DEV Community: Tawanda Nyahuye

Exploring Connections: How Meeting People Enriched My Master's Journey

Tawanda Nyahuye — Wed, 30 Aug 2023 13:57:37 +0000

I recently completed my 2-year master's degree in Big Data Analytics and I would like to take you on a ride through my experience in the world of Big Data Analytics. This won't be about crunching numbers, and datasets or building machine learning models; it's about the incredible individuals I crossed paths with. The connections that I made along the way and how these connections turned out to be like golden tickets to new perspectives that have had a big impact on my entire life.

Meeting Diverse People: Unlocking Valuable Career Insights

During my learning journey, I met people from all sorts of fields - social sciences, finance, engineering, healthcare, HR, and more. It was like stepping into different universes. Talking to people in social sciences showed me how data and human behavior are connected. The finance people taught me how data fuels financial decisions. Tech-savvy engineers shared ways to solve problems that blew my mind. Healthcare experts proved how data literally saves lives. Chatting with HR professionals helped me to get a backstage pass on how data makes managing people a breeze. Coming from a technical background, honestly, I thought doing such a program was for people with programming and other IT-related skills only. In the end, it was these people from different fields who had an upper hand since for them it was about applying big data skills in their respective fields.

Opening Doors to Future Collaborations

While pursuing this master's, I got to meet professors who taught me different courses and life skills. They were not just names on a list, they were people who shared their wisdom and stories. This wasn't just in class; it was in the real world. These connections are like keys to doors that lead to future collaborations and exciting research opportunities.

The Challenge of Juggling Work and Learning

I will be honest, juggling a full-time job while learning part-time wasn't a walk in the park. It was tough. But guess what? Challenges aren't always bad. They pushed me to my limits and made me sharper. Learning how to manage my time and balance responsibilities turned out to be a skill that's super valuable.

The Payoff: Career Growth and Personal Development

Let's talk about the good stuff. The connections I made with people are like treasures. They've opened up a world of possibilities for my career, especially when it comes to future jobs. Employers love to see a network of diverse connections. And those professors and experts I met? They're like mentors who guide me and help me think outside the box.

Embracing the Challenge: A Transformative Experience

Was it easy? No, it was not. But was it worth it? Absolutely! Balancing work and learning was like a boot camp for my time management and multitasking skills. It might have been challenging, but it was also rewarding. The experience has made me resilient, adaptable, and ready to tackle anything that comes my way.

Consider the Journey: Your Next Big Adventure

If you're wondering whether a Master's in Big Data Analytics is for you, let me tell you, it's more than just a degree. It's a chance to meet incredible people who can shape your future. It's about opening doors to collaborations and research that you might never have imagined. And it's about facing challenges head-on and coming out stronger on the other side. The field of big data is very diverse and it can be applied in any field that you can think of be it soccer, hairdressing, cooking, gardening, and any career that you may think of. I highly recommend doing any master's degree not just Big Data analytics. Pursuing postgraduate programs helps you meet different people from different careers which will help you build valuable connections.

So, here's to meeting people, opening doors, and taking on challenges! My Master's journey has been about more than just data, it's been about growth, connections, and a whole lot of learning. If this journey sounds like your kind of adventure, a Master's in Big Data Analytics or any other postgraduate program might just be the next step you've been looking for. Let's embrace the possibilities together!

Is using AI tools really good for your career?

Tawanda Nyahuye — Wed, 24 May 2023 11:31:12 +0000

Gone are the days when gaining a skill through spending some time learning in order to know stuff separated developers from great developers. In this day and era, your skill to prompt the AI is what makes you a super coder.

In this article I will be rumbling about what I think about the use of AI, is it good for your career (beginners vs experts), and of course the most controversial question (will AI takeover our jobs)

Is AI really good for your career?

Well, it depends. For me AI is a tool that you should use to assist you to do your job not heavily rely on it to do your entire job. Using AI tools like ChatGPT is great if you are in later stages of your career than when you are still a beginner. If you are using AI to do your entire job you should not be having a job (you are just lucky your boss does not know you can be replaced by AI)

Tools like ChatGPT should come in handy when you are stuck with a bug and need a way out. If you are still learning to code you need to avoid abusing the use of such tools for every problem that you will face. This will help you master whatever are learning and help with building your creativity.

I know you are already saying to yourself, "this guy is crazy, ChatGPT was created to do that. If I cannot use it to do that then what is the point of having it?". Well, that actually makes sense and it is supposed to do that. Is having AI doing everything for you good for you though? I do not think so.

I was recently doing my MSc degree the past 2 years and I realized that if ChatGPT had been released before I commenced my MSc degree I would have become an empty head. Considering my levels of laziness, I would have dodged doing all the assignments on my own and that would have costed me all the knowledge that I have now. When you are learning something new you need to limit the use of AI tools, suffer a little bit trying to figure out things on your own.

“There is no growth without pain. No life without suffering.”
― Cynthia Eden, Burn For Me

Will AI takeover our jobs?

