Wow. What an amazing time I’ve had in NYC so far! I can’t believe it’s already been three weeks since I first arrived for my coding bootcamp, Fullstack Academy. I was immediately swept up into the initial assessment, and we progressed through implementation of abstract data types, sorting algorithms, and the basis for JQuery’s ability to select elements from the DOM.
The assessment wasn’t too difficult, but I did feel like I was able to demonstrate what I had learned throughout the initial 1-month Foundations course. I found that the JavaScript Koans and the TestFirst suite were very helpful to prepare for the assessment and the material in Foundations.
Building abstract data types using data structures in JavaScript really allowed a deeper understanding of the data types themselves, and I was glad that we went over merge sort.
During the second week, we launched into Express, the lightweight `http` module wrapper used by many to make web servers, an implementation of a shell written in Nodejs, as well as SQL and SQL queries.
We most recently were introduced to Promises (an amazingly excellent way to get out of “callback hell”), made our first(!) fullstack web application, and began learning about MongoDB and Mongoose.
Fullstack is an amazing place with really smart instructors, but the people I’ve gotten to meet who are just as excited about web development as I am have made it completely worth it to me.
The application process with Fullstack Academy of Code
With the help of an extensive list of the best coding bootcamps at SwitchUp, I found a couple other bootcamps to apply to. The more I read about it, the more a school based on full stack JavaScript made sense to me. Programming in a single language on the front- and back-end could likely allow a deeper understanding of the language, and the Node.js JavaScript interpreter seemed like a really awesome way to learn/understand how webservers work.
With all of that in mind, I decided to apply to the Fullstack Academy of Code, as well as Hack Reactor, which I’ll talk about in a later post. I applied on May 26, the same day I applied for Launch Academy. The initial application wasn’t too extensive.
On May 29, I was invited to the next stage of the interview process---this was a number of timed exercises hosted on HackerRank. They said that in order to review for the challenges, I should read and understand Eloquent Javascript, chapters 1-4. Those chapters really helped a lot, especially rewriting a lot of the higher-order functions `forEach`, `reduce`, etc. I felt pretty good about the challenges, but they took me almost the whole time to complete and perfect.
After I submitted the challenges, there was a bit of radio silence. Since the initial volley of applications, I was feeling like Fullstack was my top choice, because
I started to prefer the hands-on and depth that might come from a full stack Javascript experience; and
It was close enough to Boston that it seemed more possible to get a job from NYC than the other full stack JavaScript experience (Hack Reactor)
I heard back from Fullstack on June 2 to schedule an interview on June 4, and interviewed with David Yang. We worked through a pretty difficult problem together, and it was a fantastic experience. He was able to lead me without necessarily telling me exactly what to do, and helped me figure out what could be going wrong before we actually ran the code. I was really excited to hear back for the final decision...
I heard on June 6 that I got in! I was super excited, and as far as I was concerned, the search for a perfect bootcamp fit was over.
My first living situation in Madison already had their internet set up, and I think they used TDS, a local DSL provider in Madison. It wasn’t always super fast, but everyone extremely awful things to say about Charter. I eventually moved into a house who hadn’t set up their internet yet, so I decided to take charge and sign the house up. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I bought a compatible modem and router to avoid any stupid rental fees, and called/chatted with Charter about 5-6 times to get an idea of the promotions that they were running at the time.
I managed to get their monthly price down to $20/month with a $10 activation fee for 15 Mbps service (!), after chatting with a couple other people that were going to give me $30/month. I think the best way to get a good deal is the old standby HUCA (Hang Up Call Again). A year later, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that at the end of my $20/month promotion, a $30/month promotion kicked in.. I figured that someone had just signed my account up initially for both promotions and they just never took it off?
After two years, I went back up to the normal price, which was $55/month, I think, for 15 Mbps. I paid this for a little while until I just got sick of it. I called them up again and threatened to leave without actually planning on going through with it (it really is unfortunate that the only 10+ Mbps show in most places is the evil cable companies).
