Tech Notes

Mar 7, 2021
Last month I learnt - cpanel hosting isn't so bad

Yes I know. I’ve been living under a rock! Or maybe, just maybe… I’m a control freak. I remember using the cpanel interface to configure I don’t remember what for a friend’s site. That one hour or so was all the experience I had of cpanel and shared hosting in general. To be fair, my tech stack(rails and python before that) doesn’t get much love from shared hosting providers. At least not the ones in Kenya.
Oct 18, 2020
Last month I learnt - ruby can be weird

I was working on a task that involved parsing data from CSV files and saving it into rails models when I noticed something that didn’t look right. On calling to_json on one of the parsed csv rows, I got;
```
{
  "": null,
  "name": "John"
}
```
For context, I was parsing the CSV using the headers: true option, and for some reason, I had an empty header. Since we all know that developers don’t make mistakes, it had to be an issue with the data. So, I went hunting.
Feb 14, 2019
Developing Rails Applications on Docker - A Beginner's Journey

Docker has been around for a while now, and Rails for a while bit longer. I had the opportunity of setting up a development environment with these two technologies for work. This is my un-diluted somewhat incoherent blow by blow of how the initial process went for me.
Mar 24, 2018
Learnings I

I use the python interactive shell a lot. I find it convenient for when I need to quickly lookup methods and syntax. I also tend to use help() and dir() before heading over to google if things become too much for my feeble brain.
Jun 26, 2017
D3 notes

D3, for data driven documents, is a javascript library for data visualization. With it you can visualize your data using charts, graphs, maps and whatever else you can describe in code. I have wanted to learn D3 for quite a while so when an opportunity presented itself, I jumped at it. You can view the simple demo here.
Feb 11, 2017
Learning how to Code: Part II

In the first part of this post, I wrote about what I consider as failures on my journey to learning how to code. Its only natural to follow up failures with some success, right? In this post I try to highlight what I feel works for me as I learn.
Dec 29, 2016
Learning how to Code: My Story

I have had a running interest in learning how to program for about the last eight years. While I could surely look for reasons as to why I haven’t become a programmer, most of it is on me. There have been periods when I got stuck in and felt that I had learnt something. I just never got to the next level after introduction to…. I became pretty good at the basics, but very much inadequate at anything beyond.
Nov 26, 2016
A Ruby Vacation

I’ll admit it, blogging isn’t easy. Keeping a set writing schedule is continously proving impossible. What with the I don’t feel like doing anything today and what the hell did I do today? During this longish off I’ve been getting ready to inherit a rails application. As always the sheer amount of things to learn is overwhelming. So, what exactly have I been able to do?
Oct 27, 2016
Digressions into Design - Vector Graphics with Inkscape

Design isn’t everybody’s cup of tea. It certainly isn’t mine. But if you never try… An image has the ability to transform a webpage from normal to beautiful. It is in the pursuit of this beauty that I decided to try my hand at ‘drawing’.
Oct 16, 2016
Bash Story - 1

While I could probably go on and on about each small command I’ve picked up, this will be more of a list. But, you can’t stop me ranting about the pain behind learning each. In related news, I’m up to 200(give or take) unique bash $ commands! I know… impressive right?
Oct 7, 2016
Where is L.Turkana?

I literally can’t see an online map and not get interested. Queue the Nation’s Deadly Force Database(paywalled). I fired up Firefox’s browser console and the rest as they say is, well… what follows.
Sep 28, 2016
(Re)Starting with Leaflet

Getting a map onto a web page can be a daunting task. Demand that the map does stuff and hair-loss starts to be a concern. I know, this is about my fourth crack at it. This time though, I’m determined to come out tops.
Sep 20, 2016
Custom Domain Configuration

It is no exageration to say that getting my custom domain to work with github pages was a pain. Admittedly the pain was mostly down to the fact that this was the first time I was dabbling in DNS. At least I hope so.
Sep 14, 2016
Getting Started With Jekyll

I love the simplicity of text documents and every once in a while, I feel the need to put up a rant somewhere. Unfortunately, by the time I get online to get blogging, my rant is somewhat diluted.