While I was looking for a wallpaper to use on my laptop, I bumped on this one and nostalgia kicked in!
It only took an instant to save it and set it!!! 😂
Whoever did this, s/he gets my respect!

I'm starting to get the hang of this app.
I'm quite timid, I've only given a few +1s around.
I suppose this is my "Hello, world!" post!

Now what, IntelliJ...? 🤨
(moral of the story: Don't install new things when you want to go to bed!)

I REALLY HATE TECHNICAL PHONE INTERVIEWS!!!
I was asked: "What are the differences between C++ and Java?"
I got a mind blank at that point... Good thing it didn't last long and I came back with a reply.

But seriously, if you can't speak English clearly, why? Why? WHY?!
(I lost a whole question because I couldn't understand the interviewer. ☹)

At least it went "well" and now I have to improve the "technical" document and do 2 tests by Monday!

1. Visit the official site.
2. Browse for official tools.
3. Check the official documentation.
4. Check the Internet for other non-audiovisual sources.
5. Try making a simple application.
6. Run out of application ideas.
7. Move on to the next shiny dev technology.
8. Go to step #1.

!rant
<confession>
Ever since I've discovered devRant, I use my avatar as profile picture on other sites as well.
</confession>

!dev

When devRant crashes on my Windows Phone due to scrolling too many rants and still there were more left to scroll. I suppose a higher power is giving me a sign to head to sleep!

It has sated my hunger for never-ending knowledge.
It allows me to freely express myself.
It has given me the goal to surpass all these people who are better than me.

Also unlimited anger that can end me up behind bars.

FUCKING FINALLY TIME!!!
I did it! I made IntelliJ IDEA find my Android SDK installation!
Thanks SO!!!
Now I can experience the joy of Gradle build times!!!

Why did Google had to make so difficult to work with Android without its Studio?!?!?!

Each and every time I sit on a technical test I am reminded I don't know the theoretical background of the programming languages I claim I know.

The moment when you are too scared to make any needed changes in your code fearing you will untumble all the structured mess of spaghetti code you have written... 😳😨😕

Hurray, the stickers are here! Now my laptop's awesomeness and coolness factor has been increased by infinite++!!! 😃
Thank you a lot, @dfox and @trogus!

❤ I can be as creative as I want.
❤❤ It never gets boring.
❤❤❤ There is always something new to learn!

(This happened a few days ago:)
First day on the job, last session of debriefing, HR comes to explain us some company policies.
Among them, they want us to fill in our working hours using a smartphone app (Android & iOS only).
I raise my hand and I ask them what can I do, since I have a Windows Phone.
HR lady's face is striken with sheer terror. Since then, I'm known as the "Windows Phone Guy"... 😁
I'm more than proud of myself. 🙂

P.S. We also got some cool Windows tablet to use during our training period...

I reset my mobile (Wileyfox Pro Windows 10) today and I had to open my old Lumia 535 to get a code for an app. The moment I turned it on the sensation of meeting a friend from old came back to me. I didn't realise I would be missing my old device.
It's kind of sad that Microsoft decided to pull the plug once again on their mobile platform. I liked the minimalism they brought to the interface and the integration they were trying to add between different devices.
All is gone now and I am left to wonder with the possibilities that would have brought.

I don't know which is worse:

1. My project manager telling me that I will have to make a whole project on my own within a month (frontend, backend, etc etc) for our major client and if I make it, we will get a bigger project for a longer period or
2. The colleague next to me being loud (speaking to himself, chewing things) at random intervals.

My biggest dev regret was that I've followed other people's dream.
I lost precious time into trying being the "good kid" for my family and support them in their time of need.
Now I'm considered old for a starter and getting a dev job becomes harder with each passing day.