That actually depends with the job. Some people have already lost their jobs because of AI but as developers I do not think AI will never be able to replace us. As developers I think we are users of AI therefore we will never be replaced. The worst thing AI will do to us is cut our jobs that is instead of having a team of 10 developers we might end up having a team of 1 10x super coder and god level ChatGPT user.

Though AI might not takeover our jobs, i think we a heading to an AI dystopia. The use of tools like ChatGPT will improve our productivity but ruin our creativity.

A world where an AI tool can generate an entire application for you would be great right? well i dont think so, i believe that suffering makes you a great thinker and being a great thinker makes you creative.

How I became a successful meme account and the benefits it has provided

Tawanda Nyahuye — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 11:00:52 +0000

Originally published on ClickUp

You probably looked at the title and you were like, "huh, this guy calls himself successful?"

Yes, when it comes to memeing, I can beat Elon Musk at this game.

Let's jump straight into it. I have had several people approach me, mostly those who admire my work on Twitter. Most of their questions were:

How did you manage to get quite a number of followers?
How do you manage to get those banger memes?
Are there any benefits to doing this?
Can I have your account when you die?

I then decided, why not write something to answer all the questions and then share it with everyone? In this write-up, I will mainly focus on how I have managed to build my Twitter account and the surprising benefits it has provided.

How did you manage to get quite a number of followers?

Running a meme account on Twitter is not really different from running any other account. You just need to understand the following (not really a standard, but that's what I do and what has worked for me):

1. Admiring others in the game/role model(s)

When I started using Twitter, there were a few accounts that I looked up to, both tech accounts and non-tech accounts. One of the accounts I admired was markdalgleish (who used to post memes). The trick is not just to admire your favorite accounts; notice how they do it; comment; plug your own unfunny tweets in the comment section to get noticed by others (it's low but well it works). Commenting in context with the tweet helps you to get noticed by people who are fans of the tweet author or topic as well as the tweet author. This will probably help you get followed by people who have the same interests as you and most likely the tweet author (yeah, that's the prize you get for being a top fan).

That being said, if you want to be a fellow memer, you know who to idolize.

2. Tricking the Algorithm

Tricking the Twitter algorithm increases your chances of coming up with a banger (Also answers the second question on how to come up with banger tweets). You need to play some games with the Twitter algorithm, that is, know when to post and what to post. In terms of knowing when to post, it depends on your time zone and your audience. Take note of your audience and when they are likely to be active. If you post when the guy who likes your tweets for no reason is asleep, your post will disappear into a sinkhole. Remember, going viral starts with one click, and going viral gives you new followers.

In terms of what to post, you need to pay attention to the trends. Don't post about Linux when Windows is trending, unless of course you are bashing Linux, but remember to include the keyword Windows (be creative). I remember posting the following tweet when Facebook changed its name to Meta.

3. Keep it simple

Don't go too deep. Most of us on Twitter are not that smart and are not slacking off at work to hear you shout about quantum physics.

As a developer, do you breathe while coding?

4. Consistency

What has helped me a lot is being consistent. I post memes and only memes. As a result, the people who follow me do it for the memes, and they will end up staying for the memes. If you post vegan tips today and then post a steak tomorrow, you will scare your audience. Take note that my account posts mostly about technology, and it's very important for me to stick to the topic of technology, as my audience is likely to be a bunch of geeks, nerds, and printer fixers who are not familiar with football. Posting memes about Lionel Messi will probably scare the majority of them. While going viral gives you new followers, being consistent keeps the followers.

How do you manage to get banger memes?

Trick the algorithm.
Be creative.
Understand your audience and post when they are active and post what they like the most.
Use a trending meme template (for example, when Squid Game was trending).

Are there any benefits to doing this?

I post memes for fun, but I get a lot of opportunities that I actually never thought someone who just posts images and videos captioned with silly text would ever get. Some of the opportunities include:

Job opportunities

You are probably thinking of job opportunities to post memes while sitting on a rotating chair somewhere, but no, these are actually opportunities to do with my career, especially software development opportunities. I am not sure how this works, but hey, iris wat iris

Marketing

When it comes to marketing, memers are highly demanded. I get a lot of opportunities to promote different products for several companies (especially startups). There is a high chance you once liked a meme that was part of a promotion and did not even notice it. Usually, with most of these, the company running the promotion gets to post it on their page. Memers just handle the memeing.

Can I have your account when you die?

Building a C# Blazor App with NoSQL and SQL Using HarperDB

Tawanda Nyahuye — Tue, 01 Mar 2022 14:29:13 +0000

This tutorial describes how to use HarperDB Database and Blazor. For this tutorial, we are going to build a simple Blazor .Net Core app using HarperDB. The final source code for this tutorial can be found on this GitHub repository.

What is required to follow along this tutorial

Basic knowledge of C#
Visual studio (in my case I am using Visual Studio 2019)
HarperDB account

Why HarperDB?

