DEV Community: Seema Saharan

Auth0 Ambassador Swags | Join the mission 🚀👩🏻‍💻

Seema Saharan — Wed, 27 Jan 2021 16:20:49 +0000

Developer Diaries [video]

Seema Saharan — Mon, 18 Jan 2021 11:50:49 +0000

I started a series called, "Developer Diaries" on my YouTube channel about 2 months ago, in which we discuss their journey, difficulties faced, life lessons, and students interact with them too, and till now I have interacted with 8 awesome developers, I personally learned a lot of things from them.

Guests

Shruti Balasa: Full Stack Web Developer, Mentor & Course Creator, Laravel Evangelist.

Her YouTube channel.

Harsh Bardhan: MLH Fellow • Developer Outreach @ Deep Source • Tech Lead @ DSC-SIST • Web Developer • Microsoft Learn β Student Ambassador • Technical Blogger.

Siddharth Dayalwal: Community Intern at Progate, a mentor at MLH Summer League events, Google Crowdsource Influencer, Coding Blocks Ambassador, and Lead Organizer for Hack This Fall Hackathon.
Vedant Khairnar: Dev, Founder@NeoVantium, Co-Founder@DevScript, Intern@Tesselate Imaging, Beta Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador, DSC RCOEM Core, AI Mentor@Tesseract Coding, FOSS enthusiast.

Akash Bhandwalkar: 5 years experienced Web developer with expertise in ReactJs, HTML, CSS. He is currently working as a Senior Software Engineer in Clairvoyant Pvt Ltd.
Francesco Ciulla: He is a YouTuber, JavaScript developer, and DevOps Enthusiast.
His YouTube channel.

Apoorve Goyal: Web Technologies, Scraping, Data Science Enthusiast, Mentor @HacOff 3.0, @L-ByDo, TechnicalSpecialist @devscript, Speaker.
Eddie Jaoude: Full-Stack Engineer with 15+ years of experience, GitHub Star, GitHub Star of the Year 🌟, DevRel, YouTuber Movie camera, FreeCodeCamp coach.

His YouTube channel.

Lessons I learned

Consistency is key.
In the beginning, the journey will be tough, but you have to carry on.
Open Source is very beneficial, for both learning technical skills and people skills.
Introvert people can do whatever they want.

Connect

You can connect with me on:
🎥YouTube
⚒LinkedIn
🧵Twitter
✍Hashnode
📷Instagram

My First Experience with TypeScript

Seema Saharan — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 16:56:30 +0000

I was going to start a challenge by MLH: Local Hack Day, and the challenge was to write Hello World in a new programming language, and I thought I have never ever worked or even saw a code in TypeScript, so I started exploring and learning about it, and I literally got shocked and amazed how it works.
Don't judge, haha, I am a noob in TS.

Why I got amazed?

Since browsers natively does not understand typescript, but they understand javascript. So in order to run typescript codes, first it is transpiled to javascript.

And when I compiled the program, it created a new file with .js, as it should be. This was the most shocking, I really don't know why, because I have never seen such type of working in any other programming languages that I have used. It was cool.

I just started with TS, so created my first program.

What is TypeScript?

“TypeScript is JavaScript for application-scale development.”

TypeScript is an open-source programming language. It is developed by Microsoft.
It follows JavaScript syntactically but adds more features to it. It is a superset of JS.

Feature of TS

Purely object-oriented, with features like classes, objects, and interfaces like Java
TypeScript supports other JS libraries
Any valid .js file can be renamed to .ts and compiled with other TypeScript files
TypeScript is portable

Running a TS code

Browsers natively does not understand typescript, but they understand javascript. So in order to run typescript codes, first it is transpiled to javascript.

tsc : is a typescript compiler(transpiler) that converts typescript code into javascript.

You can install tsc by running the following command:

npm install -g typescript

Write your first program

Create a file named "helloworld.ts".
Add these lines of code.

var greet: string = "Greetings"; 
var message: string = "MLH Local Hack Day!"; 
console.log(greet + " from " + message);

To compile, run the following command:

tsc helloworld.ts

This command will generate a javascript file with name helloworld.js

Run the javascript file using the following command on the command line :

node helloworld.js

Output:

Greetings from MLH Local Hack Day!

GitHub repo for the same

seema1711 / typescript-hello-world

Hit a ❤, if you are also new to TS.

You can connect with me on:
🎥YouTube
⚒LinkedIn
🧵Twitter
✍Hashnode
📷Instagram

Make your terminal powerful, and beautiful! | Zsh | Powerlevel10k theme

Seema Saharan — Sun, 10 Jan 2021 12:16:54 +0000

In this, I have explained all the steps that you require to make your terminal look better and powerful.

Commands:

seema1711 / All-YouTube-Projects

You can connect with me on:
🎥YouTube
⚒LinkedIn
🧵Twitter
✍Hashnode
📷Instagram

Make your first Instagram filter | #christmashackathon

Seema Saharan — Sat, 02 Jan 2021 09:33:40 +0000

This is my submission for Hashnode Christmas Hackathon, it was an interesting project, so sharing it here too.

Note: If you face any difficulty in seeing some GIFs then check the original blog here.

Final Product

Introduction

We all use social media like Instagram, Snapchat, and we must have used many filters too. And if you're in the tech industry, then you must have thought of making a filter by yourself, and you will be wondering how can you do that, right? Well, I have, and in this blog, I am gonna share how I build an Instagram filter on my own.

