(Bloomberg) -- DeepSeek’s breakthrough in artificial intelligence is helping drive a rotation of stock funds back into China from India.Most Read from BloombergProgressive Portland Plots a ComebackWhy American Mobility Ground to a HaltA Filmmaker’s Surreal Journey Into His Own Private ...

DeepSeek drives $1.3 trillion China stock rally as funds pile in

Stay informed on the latest cybersecurity threats, trends and news with our comprehensive coverage. Get expert analysis and insights on protecting your organization from cyber attacks.

Shaping Cybersecurity: CISA’s Journey

By actively engaging stakeholders, CISA aims to better understand sector-specific threats while mitigating risks at a national level.

A case study on designing onboarding for business owners using account aggregator and e-KYC.

Crafting a Seamless Onboarding Journey for Business Owners | by Harshvardhan Agarwal | Dec, 2024 | Medium

Entering the world of cybersecurity can feel overwhelming, but you don’t have to go it alone! Here’s a collection of free resources, career tools, and discounts to help you dive into cybersecurity…

🌐 Kickstart Your Cybersecurity Journey: Free Resources, Career Guidance, and Exclusive Discounts!

PRESS RELEASE. Seraph, a next-generation Web3 game, has been actively engaging with its community through a series of major offline events leading up to

Seraph’s Journey to Token 2049: Showcasing the Future of Web3 Gaming – Standard PR Bitcoin News

While the federal government deadline has arrived on implementing a zero-trust cybersecurity model, many state and local governments have committed to zero-trust architecture as well.

Where Are Governments in Their Zero-Trust Journey?