Not 100% of dev nature:

- Got an informal interview a few days ago: Got me super happy.
- Another 2 recruiters on LinkedIn showed interest: Made me happy.
- Psychometric & technical tests popped today: Feel like failed them completely.
- 2 more career days coming up: Not all hope is lost.
- Lack of portofolio and job experience: Brain is stuck and emotionally being meh. Maybe I wasn't meant to be a dev. :-/

I've just wanted to let it out of my system. Thanks for reading it. :-)

My setup while on vacations at parents' home:

Back at my masters degree there were 3 group projects and 2 of them were dev related. Being the last to enroll and classes had already started, I entered a team missing one person. 2 out the 3 team members were complaining how they couldn't keep up with the workload and kept doing nothing on the group assignments. The other person and me did all the work because we wanted to get good marks on the project. Sadly, the teams remained the same on the 2nd semester, mainly because all the star students were grouped together to our chagrin. This time though, neither the teammate nor me were lenient on our comments during group assessment which influenced heavily on the individual marking.

Recently thanks to Whatsapp I've discovered a new pet peeve:
People pressing "send" after finishing a sentence (at best) instead of making new lines, resulting in around 5 new messages received at lightning speed.
Not to mention, they keep on going while I am trying to reply, losing my concentration in the process! 😡

I hate my tablet...
It is a giveaway from my sister and it is a bit damaged. It's unresponsive on a straight line from the one side on the middle of the screen to the other.
It's an old tablet, so it has not much memory and it lags a lot, especially during app updates.
To "work" with it, I have to switch from landscape to portrait mode and vice versa, because many apps put dialogs exactly in the middle of the screen, on the unresponsive part.
But what I hate most about this situation is that there are apps that are locked on portrait mode and I can't access them... It wouldn't hurt much if all apps could rotate from one mode to the other!!!
I'm on limited funds for quite a while, so I'm stuck with it for now. Meh... ☹

Stop being high, Monster! Why the heck should I apply to a SENIOR developer position when my skills/experience are of a graduate?!

Job seeking site being troll... 😒

As the saying goes "beggars can't be choosers" and I need to get a job.
I got approached by a recruiter in LinkedIn who had attached a PDF brochure.
It seems OKish, but the only part that worries me is "step 3" of recruitment process:
"Invitation to France and have a face-to-face technical interview and meet the team."

Will I be out of bounds if I ask the technical interview (if I ever make it that far) take place into Skype?
There are some savings, but going to France (somewhere between Cannes and Nice in summer period!!!) just for an interview that I might fail is a big gambit for me.

Dear diary,

It's been the second day without Internet at home. I have self-exiled to my parents where the last vestiges of civilization remain. Now my laptop starts throwing tantrums and won't move beyond the loading screen. I wonder what's next to break down.

Handsome co-workers in my visual range distract me from my tasks...
I need to get back in shape and start the dating game again... :'(

Your spaghetti code is so bad that even Gordon Ramsay still has nightmares from it.

I'm so bored converting a table from HTML to some weird ReactJS framework...
I've been postponing it for so long!
Front-end stuff is not for me... 😕

Finally I am in my new job!
Everyone is working in a project except me and I can only use IE11 and Chrome... :'(

Do you have any annoying you want to get rid off, but you can't because of reasons?
I do. They are 4, but for now I'll talk about the gold medal winner.

When we met about 8-9 ago, she had just come back to town due to some very bad personal experience (not her fault). Anyway, she is polite, but her major flaw is that she is pushy. REAL BAD! And she gets mad when other people (including me) try to do it on her. Another one is having calls during random inappropriate times, because she had fight #N with her boyfriend, and last but not least, she will call when needs something out of someone.

Lately, her project is finding us a job, since we're both unemployed. Any job. The sad part is when she sends me job ads for dev jobs I don't qualify, e.g. Company X is looking for a dev with Y year of experience, knowing A, B, C & D technologies. I've told her that I don't qualify for most of the dev jobs she sends me, but she insists I should send my CV anyway, cause of reasons. Also, for some reason, I should be accounted to her for all my current choices when what I would honestly say is "BUG OFF".

Her latest endeavour is getting me one of her friends (a psychologist) as a "client". Her friend wants to have a professional website with writing posts/articles as a side dish. I'm not registered as a freelancer, so everything will be done under the counter, and her friend is OK with that. I'm no web developer, but I didn't refuse because of her backlash and also that would be a positive experience for me. Now, the juicy part. She gave her my phone number without my permission and she told me straight away. Her plan was having the three of us meet, though I don't know why and I didn't want her being around. I asked her to call me immediately, which it didn't happen. After being pestered by my friend for a couple of weeks if her friend called me, she finally did it on Monday. She didn't say to me anything I didn't know, but at least I have her phone now.