Prerequisites

You must have Spark AR on your PC/Mac.

That's it.

What is Spark AR?

Spark AR Studio is an augmented reality platform for Mac & Windows that allows you to somewhat easily create AR effects for mobile cameras.

Is it free/paid?

It is completely free.

Step 1: Download Spark AR

You can download the software from this website.

Step 2: SignUp/ LogIn

After downloading the software you have to log in to your Facebook account, if you don't have an account make one. Why a Facebook account?
Because Spark AR is a product by Facebook. Simple. :D

After login, you will find your screen something like this.

You can choose whatever option you like, but I am going to make the project from scratch.

So, for that, choose a new project, and then select the Blank Project.

After selecting Blank Project, it will look like this.

The screen that you are now seeing is called viewport, and you can move this by following some shortcut keys:

Ctrl (Windows)/ Command (Mac) key with Left key of the mouse: To move the whole scene.
Alt (Windows)/ Option (Mac) Key with Left key of the mouse: To move the view, where the man is visible.
Scroll bar or Ctrl+Alt (Windows)/ Commands+Option (Mac) keys: To Zoom in/out

Step 3: Applying the effect

There are many ways that you can add your desired effect:

Either search it on the AR library.
Or you can also upload any image, and use that as a filter.

For this tutorial, I am using the AR library to make you understand better, but uploading your own image is not much difficult.
So, to search in the AR library, just locate to File -> Search AR library.

After that, there are two sources for the models that you will use.

Spark AR Assets These are just 3 models.
SketchFab (for which you have to create an account) They are ready-made 3D models, which means you can just import them into your project. I suggest you use this if you are very new to this platform so that you won't get confused.

So, I will just search for heart for this project, but I will suggest you explore the library, there are 1000s of models available.
After I search for heart, it will prompt many results in front of me, choose whichever suits you the best.
I chose this.

And you can see here that there is a login option already available because it's provided by SketchFab, when you click on login, it will redirect you to the website of SketchFab, and you have to make an account.

After clicking on login.
Fill in your details, either use your Email or use your social handles to make an account. You have to choose a username too.

After doing all the above steps, you will see the login option will be changed to Download, click on that, and then Done.
Your asset is now imported to the project.

Step 4: Setting the position of Asset

Initially, it will look like this:

Now, the question is how we will show the heart in our project?
Well for that you have to understand one thing.

If you notice in this image, all the assets that will be displayed or visible on the scene are in a nested form.
Device -> Camera -> Focal Distance -> ambient light 0 and 1

All the things that you will use in Spark AR will be nested. And if you're already familiar with some programming, then it is easy for you to understand what nested means.

And if we want to show heart on the scene we have to put below Focal Distance
So, let's put it.
Before: In the asset section.

After: In the scene section.

But if you notice the whole camera is hidden by the heart, and the woman is not visible.
Now, we have to set the size of the heart.
You can move the heart like this:

You must be aware that there are 3 axes here:
X-axis
Y-axis
Z-axis
And if you've noticed here that when you're moving the heart, the values on the right section are also changing. That means you can also just edit the value from there too. Whatever method suits you the best.

I just like to move it, as guessing values can take a little more time, and time is important.

After setting the position of the heart, the next thing is to select the right color, and the heart's color is red (mostly).

You have to select materials in the right section and then select the heart. By default, it was material0.

After selecting the heart, you will see that the color is changed to red.

You can move the heart as you like.

Step 5: Adding a 2D text into the Scene

Now, if you want to add a 2D text into your project, then just right click on the scenes section, and you will see Add -> 2D Text. That's it.

The scene section is changed now. It has one more thing, i.e. Canvas. Under which it has one object called 2dText0.

And on the right side, you will see something like this.

Here, you can change the font, color, size, height, width, and many more things for your text.

First, we will change the text to Hello Beautiful People, it's the word I use in my YouTube videos. Do subscribe to my channel. :D

But after changing the text, it doesn't look good in our scene. The text is not properly written, to make it right, we will adjust the height, width of the text.

Pinning

Pinning a rectangle means it will maintain the same distance to its parent's border - however much you transform the parent.

Rectangles can be pinned to the top, bottom, left, and right.

Step 6: Testing

Before uploading the filter for the review period, you can test it out.
For that, you have to download the app, either on iOS or Android, i.e. Spark AR Player.
After downloading, go to user Spark AR on your laptop. Click on Test on the device.

After that, you will also get a test link copy that and paste it into your phone's browser.
After that, it will ask to login into your Facebook account, and it will open the Facebook camera, make sure to record that, if this is the final product, because the Facebook team will ask for a demo video for the effect.

Mirroring Effects to AR Player

Things you'll need

To preview an effect in the Spark AR Player app, you'll need:

To download and install Spark AR Player on either an iOS or Android mobile device.
To install iTunes on your computer, if you're using a Windows machine and plan to test your effect on an iOS device.
A USB cable for connecting your device.
Connecting your device

When you're ready to mirror an effect:
Connect your mobile device to your computer with the USB cable.
Open the Spark AR Player app on your device.

Step 7: Uploading and Review Period

Now, our filter is complete, and we have to upload it to either Facebook or Instagram. For that go to:

You will see this screen.

All the details must be correct, in case you have any error, then resolve it.
Now, there are two options:

Publish a new effect

That means you have made a fresh effect.
Update an existing effect

This means that you had already an effect, and now you want to make some changes in it or say you had some bugs that you want to remove.

