DEV Community: Swastika Bhattacharjee

“What I Learned From Going a Week Without My Laptop”

Swastika Bhattacharjee — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 12:29:13 +0000

Day one was pure denial.
I stared at my laptop screen like a worried parent checking on a sleeping baby. Maybe it’s just tired, I told myself.
I pressed the power button again. And again.
I tried every classic fix: unplug, restart, whisper a little prayer to the tech gods.

“It’ll be fine tomorrow,” I thought.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

That night, I scrolled through my phone, convinced this was just a minor hiccup — not the beginning of a week-long breakup with my most important companion.

Then I learned it has hardware issues and it will be a while after which i will see my laptop again.

The first day was hard I barely got out of bed as I had no work to do , no code to learn but I had work , actually a lot of work to do. I had recently enrolled in an internship program so I had plenty of work to do.Yet I couldnot even leave my bed.I felt defeated , disheartened and whatever a heartbroken person feels.I wanted to do so much but could do so little. My procrastination got the better off me I would got to sleep at 3 am and wake up at 11 am.

After wasting two whole days , I decided I would continue my work . I knew it would very difficult. Yet , I thought if I could just do some coding maybe I would feel normal.Maybe I will make some little progress in my work.So downloaded google colab , started coding ,made a netflix data analysis, used some new libraries and plotted some graphs.

Not only that started reading books again. A hobby which was long lost due to my tiresome schedule . So, I turned to books — dusty ones that had been sitting on my shelf for far too long.
The first I picked up was White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky. There was something deeply comforting about getting lost in another world, another voice. As I flipped through the pages, the loneliness didn’t feel quite so sharp.

In White Nights, Dostoevsky talks about fleeting moments of light that make the darkness bearable. My week without a laptop felt exactly like that — a long, confusing night with tiny glimmers of brightness.

Sure, at first it was chaos. I went through the five stages of grief, complained to anyone who would listen, and dramatically refreshed Google for miracle fixes. But somewhere between picking up White Nights, crocheting a slightly lopsided coaster, and squinting at Google Colab on my phone, I realized… maybe this wasn’t the end of the world.

Yes, my laptop still has a hardware issue and will be gone for a while, which stings a little — okay, a lot. But now I know I can survive without it. Maybe even thrive (on good days, with enough chai).

Because life without a laptop isn’t just about surviving boredom — it’s about finding new ways to create, even if that means swapping a keyboard for yarn and a good book. And who knows? By the time my laptop comes back, I might have a new scarf, a few finished novels, and a killer thumb muscle from coding on my phone.

One Link , Infinite Identity: Introducing the zustbio

Swastika Bhattacharjee — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 14:09:28 +0000

We built a Link-in-Bio tool (zustbio) focused on branding – would love your thoughts”

Hey everyone,

We recently launched a small project called zustbio – it’s a “link in bio” platform (like Linktree), but my main goal was to focus more on personal branding and style.The idea came from noticing that most bio-link tools look similar and don’t really let you express your unique identity. Zust Bio tries to give users more customization, branding, and analytics so their link feels like an extension of their personal brand, not just a list of links.

Right now, it offers:

✅ Free plan with unlimited links

✅ Pro plan with advanced customization & analytics

✅ Business use cases like lead generation, podcast integration, event sharing

👉 You can check it out here a sample profile: https://zustbio.com/SwastikaBhattacharjee

I’d really appreciate feedback on a few things:

Do you feel this solves a real gap, or is it too close to existing solutions?

What would make this more compelling for creators/businesses to switch?

As someone early in the startup journey, how would you approach growth here?

DM for early access

“The Ghibli Girl’s Guide to Building a Music Player”

Swastika Bhattacharjee — Sun, 06 Jul 2025 15:08:12 +0000

As a first-year Electronics and Instrumentation (EIE) student, most of my days revolve around circuits, signal processing, and a growing obsession with Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA). But outside the academic grind, I find comfort in two unexpected places: the whimsical world of Studio Ghibli and the soul-soothing beats of lo-fi music — especially Blue by Yung Kai.

So I did what every curious coder eventually does: I turned my feelings into code.

This is the story of how I built my 6th project — a minimal, aesthetic music player using pure HTML and CSS, inspired by Studio Ghibli’s magical universe and powered by the one song that’s been on repeat in my head.

“My growing obsession with Ghibli pictures from my Pinterest board eventually found its way into VS Code — one pixel at a time.”