Journey

journey

Introduction Hey there 👋 it’s Dhanush N back with my annual retrospective. For those following my journey through Dev Retro 2022 and 2023, you’ve seen how each year has shaped my growth. Each year brings fresh opportunities and challenges, and for 2024, it was a transformative year. This year’s theme, Dive Deep into Mastery, was inspired by a simple truth: “The more you learn, the more you realize how vast the unknown truly is.” This year was all about venturing beyond my comfort zone, diving into unexplored areas, and broadening both my technical and personal growth. Throughout the year, I immersed myself in various technologies and experimented with different things. Best Things Happened In 2024, I significantly expanded my expertise by participating in some online workshops where I explored topics like OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities and the integration of AI in documentation with Let AI Be Your Docs. These experiences deepened my understanding of software security and AI’s role in enhancing development processes. Open source continued to be a cornerstone of my work this year. I created custom action workflows, contributed to multiple open-source events, published both npm and cargo packages, and more. My blog contributions also earned me recognition once as a Top 3 Writer in HackerNoon’s Tech Companies category. Furthermore, I achieved a remarkable milestone by securing a Top 5 position at Dev Fest AI 2024 competing against over 1500 teams. My efforts in the open-source community and content creation were further acknowledged through multiple GitHub sponsorships from renowned contributors. In addition to my open-source and AI contributions, my journey in cybersecurity has been equally transformative. I have proudly achieved a position in the Top 3% globally on TryHackMe, further solidifying my passion for ethical hacking and security. This accomplishment not only sharpened my technical skills but also deepened my appreciation for the vast, ever-evolving world of cybersecurity. However, this is just the beginning; I’m eager to continue expanding my knowledge and mastering the complexities of this dynamic field. There’s still much to learn, and I am committed to further exploring and growing within the cybersecurity space. This year, I have obtained over seven certifications across various categories. While I always prioritize skills over certifications, these achievements reflect my dedication to validating and showcasing my expertise. Beyond technical accomplishments, I ventured into content creation, publishing more than 50 long-format videos and building a community of over 800 YouTube subscribers, a testament to my passion for sharing knowledge and engaging with audiences. https://www.youtube.com/@dhanushnehru?sub_confirmation=1&embedable=true Additionally, I have actively contributed to communities by mentoring and collaborating, resulting in recognitions such as the Mentorship Certificate from GDG (Google Developer Group). These experiences not only strengthened my expertise but also deepened my commitment to fostering growth and knowledge sharing within the tech ecosystem. Conclusion 2024 taught me valuable lessons: Depth Takes Time: It’s tempting to chase breadth, but true expertise requires focusing on fewer things and mastering them. Patience is a Skill: Results don’t come overnight. The badges, certificates, and projects were earned through countless hours of effort and learning. Never Stop Exploring: Curiosity drives growth but make sure that curiosity remains intact. A Big Thank You 🙏🏻 I would have covered at least 80% of my journey and accomplishments in this blog. To anyone who has followed my journey this far, thank you. Your encouragement, engagement, and support have been invaluable. As I move forward, I leave you with this thought: “Mastery isn’t a destination; it’s a mindset of relentless curiosity and growth.” Let’s keep learning, sharing, and growing together in 2025. 