For now, since it is your first effect, select Publish a new effect. It will start uploading.

After that, it will open a window in your browser, and you have to fill in all the details it asks for.

Final Product

So, this was my project submission for #christmashackathon.

Note: The review period is approx 10 days because the Facebook team checks all the effects manually, and if they find anything wrong then your filter will not be approved, and you have to make the changes accordingly, and again apply for the review period.

My filter will take time to get approved as I made this just now, while I am writing this blog, but after getting approved, I will update this.

Connecting an Instagram account to a Facebook profile or Page

To publish effects to Instagram, you need to have your Instagram account linked to the Facebook profile or Page that will manage the effect (the effect owner). The followers of the Instagram account linked to the profile or Page will be able to discover the effect in the Instagram camera while browsing through effects.

All Instagram account types (personal, creator, and business) can publish effects on Instagram.

Connect your Instagram account to a Facebook profile

If you just have one Instagram account and one Facebook profile, to connect your account to your Facebook profile:

Log in to your Instagram account.
Follow the instructions in the Instagram help center to connect your account.
Refresh Spark AR Hub to make sure the accounts are properly linked. If you’re still having trouble linking your accounts, try logging out of both apps, then, first, log in to Facebook followed by Instagram and repeat steps 2 and 3.

Future Scopes

There are a lot of things to learn in Spark AR, I have learned about patches, that can be really difficult to understand for the first time, that is why I tried to make it simpler, and if you want to start making any filters or effects make smaller and simpler ones because they are easy to understand and apply. There are a lot of things you can do.

Make a game, skin smoothing filter, object like you may have seen the filter with PS5, that was so real. So, you can make all of that. But as I always say, don't jump directly to the hard parts but do some basic things, and understand the concepts first. After that, you can make many cool projects using this, ad if you're interested in AR, you will find it very easy, and exciting as it's really easy.

Explore 🔮🙌

Please drop an ❤ on this blog.

Connect with me! 💻❤

🎥 YouTube

💪 LinkedIn

😊 Twitter

❤ Instagram

Productivity Hack for Developers/Students

Seema Saharan — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 21:30:33 +0000

I was just learning something, and I realized that we spend more time searching and exploring things but not focus on the learning part.
So, how can we improve that?

Make Sticky Notes

Write down all the daily tasks that you need to do, and set them according to the priority order.

But when to make Sticky Notes?
A good trick is that make them one day before because that will see your time to not think the next day what you have to do.

Time management

The best way I can suggest to you is that when you start doing a task then write the approx time you will invest in that particular task. And after doing that, note down the actual time it took you to complete that.

How to handle social media distraction?

Apply the 50/10 approach.
What's that?

Well, work on your tasks for 50 minutes, and give yourself a break for 10 minutes, in those 10 minutes you can use either social media, or give yourself some rest.

These things aren't easy to apply, but if you try every day it will create a habit, and your productivity will increase.

Let me know what you use!

You can connect with me on:
🎥YouTube
⚒LinkedIn
🧵Twitter
✍Hashnode
📷Instagram

25 Career Options if you don't like Coding

Seema Saharan — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 21:13:35 +0000

This is the world of technology, and almost everyone wants a bright career in tech, but what if you are not from a tech background, and you will be confused, and think that all the work in tech requires Coding, but what if I tell you there are a lot of others fields to explore in tech that doesn't involve coding.
Let me just start by sharing it all, and I will explain a little bit about each field, and if you find any of them interesting just start exploring all the resources on Google, and learn.

1. Business Analyst

According to Wikipedia, A business analyst (BA) is a person who analyzes an organization or business domain (real or hypothetical) and documents its business, processes, or systems, assessing the business model or its integration with technology.

You can get detailed information here, like-

Different Business Analyst Role
Skills of a Good Business Analyst
Certifications
Jobs

2. Operations Manager

An operations manager is a key part of a management team and oversees high-level HR duties, such as attracting talent and setting training standards and hiring procedures. They also analyze and improve organizational processes, and work to improve quality, productivity, and efficiency.

Skills Required

Strong communication skills.
Good motivational skills.
Strong negotiation skills.
Exceptional organizational skills.
Awareness of internal and external customer needs.

3. Technical Recruiter (requires technical background)

A Technical Recruiter is responsible for all aspects of the sourcing and hiring of IT professionals to fill technical positions. A Technical Recruiter will work to identify and fill job openings, interview candidates, and keep records of applications.

Skills Required

Technical knowledge to be able to talk to job prospects and understand qualifications.
Strong social aptitude and ability to build relationships.
Excellent interpersonal communication skills
Negotiation skills

4. Product Manager

According to Wikipedia, a product manager is a professional role that is responsible for the development of products for an organization, known as the practice of product management. Product managers own the business strategy behind a product (both physical and digital products), specify its functional requirements, and generally manage the launch of features. They coordinate work done by many other functions (like software engineers, data scientists, and product designers) and are ultimately responsible for the business success of the product.

Skills Required

Experience with Web site development
Ability to operate in a high-energy, high-intensity, and rapidly evolving environment
Project/change management experience implementing new ways of working
Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills

5. Project Manager

A Project Manager is responsible for planning, overseeing, and leading projects from ideation through to completion. This is a senior role at an organization and requires interaction with a range of internal and external stakeholders, most often managing several moving project parts simultaneously.