What I can offer her is a website skeleton with the usabilities she's asking. What I can't offer her is graphics/banner and security. And now I have to come up with reasonable price. Teams here ask 400-600€ for a complete website the way she asks, including VAT. I'm thinking around 100€ and I don't know when I can deliver the project. I've had some experience with Ruby and Sinatra, so I'll go with that, and I'll learn CSS along the way.

Thanks for reading till the end! 😃

!dev (maybe slightly)

I went to a CV Workshop organized by my first school. The presenter was the slightly-arrogant/know-it-all/cool type of guy who's a recruiter and also has his own company he runs. The presentation was OK, even though it took longer than announced. However, there were some things that bugged me. He expects everyone somehow to be extraordinary. Granted he works as a recruiter and his clients would like only the cream of the top, but some of the examples he gave from his personal experience, he seemed to give more gravity on other traits of the candidates than their achievements and qualifications (e.g. rejecting a candidate because she had posted a photo of her clubbing on Facebook). Also, somehow he judges candidates based on their parents profession. Lucky me that I fall into the category he dislikes. Now the fun part (sorry for the long post):

Next week there's a career day. I sent my CV as soon as I got the mail and then I also phoned the person in charge (as per the instructions). Yesterday on the workshop it was said we should resend our CVs by tomorrow on another mail? No problem you may think, but that said recruiter will take a look on them and that means I will have to rework mine just to make sure it is to his liking. I'm no fan of writing mission statements, nor trying to guess what my qualities (aka soft skills) are because what I think I am doesn't mean I actually am.

So now, I'm in a dilemma. Just send the CV as is or get a mental breakdown just so to please that person?
Thanks everyone for your patience and time, I just wanted to pump some steam out me...

TL;DR Calendar services sucks.

Imagine yourself as startup. You don't want to spend fortune on paying $5 per user per month for Google Services. Also you don't want to pay that to Microsoft for O365. You want to run it itself because you already have droplet running with your other services (ERP for example. Funny story too btw.) Ok, decision has been made, let install something.

I have pretty good experience with OwnCloud from past as Cloud file sharing service. Calendar is not bad for single user purpose (understand it as personal calendar, no invitations to others, sharing is maximum I tried) What can possibly go wrong when I deploy that and use its Calendar?

Well, lot. OwnCloud itself runs well (no rant here) but Calendar is such pain in ass. Trouble is with CalDav under hood and its fragmented standards. So, you want to send invitation to your team for recurrent meeting. Nothing weird. It sends as one invitation to each one, good. Now you realize you have a conflict, so you need to change time of one occurence. Move it, send update. And here comes shitstorm. It is not able to bisect one occurence from series. So it splits it to separate events and send invitation for every single one. 30 INVITATIONS IN 2 SECONDS! Holy sh*t! You want to revert that. Nope, won't do. So you accept your destiny and manually erase every single one with memo in head about planning recurring events.

Another funny issue is when SwiftMailer library (which is responsive for sending e-mails from OwnCloud) goes to spamming mayhem. It is pretty easy to do. When e-mail doesn't comply to RFC, it is rejected, right? So if because of some error CalDav client passes non-compliant e-mail (space as last character is non-compliant btw) and SwiftMailer tries to send it to multiple recepients (one of them is broken, rest is fine), it results in repetitive sending same invitation over and over in 30 minute interval. Sweet.

So now I am sitting in front of browser, looking for alternatives. Not much to choose from. I guess I'll try SOGO. It looks nice. For now.

Finally, I got my laptop back after 4 gruelling days of separation with a new disc and more RAM!!!
I can't wait to finish up installing all the programmes I need to start writing code!!!

Inspired by a programming is a constant/continuous thing. Every small and big achievements, from squishing a bug, finding a workaround, pressing the "Build" button and the programme runs. Each time the brain feels expanded like when a baby discovers new things, a tiny creature in a gigantic Universe of endless possibilities.

Such glorious Wednesday...