🌟🚀 Feel free to connect with me on X, Instagram, Github, or YouTube. Introduction Hey there 👋 it’s Dhanush N back with my annual retrospective. For those following my journey through Dev Retro 2022 and 2023, you’ve seen how each year has shaped my growth. Each year brings fresh opportunities and challenges, and for 2024, it was a transformative year. This year’s theme, Dive Deep into Mastery , was inspired by a simple truth: Dive Deep into Mastery “The more you learn, the more you realize how vast the unknown truly is.” “The more you learn, the more you realize how vast the unknown truly is.” “The more you learn, the more you realize how vast the unknown truly is.” This year was all about venturing beyond my comfort zone, diving into unexplored areas, and broadening both my technical and personal growth. Throughout the year, I immersed myself in various technologies and experimented with different things. Best Things Happened In 2024, I significantly expanded my expertise by participating in some online workshops where I explored topics like OWASP Top 10 Vulnerabilities and the integration of AI in documentation with Let AI Be Your Docs . These experiences deepened my understanding of software security and AI’s role in enhancing development processes. Let AI Be Your Docs Open source continued to be a cornerstone of my work this year. I created custom action workflows, contributed to multiple open-source events, published both npm and cargo packages, and more. My blog contributions also earned me recognition once as a Top 3 Writer in HackerNoon’s Tech Companies category. Top 3 Writer Top 3 Writer Furthermore, I achieved a remarkable milestone by securing a Top 5 position at Dev Fest AI 2024 competing against over 1500 teams. My efforts in the open-source community and content creation were further acknowledged through multiple GitHub sponsorships from renowned contributors. Top 5 position Top 5 position GitHub sponsorships In addition to my open-source and AI contributions, my journey in cybersecurity has been equally transformative. I have proudly achieved a position in the Top 3% globally on TryHackMe, further solidifying my passion for ethical hacking and security. This accomplishment not only sharpened my technical skills but also deepened my appreciation for the vast, ever-evolving world of cybersecurity. However, this is just the beginning; I’m eager to continue expanding my knowledge and mastering the complexities of this dynamic field. There’s still much to learn, and I am committed to further exploring and growing within the cybersecurity space. Top 3% globally Top 3% globally This year, I have obtained over seven certifications across various categories. While I always prioritize skills over certifications, these achievements reflect my dedication to validating and showcasing my expertise. over seven certifications over seven certifications Beyond technical accomplishments, I ventured into content creation , publishing more than 50 long-format videos and building a community of over 800 YouTube subscribers , a testament to my passion for sharing knowledge and engaging with audiences. content creation 50 long-format videos 800 YouTube subscribers https://www.youtube.com/@dhanushnehru?sub_confirmation=1&embedable=true https://www.youtube.com/@dhanushnehru?sub_confirmation=1&embedable=true Additionally, I have actively contributed to communities by mentoring and collaborating, resulting in recognitions such as the Mentorship Certificate from GDG (Google Developer Group) . These experiences not only strengthened my expertise but also deepened my commitment to fostering growth and knowledge sharing within the tech ecosystem. Mentorship Certificate from GDG (Google Developer Group) Conclusion Conclusion 2024 taught me valuable lessons: Depth Takes Time: It’s tempting to chase breadth, but true expertise requires focusing on fewer things and mastering them. Depth Takes Time: It’s tempting to chase breadth, but true expertise requires focusing on fewer things and mastering them. Depth Takes Time: Patience is a Skill: Results don’t come overnight. The badges, certificates, and projects were earned through countless hours of effort and learning. Patience is a Skill : Results don’t come overnight. The badges, certificates, and projects were earned through countless hours of effort and learning. Patience is a Skill Never Stop Exploring: Curiosity drives growth but make sure that curiosity remains intact. Never Stop Exploring: Curiosity drives growth but make sure that curiosity remains intact. Never Stop Exploring : Curiosity drives growth but make sure that curiosity remains intact. Never Stop Exploring A Big Thank You 🙏🏻 I would have covered at least 80% of my journey and accomplishments in this blog. To anyone who has followed my journey this far, thank you. Your encouragement, engagement, and support have been invaluable. As I move forward, I leave you with this thought: “Mastery isn’t a destination; it’s a mindset of relentless curiosity and growth.” “Mastery isn’t a destination; it’s a mindset of relentless curiosity and growth.” “Mastery isn’t a destination; it’s a mindset of relentless curiosity and growth.” Let’s keep learning, sharing, and growing together in 2025. 🌟🚀 Feel free to connect with me on X , Instagram , Github, or YouTube . X X Instagram Instagram Github , Github YouTube YouTube