Skills Required

Engineering
IT or Computer Science
Business or Business Administration
Management

6. Technical Writer

A technical writer is a professional information communicator whose task is to transfer information (knowledge) between two or more parties, through any medium that best facilitates the transfer and comprehension of the information. Technical writers research and create information through a variety of delivery media (electronic, printed, audio-visual, and even touch), such as online help, manuals, white papers, design specifications, project plans, and software test plans. With the rise of e-learning, technical writers are increasingly becoming involved with creating online training material.

Skills Required

Technical communications
Writing
Ability to study and understand complex products or software

7. SEO/SEM Specialist

Search Engine Marketing Specialists (SEO/SEM) are responsible for planning, implementing, and managing a company’s overall SEO strategy. They usually cover a wide variety of duties such as web marketing, web analytics, content strategy planning, link building, and keyword strategy.

Skills Required

Proven success in SEO
Experience in web analytics, marketing, and business development
Experience with A/B testing and other testing metrics
Knowledge of HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Ability to analyze data and provide evidence-based recommendations
Sense of ownership and pride in your performance and its impact on the company’s success
Critical thinker and problem-solving skills
Team player
Good time-management skills
Great interpersonal and communication skills
Degree in relevant quantitative fields.

8. Software Quality Tester

Software Testing is a process of verifying a computer system/program to decide whether it meets the specified requirements and produces the desired results. As a result, you identify bugs in software products/projects.

Click here for more information.

9. Data Analyst

A data analyst is someone who scrutinizes information using data analysis tools. The meaningful results they pull from the raw data help their employers or clients make important decisions by identifying various facts and trends.

Skills Required

Ability to work with stakeholders to assess potential risks
Work experience as a data analyst or in a related field.
Ability to analyze existing tools and databases and provide software solution recommendations
Demonstrated experience in handling large data sets and relational databases
High-level written and verbal communication skills.

10. Tech Support Specialist

The role of a Technical Support Specialist within an organization is to provide assistance and maintenance to all computer systems and hardware. Their work may include installing, configuring, and updating hardware and software, as well as fixing any issue related to the equipment that may come up on a daily basis.

Skills Required

Extensive familiarity with Windows operating systems
Minimum 1-year experience in information technology or technical support
Working knowledge of security software options and functionality preferred
CompTIA A+ certification a plus

11. System Administrator

According to Wikipedia, a system administrator, or sysadmin, is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems; especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to ensure that the uptime, performance, resources, and security of the computers they manage meet the needs of the users, without exceeding a set budget when doing so.

Skills Required

Proven experience as a System Administrator, Network Administrator, or similar role
Experience with databases, networks (LAN, WAN), and patch management
Knowledge of system security (e.g. intrusion detection systems) and data backup/recovery
Familiarity with various operating systems and platforms

12. User Experience(UX) Design

User experience design is a concept that has many dimensions, and it includes a bunch of different disciplines — such as interaction design, information architecture, visual design, usability, and human-computer interaction.

Skills Required

Proven experience as a UX Designer, UI Designer, or similar role
Strong portfolio of design projects
Background in project management and research
Familiarity with interaction design and information architecture
Excellent communication skills

13. User Interface(UI) Designer

UI designers are responsible for designing how a user interacts with a computer, in fact, they’re obsessed with human-computer interaction! Whether it’s a dashboard computer in a car, a mobile app, a video game, a website, or a virtual reality interface, UI designers are the ones that make these interactions possible.

Skills Required

Knowledge of wireframe tools (e.g. Wireframe.cc and InVision)
Portfolio of design projects
Up-to-date knowledge of design software like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
Team spirit; strong communication skills to collaborate with various stakeholders

14. Information Architect

According to Wikipedia, Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging community of practice focused on bringing principles of design, architecture and information science to the digital landscape.[1] Typically, it involves a model or concept of information that is used and applied to activities that require explicit details of complex information systems. These activities include library systems and database development.

Skills Required

Client-Facing Communication.
Understanding of User-Centered Design.
Concept Testing.
Critical Thinking.

15. Mobile Designer

Mobile designers can go by many names, including app designers, iOS designers, Android designers, and more. They usually work closely with user experience (UX) designers and user interface (UI) designers to apply their designs to mobile interfaces.

Skills Required

Mobile User Interface Design. Probably the most important aspect of mobile app development is building a high-quality user interface (UI).
Cross-Platform App Development.
Backend Computing.
Modern Language Programming Skills.
Business Capability.

16. Marketing Automation Manager

The Creative Group Salary Guide defines the marketing automation manager as an individual who “administers marketing campaigns; tests and analyzes workflow, lead generation, lead nurturing and lead scoring; and identifies tactics for improvement.

Skills Required

At least 3 to 5 years of marketing experience.
Strategic thinker and hands-on executor.
Solid writing skills and experience creating marketing content.
Experience managing campaign execution across multiple channels.

17. Software Sales Representative

Responsible for the merchandising, distribution, and selling of computers, software, and peripherals.

Read the full information here.

18. Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is any form of marketing products or services that involves electronic devices. That's the reason it has been around for decades (because electronics have) and why it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with content marketing, Google ads, social media, or retargeting.

Skills Required

Ability to analyze data and draw insights. The growth of digital marketing has created endless amounts of data.
Organization and project management skills.
Knowledge and appreciation of automation.
Voice search SEO.
UX skills and an understanding of the customer experience.
Advanced social media knowledge.

19. Computer Networking

This is where you can find many profiles in this category.