🎵 What I Built
A single-page music player UI

No JavaScript — just HTML and CSS doing all the work

An embedded track: Blue by Yung Kai

A dreamy Ghibli-inspired background image

Rounded corners, shadows, pastel tones — soft CSS to match soft sounds

🧠 What I Learned
Even though I’m a DSA-loving student, this project reminded me that:

Design is code too — it speaks without words.

HTML/CSS can express mood, not just structure.

Simplicity isn’t boring — it’s beautiful.

“Sometimes, the most human projects are the ones with the least amount of code.”

GitHub Repo :https://github.com/Swastika3647/MUSIC--PLAYER
Live Hosting :https://swastika3647.github.io/MUSIC--PLAYER/

🌾 Soft Edges & Small Lessons
Not everything was perfect — and that’s okay.

The song title fades a bit too softly into the background. The play button stands a touch too tall. The progress bar feels a little rushed. A stray quote overlaps gently, like an accidental echo. The album art hugs its frame a bit too tightly.

Tiny things. Quiet lessons.

They don’t take away from the experience — they add to the story of how I’m learning to build with feeling, not just function.

“Kadane’s Algorithm Explained: Maximum Subarray in Linear Time”

Swastika Bhattacharjee — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 07:57:31 +0000

📝 Introduction
Have you ever been asked this classic interview question?

"Given an array of integers, find the contiguous subarray with the largest sum."

This seemingly simple problem has a brilliant linear-time solution, and it’s called Kadane’s Algorithm. In this post, we’ll explore how it works, walk through an example, and understand why it's so powerful.

Let’s dive in!

💡 Kadane’s Algorithm – Intuition
Kadane’s Algorithm makes a genius observation:

At every element, ask:
“Should I start a new subarray here, or continue the one I already have?”

It keeps track of two variables:

sum: The maximum sum of a subarray that ends at the current position.

max : The maximum sum seen so far across all positions.

✨ Why It’s Awesome
Kadane’s Algorithm is a must-know for interviews. It's simple, elegant, and incredibly fast.

It also serves as a template for many variations of the problem:

Maximum subarray with size constraints

Circular subarrays

2D matrix versions

Maximum product subarray

🧰 Try It Yourself
Here’s the problem on https://leetcode.com/problems/maximum-subarray/description/
Go solve it now and test your understanding!

💬 Final Thoughts
If you enjoyed this breakdown, consider sharing it with your fellow coders!
Feel free to drop your thoughts, edge cases, or your own Kadane variant in the comments below. 🚀

Top 5 Project Ideas for Beginners in Web Development”

Swastika Bhattacharjee — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 11:26:09 +0000

Over the past few months, I’ve been diving deep into web development — experimenting with HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and even hosting my projects on GitHub. Here’s a look at the projects I’ve built so far, what I learned from each, and what’s next!

🍅 1. Pomodoro Timer
A productivity timer to manage focus sessions using the Pomodoro technique.

⏱ Tech: HTML, CSS, JavaScript

🎵 Features:

25-min focus timer with start/stop/reset

Background Ghibli-style music

Aesthetic, minimalist layout
🌐 Live Demo :https://swastika3647.github.io/Pomodoro-Timer/

✅ 2. To-Do List App
A simple, clean task tracker to manage daily goals.

📋 Tech: HTML, CSS, JavaScript

🔍 Features:

Add/delete/mark tasks

Clean, responsive UI
🌐 Live Demo:https://swastika3647.github.io/TO--DO-LIST-APP/

🏫 3. University Website Clone
A front-end template of a fictional university homepage.

🖥️ Tech: HTML, CSS

🎨 Features:

Header, navigation bar, image slider

Sectioned layout with content blocks

🌐 Live Demo:https://swastika3647.github.io/UNIVERSITY-WEBSITE/

💡 Learned: Flexbox/grid, responsive design, image sliders

🗣️ 4. Text-to-Speech Converter
Convert text input into speech using the Web Speech API.

🎤 Tech: HTML, CSS, JavaScript

🧠 Features:

Type or paste text

Click “Speak” to hear it aloud

Choose from available voices (optional)

🌐 Live Demo : https://swastika3647.github.io/TEXT-TO-SPEECH-CONVERTER/

💡 Learned: Using Web APIs, browser voice synthesis, improving accessibility

📬 5. Contact Form
A simple and aesthetic form for collecting messages from users.

📧 Tech: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (with FormSubmit or Netlify Forms)

✨ Features:

Name, email, message fields

Responsive design

Confirmation alert or redirect

💡 Learned: Form styling, UX design, HTML5 validation

🙌 Final Thoughts
Every small project has helped me grow — not just in code, but in how I approach problems, structure interfaces, and think about user experience.

You can explore more of my work on GitHub — feedback and suggestions are always welcome! 😊