It’s important to eventually get transferred to the “retention line,” as these operators are the ones who have access to promotions. I wangled another $40/month promotion out of them for 60 Mbps internet, and I’ve been sitting pretty with that ever since.
At some point during May of this year (2015), I decided I wanted to do a coding bootcamp. I wanted to end up in Boston, so Launch Academy became my first choice at the time---most camps have a career day with a whole bunch of local employers at the end. I applied on May 26, and directly after sending in the application (it was automatic, I believe), I was offered an opportunity to book an interview slot. I booked a slot for the morning of May 29 and I was on my way to becoming a programming bootcamp student.
Launch, like many other coding/web development bootcamps, is based on Ruby on Rails, so they recommended reading through a couple chapters of Chris Pine’s Learn To Program and to be prepared to walk through your solution to a particular exercise problem. They additionally ask you to prepare some questions to ask during your interview.
The morning of the interview: I spoke with a really nice guy named Omid, who, in addition to introducing me to what Launch was all about, took me through the exercise. Omid had an easy teaching style that was clear and easy to follow. He helped me see a superior way of performing conditionals, and an easier way of thinking about it: I had a couple nested conditionals in my code. Thinking about different cases in terms of which case was the most specific helped me layout my conditionals.
I had prepared a bunch of questions, and Omid commented that I was very prepared (it sounded like most people didn’t prepare questions, perhaps?).
Anyway, I was astonished at the speed that Launch got back to me with an acceptance---it was later that day on the 29th!
In my junior year of undergrad, I took St. Olaf’s introductory computer science course. I know now that I should have paid closer attention to the exhilaration I felt while learning, problem solving, and writing code. During my PhD, I have repeatedly gravitated toward problems that can be solved with code, and I inhaled an introductory course in Python online over winter break (highly recommended). This study culminated in the development of PTENpred.
Developing PTENpred full-time earlier this year helped me realize that for me, sitting in front of a computer all day trying to figure out X detail or Y function is not boring. I can’t imagine doing anything else.
This is the follow up to this post, the introduction of my router issues. I think I should probably note here that one of my ultimate favorite things to do is to take something that I already have, give it new functionality, and turn it into something for which most people pay additional money.
Somehow, a couple months ago, in the middle of writing my thesis, I got distracted by the fact that sometimes my iPhone doesn’t get a WiFi signal in my room. In my current apartment, my room is unfortunately pretty far (and separated by several walls) from where we have our router set up---the router just needs to be close to where the cable comes out, and my bedroom is just kind of far away. I wanted to figure out a way to boost the signal.. and I found out some really awesome things along the way.
I initially thought that DD-WRT was going to be the only way to get control over the transmission strength. I had previous issues with DD-WRT, so I was determined to find a solution that worked well for my particular router, the Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N. A spell of googling brought up a few threads that indicated that my previous experience was not out of the ordinary for my particular router. OpenWrt presented itself as an option for people who liked to tinker, so I jumped on it.
OpenWrt provides support for many different routers, and they have stable prebuilt editions provided for all of their supported hardware. I downloaded one of these (this one specifically, again for the WHR-HP-G300N).
DD-WRT incidentally had a really nice write up about flashing the router firmware with a TFTP utility (this one, found here). TFTP flashing requires a file to be sent over a very specific time period (like exactly 5 seconds after boot), and that utility makes it really easy---just hits it a couple times a second with the file you want.
Once the firmware is installed, you just need to follow this guide to make your first connection with the router. At this point, I was able to tweak the transmission strength to as high as it was able to go.
I never really previously thought about a router being a completely separate computer... but now that I can SSH pretty much anytime into my router running an awesome firmware called Barrier Breaker, I’ve realized it’s just a teeny little computer. Like really teeny. 4MB storage teeny.
I’ve spent the last 6 years of my life going through a PhD program, the Integrated Program in Biochemistry at UW-Madison. I successfully defended on April 22 this year, and graduated this past spring. If you ask me, you’ll hear that it was the hardest thing I’ve ever accomplished. During the course of this program, I’ve learned three important things:
I enjoy the problem solving and critical thinking inherent in protein biochemistry and PhD work---coming up with testable hypotheses is exhilarating.