20. Software Testing (some aspect require coding skills)

Software Testing is a method to check whether the actual software product matches expected requirements and to ensure that the software product is Defect free. It involves the execution of software/system components using manual or automated tools to evaluate one or more properties of interest. The purpose of software testing is to identify errors, gaps, or missing requirements in contrast to actual requirements.
Know more .

Skills Required

https://dzone.com/articles/17-skills-of-highly-effective-software-testers

Bonus

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) / Salesforce
Graphic Designer
Business Intelligence
Business Development Executive
Cybersecurity (certain areas/domains require coding skills)

I have just listed all the fields, but that's not gonna help you.
Find your interest in the field, google about that particular field, learn, and improve yourself.
Good Luck!

Please Drop a ❤, if you enjoyed this.

You can connect with me on:
🎥YouTube
⚒LinkedIn
🧵Twitter
✍Hashnode
📷Instagram

My Journey of "Getting out of my Comfort Zone"!

Seema Saharan — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 17:56:26 +0000

A lot of you have things in mind like: Can I do this? Can I learn this tech in this much amount of time? Can I even start a YouTube channel? Can I write technical blogs? Can I add some value to someone's life?
Well not here to brag here, but I just want to share my experience, and maybe you feel motivated somehow and apply that. And if you do, then please let me know, I will be so happy, that I did something good.

Whatever happened this year was not a surprise for all of us, I was in my final year, and soon I was going to start with my exams, and then I would be a graduate, and start my career in tech as an Engineer.
But who thought that something new, and exciting is already planned for me.

Tough to Start: Took challenges

For the first month, I just binged-watch shows and wasted some time, but then I thought I can take advantage of this time and can improve more things, I started attending workshops, but I always wanted to teach people, I tried that too "FAILED", why?
I don't really know, but I was doing it for free. Anyway, I got somehow demotivated, because people will take you for granted forever if you don't show them your value.

So, after that, I participated in my first Hackathon. You heard it right, I was going to complete my graduation but never took part in any Hackathon. Why? Because I was so afraid of the word itself. But I don't know, I took this challenge, and yeah I didn't win, but there were a lot of learnings.

After that, another challenge was already waiting for me, and that was writing technical blogs.
Woah, what a name? Does that scare you as well? Well, this did a quite good job scaring me for a long time.
But there was a competition going on called Blogger' week by Tesseract Coding, and I was like, Hell yeah, I am going to do that, the worst that can happen is I will fail, be it.

You won't believe that I got the first position in that, shocking right!!

Not even that, It got published on Analytics Vidhya Medium publication.

Taking images in Docker container | by Seema Saharan | Analytics Vidhya | Medium

Seema Saharan ・ Jun 4, 2020 ・
Medium

My first talk in a Conference

After that Rohit approached me to write some blog, so yeah, I was confident to write but the confusion was, about what? I didn't know about the tech well at that time, so I learned and wrote about Understanding Azure DevOps.

Article No Longer Available

Let me know if you like it or not.

Then I got my first offer for speaking at a conference. That day was huge for me. I was nervous too, but I managed, and it went well.

Started Open Source Contributions

After this, I started to explore Open Source, how to contribute to that, well it wasn't easy, it got me a full month just to understand what a pull request is, and how to make one.
But yeah, I did, I practiced a lot.
Amazing thing is that I got to know about GitLab, and the Hackathon, I tried to contribute, it was a lot confusing, trust me, when I say this, I was just a newbie, and it took a lot of time to understand the whole point of open source contributions, why?
There was no one to guide me, which later led to my YouTube channel, I will discuss that later.
But yeah, I made my FIRST MERGE REQUEST on GitLab.
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Well, you will think that is there only wins? No, definitely not, I had lots of failures too, but I want to share these right now. :D

Started my YouTube channel!

Then came my YouTube channel!!!

AIM OF MY CHANNEL

Give back to the community.
Help someone.
Collaborate.

This year was full of taking risks, why risks?
Because, I am a person who likes to be in her comfort zone, and this year I got out of it.
So, if you reading this, please get out of your comfort zone, it will not be easy, but you can do that!
I always say, "If I can, then you definitely can."
I was the laziest person you will ever know, and now I am working a lot, like in my whole life, I haven't worked this much.

WINS

I got to help so many people this year, that's the best thing I could do for someone.
Got out of my comfort zones: wrote blogs, made/making videos.
Got 1k+ SUBSCRIBERS! Support me if you like my content.

I have missed many of my wins, but these helped me to get more.
So, JUST START!!
All the very best.

GOALS FOR 2021

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I hope I will be able to do that. Support me if you want/can.

You can connect with me on:
🎥YouTube
⚒LinkedIn
🧵Twitter
✍Hashnode
📷Instagram

From a noob to an Open Source Contributor- My journey

Seema Saharan — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 21:33:50 +0000

I always wanted to do some open source contribution, and as a beginner, you'll be so confused about this, I was too. I'm quite sure, you're really confused right now. Because in colleges, they don't teach us, at least at my college. I didn't know that to do some contribution, we need to learn Git and Github.

Okay, so I fulfilled this requirement and learned Git. I was now exploring different repositories to work on and do some contributions. But how can I start that? Will other contributors allow my contributions, or will I be able to code?

With all these confusions in my mind, I came across this event Student Code-In and I filled the form for participating, and selected the projects, I was confident in Python, so I chose the respective projects.