HarperDB has an easy to use REST API which supports both SQL and NoSQL. It is very simple to use with a wide range of tutorials, support and documentation in different languages like Python, Javascript and CSharp.

Setting up our HarperDB database

Create your HarperDB account
Go to the HarperDB Studio
Create your Organisation
Create new HarperDB Cloud instance
Create a Schema dev
Create two tables dog and breed and set the hash attr to id

NB: To make it simple, for our pets app we are going to use dogs only

Video tutorial on how to setup your HarperDB cloud

Creating our project

Open Visual Studio
Click: Create a new Project -> Blazor Web Assembly App

Click Next

Name your Project **MyPets** and click Next

Select .Net Core 5 and configurations then click create

Configuring our project

Edit Navigation menu (NavMenu.razor) Let’s edit our MyPets navigation App by opening the NavMenu.razor in the Shared folder. We want to add three options, our Home, Add Pets and lastly the page to Display Pets

Edit the URLs as shown below

<div class="@NavMenuCssClass" @onclick="ToggleNavMenu">
    <ul class="nav flex-column">
        <li class="nav-item px-3">
            <NavLink class="nav-link" href="" Match="NavLinkMatch.All">
                <span class="oi oi-home" aria-hidden="true"></span> Home
            </NavLink>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item px-3">
            <NavLink class="nav-link" href="AddPet">
                <span class="oi oi-plus" aria-hidden="true"></span> Add Pets
            </NavLink>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item px-3">
            <NavLink class="nav-link" href="fetchdata">
                <span class="oi oi-list-rich" aria-hidden="true"></span> Display Pets
            </NavLink>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

After running the project, our app looks like this

Setting up a Home page Let's rename the SurveyPrompt.razor to HomePage as follows

Change the last line of Index.razor. Index.razor is found under pages as shown above

<SurveyPage Title="How is Blazor working for you?" />

 <HomePage Title="Explore" />

Adding important imports

Open _Imports.razor and add the following imports

@using MyPets
@using MyPets.Shared
@using MyPets.Helpers;
@using System.Text.Json

Create a Pet class to help us pass the object data from DB

Right click your project -> add folder
Name the folder Helpers
Right click Helpers folder and add a new Class
Name it Pet

Add the following code to your pet class

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace MyPets.Helpers
{
    public class Pet
    {
        public int id { get; set; }
        public string dog_name { get; set; }
        public int breed_id { get; set; }

        public int age { get; set; }
    }
}

NB: To setup your database, DB URL and token can be found in the HarperDB studio account under config tab
To find your DB URL and token:

Login to HarperDB Studio
Click on your instance (if you do not have any instances, click Create New HarperDB Cloud Instance to create a new instance
Click on the config tab
Your HDB URL is the Instance URL
Your Authentication token is the Instance API Auth Header (this user)

Adding pets to our database

We are going to make use of the existing pages created by our default Razor app. Rename Counter.Razor to AddPet.razor in the Pages folder and edit it as shown below:
HTML Section

@page "/AddPet"

<h1>Add a new Dog</h1>
<div class="form-group">
    <input class="form-control" Placeholder="Id" @bind-value="@id"/>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
    <input class="form-control" Placeholder="Dog Name" @bind-value="@dog_name"/>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
    <input class="form-control" Placeholder="BreedID" @bind-value="@breed_id"/>
</div>
<div class="form-group">
    <input class="form-control" Placeholder="Age" @bind-value="@age"/>
</div>
<p>@result</p>
<button class="btn btn-primary" @onclick="AddPets">Add New Pet</button>

C# Code Section

@code {
   //Variables for our inputs
    int id;
    string dog_name;
    int breed_id;
    int age;
    private string result = "";
   //Request and response variables
    HttpRequestMessage requestMessage;
    HttpResponseMessage responseMessage;
    HttpClient http;

    private async void AddPets()
    {
        try
        {
            var postBody = new //our request body
            {

                operation =  "insert",
                schema= "dev",
                table =  "dog",
                records = new[] { new
                {
                    id = id,
                    dog_name = dog_name,
                    breed_id = breed_id,
                    age = age
                    }

                }
            };
            http = new HttpClient();
            requestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage
            {
                Method = HttpMethod.Post,
                RequestUri = new Uri(@"YOUR_HDB_URL_HERE") //DB URl
            };

            requestMessage.Content = JsonContent.Create(postBody);
            http.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", "Basic put_your_token_here");
            responseMessage = await http.SendAsync(requestMessage);
            if (responseMessage.IsSuccessStatusCode)
            {
                result = "New pet added";
            }
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            result =responseMessage.ToString();
        }
    }
}

** NB: **To setup your database, DB URL and token can be found in the HarperDB studio account under config tab
To find your DB URL and token:

Login to HarperDB Studio
Click on your instance (if you do not have any instances, click Create New HarperDB Cloud Instance to create a new instance
Click on the config tab
Your HDB URL is the Instance URL
Your Authentication token is the Instance API Auth Header (this user)

