DEV Community: José Aponte

The perseverance, commitment to my dreams and goals as a programmer

José Aponte — Sat, 14 May 2022 00:15:29 +0000

In 2020 I quit my job as a programmer in a company I was working for 8 years. I got tired of the mess, the conflicts between the departments and clients (because many managers and supervisors are focused on the money). I had a laptop (a Lenovo ideapad 330s). I assembled a small table, took a plastic chair, a cheap rgb keyboard/mouse and that was my first workspace.

Hey! It was better than the bed. Trust me!

Later, by november of that year (still 2020) I got some money from my first client as freelancer. I used the money to buy a new monitor and a weird desk from a friend. That desk is weird because one of the tables unfolds and you had like an L table workspace. (I'm sorry for my bad english). Oh! I bought cheap wireless keyboard, mouse and headphones. I was in a "Wireless" trending mode. Not very efficient at the moment. Please, ignore the white case at the bottom. That was my first linux server. I also bought an ergonomic chair.

I used that setup for a year. By the end of 2021 I upgraded my pc from the laptop to a cheap gaming PC:

Ryzen 3 3300X
Nvidia GT 730 (I know, the lowest of the lowest).
I a small UPS

I also upgraded my keyboard, mouse and headset:

Keyboard Kumara k552 with Outemu red switches.
Mouse logitech g102
A razer headset (sorry, I don't have the model right now).

I was happy because I could work better and play the same old games with better graphics.

A week later I finally bought a decent desk CubiCubi and cool black/green keycaps for my kumara keyboard. I also bought some cheap rgb speakers.

By the end of April 2022, I changed the speakers: Bought a logitech speakers with subwoofer, a led light strip and a desk lamp. This is my current setup:

Bottom line is: My current setup is somehow what I imagined when I started working as a freelancer in 2020. And I know I will keep improving my workspace and room. I will paint the room next week, for example.

I really wanted to shared this because I want to tell you that you can achieve your goals if you have focus, conviction and will!

Who's listening LoFi Girl on Youtube at High Resolution?

José Aponte — Thu, 05 May 2022 03:41:04 +0000

I like to listen to this stream (Lofi Girl) a lot when I'm programming. The thing is: I always set the resolution to 144p. I have a good internet connection but I don't like Youtube to be bufferiing a video on high (or even normal) resolution if I'm not watching.

So, I just want to know if there are people who listen to music on Youtube at high resolution ( 720p or More) and why.

Happy Coding!

My keyboard is TKL but my fingers heart is 75%

José Aponte — Tue, 03 May 2022 02:11:36 +0000

So, here's the thing: I have a Redragon Kumara K552 mechanical keyboard. It's a TKL (tenkeyless) layout and it's my first modded mechanical keyboard. I really don't like full sized (100%) keyboards because I'm very lazy (I don't want to move my right hand to the arrow/navigation keys when I'm coding). It's annoying because I just started to type using the 10 fingers typing method.

I was thinking on a temporal solution for this and I remembered my good ol' pal AutoHotKey! It's an automation scripting language for Windows. Basically, you write a script specifing a keyboard shortcut as a trigger. Then, you code what the script will do after that trigger.

In my case, I wanted to keep it simple: Move the navigation and arrow keys to the alphanumeric area.

Shortcut Configuration

R.Alt + u => Ins
R.Alt + j => Del
R.Alt + i => Home
R.Alt + k => End
R.Alt + o => PgUp
R.Alt + l => PgDn
R.Alt + w => ↑
R.Alt + s => ↓
R.Alt + a => ←
R.Alt + d => →

That way I can use my right thumb to press the R.Alt key while using another finger to get the second key I want, keeping my hands on the alphanumeric area.

AutoHotKeyScript

<^>!i::
Send {Home}
return

<^>!k::
Send {End}
return

<^>!o::
Send {PgUp}
return

<^>!l::
Send {PgDn}
return

<^>!u::
Send {Ins}
return

<^>!j::
Send {Del}
return

<^>!w::
Send {Up}
return

<^>!s::
Send {Down}
return

<^>!a::
Send {Left}
return

<^>!d::
Send {Right}
return

If you're like me and do not have a 75% (or less) keyboard layout, then you might find this useful! Give it a try and let me know what worked for you 😉

To move or not to move

José Aponte — Mon, 02 May 2022 05:00:21 +0000

I currently have my website and web applications on my Hostinger account. Yes! That means it runs on LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) server.

Last year I started working on a mobile project for a client. It's a project that involves Flutter (for the mobile app), firebase and Angular (for the Admin site). I learned a lot about Firebase and its features, I recently started to think about moving all my apps and site to Firebase. The main items from my list of things hosted on LAMP are:

My Website.
My blog (Wordpress)
My project management system (Kanboard)
My store (Opencart)
The rest of websites and apps that are not relevant.

So, I have my concerns! The website is not a problem because it is a simple HTML 5 website and the contact form is managed by typeform.

The main concern is my blog. It is small (I have only 5 posts) but Wordpress is easy to use and I believe it handles the CEO good. If I switch, I might use HUGO and connect it to firebase.

For the store, I know I will have to build something integrated to firebase. And the same thing goes for the project management System (although the last one is more easy because it doesn't include the payment headache the store has).

I want to stop depending on PHP for these things and also reduce the cost. I'm paying ~250$ a Year on my current hostinger plan. Switching to the Blaze plan on Firebase will be a lot cheaper (a lot!) and I will handle the development. But I also want to see your opinions on this and if you think it's worth it.

Is it just my phone or Dev.to is heavy?

José Aponte — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 18:21:55 +0000

I have A Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini with the latest official update (6.0.1) and latest version of Chrome and Android Web View. I notice that Dev.to behaves good on the browser except when I swipe to open the sidebar (each one). The page starts to lag until I close the sidebar.

This feature works good with other websites that I have visited. I want to learn about PWA and want to know if this is something related to my hardware limitation or something else.

Thank you in advance for reading :)