Category: General

2024 Recap

Seth AlexanderLeave a comment
Stack of books on a wooden table.

It seems like my yearly cadence will continue this year. I continued spending minimal time on social media and other attention vampires this year and continued to read more. I managed to complete these books this year (hit me up if you want to know my take on any of them):

– Sitting Still Like a Frog: Mindfulness Exercises for Kids (and Their Parents) by Eline Snel https://amzn.to/4fLWNy6

– Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers by Dane Ortlund https://amzn.to/40o41DZ

– A Grace Disguised Revised and Expanded: How the Soul Grows through Loss by Jerry Sittser https://amzn.to/4fMfxNJ

– How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key https://amzn.to/3WaeD6V

– A Cloud by Day, a Fire by Night: Finding and Following God’s Will for You by A.W. Tozer https://amzn.to/40n3wdc

– Taming the Technology Monster: 8 Guiding Principles for Raising Digital Natives by Sissy Goff, LPC-MHSP https://amzn.to/3W95knF

– Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia, M.D. https://amzn.to/3DTJw9a

– The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt https://amzn.to/3W2NdQ3

– The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D. https://amzn.to/3DTVDmB

– The Bible (ESV) https://www.esv.org/ (yes, I read the entire Bible again this past year)

I thought about writing a short blurb about each book but I found that more difficult than I initially estimated. So, no blurbs. I can say that for me, my life is much richer having read these books than having spent the equivalent amount of time scrolling.

See you in 2026 most likely 😁.

2023 Recap

Seth AlexanderLeave a comment
stack of books

👋 hey peeps. Long time since I’ve posted anything here. Figured with a new year I’d let you know where I disappeared to. Somewhere along the way in 2023 I decided to be much more intentional with my time which meant very little time on social media. One way I replaced that time is with reading, among other things, and managed to complete these books this year (hit me up if you want to know my take on any of them):

– The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry: How to Stay Emotionally Healthy and Spiritually Alive in the Chaos of the Modern World by Mark Comer https://amzn.to/3ttTGsx

– Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez https://amzn.to/41F490R

– Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause by Ty Seidule https://amzn.to/3H5ahWO

– Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport https://amzn.to/41GGSeS

– So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport https://amzn.to/3vohBu4

– Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss https://amzn.to/47sjmnm

– Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery by Eric Metaxas https://amzn.to/3NRrhn1

– The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism by Timothy Keller https://amzn.to/3NHZrcH

– Defending Your Faith: An Introduction to Apologetics by R.C. Sproul https://amzn.to/48Baug6

– The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt https://amzn.to/3S2bkNe

– Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport (not pictured) https://amzn.to/3S2Nz7Q

– The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (not pictured) https://amzn.to/3Tr4LV3

– The Bible (ESV) https://www.esv.org/

I can say that for me, my life is much richer having read these books than having spent the equivalent amount of time scrolling. I’m definitely not spending much time writing blogs, though I’d love to share more long form content.

See you in 2025 most likely 😁.

Rails Direct Upload to AWS S3 from React Native

Seth AlexanderLeave a comment
react rails and amazon s3 logos

I recently took on the task of allowing a user of a React Native app I’m helping build upload a custom profile picture. It sounded like a relatively simple task when I was estimating it in our sprint planning. However, I still allowed myself some grace since I’d never done such a thing before and put 8 hours on it. Little did I know what was to come.

See, I knew our backend was running Ruby on Rails (RoR) and I knew that Active Storage is now the thing but I didn’t realize the issues I would run into when I threw Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 into the mix. I had heard good things bout Active Storage though I hadn’t worked with it any, I know RoR well enough to know that the things they add are intentional and typically well thought out, and I also knew my experience with S3 was while the configuration could be somewhat complex when it comes to IAM roles and things once it was running the way you wanted it should be pretty easy to use. Especially for something that was going to be public.

Early on in my work on this task I was informed by the back end engineer that Active Storage had this pretty neat way of allowing the client application to send files directly to S3 and just sending a reference string to the Rails server. This is preferred because instead of sending the data from the client to the Rails server to Amazon it goes directly from the client to Amazon. Bypassing one step speeds everything up and also saves some load on the server. I thought to myself this was pretty cool. We at Airship had done this before with a web app with solid results. I had that code to reference and base my work off of.

