashrc again if that was your shell of choice.

What I am going to do is goto the bottom of my config and create an alias, in my case using the work "projects" and I am going to have it point to that Windows home projects folder.

Then just ctrl + o to save and ctrl + x to exit. To reload your config you can just source .zshrc or source .bashrc depending on which one you were using.

So looking at the alias I made, now whenever I am in my Linux terminal I just type proj and bam! There I am. Also, when in a directory while using the subsystem you can type code . and it will open Visual Studio Code using that directory as a working directory.

So here are the two ways I work.

I open VSCode and navigate to my project folder the old-fashioned way through Windows and get to work, but no access to the subsytem.
I open up my Ubuntu install, type proj, the type code . and I'm doing the same as above but working through Linux.

The secondary benefit is I now sync that directory with pCloud. So I always have it backed up outside of just using git. Of course, it being Windows you could throw your projects folder in your Onedrive and accomplish the same effect.