My Dev Journey in 2024: A Year in Review

Greetings everyone! My name is Geolffrey Mena, and I am excited to introduce myself as a 35-year-old software engineer currently based in Nicaragua. In addition to my passion for technology, I have a love for nature, accompanied by eight adorable dogs who bring joy to my daily life. During my leisure time, I enjoy playing video games, reading technical and self-improvement books, as well as immersing myself in captivating series. As an individual, I consider myself a perpetual learner, always focused on creating and innovating in the world of software engineering. I am passionate about understanding the principles, methodologies, and patterns of this field, and sharing that knowledge with others who are on the path to understanding it. I acknowledge my limitations and am open to external influences, understanding that learning is a continuous process that requires humility (you can't always be right). To be honest, I must admit that I am not an expert in all tools. My focus is on the fundamentals, as I understand that I cannot master every technology at once (it often frustrates me to see too many technologies grouped together trying to solve the same problem), so I prefer to learn each thing as the need arises. My learning process follows a defined scheme: first, I understand the context of the problem, then I look for the most suitable tool. Sometimes, when I have time, I prefer to reinvent the wheel and create my own tool to better understand how it works. I dedicate time to studying the documentation and understanding the decisions behind the design. Once the tool is selected, I move on to practicing in a repetitive cycle of creation and refactoring. I strive to polish the implementation, following best practices and clean code. I even adjust function names if I feel they are not suitable for the problem domain. Currently, I am interested in distributed computing, blockchains, and cryptography, and I am working on my own paper proposing a solution for securely (curated) consuming multimedia content in distributed networks like IPFS. Regarding my technical skills, I excel in development with Python, Golang, and JavaScript/TypeScript/Node. Furthermore, I have delved into architecture, particularly in event-driven styles with a serverless approach, using AWS services such as microservices with Step Functions and Lambda, as well as tools like Terraform (IaC) and GitOps in Kubernetes environments. My focus on blockchain centers around Solidity EVM (ERC-20, ERC-11155, among others). Since I understood that software engineering goes beyond the myth of the lone genius, I have adopted a teamwork approach. I firmly believe that everything in software engineering is about teamwork, where collaboration, knowledge sharing, and healthy competition play a fundamental role. I have been inspired by the culture of respect, trust, and humility, which I have found in books like "Software Engineering" at Google. I have a slight obsession with clean code and best practices, as long as they do not affect my productivity. I am passionate about finding simple and effective solutions, firmly believing in the principle that "simple is better" than unnecessary complexity. Over the past ten years, I have accumulated valuable work experience in a wide range of projects, from initiatives related to blockchains and exchanges to e-commerce and transportation. However, the most significant project I participated in was international remittances. Additionally, I ventured into starting my own company, although with modest results, the experience was enriching. I would like to highlight my time at an international shipping company, where I served as a Principal Software Engineer for an extended period. In this company, I acquired fundamental skills related to financial technology, regulations, process analysis, architecture, and customer relationship management. Operating since 1980, the company faced significant challenges with outdated manual processes that hindered its competitiveness in the remittance market. My contribution focused on analyzing these obstacles, understanding the problem context, and designing and implementing innovative solutions that allowed for a new scalable, and robust architecture. My last role in the company was as a solution architect, where I led the development of a new application to improve customer relations. This application, which enables free international remittance, could propel the company to the top spot in the regional market between Miami and Nicaragua. My involvement in this project as a solutions architect and leader of the mobile development team allowed me to implement a scalable and robust infrastructure based on microservices with serverless and step functions. Currently, I am in search of new job opportunities. Despite not being employed at the moment, my commitment to excellence and desire to continue learning make me a valuable candidate for any company that values the experience and potential of its employees. Greetings everyone! My name is Geolffrey Mena, and I am excited to introduce myself as a 35-year-old software engineer currently based in Nicaragua. In addition to my passion for technology, I have a love for nature, accompanied by eight adorable dogs who bring joy to my daily life. During my leisure time, I enjoy playing video games, reading technical and self-improvement books, as well as immersing myself in captivating series. As an individual, I consider myself a perpetual learner, always focused on creating and innovating in the world of software engineering. I am passionate about understanding the principles, methodologies, and patterns of this field, and sharing that knowledge with others who are on the path to understanding it. I acknowledge my limitations and am open to external influences, understanding that learning is a continuous process that requires humility (you can't always be right). To be honest, I must admit that I am not an expert in all tools. My focus is on the fundamentals, as I understand that I cannot master every technology at once (it often frustrates me to see too many technologies grouped together trying to solve the same problem), so I prefer to learn each thing as the need arises. My learning process follows a defined scheme: first, I understand the context of the problem, then I look for the most suitable tool. Sometimes, when I have time, I prefer to reinvent the wheel and create my own tool to better understand how it works. I dedicate time to studying the documentation and understanding the decisions behind the design. Once the tool is selected, I move on to practicing in a repetitive cycle of creation and refactoring. I strive to polish the implementation, following best practices and clean code. I even adjust function names if I feel they are not suitable for the problem domain. Currently, I am interested in distributed computing, blockchains, and cryptography, and I am working on my own paper proposing a solution for securely (curated) consuming multimedia content in distributed networks like IPFS. Regarding my technical skills, I excel in development with Python, Golang, and JavaScript/TypeScript/Node. Furthermore, I have delved into architecture, particularly in event-driven styles with a serverless approach, using AWS services such as microservices with Step Functions and Lambda, as well as tools like Terraform (IaC) and GitOps in Kubernetes environments. My focus on blockchain centers around Solidity EVM (ERC-20, ERC-11155, among others). Since I understood that software engineering goes beyond the myth of the lone genius, I have adopted a teamwork approach. I firmly believe that everything in software engineering is about teamwork, where collaboration, knowledge sharing, and healthy competition play a fundamental role. I have been inspired by the culture of respect, trust, and humility, which I have found in books like "Software Engineering" at Google. I have a slight obsession with clean code and best practices, as long as they do not affect my productivity. I am passionate about finding simple and effective solutions, firmly believing in the principle that "simple is better" than unnecessary complexity. Over the past ten years, I have accumulated valuable work experience in a wide range of projects, from initiatives related to blockchains and exchanges to e-commerce and transportation. However, the most significant project I participated in was international remittances. Additionally, I ventured into starting my own company, although with modest results, the experience was enriching. I would like to highlight my time at an international shipping company, where I served as a Principal Software Engineer for an extended period. In this company, I acquired fundamental skills related to financial technology, regulations, process analysis, architecture, and customer relationship management. Operating since 1980, the company faced significant challenges with outdated manual processes that hindered its competitiveness in the remittance market. My contribution focused on analyzing these obstacles, understanding the problem context, and designing and implementing innovative solutions that allowed for a new scalable, and robust architecture. My last role in the company was as a solution architect, where I led the development of a new application to improve customer relations. This application, which enables free international remittance, could propel the company to the top spot in the regional market between Miami and Nicaragua. My involvement in this project as a solutions architect and leader of the mobile development team allowed me to implement a scalable and robust infrastructure based on microservices with serverless and step functions. Currently, I am in search of new job opportunities. Despite not being employed at the moment, my commitment to excellence and desire to continue learning make me a valuable candidate for any company that values the experience and potential of its employees.