Continue reading “Rails Direct Upload to AWS S3 from React Native” →

Supercluster with @react-native-mapbox-gl/maps

Seth AlexanderLeave a comment

During a recent project in my work at Airship I had to stop using the built in cluster functionality that <a href="https://github.com/react-native-mapbox-gl/maps">@react-native-mapbox-gl/maps</a> provides and utilize Supercluster instead. The reason is we need access to the points that make up the clusters. We had some items that never broke out of their clusters because they had the same exact longitude & latitude combination. As well as wanting to show a slide up view of those locations in a list view. What started me down this path was an issue on the deprecated <a href="https://github.com/nitaliano/react-native-mapbox-gl">react-native-mapbox-gl</a> library which shares a lot of functionality with the new library. You can view that issue here. I’m honestly surprised that this functionality isn’t available in the library since it is supported in the Mapbox JS SDK as documented here with the getClusterLeaves() function. I noticed people asking how to do this so when I nailed it down I knew a how-to was coming.

Continue reading “Supercluster with @react-native-mapbox-gl/maps” →

Portfolio Site How-To For New Developers

Seth AlexanderLeave a comment
portfolio

I recently shared my portfolio site with the Free Code Camp Nashville group and got some inquiries into some of the technologies and features I used to build it. So I figured I’d share all aspects of the site and some steps to utilizing the same tools I did.

Should I build my site from scratch?

When I asked this question to the ever helpful NashDev community I received a resounding “No” from Senior devs. This might seem counter intuitive, however, the overall thought process was if you’re just starting out, unless you’re looking to be considered a designer, then using something someone else has already done very well as the base of your portfolio is better than building it yourself. Concentrate on highlighting the things that you are going to be doing in a potential job, not on the overall layout and design of your portfolio site. I decided to go with a template from HTML5 UP for a few reasons. First, they’re FREE as long as you keep the attribution. Second, AJ who creates these amazing templates is based out of Nashville just like me and had in the past connected me with some solid people to have beer/coffee with and discuss my career. Third, it’s a static site. That is, it’s 100% HTML, CSS & JavaScript so I would have many simple options for hosting when I got to that point. Lastly, all of the templates are responsive so if a potential hiring manager clicks through from their phone they’re going to get a great experience.
Continue reading “Portfolio Site How-To For New Developers” →

My Learning Hacks

Seth AlexanderLeave a comment
rocks working out

So I wanted to share the hacks that I’m using to upgrade my life some and increase my mental aptitude to crushing this curriculum. There is a certain amount of mental stamina that has to be maintained on a day to day basis to keep up this pace. So… here’s my brain upgrades/biohacks/etc… that keep my moving tip top while doing this bootcamp full time and taking care of kids full time. All with links to the best place to buy them.

First thing is my coffee. I start my day off with my take on, Bulletproof Coffee. I currently use Central American Single Origin Organic whole bean coffee from Aldi. The most important thing for me is my coffee being light to medium roast. Nothing dark. I also like whole bean because coffee really does taste way better if it’s fresh ground. I add to that 1 tbsp of Thrive Market Ghee and 1 tbsp of whatever I have around to up ketones. I prefer Brain Octane Oil because it definitely is nicer on the insides but also use Now Foods MCT Oil or just Coconut Oil if I have neither of the aforementioned. I blend this all up together. This gets me going and curbs hunger for hours. I also pop a couple BioScience Brain Boost and wash them down with my coffee.

I then hopefully do my Gymnastic Bodies Daily Limber routine to get the blood flowing some. I follow that up with some meditation utilizing Calm. I try (but usually fail) to write my daily journal entry utilizing this template I built in Evernote. I very rarely get all of these things done. However, I try to.

When I’m on long coding sessions I supplement in the middle of the day with Four Sigmatic Lion’s Mane which I’ve found can really get me going. I have to ensure I’m stimulated enough mentally or I start getting distracted trying to keep my brain working hard enough. I also diffuse essential oils in my workspace. Specifically Lemon, Rosemary, and Eucalyptus. All three of those are supposed to help with concentration and mental performance. I find the scents definitely keep me alert if not anything else. Something that I recently ran across is Nootrobox Sprint and I’m interested to try it out. I might just order the mini bottle for $15.

That should be it if I remember correctly. If I realize I missed something I’ll update this post.

UPDATE 3/31/17
I completely forgot about how I listen to Brain.fm whenever I’m doing work. It really zones me in more than anything I’ve ever listened to. I used to use Spotify playlists but now this is the ONLY thing I’ll listen to when I need to concentrate.