After several days, I got the confirmation mail for participating. I and other fellow participants got introduced to the Project Admin and the mentors for the project. I was selected for Rotten Scripts. Here's the link you can check it this repository, I have some awesome scripts.

Contributions I made

*1. Automate commit using Git *

Are you tired of adding, committing, and pushing your code every time you change it? If so, you can use this Python script to automate this boring stuff. This code is the simplest one to automate the task.
Link for the repo.

2. Initializing an HTTP Server(Web Server)

Link for the repo.

3. Lorem Ipsum Text Generator

Link for the repo.

4. Subtitle Downloader using Python

This project was really interesting to do, as I have to make a Python Package too. So, I did.
Python Package

YouTube Tutorial

Link for the repo

5. Track Data Usage

Link for the repo

6. Building a Twitter Bot with Python

This was another great project to work on. I wrote a detailed blog on this one.
Blog Link
My twitter bot

Link for the repo

7. Uploading a file as a Gist using Python.

Link for the repo

My takeaways from this event

Well, I really learned a lot during this event. To describe some of them.

Documenting my code.
Clean Code practice.
Well structured readme files.
Even I started my YouTube channel through this event, as my mentor really encouraged us.

My advice to you

Start sharing your knowledge, otherwise it'll all be wasted really.
Start writing technical blogs.

And surely hard work pays off. I was one of the top 25 contributors during the event. That's it. Thank you Student Code-in for this awesome event.

Understanding Azure DevOps.

Seema Saharan — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 21:30:26 +0000

What do you think when you listen to the word DevOps? Do you understand the perfect meaning of this word or is it still confused? If you are in the IT field, then you probably come across this word very often. Did you google it before, and didn’t understand? Are you interested to know? Let’s jump on to the definition of DevOps:

DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development and IT operations. It aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality.

This is the Wikipedia definition for DevOps. To simply deliver and make you understand this, it is a culture, which has been used in the industry for a long time now. But it is likely to be trending now. Developers team and the Operations team get to work together to decrease time to make a system/product etc. They get to collaborate and work as a team so that the work will be faster and efficient.

So, now I will talk about Azure DevOps and what it offers.

It is a Microsoft product that provides us various capabilities for the user:

Version Control
Reporting
Requirements management
Project management
Automated builds
Lab management
Testing and release management

I will discuss mainly the Version Control and the Continuous Integration in Azure DevOps.

Prerequisites

Microsoft Azure account.
Any Version Control System like Git, TFVC (Team Foundation Version Control) by Microsoft.

Here, Git is an Open Source Distributed Version Control system whereas TFVC is a Centralised Version Control System.

Making our first Azure DevOps Project

Visit the website https://dev.azure.com//

This contains information about all your projects for Azure DevOps.

2. Now, to create a new project go to the New Project tab.

3. After clicking on the New Project, the portal will look like this. Here, add your project name, I have named it “Demo project for Azure DevOps” and you can give it a description about what this project does. Then there is an option for visibility if you want to give access to anyone then you can choose public else choose private, it will only be accessed by the ones whom will you give them access to.

Also, if you choose the Advanced option below, you will get the following options:

You can choose which version control you want to use, I will go with Git for now. And then click on create.

This screen will show up.

Hurray!! We have created our first Azure DevOps project.

Now, if you see on the left side of the screen, there are multiple options, what are they? Let’s find out!

Components of Azure DevOps

Azure Boards: If you are working on a team or various teams are working on a single project, then they need to communicate better to provide good results to the product. Azure boards are a work tracking system like dashboards. They provide you great custom reports and also deals with the backlogs.
Azure Repos: It is the collection of all your repositories. You can push, pull, and also commit your changes to your repositories. It provides you unlimited Cloud hosted private repositories.
Azure Pipelines: It is a CI/CD i.e. Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery, testing, and deployment system that can connect to any Git repository.
Azure Test Plans: Your code/data might be not correct, that’s why we have test plans in Azure DevOps. It is a solution for tests and capturing data about defects.
Azure Artifacts: It is a hosting facility for Maven, npm, and NuGet packages.Azure enables you to create, host, and also share packages among your team. Artifacts in Azure ensure your pipelines have fully integrated package management.

Now that you have a basic understanding of the components of Azure DevOps and also you’ve created a project. Let’s move further to add our project to the Azure Repos.

Adding project to Azure DevOps Repos

If you go to Repos and then select Files, you could see a screen like this.

Now, I will create a local folder in my Windows system, where I will add some of my previous projects.

I have created a folder named Demo for Azure DevOps in my laptop and stored some Python code. Here, I am using Git Bash.

Initialize the Git repository using the command “git init”. It will create a .git file in your folder.

2. After initializing the git repo, add the files to the repository. Using the command “git add .”. It will add all the files, including .gitignore file if you have one.

3. Then commit the files with the message “Added python files” or whatever you would like to add.

4. Now, that you have added all the files in your repo locally, it’s time for you to upload or add the files to the remote repository in Azure DevOps.

Use these commands: You don’t have to worry about the commands, you just have to copy and paste them from here.

5. After pasting the commands in your git bash or Command line, it will look like this.

This means you have added all your files to the remote repo.

6. To confirm the changes, refresh the dev.azure.com/.

You can see the files I have added.

Setting up Continuous Integration using Git

Go to the git repository.
Now, go to Pipelines. And select New Pipeline.

3. Choose the Classic editor.

Since this is an Azure git repo, so I will select that.

4. Then click on continue, on the next page you will find the option to select template, since I have python files, so I will choose Python package.

