April 26th, 2024

Currently Reading: The Imposter's Handbook

Finally getting around to reading this!

I’ve just started, but I’ve found that the way the author writes makes it easier to understand really complex concepts.

Book called 'The Imposter's Handbook: A CS Primer for Self-taught Programmers

April 19th, 2024

A Quick Update:

A quick update on what I've been up to so far this month:

📚 LinkedIn Learning:

✅Introduction to Graphic Design: Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
✅Learning SOLID Programming Principles

In addition to that, I have been attending Tech Elevator's alumni support sessions. I sat in all week on their reviews on unit testing, integration testing, and test-driven development, as well as last week's reviews on front end, Vue.js, and Vue 3 more specifically.

📓 I have also been making the most of the great weather to attend a variety of tech-related events in Columbus. On the 10th, I went to a 'Tips for New/Junior Developers!' event, where I received a lot of great advice on breaking into the tech field and how to be a successful developer.

🍻 On the 15th, I attended Tech Takeover hosted by TechLife Columbus at Fado in Dublin, where I had the opportunity to catch up with people I hadn't seen in a while as well as meet new people who have been incredibly supportive. The following day, I went to FreeCodeCamp Columbus' workshop on Open Source Discovery, where I learned a lot about git, pull requests, branches vs forks, and all sorts of cool things you can do with open source.

📖 Finally, I attended Frontend Columbus' meetup on the 18th, where I learned all about HTMX as well as things like HATEOAS, hyperview, and hyperscript. These events have been a great opportunity to learn, and I've found them truly inspiring while meeting a lot of cool people along the way! I really appreciate everyone being so welcoming and their willingness to teach someone who's still rather new to the field!

March 8th, 2024

Weekly Recap (3/3/24 - 3/9/24):

📚 The LinkedIn Learning courses that I took included:

✅JavaScript Essential Training
✅Building a Small Business Website w/Open Source WordPress
✅WordPress 5 Essential Training: Site Administration
✅Using WordPress to Create a Blog for Creators

I also sat in on a couple Tech Elevator alumni review classes, where we played around with the Pokémon API to create a full-stack application.

💻 Projects included fixing some minor bugs to my portfolio site. On that note, thanks again to everyone who helped me find said bugs! Please feel free to keep playing around with it and giving me your feedback!

March 1st, 2024

Weekly Recap (2/25/24 - 3/2/24): WordPress

📚 This week was all about learning, so I spent most of my time on LinkedIn Learning courses:

✅PHP for WordPress
✅Creating Block Patterns in WordPress
✅WordPress Content Blocks: Working with Themes
✅WordPress: Staging a Site
✅WordPress: Contact Forms
✅WordPress: E-commerce
✅WordPress: Building a Secure Site

I may have had a theme. I've spent some time in the past couple of weeks learning WordPress, but this week, I really wanted to do a deep dive and ensure that I have a strong knowledge base.

💻 I've always been fascinated by frontend development and design in general, which is why I love Frontend Mentor. If you're also into frontend and haven't heard of Frontend Mentor yet, I highly recommend checking them out. They have a variety of challenges to choose from. They give you an image of a website, and the challenge is to create a site that is as similar to that image as possible. I recently completed one of their challenges and created a recipe page (https://lnkd.in/gc_gXAcM) and have also started another challenge to create a landing page.

📰 I also spent some time experimenting with WordPress and started building out a website based on the Dungeons and Dragons campaign I'm currently in.

🎶 And without further ado, the unhinged Spotify playlist of the week is..."Rap Metal Academic" 🤷‍♀️ 🤣

February 24th, 2024

Weekly Recap (2/18/24 - 2/24/24): Recovery from Rejection

This week:

💻I completed some more LinkedIn Learning courses: Creating a Responsive Web Design and WordPress.com Essential Training (last week’s was on WordPress.org).

📊I completed an Excel project that focused heavily on creating dashboards.

📚I read a book called ‘Imposter No More: Overcome Imposterism to Cultivate a Successful Career’ by Jill A. Stoddard, started to learn guitar, and pulled out my sketchbook for the first time in quite a while.

If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t feel as productive this week as I have been in the past. Mid-week, I received a particularly painful rejection from a job I wanted and I felt that I needed a moment to recover. So I took a little break, which may or may not have included getting poké for lunch and a trip to MicroCenter.

Now it’s time to get back to it👩‍💻

February 16th, 2024

Weekly Recap (2/11/24 - 2/17/24): Portfolio Optimization

Thought I'd start giving recaps on my week so here goes:

📖 This week, I completed 2 projects on data cleaning & exploration using SQL. I also completed various LinkedIn Learning courses including UX Design (a 7-part course), Figma for UX Design, and WordPress Essential Training.

🖥 I also did a lot of work on my portfolio site. I started the week off by creating a logo, figuring out how to get the page title to change when using a router in Vue as you navigate to different pages, and reworking my GitHub so that when you navigate from my site to different projects, it makes more sense. I wanted to make it so that the profile page isn't as long and when you click 'View Project' on my site, it takes you to the code, where the readMe file now has all of the photos, descriptions, what I learned, etc. Then, I deployed it...and immediately had to fix a couple of things lol. It wasn't too bad; I just noticed that, for some reason, the LinkedIn and GitHub buttons at the top of my page weren't working. Once that was taken care of, I ran Lighthouse and worked on increasing my accessibility and SEO scores. I sent my site to some people for feedback and to just test it in general and picked up on an interesting issue that I didn't anticipate (glad I asked). In my portraits section, when you click on a portrait, you can't select any of the buttons I created underneath the portrait when you're using an iPhone 12. My buttons are covered up by buttons that are built into the iPhone. It's an easy enough fix, just need to adjust the height of the cards.