Display Pets from the database

Edit the code in FetchData.razor in the Pages folder as shown below

NB: For this section we will use the HarperDB SQL functionality

HTML Section

@page "/fetchdata"

<h1>Dogs</h1>
<p>This section demonstrates fetching data from HarperDB</p>
<p> @result</p>
@if (pets == null) //display nothing when our DB is empty
{
    <p><em>Loading...</em></p>
}
else
{
    <table class="table">
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>Id</th>
                <th>Dog Name</th>
                <th>Breed</th>
                <th>Age</th>
                <th>Action</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            @foreach (var pet in pets)
            {
                <tr>
                    <td>@pet.id</td>
                    <td>@pet.dog_name</td>
                    <td>@pet.breed_id</td>
                    <td>@pet.age</td>
               </tr>
            }
        </tbody>
    </table>
}

C# Code Section

@code {
    HttpRequestMessage requestMessage;
    HttpResponseMessage responseMessage;
    HttpClient http;
    List<Pet> pets; //Pets list to store our pets retrieved from the database
    private string result = "";
    protected override async Task OnInitializedAsync() 
    {
        try
        {
            var postBody = new
            {
                operation = "sql",
                sql = "SELECT * FROM dev.dog WHERE 1"
            };
            http = new HttpClient();
            requestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage
            {
                Method = HttpMethod.Post,
                RequestUri = new Uri(@"YOUR_HDB_URL_HERE")
            };
            requestMessage.Content = JsonContent.Create(postBody);
            http.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", "Basic put_your_token_here");
            responseMessage = await http.SendAsync(requestMessage);
            pets = JsonSerializer.Deserialize // for our HTML table
                    <List<Pet>>(await responseMessage.Content.ReadAsStringAsync());
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            result = responseMessage.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Test addition and Display functionality

Let's test out what we have so far:
Start your project in Visual Studio

** NB: **To setup your database, DB URL and token can be found in the HarperDB studio account under config tab
To find your DB URL and token:

Login to HarperDB Studio
Click on your instance (if you do not have any instances, click Create New HarperDB Cloud Instance to create a new instance
Click on the config tab
Your HDB URL is the Instance URL
Your Authentication token is the Instance API Auth Header (this user)

Deleting our Pets

We will add the functionality to delete a pet in the display FetchData.razor page
Edit the HTML in FetchData.razor to add the following table data to your HTML page

<td><button class="btn btn-danger" @onclick="() => DeletePet(pet.id)">Delete</button></td>

After adding the line your page should look like the one below

@page "/fetchdata"

<h1>Dogs</h1>
<p>This section demonstrates fetching data from HarperDB</p>
<p> @result</p>
@if (pets == null)
{
    <p><em>Loading...</em></p>
}
else
{
    <table class="table">
        <thead>
            <tr>
                <th>Id</th>
                <th>Dog Name</th>
                <th>Breed</th>
                <th>Age</th>
                <th>Action</th>
            </tr>
        </thead>
        <tbody>
            @foreach (var pet in pets)
            {
                <tr>
                    <td>@pet.id</td>
                    <td>@pet.dog_name</td>
                    <td>@pet.breed_id</td>
                    <td>@pet.age</td>
                    <td><button class="btn btn-danger" @onclick="() => DeletePet(pet.id)">Delete</button></td>
                </tr>
            }
        </tbody>
    </table>
}

Add the following DeletePet() method to your @code section under OnInitializedAsync()

 //Delete a pet 
    private async void DeletePet(int id)
    {

        try
        {
            var postBody = new
            {

                operation =  "delete",
                schema= "dev",
                table =  "dog",
                hash_values= new[] { id }
            };
            http = new HttpClient();
            requestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage
            {
                Method = HttpMethod.Post,
                RequestUri = new Uri(@"YOUR_HDB_URL_HERE")
            };
            requestMessage.Content = JsonContent.Create(postBody);
            http.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("Authorization", "Basic put_your_token_here");
            responseMessage = await http.SendAsync(requestMessage);
            if (responseMessage.IsSuccessStatusCode)
            {
                result = "Pet has been deleted";
            }
        }
        catch (Exception)
        {
            result =responseMessage.ToString();
        }

    }

Test Deletion

Start your project in Visual Studio
Let’s add another pet

We now have two dogs, test by deleting any of the two

After deleting Bruno we are now left with one dog (Harper) in the database.

Conclusion

This tutorial demonstrated how to create a basic C# Blazor app and how to use HarperDB SQL and NoSQL operations in C#.

The Purpose of the DisplayPets function was to demonstrate how you can communicate with HarperDB SQL operations and provide an example to make it easy to use other SQL operations provided in the HarperDB API.

Finally, the AddPet and DeletePet functions demonstrate how you can add and alter data using HarperDB’s NoSQL operations and to help you get started for any NoSQL reference in HarperDB using C#.