#1: Friend needs me to keep her cats, hasn't called yet to give me keys (and she's leaving tonight).

#2: Got an e-mail from a job I applied, rejected cause I flunked the impromptu technical interview (with the usual pretty wording).

#3: Helping a friend with his dissertation code in Java. Just a marvellous spaghetti code with minimal semblance of a structure and a hodgepodge of various solutions found on the Internet. 2H 40M and still nothing... At least I have my stress ball to save me from mental breakdown...

I've finished the knowledge tests at the local DevJobCon and I got the following question on the easy part of the Java session:

Which of the following is NOT a Java IDE:
a) Eclipse
b) Netbeans
c) IntelliJ IDEA
d) Notepad++

😆

My manager during my internship in 2007 was very prone to screaming.
She took the position, because more senior staff than her didn't want it and she wanted to be in charge of them.
When people didn't deliver the results she wanted she would call them in the office, start yelling them and saying they were incompetent and demean them. And even though we were a small open office, she would send us messages through MSN Messenger (it was the it thing back then), to check on our progress or ask us to go to her office which was the room next to us.
I met many wonderful people during my internship, but I was more than glad when it finished. A couple of years later I've learnt that the branch she was managing was terminated because everyone slowly started quitting. I can't imagine why...

After struggling all morning with my laptop, I finally accepted the fact that my 1TB hard drive died. Now I'm on a dilemma: Should I replace the drive and upgrade the RAM, or should I buy a new laptop altogether?

Current laptop is Lenovo G50-45, with AMD APU, 6GB (4+2 on graphics) and said 1TB drive.
Before this misfortune befell me, I was planning to upgrade the RAM to 8+2.
Now I'm at a loss, but my folks are willing to help.
Should I buy a new drive and RAM or should I start looking a new more dev oriented laptop? If the latter, any recommendations?

Starting to code again after a long hiatus.

I had a technical test on Tuesday on Linux and SQL. I thought I failed. I get a call that I did pretty well and now they want me for an interview. Naturally, I get very excited.
I get a date for the interview and get ready to shine... until I accept the video call and find out that it is a technical interview! But this time instead I have to express myself in a foreign language.
(And also not with the people I was supposed to have the interview with)
No worse way to stress someone XYZ company! Totally uncool!!!

I think now I can go in a shadowy corner and whimper.

TITANOSAURUS CRAP!!!
Whose idea was to send an e-mail at 11pm about a dev job convention for this weekend!!! And on top of that there will be testing to weed out the candidates!
SIMPLY GREAT! I have to be off town for unavoidable family matters for three days without Internet connection...
Thanks a lot automated mail system for letting me know 4 days in advance that I will fail!!!
It's not that things were awful enough, now I have one more reason to be stressed, get more rashes and weep internally!

Best way to finish work for the weekend! 😁

Everyone around me is running like crazy to deliver a project on time (the day after tomorrow) and I am sitting quietly trying to reply an e-mail of my project manager in french...

I'm very sad. I had to do 5 challenges in Hackerrank for a job and I managed to complete only 1 in the allotted time.
What makes me sadder is that in one challenge, the testing the compiler did was different than the challenge description (getting me failed tests).
Damned job hunting, I'm losing hope with each passing day... 🙁

Work is slow these days.
I am done with the projects.
Everyone's away for summer.
I cannot do/install stuff because I don't have admin rights in my machine.
I cannot view all the webpages due to netwrok policies/certificates.
I am waiting for time to pass and go home.
😕😕😕

Since I can't make many posts, I'll try squeeze them all in one:

1. Phone recruitment interview went "well", I even spoke french at some point! 😃
I have to brush up my knowledge again for the technical test (I hate them). Somehow I got excited, which I shouldn't, but only time will tell...

2. My brain is stuck with opening a Twitter account, mainly for following people/companies news. I don't know if it's worth it, so I would your feedback on this.

3. I've finally come down to listening to synthwave while coding and I was wondering if there's any good free service (I'm still poor, so I don't want neither Deezer nor Spotify), preferably with a UWP app on Windows 10 (that is not Soundcloud).