Exploring My Journey: A Software Engineer in Constant Evolution

This is a quick review of . As a heads up, I run a website called , where we list and review the newest and coolest sales tools coming out. journey.io SalePier What is Journey.io? You may have heard of Journey.io through all the buzz and hype it’s been having these past couple of months, but they describe Journey as a new way of storytelling through responsive slides, video recordings, interactive blogs, and more — through a no-code fashion. I’d say just think of it as a souped-up version of Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. In their own words, the value-adds are: The ability to create content automatically with AI Personalize the content to your branding or the customer’s branding easily Swap in modular content through different pre-made blocks. Get insights on how viewers are engaging with the content. Nothing jarring in terms of value prop, but when it comes to any AI tools such as this one, the biggest thing to evaluate is if it actually delivers on its promises. Here’s a preview - it does. Creating an Account and Dashboard Once you create an account, you’ll be taken to the Journey dashboard, where you’ll see a list of all the journeys you’ve created in a sidebar. You have options to create a journey with AI from scratch, repurpose an existing PDF, or create from a template. No surprises here outside of your traditional account dashboard for any software you likely use today. I will say, however, if your day-to-day is in Google Workspace or Microsoft Office, it’s a little annoying to have to go to a completely different platform. Creating a Journey from scratch When it comes to creating a journey from scratch, you have options to add text, images, links, files, recordings, and various integrations. There are also templates available, such as a sales room template, which includes different elements like videos, recordings, and integrations like Calendly. The canvas almost reminded me of Prezi (2000s kids will remember), but flatter and with a lot more integrations. There is a limit to how creative you can be within the canvas, as there are only certain slots you can add in content, so the ability to customize the presentations becomes limited. The good news is that the Journeys look good regardless, but I question the ability to create more intricate presentations. Chatbot Integration There’s also a chatbot feature where you can add a chatbot to your journey, allowing viewers to ask questions and get responses. This can add an interactive element to your content. To me, this was the coolest part of the entire platform - a 0 effort way to set up a chatbot, give it a personality and make it easier for the viewer to digest the content and ask questions. Not only did it provide answers to questions I asked, but suggested follow-up questions I could ask. It reminded me of the interface in Bard or the new Generative AI features coming to Google search. Converting PDFs You can even convert a PDF document into a journey, where the AI pulls out relevant information and organizes it into slides. This feature is particularly useful for longer documents or content-heavy pieces. I tried it out by uploading a Certificate of Incorporation for a fictional company to see how it would handle it, considering a Certificate of Incorporation usually has a ton of legal jargon. All things considered, it took out five sections from the Certificate of Incorporation and put it into a mini Journey - not as comprehensive as I would have thought, but it still worked nonetheless. The images that were associated with the text were obviously AI-generated, considering that most of them created nonsensical text. AI-Generated Journeys The AI-generated journey can cover various sections like an introduction, market analysis, growth strategies, execution plans, and more. It creates a framework that can serve as a starting point for building your presentation. I was impressed at the presentation sections it created, but as expected, a lot of the content generated was pretty boilerplate. However, breaking down a sales narrative into a cohesive story is half of the battle, so a feature like this becomes helpful when it comes to organizing messy thoughts into an organized story. Insights and Analytics Journey provides insights into how your content is performing. You can track metrics like views, engagement time, and click-through rates. This can help you understand how viewers are interacting with your content. Initially, I was surprised at how simple the provided analytics were, but after additional thought, I couldn’t really think of additional analytics that I really needed other than views and depth of engagement. In fact, Journey.io goes even further, as it provides analytics at an individual element level. Pricing Journey offers different pricing tiers, including a free plan with limitations on the number of journeys you can create. The paid plans offer more features, such as unlimited journeys and the removal of watermarks. The jump in pricing from Pro to Teams is pretty drastic - I wonder which enterprises and at what size they would invest in adopting Journey.io. Final Verdict and Considerations Journey is a sleek product for the value adds it advertises. The product is well built, and the output is clean, aesthetic, and minimalist, and integrations make it very dynamic. However, the biggest question that needs to be asked prior to purchasing/using Journey is — what problem does this actually solve? While the AI can create content, the content doesn’t necessarily provide the most accurate/in-depth content, not to mention the fact that it’s not recommended to supply sensitive content to a third party like Journey. As a result, I’d argue that the time savings are negligible, considering the time it would take to re-read, re-edit, and revise. Where I can really see a tool like this excelling is potentially for internal enablement or low-stakes presentations where hyper-customization isn’t necessary. I would almost frame Journey.io as a hybrid between a collateral creation tool and a digital sales room. I think a product like this has very specific use cases. Conclusion In conclusion, Journey can be a useful tool for creating dynamic and interactive content, especially for internal purposes or less complex presentations. However, it’s crucial to evaluate whether it genuinely addresses your needs and provides value before diving in. You can watch the full video review here