Getting started with a project written by another developer

Tawanda Nyahuye — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 19:25:24 +0000

Lets get into this

I have been there and if you are not a newbie, you have probably been there but if you haven't been there, don't worry you will be there. There will always be a time in your life when you inherit code that was written by another developer. If the developer is smarter than you, that's a problem and if they are not, well that's a huge problem. This is a problem most developers face when they start a new job at a different company.

How did we get here?

Recently I was given a task to maintain a project that was written by another developer using a programming language that I am not familiar with. This article has some few things that helped me get up to speed with this new project as well as explaining these ways in case you encounter the same problem.

You have been given a project written by another Developer. What should you do?

We don't run away from the code, we run the code

Study the programming language used

The first thing you have to do before trying to add functionality to a project written by someone else is to understand the programming language that was used to write the project. Most people say programming languages are the same, learn one and you are good with all of them. I disagree, programming languages are different in terms of syntax but they use the same concepts like , OOP, if statements exception handling etc. Take your time to understand the syntax of the language before you try changing some lines of code in a project and this will save you a lot of time. This applies to all programming languages, Python, JavaScript, PHP, C# etc.

Study the source code

Once you get an understanding of the programming language, take your time to read through the project code. Go through the code as much as you can if possible from line 1 to line n, file 1 to file n. Going through the code thoroughly will help you understand the way the developer structures their code, their commenting style, strength and weaknesses. This will also help you know where to edit when you want to edit any features of the project.

Experiment with the project

Experiment with the project, make a backup then break it and fix it. If you break the project you will suffer, the suffering is necessary because it will help you understand the concepts and technologies used in the project when you are trying to fix the project. This will also help you to understand several modules of the project and their connection.

NB: There are several ways that can help one to get started with a project that was written by another developer but this is what worked for me.

How to recover a project or files deleted when running git commands

Tawanda Nyahuye — Fri, 02 Oct 2020 14:56:47 +0000

This week as I was working on a project, I made a terrible mistake running some random Git commands that I copied from the internet and ended up deleted the whole project.

How did we end up here?

Ok, the story is, I was trying to back up my project to my remote repository using git commands. I initialized my remote repository with a .gitignore file and I don't usually do this. When trying to push the project after committing my changes I got the following error:

hint: Updates were rejected because the remote contains work that you do
hint: not have locally. This is usually caused by another repository pushing
hint: to the same ref. You may want to first integrate the remote changes
hint: (e.g., 'git pull ...') before pushing again.
hint: See the 'Note about fast-forwards' in 'git push --help' for details.

What deleted my project?

Just like any other software developers when your house is on fire you think of one place, Google. I typed some stuff and ended up on Stack Overflow. I was so happy when I found a question relating to my struggle (you know the feeling right?). The worst thing I did was picking the wrong answer. I copied and pasted the following command on my Git cmd:

$ git fetch --all && git reset --hard origin/master && git pull

After hitting enter my project was gone.

How I recovered my project?

I followed the following steps:

Checking when the tip of my branches was updated

$ git reflog

This gave me the following information:

94e51c5 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{0}: reset: moving to HEAD@{1}
94e51c5 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{1}: reset: moving to HEAD@{2}
94e51c5 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{2}: reset: moving to HEAD@{1}
94e51c5 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{3}: reset: moving to HEAD@{0}
94e51c5 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{4}: reset: moving to 94e51c5
94e51c5 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{5}: reset: moving to HEAD
94e51c5 (HEAD -> master, origin/master) HEAD@{6}: reset: moving to origin/master
52d867f HEAD@{7}: commit: added a new link
80e3e2a HEAD@{8}: commit (initial): initial commit

I wanted to go back to the first and what I did was:

git reset HEAD@{8}

HEAD@{8} was for my initial commit (last line on the results above)

This listed all the files that I had added and committed with a D on my CMD, showing that they were deleted.

To recover them I ran the command below:

$ git restore .

My project was back

How to view .Net application source code and hiding it [Updated]

Tawanda Nyahuye — Sat, 05 Sep 2020 13:13:39 +0000

Have you ever liked an application to the point that you want to view its source code? Well, I have been there. For .Net executable files and libraries such as DLL files, viewing the source code is a piece of cake as long as the code is not obfuscated by the developer. In this article, we are going to view the source code of a .Net DLL file as well as obfuscating it.

The process of viewing the source code of an executable file is the same.

To create a DLL you can check this article of mine

Viewing source code using JetBrains dotPeek

JetBrains dotPeek decompiles an executable file or DLL/.exe file written using .Net to their equivalent C# code.

Installing dotPeek

Download JetBrains dotPeek from JetBrains
Run the setup and install the free .Net decompiler and assembly tools.

