Yesterday’s work was mostly focused on routing, getting the app set up, and making sure my environment is working.

Today’s goal was to get the URL shortening working and that was pretty easy. I used basic crypto hashing to generate the short URL and then chopped it off. You can see the code here →

This morning, I started working on a simple weekend project in which the goal is a deployed API server that does one simple thing. The business logic and the API behavior isn’t too important to me because the focus of this project is actually learning more about deployment.

So far though, I’ve been only concentrating on getting a working version of the app locally.

It’s call “Larri Adda” which comes from a song about a bus stop.

The main goal is to get a DigitalOcean server and database working together properly.

What I’ve learned so far is:

• Routing in Express is extremely flexible, it’s my first time using express.Router which is pretty powerful.
• When using route parameters (like /user/:id), use {mergeParams: true} within the route file that expects to use route params in order to actually receive them from the parent file.
• I’m using bits of code generated by Github Copilot which blows me away with how good it is guess what I’m trying to do!

Next on my list is to get MongoDB working with my app and I don’t want to do that today so maybe I’ll do that tomorrow 🤣

So I finished building my GMMK Pro last week (a writeup is in my drafts for that). I got an email from Keychron the same week I got my GMMK Pro shipped. I waited about 6 months after reserving the board to be able to buy the GMMK Pro so timing was a total coincidence, I think. I’ll have more thoughts on the GMMK Pro in its own post but for now, I wanted to mention the new announcement, Keychron’s Q1 board.

So far, Keychron has had great entry level mechanical boards but one of the features they’ve been lacking is the ability to use QMK for custom firmware/key mapping and the ability to buy the barebones board, without keycaps and switches.

Well, that changes with their latest announcement. Unlike most of their boards that they put through Kickstarter, this one will be available on their website some time around the end of July or early August and will start shipping in September.

The reason I’m writing this post is because the feature set for the GMMK Pro and the Q1 look oddly similar, almost like they looked at the GMMK Pro and said “how can we replicate this and make it just a tad less expensive”.

Below I have a comparison of features:

Feature	GMMK Pro	Keychron Q1
Layout / number of keys	75% TKL – 83 keys (ANSI US)	TKL – between 83 – 87 keys
Rotary knob	Yes, comes with all boards	Not at launch, will be added later
Price	$170 barebones aluminum case option Varies between $200-350 for additional options	$140 for base option $170 for basic kit (keys and switches)
Case material	Aluminum, polycarbonate, or brass	Aluminum only
Connection	USB-C	USB-C
Wireless / bluetooth	No	No
ANSI/ISO option	Yes – not at launch	Yes – at launch
RGB	Yes – south facing RGB	Yes – south facing RGB
Stabilizers	Preinstalled GOAT stabs	Unknown at launch
Third-party stabs?	Yes – but durock v2 take some work fitting into the plate	Yes – support for both Cherry and Durock V2
Hot swappable	Yes	Yes
QMK / VIA support	Not at launch – planned for mid-2021	Yes
Colorways	Black and silver (known as white)	Unknown but marketing page shows Blue, Gray, Gunmetal
Typing Angle	6º – no legs	Unknown – no legs

Hopefully this is a helpful list of features you can review and decide for yourself if the Q1 is a dupe or will have its own audience.

I created a simple icon for iTerm2 which I wanted to share below:

You can download it on macos icons or directly here

I was recently reading Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis and in my mind, I could hear this song playing in the background as the ethereal world of Malacandra was described.

I want to share it with you, maybe for sci-fi reading.

I’ve been practicing in the Procreate app:

For directory-specific vim settings, you can use .vimrc but when using neovim, you’ll need to use .nvimrc instead.

To get it all working, add the following to your init.nvim file:

set exrc
set secure

Using set secure will disable/disallow using autocmd settings

In the directory with vim settings, add an .nvimrc file.

I was struggling with this b/c I was using .vimrc for neovim which didn’t work for me.

I wanted to update the Leaf theme (the one I’m currently using) and I haven’t had wordpress on my computer in a long time.

Instead of going through the whole set up again, I decided to use docker for this.

I wanted to keep the setup to a minimal and also make it portable for future use, below are the steps you’ll need to get it running.

1. Install Docker (I’m on mac, so I just have the docker app).
2. Make a directory that you can call something like wordpress-docker, this is where the docker-compose.yml file will live.
3. Add the following to the docker-compose.yml file:
   

version: '3.1'

services:

  wordpress:
    image: wordpress
    restart: always
    ports:
      - 8080:80
    environment:
      WORDPRESS_DB_HOST: db
      WORDPRESS_DB_USER: wordpress
      WORDPRESS_DB_PASSWORD: password
      WORDPRESS_DB_NAME: wordpress
    volumes:
      - wordpress:/var/www/html
      - ../leaf:/var/www/html/wp-content/themes/leaf # --- this assumes we have leaf one dir up


  db:
    image: mysql:5.7
    restart: always
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: wordpress
      MYSQL_USER: wordpress
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: password
      MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD: '1'
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql

volumes:
  wordpress:
  db:

4. Start up the docker instances by running docker-compose up (from within wordpress-docker)

5. Go to localhost:8080, you should see the wordpress instance.

6. After the setup is complete, go to localhost:8080/wp-admin/themes.php and you should see the theme for development too.

For example:

set number -> sets the line numbers
set invnumber -> inverts the setting so line numbers are off now (or on if they were off)

Today, I was working on a script at work where I ultimately needed to export a 2MB file and although this isn’t a large file, I know I will forget about getting rid of it so while searching around, I came across tempfile.

Tempfile simply will be garbage collected at some time because the file is stored in /tmp and you can make your own copy if you need it. Here’s an example from the ruby docs:

require 'tempfile'

file = Tempfile.new('foo')
file.path      # => A unique filename in the OS's temp directory,
               #    e.g.: "/tmp/foo.24722.0"
               #    This filename contains 'foo' in its basename.
file.write("hello world")
file.rewind
file.read      # => "hello world"
file.close
file.unlink    # deletes the temp file

Make sure to run file.unlink if you want it to be deleted right away.