In the biological sciences, testable hypotheses just take a really long time to actually test and validate.
In programming and coding, on the other hand, you can analyze an issue (bug), develop a testable hypothesis (change the code), and test it---all on a greatly shortened timescale.
Programming and software development is a way for me to harness my overactive constantly problem-seeking mind and coerce that energy into a usable form. I am meant to be a coder.
Late last year, as a part of my PhD, I taught myself beginner/intermediate Python and used a machine learning library to create a command-line application meant to predict the effect of certain mutations in PTEN, a protein extremely important in cancer development. Developing this tool, I got a taste for what coding day-in and day-out felt like---and it felt awesome.
I bought my router when I moved in to a new place about three years ago. I wanted to make sure I got the best deal from the evil that is Charter (that actually turned out really well, which I could probably write about). I was put in charge of the internet by default because... well, no one else thought it was very important. I bought the Motorola SurfBoard SB6121 and the Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N. The modem was about $86 and the router was about $48. I am still super happy about both of these purchases: they are kickin' ass. But it took a little doing in order to get them to that point...
I had heard about how great DD-WRT was, and I did make sure that the router I bought was able to run it. Buffalo had advertised the router as having an open source DD-WRT base, so I figured it had the software set up automatically.
When I booted up the router, it didn't seem too much different from any of the other routers I'd had, so I figured I'd look into it more later on. My roommates and I had issues with the router needing reboots, so I looked into it and realized that the shipped firmware was actually not DD-WRT: it was something Buffalo called the "user-friendly" version. This would obviously not do!
I flashed the firmware to the "DD-WRT (Professional) firmware" (a pretty easy affair from the web interface) and figured I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. I was wrong! This Buffalo-provided firmware was super shitty and would need a reboot a couple times a day!
Since this was STILL not working, I thought I'd try flashing the firmware again to a DD-WRT build provided on the DD-WRT web site. Again, a menu allowed me to flash the latest DD-WRT firmware and everything was hunky-dory... for another couple minutes. Unfortunately, that particular build (I was doing this back in ~April 2012) was just really crappy for the Buffalo WHR-HP-G300N, which I unfortunately figured out after a little bit of Googling.
Last, just wanting to be done, I thought I'd try the latest updated version of the "user-friendly" firmware from Buffalo... but no. Actually, Buffalo encrypts their firmware so you can't use the web interface to flash the firmware anymore. I had to flash the Buffalo firmware using my Mac's TFTP client, which took a bunch of tries an a lot of excellent timing.
Thankfully, the user-friendly firmware update proved to be stable, so there I stayed for almost 2.5 years. More on this later!
I downloaded a copy of the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS Server edition a while ago. I thought it might help give me some Linux chops so that I could play around with setting up my old 2010 Mac Mini as a server. I had looked into a bunch of possibilities, and it seemed like there was a fair amount of problems with getting all of the components to work with Ubuntu unless it was using 10.04.
Anyway, I installed the server edition as an Oracle Virtual Box maybe at the beginning of February. I didn't really do much with it, because I didn't really have any idea what I might be able to do with it. I didn't even know if the thing could connect to the internet correctly... and at first, it couldn't. I didn't know how I should be thinking about it. I figured that because it was a virtual machine, it wouldn't really be able to connect to the internet like a normal PC.
I WAS SO WRONG! The GREAT thing about putting the internet adapter into "Attached to: Bridged adapter" mode is that now, it really just functions like a Linux box attached to my router somewhere (oh man, that reminds me: I have to write about OpenWRT). The router gives it an IP just like any other computer. NAT mode makes it the only client in an entirely new subnetwork, such that you'd need to add a whole bunch of new routing rules in order to access it from somewhere else. I think I tried a bunch of different ways of configuring the adapter a month or two ago and completely gave up.
A whole new computer and operating system! Sitting there, ready for me to play with and configure!
kianamaiart
vaporwave
dailybridgerton
janainaart
tangentwithtanner