Decompiling the code

Open dotPeek
File -> Open -> navigate to your project -> select your .DLL/.exe file
Your project will be listed in the projects on our dotPeek under Assembly Explorer
Click your project and find the classes to view the source code

My file is called MyCalculator.dll and below is the source code

Obfuscating the source code

For more obfuscating tools both open source and paid versions check this NuGet obfuscator article

In this article, I'm using two .Net Obfuscation tools ArmDot and Eazfuscator. ArmDot works on both Windows and Linux. You can check a full article where I cover using Armdot in full detail.

To demonstrate the tools, I will be using a simple C# calculator DLL I wrote some time ago.

NB: ArmDot and Eazfuscator.NET are not free software but both have free trials.

Obfuscating With ArmDot

Open your application in Visual Studio
Right Click Project -> Manage Nuget Packages
Under Browse Section -> Search for ArmDot
Install ArmDot.Client and ArmDot.Engine.MSBuildTasks
Add ArmDot Metadata Annotation to your classes that you want to obfuscate

using System;

namespace MyCalculator
{
    [ArmDot.Client.VirtualizeCode] //ArmDot Annotation
    public class Calculator
    {
      //class code goes here
    }
}

Add the MSBuildTask to your project file .csproj

<Target Name="Protect" AfterTargets="AfterCompile" BeforeTargets="BeforePublish">
    <ItemGroup>
        <Assemblies Include="$(ProjectDir)$(IntermediateOutputPath)$(TargetFileName)" />
    </ItemGroup>
    <ArmDot.Engine.MSBuildTasks.ObfuscateTask
        Inputs="@(Assemblies)"
        ReferencePaths="@(_ResolveAssemblyReferenceResolvedFiles->'%(RootDir)%(Directory)')"
        SkipAlreadyObfuscatedAssemblies="true"/>
</Target>

If you open and check your .exe/.DLL file using dotPeek you will notice that your source code is now obfuscated.

Obfuscating With Eazfuscator.NET

Open your application in Visual Studio
Change your project from debug mode to Release mode
Open Eazfuscator.NET then drag and drop your project from solution explorer to protect it
Rebuild your project and click reload all

If you open and check your .exe/.DLL file using dotPeek you will notice that your source code is now obfuscated.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Softanics (ArmDot) or Gapotchenko (Eazfuscator.NET). This article is for educational purposes.

Tweeting with Python

Tawanda Nyahuye — Sat, 29 Aug 2020 15:59:25 +0000

Besides the usual apps, twitter has an API that allows you to send tweets or manipulate twitter data with it. In this article, we are going to send tweets using the Twitter API and Python. Assuming you already have a twitter account, here are other things you need:

Setting up python on your computer is straight forward, all you need is the download the latest version suitable for the operating system from here.

Setting up a twitter developer account

First, you need to apply for a twitter developer account. Fill the forms accordingly and put in mind that the reasons you give for why you need the developer account affects the approval time of your developer account. The approval of your developer account may take a day or more.

Creating an app

Once your developer account is ready, go to your twitter developer account and do the following:

Go developer portal then apps and create a new app. Twitter will ask some questions to describe what your app will be used for, website and others(answer accordingly and for the website, all you need is just a valid URL)
Generate API keys under keys and tokens and save them well labeled in a separate file on your computer.
Give your app read and write access rights under permissions

Writing the code

In this tutorial, we will be using Python's tweepy library to communicate with the Twitter API

Create your python project I recommend creating a project in a separate virtual environment.
Install tweepy pip install tweepy or pip install git+https://github.com/tweepy/tweepy.git@2efe385fc69385b57733f747ee62e6be12a1338b (recommended)

In your Python script: Import the tweepy library that we have installed earlier.

import tweepy

Initialize the API keys that we generated earlier (you should have them ready saved in a separate file) if not you can still generate them from your developer account.

consumer_key = "your consumer key"
consumer_secret = "your consumer secret key"
access_token = "your access token"
access_token_secret = "your access token secret"

Create an authentication to your twitter account. Your app authenticates with your twitter account using your API keys.

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)
auth.set_access_token(access_token, access_token_secret)
API = tweepy.API(auth)

Add a function to tweet some text (your text should be <128 characters)

def tweet_some_text(tweet):
    API.update_status(tweet)

If you want to tweet text with a media file like an image use the following function

def tweet_with_media(filename, tweet):
    API.update_with_media(file_name, status=tweet)

Add a main method to your script (where we are going to call our tweeting functions) replace my_meme.jpg with your image and location if not in the same folder with your script

if __name__ == "__main__":
    tweet_some_text("Tweeting from backend, isn't that cool?")
    tweet_with_media("my_meme.jpg", "This is a meme")

Full code

import tweepy

consumer_key = "your consumer key"
consumer_secret = "your consumer secret key"
access_token = "your access token"
access_token_secret = "your access token secret"

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret)
auth.set_access_token(access_token, access_token_secret)
API = tweepy.API(auth)

def tweet_some_text(tweet):
    API.update_status(tweet)

def tweet_with_media(filename, tweet):
    API.update_with_media(file_name, status=tweet)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    tweet_some_text("Tweeting from backend, isn't that cool?")
    # tweet_with_media("my_meme.jpg", "This is a meme")

If anything goes wrong I will be here

Setting up a python virtual environment on Windows

Tawanda Nyahuye — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 14:49:04 +0000

Why create a virtual environment?