5. Now, go to triggers and check the “Enable Continuous Integration” option. Also, check the “Batch changes” option, so that if you have multiple commits, then it will merge all the commits into a single one.

6. Finally select, Save, and queue and then select save.

7. Now again go to repos. And make some changes to any file. Like I have added a new comment in the file i.e. Azure Pipeline. Then commit the changes.

8. Finally, go to pipelines and you will see that the pipelines are running automatically.

That’s all from my side. Keep learning!

Taking pictures in Docker container!

Seema Saharan — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 21:28:17 +0000

Have you ever tried to click photos with your camera in the laptop, of course, you did, but here is a twist, we will click the photo in a Docker container, many of you may be wondering how you can do that? Well, let me get started with this interesting thing.

Firstly, here are some of the prerequisites you should have on your laptop:

Redhat Linux/ CentOS Linux
Docker
Python3
You should have the basic knowledge of the Docker and Linux command line.

And, some of the python libraries, that we will discuss later.

So, are you excited!! I hope you are. Let’s get started:

Here, for this tutorial, I will be using RHEL (Redhat Enterprise Linux), which is a Linux distribution. So, to use docker in the RHEL system, we first have to install it by the following command:

✔ Step 1 :

# yum install docker
# systemctl start docker

Explanation:

The first line is used to install Docker CE (Community Edition).
And after that, we have to start the service to use a docker container.

✔Step 2:

#docker run -it -p 55555:22 --privileged -v /dev/video0:/dev/video0 -v /root/Desktop/rhel7_5_extras:/extras -v /root/Desktop/rhel7_extra_new_rpm:/new -v /root/Desktop/python_lib:/python -v /run/media/root/RHEL-7.5\ Server.x86_64:/dvd -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro -e DISPLAY=$DISPLAY --name camera1 centos:latest

Now moving on to the main part of this task, i.e. launching a docker container in RHEL.

Woah, that’s a big line, don’t be afraid, I will break down each keyword to you:

Firstly I have used the “docker run” command that is used to launch a new container.
Next, I have used options -i, -t, -p, -v,- -privileged, -e,- -name :

--interactive or -i

To keep STDIN open even if not attached.

-t or --tty

To allocate a pseudo-TTY.

--publish , -p

Publish a container’s port(s) to the host.

“55555:22”: Map TCP port 22 in the container to port 55555on the Docker host.

--volume or -v

Bind mount a volume.

“/dev/video0:/dev/video0”: This is the webcam name of your laptop so that you can access it. And, after the colon, this will be saved in the docker container.
“/root/Desktop/rhel7_5_extras:/extras”: This image is imported because it has the required tools available, in this case, Python3, and it will be saved in the docker container as extras.
“/root/Desktop/rhel7_extra_new_rpm:/new”: Again this image also contains some of the required tools to perform this task.
“/root/Desktop/python_lib:/python”: It contains the Python libraries that will be used further to be installed in the docker container.
“/run/media/root/RHEL-7.5\ Server.x86_64:/dvd”: This is the RHEL DVD which contains all the software.
“/tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:ro”: X server is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Linux operating systems. To simply understand this, you can use GUI in your docker container.

--privileged

Give extended privileges to this container.

--env , -e

Set environment variables.

“DISPLAY=$DISPLAY”: The magic word in the X window system is DISPLAY. A display consists (simplified) of:

A keyboard
A mouse
and a screen.

A display is managed by a server program, known as an X server. The server serves displaying capabilities to other programs that connect to it. The remote server knows where it has to redirect the X network traffic via the definition of the DISPLAY environment variable which generally points to an X Display server located on your local computer.

--name

Assign a name to the container.

“camera1”: It is the name given to the docker container.

At last, there is “centos:latest” which is the image I am using to deploy my docker container.

✔ Step 3:

# vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config 

X11UseLocalhost no
X11Forwarding yes

The /etc/ssh/sshd_config file is the system-wide configuration file for OpenSSH which allows you to set options that modify the operation of the daemon. This file contains keyword-value pairs, one per line, with keywords being case insensitive.

To run graphical applications we have used, X11Forwarding yes.

✔ Step 4:

# dbus-uuidgen > /etc/machine-id

D-Bus is a software bus, inter-process communication, and remote procedure call mechanism that allows communication between multiple processes running concurrently on the same machine.

The /etc/machine-id file contains the unique machine ID of the local system that is set during installation or boot.

✔ Step 5:

# export QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1

To set the environmental flag to force Qt to show properly.

Qt is a free and open-source widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces as well as cross-platform applications that run on various software and hardware platforms such as Linux, Windows.

✔ Step 6:

# cd etc/yum.repos.d/
# vi repository.repo

[extras]
baseurl=file:///extras
gpgcheck=0
[new]
baseurl=file:///new
gpgcheck=0
[dvd]
baseurl=file:///dvd
gpgcheck=0

It is used to create the repository so that we can install the required Softwares later.

✔ Step 7:

# yum install python36-pip vim net-tools openssh-server libSM libXrender libXext python36 lspci lsusb

✔ Step 8:

# pip3.6 install opencv_python-4.0.0.21-cp36-cp36m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl numpy-1.16.2-cp36-cp36m-manylinux1_x86_64.whl --no-index -f .

✔ Step 9:

# cd /dev             // To check camera is attached or not.
# ls

✔ Step 10:

# xhost +local:root

To run GUI applications as the root.

