Internship Site Update

https://tuannguyenn.github.io/wvkiwanis2/

I made some changes on the site. Previously with the old site I caught a virus on my computer and had to system restore.... and I did not have a backup of the old site!

Thankfully I had the old static site I made so I was able to copy and paste the content over.

CalTrans Front End Forms with Bootstrap

All I can say is I am very impressed with Bootstrap. I went from doing things on WordPress for the last two weeks to going back to manually coding a site and it was a good time. Nothing beats reading the documentation that helped me out a ton.

For this project, from starting with a piece of paper and understanding what was needed to getting the site done took 9 hours for my brother and I.

It was all front end so if the code looks wonky it's because it's just the front end design. Regardless, I'm glad we got it done on a tight schedule.

link: https://tuannguyenn.github.io/CalTransForms/

github: https://github.com/tuannguyenn/CalTransForms

Internship Site Update

Wow, first of all, I learned a ton at WordCamp OC 2018. I still can't believe how big of a community WordPress has around it.

As far as my internship website update, I've been learning how to use WordPress and so far it's pretty good. I have a local environment set up on my PC and for testing purposes, but I wanted a way to show my supervisor what I've been working on without physically meeting up and showing him on my laptop... So I used a plugin (WP Static HTML Output) to output the WordPress site as a static HTML site, and then uploaded it to GitHub.

Check it out!
https://tuannguyenn.github.io/wvkiwanis/

(Note: it's still being updated for the content/design. It's not finished yet!!)

WordPress? CMS?

I've started an internship to update a website for a non-profit. When my supervisor was telling me that he wanted the site to be easy to update... for non-techie people... I knew I couldn't just make a static site from HTML / CSS / JS. 

I needed to use a Content Management System (CMS).

After googling and googling around I decided to go with the ever popular WordPress.

A good tool I found to install WordPress locally is Laragon. So far I've been tinkering with it and doing more research on how to make a decent WordPress site.

I'm also planning to attend OC WordCamp this weekend! The timing was perfect as they only had 7 spots left.

Annoy-omatic

This is an assignment from class. Here were the rules:

Annoy-omatic  

Create your own index.html

Ask the user " Are we there yet"

Keep asking again and again until they enter "yes" OR "yeah"

Then, alert "Yay, we finally made it!"

github: https://github.com/tuannguyenn/annoy-omatic

check it out here: https://tuannguyenn.github.io/annoy-omatic/

When I started this assignment I had an idea of what I wanted, a popup box that asks "Are we there yet?"

I wasn't quite sure how to do that because all I knew was the alert() method. So Google I went searching for "javascript alert box with input".

That took me to this JavaScript - Dialog Boxes tutorial and the rest was easy.

jQuery

Wow am I glad that I found jQuery. I finished the jQuery course on Codecademy and the jQuery lessons in FreeCodeCamp. I found that the Codecademy lessons on it were easier to understand because Codecademy has a file browser that lets you see each page (html, css, and js) to get a fuller understanding of what is being manipulated whereas FreeCodeCamp does everything on the same page.

Learning jQuery after plain Vanilla JavaScript lets me appreciate how helpful it is especially if I were to design a webapp because it works on all browsers!

Vim - a handy text editor on the command line

As I was doing my Anki flashcards I thought I'd try to open one of my files with vim... I then proceeded to freak out because I had no idea how to use vim, and I opened an important file from my Tic Tac Toe project.


After calming down I followed this handy guide to learn the basics of how to use Vim and now all is good!

JavaScript Tic Tac Toe

I made a Tic Tac Toe game!

This one actually took me longer than I expected.
What helped was sitting with the problem, doing research and having a go at it once I understood what I needed to do.

The learning continues..

Git and Github!

I published my Capstone website on Github through Git on my PC!

https://tuannguyenn.github.io/hightech/

Here's my Github profile: https://github.com/tuannguyenn

The command line isn't that bad after all.

JavaScript Score Keeper Challenge

For this challenge we were told to make a score keeper.  The user is able to set the number they are playing to i.e. up to 7. Then each time a player wins a round they click their player number, and then the scoreboard reflects their score.