We create a virtual environment in order to isolate each Python project from other projects on our computer so that each project has its own dependencies.

Open your CMD and run the following command:

python -m venv c:\path\to\yourenvironment

Example: python -m venv c:\pythonprojects\myproject
This will create the following folders/files in your environment

Creating our python project

You can create your virtual environment inside an existing project, it will work the same

Create your python script in your virtual environment (in this case I created a virtual environment first). You can also create the script within a folder inside your virtual environment.

Running your project

If your script is inside a folder within your virtual environment, go inside the folder first using your CMD.

cd your-folder-name

Activate your virtual environment using your CMD while inside your virtual environment folder using the following commands

First, navigate to the folder with your virtual environment:

cd c:\path\to\yourenvironment

.\Scripts\activate

Mine looks like this: c:\pythonprojects\myproject>.\Scripts\activate
Run your script using the following command

python script.py

python name-of-your-script.py in this case my script is sript.py

Programming is not easy, here is the secret to mastering programming.

Tawanda Nyahuye — Sat, 22 Aug 2020 10:00:35 +0000

We've all watched movies where they fix a programming bug like it's a piece of cake. Guess what? it's a lie. If you are a beginner or someone who wants to start a career as a software developer you need to know that programming is not easy and never let anyone tell you otherwise. Discussions among software developers usually involve two lovely words, COPY and PASTE. Its true, programming involves a lot of copying and pasting, and having the power to copy and paste code as well as making it work is like enjoying a view from a mountain top. However to enjoy the view you have to climb the mountain first which is the difficult part and the secret in this article.

There are many ways of mastering programming but here are some of the ways that I think are very helpful in becoming a better software developer.

Be enthusiastic

Breath programming, speak about programming, write about programming, and live a programming life. To become a better programmer you have to enjoy programming, you need to be strongly interested and make it part of your life. Most great developers have no social life but however, you need to know your limits and have other social activities to help you clear your mind since writing code requires a strong, fresh, and active mind.

Be part of programming communities

Be part of programming communities as well as surrounding yourself with other programmers. Read articles on programming, watch podcasts, and be part of programming meetups. There are great programming communities on every social media platform be part of them even a community of programming memes is a good idea, memes can teach you new concepts.

Ask questions

Do not hesitate to ask questions to your fellow programmers, we all learn through asking questions. You can ask questions on a platform like twitter you will get responses from experts though communities like Stackoverflow and Quora are the best for programming questions.

Start with the basics

When you start learning to program do not skip the first pages of a book or the first minutes of a video tutorial. Start with how to declare a variable before trying to save data in a database. Always learn the fundamentals then jump into frameworks and this will make your life easier.

Challenge yourself

To master programming, there is a need for consistency. You need to practice every day. The twitter dev community has a 100DaysOfCode challenge which is very helpful. You can use it for consistency sharing of updates on your programming journey and you will be able to meet experts that can help you become a better programmer.

Lastly, remember counting starts from zero and the root is at the top of the tree.

How to create a dynamic link library (DLL) and use it in .Net and Python

Tawanda Nyahuye — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 13:43:32 +0000

What is a DLL file?

A library is a collection of non-volatile resources that are used for software development. In this tutorial, we are going to create our own dynamic link library(DLL) using c#. A DLL is a library used on Microsoft platforms that contains code and data that can be used by more than one program at the same time. If you open the program information of most applications installed on Microsoft Windows you will notice DLL files. These DLL files store different functionalities for the application. Some of the advantages of DLL files are:

Code reuse
Efficient memory usage
Reduced disk space
Fast loading of applications

Making a DLL file

In this tutorial, we are going to make a simple calculator library that does addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division using C# in Visual Studio.

Create the project (library) in Visual Studio as follows

Create new project
Select C# Class Library (.Net Standard)
Project name -> MyCalculator

The code for your library

Add the following code:

using System;

namespace MyCalculator
{
    public class Calculator
    {
        //Our addition function
        public double add(double num_one, double num_two)
        {
            return num_one + num_two;
        }
        //Our subtraction function
        public double subtract(double num_one, double num_two)
        {
            return num_one - num_two;
        }
        //Our multiplication function
        public double multiply(double num_one, double num_two)
        {
            return num_one * num_two;
        }
        //Our division function
        public double divide(double num_one, double num_two)
        {
            return num_one / num_two;         
        }
    }
}

Building your library project

Click on: Build -> Build Solution

Locating your Calculator Library

Your MyCalculator.dll is located in:

Your project folder -> MyCalculator -> MyCalculator -> bin -> debug

Using the DLL file in .Net

We are going to use our Calculator library MyCalculator.dll in a simple C# application.