✔ Step 11:

import cv2
import numpy
cap=cv2.VideoCapture(0)     # Used for video capturing from video files, image sequences or cameras, and 0 is the device name.
ret,photo=cap.read()
cv2.imshow('hi',photo)      # cv2.imshow() method is used to display an image in a window.
cv2.waitKey()               # Waits for a pressed key.
cap.release()               # It will exit the camera.

Finally, write a program to click the photo in your docker container.

✔ Step 12:

# chmod +x photo.py   
# ./photo.py

Line 1 is used to make the python file executable.

Line 2 is used to execute the code.

So, that is the end of the task, I hope you learned a lot from this.

Happy learning! 😊✌

🎥SUBSCRIBE TO MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL

How to complete your "Pending Projects"?

Seema Saharan — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 23:09:31 +0000

We all feel enthusiastic at the initial stage of a project, but after a few days, what happens?

I know we all face this situation, where we don't want to continue a particular project, for which we have had already thought of so many things, that I will add this feature, and this will be my best project ever, but why do we leave that project in between.

There can be a few reasons for that:

Most common is that we got a new idea, and that is much more interesting to work on.
You don't know the tech stack that your project requires. In this case, you will think that it will take a lot of time to complete this, because I have to learn all the tech I need, and then only I can start working.
You are seeing other people. Means that you are now comparing yourself with others, that these people are doing so good, and making so many good projects, and I can't even work on this one.
You think this is a lot of work to do, and require a team to do that, and you don't have one.
You got some more important work.
If you're a student, you'll be busy doing your academics, that you may not get the time to do the side-projects.
You may fail.

There can be many more reasons for that too, some personal too.

Now maybe you'll agree to these points, that "Yes", this happens, but how to get out of this?

It may sound cliche but the truth is, you need the same motivation you had when you started and thought about the project.

Things that can help you

Don't think too much about the end result, because that will be all in your mind, and you will feel all the things, that you can feel at the end of that project, the excitement must be there till the end.
Don't work too much in a day. Maybe you will feel bored after sometime.
Take some challenges, like commit to someone, or publically(if it's a common project), that can be interesting, because now so many people will see your milestones, and if you don't complete that, then you will feel bad.
For example, people take 100 Days of Challenge and publically commit that they will complete that.
Don't set the bar too high. The project may not be like you thought, but it should be about the learnings.
Whenever you start a project with a new tech stack, there is no loss, you will only learn that, and for the first time, it's okay, if you don't complete the whole.
Break the project. Set some goals.
Be positive, be strong!! You can definitely build a project. Don't feel demotivated. If you do, then take a break, taking breaks is never a bad thing, listen to your favorite music, watch a movie, do whatever you like, that can bring the same excitement for building/working on that project.
Take time to think, don't just start implementing the project, think about everything, it's Pros, Cons, how it can help you? etc.
Use some app/diary to mark your daily progress.
Stop thinking, and start implementing.

I hope this blog will help you. If you like this, then do follow me, and connect with me on other platforms.
Happy project building! :)

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DEV Community: Seema Saharan

Auth0 Ambassador Swags | Join the mission 🚀👩🏻‍💻

Developer Diaries [video]

Guests

Lessons I learned

Connect

My First Experience with TypeScript

Why I got amazed?

What is TypeScript?

Feature of TS

Running a TS code

Write your first program

GitHub repo for the same

seema1711 / typescript-hello-world

Make your terminal powerful, and beautiful! | Zsh | Powerlevel10k theme

seema1711 / All-YouTube-Projects

Make your first Instagram filter | #christmashackathon

Final Product

Introduction

Prerequisites

What is Spark AR?

Is it free/paid?

Step 1: Download Spark AR

Step 2: SignUp/ LogIn

Step 3: Applying the effect

Step 4: Setting the position of Asset

Step 5: Adding a 2D text into the Scene

Pinning

Step 6: Testing

Mirroring Effects to AR Player

Things you'll need

Step 7: Uploading and Review Period

Final Product

Connecting an Instagram account to a Facebook profile or Page

Future Scopes

Productivity Hack for Developers/Students

Make Sticky Notes

Time management

How to handle social media distraction?

25 Career Options if you don't like Coding

1. Business Analyst

2. Operations Manager

3. Technical Recruiter (requires technical background)

4. Product Manager

5. Project Manager

6. Technical Writer

7. SEO/SEM Specialist

8. Software Quality Tester

9. Data Analyst

10. Tech Support Specialist

11. System Administrator

12. User Experience(UX) Design

13. User Interface(UI) Designer

14. Information Architect

15. Mobile Designer

16. Marketing Automation Manager

17. Software Sales Representative

18. Digital Marketing

19. Computer Networking

20. Software Testing (some aspect require coding skills)

Bonus

My Journey of "Getting out of my Comfort Zone"!

Tough to Start: Took challenges

Taking images in Docker container | by Seema Saharan | Analytics Vidhya | Medium

Seema Saharan ・ Jun 4, 2020 ・ Medium

My first talk in a Conference

Article No Longer Available

Started Open Source Contributions

Started my YouTube channel!

WINS

GOALS FOR 2021

From a noob to an Open Source Contributor- My journey

Contributions I made

My takeaways from this event

My advice to you

Understanding Azure DevOps.

Prerequisites

Making our first Azure DevOps Project

Components of Azure DevOps

Adding project to Azure DevOps Repos

Seema Saharan ・ Jun 4, 2020 ・
Medium