🎵 Bonus: my "most unhinged Spotify playlist name" for the week (because I'm getting a kick out of their DayList feature) - I was thinking "Terror Horrorcore Monday Afternoon" because that felt like a lot for a Monday, but then Spotify hit me with the "Chill Rock Always Single Wednesday Afternoon" on Valentine's Day, which...rude 🤣

February 9th, 2024

Portfolio Updates!

"But why tho? I liked your last one!" I get it; I didn't hate the previous version of my portfolio site. But since the time that I had initially created it, I've learned a lot and I wanted a way to showcase that. I probably could've just thrown in a new section for the new skills, but a couple of weeks ago, I was hit with a spark of inspiration and it led to me completely redoing my site. So new year, new...site. On the plus side, this project was a great refresher on frontend development and overall design.

Portfolio before pictureright arrowPortfolio updated picture

February 9th, 2024

New Skills Acquired

Since graduating Tech Elevator, I've continued to learn as much as possible about software development. At first, I'll admit, I didn't really have a direction, but as I was applying to jobs, the companies that were interested in me primarily used Python. Since I'm most familiar with Java, I decided that learning Python would be my next challenge.

I spent about two months going through LinkedIn Learning classes and even an online MIT class. While I was working on this, I was also going through the interview process for a data analyst position so I quickly added data analytics, Excel (specifically things like pivot tables), tableau, pandas, and more to my list of things to learn, going through even more LinkedIn Learning classes and going so far as to watch a 19 hour data anayltics video on YouTube.

Ultimately, I didn't get that data analyst position. They found a candidate that was just a bit more of what they were looking for which was heart-breaking. On the bright side, I have all of this additional knowledge and skills that I didn't have before. And I know that if I'm up for another data analyst position, I'll be that much more prepared.

February 7th, 2024

Resources

Podcasts:


Newsletters
  • Cassidoo
  • A weekly newsletter sent by Cassidy Williams where she shares "what's new and cool in the world of web development, with content for everyone, from beginners to pros."

  • Go Make Things
  • Chris Ferdinandi sends out "a short email each weekday on how to build a simpler, more resilient web."


Online Magazines
  • SideBar
  • “Collecting the best design links of the day since October 2012.”
  • Smashing Magazine
  • “Magazine on CSS, JavaScript, front-end, accessibility, UX and design. For developers, designers, and front-end engineers.”

Learn Coding Through Games:
  • CheckIO
  • “Coding games for beginners and advanced programmers where you can improve your coding skills by solving engaging challenges and fun tasks using Python and TypeScript”
  • Code Combat
  • “Learn to Code Through the Power of Play”
  • CSS Diner
  • “A fun and interactive game that challenges you to select the correct CSS selectors for different HTML elements.”
  • Kerntype
  • “A letter spacing game
  • Pixact.ly
  • “An online tool that tests how well you know your pixels”
  • Screeps
  • “MMO sandbox game for programmers. It means ‘scripting creeps’. It’s an open-source game for programmers, wherein the core mechanic is programming your units’ AI. You control your colony by writing JavaScript.”
  • SQL Murder Mystery
  • “There's been a Murder in SQL City! The SQL Murder Mystery is designed to be both a self-directed lesson to learn SQL concepts and commands and a fun game for experienced SQL users to solve an intriguing crime.”

Challenges and Learning Websites:
  • 100 Days CSS Challenge
  • Better WebType
  • “A free web typography course for designers and web developers by Matej Latin”
  • C0d3
  • “Become a Software Engineer the Hard Way. Learn the right foundations you need to become a full stack software engineer. Our curriculum takes no shortcuts and effectively trains students with no technical background to become great software engineers.”
  • CodeWars
  • “Achieve mastery through challenge. Improve your development skills by training with your peers on code kata that continuously challenge and push your coding practice.”
  • CSS-Tricks
  • Daily UI
  • “Become a better designer in 100 days. Daily Ui is a series of design challenges and surprise rewards send out everyday”
  • Frontend Mentor
  • “Improve your coding skills by building realistic projects. Our professionally designed challenges help you gain hands-on experience writing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. We create the designs so you can focus on the code and see your skills skyrocket!”
  • HackerRank
  • “We help candidates sharpen their tech skills and pursue job opportunities.”
  • Intro to Computer Science and Programming in Python
  • A FREE computer programming class from MIT
  • Leetcode
  • “the best platform to help you enhance your skills, expand your knowledge and prepare for technical interviews.”

Inspiration:
Tools:
  • Animista
  • “On-demand css animations library.”
  • Architextures
  • "The material editor for architects and designers. Browse materials and create textures for construction drawings and 3D models”
  • ColorMagic
  • “A color palette generator with AI. Generate colors from keyword for image of color you enter.”
  • Coolers
  • “The superfast color palettes generator! Create the perfect palette or get inspired by thousands of beautiful color schemes”
  • CSS Gradient
  • “a designstripe project that lets you create free gradient backgrounds for your website.”
  • Fancy-Border-Radius
  • FontAwesome
  • “The internet’s icon library and toolkit, used by millions of designers, developers, and content creators.”
  • Glow Generator
  • “A fresh CSS glow generator that generates cross-browser compatible code for your glowing needs.”
  • HappyHues
  • “A color palette inspiration site that acts as a real world example as to how the colors could be used in your design projects.”
  • HueMint
  • “Color palette generator. Huemint uses machine learning to create unique color schemes for your brand, website or graphic”
  • Icons8
  • “Curated graphics, design apps, and AI tools. The ultimate design kit for creatives and developers.”

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