Good old dear me sitting comfortably and writing some code...
Suddenly, the doorbell rings!!!
"One moment! Coming!", I shout...
I proceed going to the hall, take the keys from the table right next to me and I unlock the door...
I open it and there's only thin air in front me. Downstairs I hear the building door closing and the elevator working its way up, higher than my floor...
I close the door and I go back to my desk, resuming my work and thinking:
"I don't know who are, I don't care who you are, but I will find you and I will make you pay..."

Now my coding train of thought has stopped! Thanks, unknown doorbell ringer!!!

Given that Microsoft will be dumping Edge down the toilet flush (and creating an Edge skin for Chrome), I will have to switch browsers (if I want to surf the Internet).
I don't want to switch to Firefox, because I find Mozilla having double standards.
It's been ages since Chrome isn't my favourite, I am forced using it at work, so I'd rather avoid it using it at home.
That bring us to the Chromium-based browsers. Of the myriad out there, the two that piqued my interest are Opera and Vivaldi.
Both have their merits and flaws, but I am equally drawn to them.
My question is which one would you pick between these two?

When you read an article that WhatsApp's end of support is the last nail in the coffin of Windows Phone and you are like: "But I don't care about WhatsApp at all..." 😅

P.S. W10M user here.

I went to the movies yesterday and I watched "My Lady".
The only screen of a mobile phone was that of a W10 mobile.
That really surprised me and filled me with joy... 😁

I received the following e-mail today:
Hey, XYZ! Could you please check the following in your web application. The data do not show correctly. Could it be a bug?
[insert attached screenshot with said "bug"]

My reply:
Hey, ABC! It is not a bug. You uploaded the data into the wrong table. 😊
[insert attached screenshot with the incriminating evidence]
-----------------------------
I felt a bit savage and I liked it. 🔥

There was an Internet hiccup at work.
The only sites I could access was Bing and Microsoft.
Not even the internal corporate network was accessible!
I think Big Brother knows me quite well!!! 😏

Day 3 at the office:
Still no project, I read about AngularJS yesterday, today I am reading JavaScript on W3C.
For some reason I have Internet access from IE and Chrome, but not from FF... :-/

I just really want to pluck my eyes out...
My sister is abroad for a music festival where she is attending as a speaker.
Her speech got almost ready at the last moment. The slideshow presentation was sloppy cause she gave some half-assed points to put. I saved the files (PDF and PPT) on her laptop and on her USB stick, I didn't keep any copies for me. She rehearsed her speech and I added some more points to enrich it and fill a bit more time. When she got there, she messaged me if it was possible to add those extra points to the presentation. I asked her to e-mail me the new points and the presentation on time (which it didn't happen), expecting a file attached to the e-mail. And guess what:

SHE FREAKIN' TYPED EVERYTHING EXCEPT OF THE TITLE!!!
AND NOW I HAVE TO REDO THE WHOLE PRESENTATION!!!

I can't facepalm myself hard enough to hop onto another universe...

Another day, another recruiter seeking "young", "talented", "ambitious", "driven" etc. etc. individuals approached me on LinkedIn for a phone meeting.
I wonder how fast he'll run when I mention the words "apprenticeship" or "entry level".

Windows Phone might be well dead, but their memory still lives in Bing Rewards! 🤣
(Info: French version of tile to promote the MSN News app - I'm using it already, so everyone's happy 😉)

I never had a lot of faith in my dev competence to begin with.
It gets even worse on my current (and also first) job. So far I have been handed solo projects that I need to deliver in a small amount of time using tools I have no experience with. I have two other colleagues I can ask my questions, but they are too busy working on other projects they got handed. Which leaves me 80% of the time on my own.
The bright side of it is if I make it alive somehow, my resume will be diverse.

Goodbye @Qaldim, hello @Solo-Coder!

Splitting my dev and non-dev digital life...

So after 8 months of stopping the development of a web app, the client decided to start pushing it for usage.
8 months ago I was almost begging him to do some testing, so I could gather some feedback and fix any issues. That, of course, never happened.
Yesterday just before leaving work I received a meeting invitation and an e-mail. Apparently the app wasn't at the "expected level given its development time". I also got another e-mail with change requests.
Someone will be getting some virtual middle fingers during the meeting...