When the set score is reached, the score number text changes from black to green to indicate the winner.

Overall it wasn't too bad. At first it seemed daunting but then I employed the rubber duck debugging method inadvertently talking about the project with a friend of mine who has no clue on coding. While voicing my thoughts the solutions and ideas came to me.

JavaScript

During the Cap Stone website project I started learning JavaScript through CodeCademy and have dedicated a good chunk of time on it.

So far I've learned about:

 Scope - global and block
 Variables - how to assign and modify
 Functions - as well as nested functions
 Loops - for and while
 If Else / Else If / Switch Statements
 Built in Methods
 Objects
 Class and Class Inheritance
 Arrays and Array Methods
 The DOM and modifying HTML with JavaScript

All in all it's been great learning about JavaScript syntax and I'm sure I still have tons to go but small steps everyday will get me there one of these days :)

HTML / CSS Capstone Project Finished!

The capstone website project was an interesting experience. I learned how to use Chrome Dev Tools better to analyze websites and deconstruct / analyze how certain elements worked.

The basis of the site is to promote a local small business "High Tech". HTML and CSS were used to make it and all the photos are from UnSplash.

Here it is!

Note: It's not mobile friendly(yet). Please view on a desktop for best results :p

HTML / CSS Capstone Project

This week's assignment is a team HTML / CSS Capstone Project. The assignment is to design and build a website for a fictional local business and at the end we will have to do a presentation on it in front of class.

It's my first time doing a team coding assignment it should be interesting. Besides that, I've started on Learn Javascript on Codecademy.


Tuan

HTML / CSS

I completed the Learn HTML and Learn CSS tutorials on Codecademy.

So much to learn it reminds me of learning Japanese all over again... aka the sweat equity involved is real!


Back to the grind.

My take on going through Codecademy

I've been going through Codecademy's Learn HTML and Learn CSS courses. 

I think the way they do it is great but one issue I noticed is that I would get the impression I was retaining all this information going through the tutorials (specifically syntax and other rules). It occurred to me when I would have to go back to previous lessons to review the information I had previously learned but forgot.

To counter this issue in my learning I started using Anki (a flashcard program) inputting everything I think I should remember. It does add a bit of time while going through the material but at the same time it solidifies learning of new and old material.

Cheers!

Coding Bootcamp!

What's up guys,


I have some great news to share. I just enrolled in the LA High Tech Coding Bootcamp! It's a 12 week long (reduced from 16 weeks) bootcamp that also includes an 8 week paid on-the-job pre-apprentice training internship at the end!

The class itself meets 4 hours a week on campus every Friday, but we are expected to be learning code an extra 12 hours a week by ourselves (with online videos, etc provided from the professor). Totaling 16 hours a week. Or if you break it down, 3 hours a day Monday-Thursday and 4 hours on Friday.


The first assignments of the bootcamp are to complete the Learn HTML and Learn CSS courses at codecademy.

App Idea: Email Cleanup

I just thought of an app idea.

My gmail space is currently running low, so I want to forward emails that have attachment sizes over a certain mb size (for example using the size:19MB to find emails that have attachments greater than 19mb) to my other email account, and then deleting those emails off my personal email account

I plan to do this on python and I'll make an update post with the code I used, what I learned, and how I could have improved it later on.


Cheers!

Guidance and Information Overload!

One thing I've noticed about self-learning coding is that there's too much information and learning materials out on the internet... almost to the point where I don't know where to start!

Which is why I'm starting with the basics (not even coding yet): Command Line and how to use Terminal.

I'm using Codecademy's tutorial for this and I like how they simplify their explanations and move at a swift pace. Whenever I want to dive in deeper it's just a google search away to more concrete examples.

I hope to finish learning the Command Line soon and get started on Ruby.

Every Journey Starts with the First Step

Hello World.

I'm Tuan, and I taught English in Japan for several years.

After moving back to California in 2015, I helped with the family business for a while, as well as dabbled in selling physical products on Amazon.

I wanted to transition in to another career, so today I start my journey to learn coding with the goal of obtaining a position in the Tech field.

This blog will be an account of what I am learning.

Wish me luck,
Tuan