Create a c# console application in Visual Studio as follows:

File -> New -> Project
Select: C# Console App
Project name: MyProject

Importing our calculator library

Copy MyCalculator.dll from: Your library project folder -> MyCalculator -> MyCalculator -> bin -> debug
Paste MyCalculator.dll to Your project folder -> MyProject -> MyProject -> bin -> debug
Add reference to your dll file: In solution explorer: Under MyProject -> Right click MyProject -> add -> Project reference
Browse: Go to (Your project folder -> MyCalculator -> MyCalculator -> bin -> debug -> MyCalculator.dll
Click add

The code for your project (MyProject)

Edit your code as follows:

using System;
using MyCalculator; // importing our calculator library

namespace MyProject
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Calculator calc = new Calculator(); //Our Acalculator class object

            Console.WriteLine("Addition: "+calc.add(3, 2));
            Console.WriteLine("Subtraction: " + calc.subtract(3, 2));
            Console.WriteLine("Multiplication: " + calc.multiply(3, 2));
            Console.WriteLine("Division: " + calc.divide(3, 2));
        }
    }
}

Using the DLL file in Python

Install pythonnet

pip install pythonnet

Python code

import clr #import clr from pythonnet

#load our dll file(mine is in my C:\\ folder)
clr.AddReference("C:\\MyCalculator.dll")

#import our calculator class from Our C# namespace MyCalculator
from MyCalculator import Calculator

calc = Calculator() #create our Calculator object

#calling our methoths and printing
print("Addition: "+str(calc.add(3, 2)))
print("Subtraction: "+str(calc.subtract(3, 2)))
print("Multiplication: "+str(calc.multiply(3, 2)))
print("Division: "+str(calc.divide(3, 2)))

Handling a viral tweet and how you can benefit from it

Tawanda Nyahuye — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 11:59:58 +0000

A viral tweet, a dream of every twitter user. It gives a great feeling, this article gives you some of the tips to help you benefit from such a great moment.

It's quite tricky to define what a viral tweet is, therefore in this article a viral tweet refers to a tweet with a performance that is enough to pump you up. It depends on an account, for some accounts, a viral tweet is a tweet that is performing or has performed well and is likely to reach or has reached thousands of likes but for some accounts, a tweet with hundred likes or even less is viral tweet.

Here is how you can benefit from a viral tweet and how to achieve it:

Increasing your following
Promoting your other social media accounts
Promoting your business
Promoting your blog

Increasing your following

Putting your profile in order

Whenever one of your tweets goes viral people will start following you, notifications will blow up and you can start panicking. Some thoughts will suggest you post more content or turning off your notifications. If you ever go through this you need to hold your horses. When you get a viral tweet people will visit your profile therefore you need to put your profile in order. Update your profile to make it look interesting, it is a good idea to make your profile relate to your viral tweet so that people can relate to both your tweet and your profile.

Update your header if it is not looking good. Put a link to your blog or website on your profile in order to look legit. A nice profile will attract people visiting your profile and they are likely to follow you.

Show people your best tweets

Stop retweeting a lot of stuff especially tweets that do not relate to your viral tweet or profile. People visiting your profile will check what you have tweeted recently, therefore, make it easy and avoid wasting their time. It is a good idea to retweet a few of your tweets that have performed well recently. Pin one of your best tweets to your profile, people like following users who get a lot of impressions. There is no need for you to pin the currently well-performing tweet, people visiting your profile are already aware of it.

Never beg to be followed that's a turn-off, people don't follow you because you told them to, they follow you because they are interested in your content. Many people make this mistake by replying to a viral tweet with a tweet that says, "follow me". Instead, you can reply to your viral tweet with your best tweet or a link to your recent tweets(twitter usually picks the best ones). You can achieve this as follows: Check out some of my tweets then add a link to the same reply as follows: https://twitter.com/search/?q=from:put-your-user-name-here/exclude:replies
An example, of how this works, this link will direct you to my tweets excluding replies.

Promoting your other social media accounts

Whenever one of your tweets starts going viral, make use of it to promote your other social media accounts like your youtube channel or Instagram account. You can easily achieve this by replying to the tweet with a link to the social media account that you want to promote. Do not reply with the link only, add some text for example: "check out my youtube channel" then add a link to the same reply. You can also use this technique to promote your friend's twitter or social media account.

Promoting your business

Never let your viral tweet be pointless, a viral tweet is a way of marketing yourself or business for free. You will be surprised that some people will be interested in your products or services. All you need to do is to reply to your tweet showing what you do or your business website. Adding some pictures, if you make music add a link to your SoundCloud if you have an account.

Promoting your blog

A viral tweet is a chance for you to drive traffic to your blog. Just like promoting your business or social media, you can also reply with your favorite blog post or a link to the whole blog.

This does not apply to your tweets only, but you can also do the same using someone else's viral tweet. It sounds lame but why not do it if you can benefit from it.