Reviewing Journey.io: Worth the Hype or Just Vaporware?

In a state of Ikigai ❤️ Introduction Hey guys, I am Dhanush N, currently, a full-stack software engineer with 4+ years of experience mostly focused on backend development and DevOps. I am currently learning AWS and system design. I've had a lot of exposure to different technologies as a result of my work at a startup and have also learned many other things from my interests. So, let's have a review of how my 2022 went 🙂 My Background I was from a tier 3 college, and when I was in my 2nd year, I remember that there was the first coding contest in my college, which was used for shortlisting people for a placement aspect. I was an above-average academic student at the time, but when it came to coding, I was unable to solve the problem in a minimal time frame. I took Computer Science and Engineering, which was purely based on my interest, but competitive programming was something that challenged me. I love being challenged; from then on, I continued to improve my problem-solving abilities by completing numerous challenges on various platforms, and I grew steadily. My Job When I first got placed in a company, I worked in the service sector for a year and was then moved to the product sector. More than working in the service sector, I loved working in the product sector and keeping myself updated on various tools and technologies. Since I was in a startup, I've worked with a , including React, Node.js, Elasticsearch, Redis, MongoDB, and others. variety of technologies 2022 Learnings In early 2022, I was transferred to a new tech stack, Cube Js, which was used to build analytical visualization. Our main database was MongoDB, and it was very difficult to adapt it to our business logic. I had to debug things and learn a bit about AWS instances and how communication between servers happens to retrieve data more quickly. The work we did with our team, which I was leading, made us reduce the slowness of rendering things with the available tech stack from several minutes to less than 5 seconds by scaling and optimizing the code. Apart from this, I have solved many server issues, done many code-level optimizations, and also helped many other developers. Apart from that, I was introduced to many other aspects of technology, such as Elasticsearch, a few machine learning algorithms, typescript, AWS Athena, AWS RDS, AWS Glue, AWS OpenSearch, and so on. Also, apart from Javascript and Node.js, I fiddle around with various to automate my tasks and a few other side projects, and I've also started learning rust. Python scripts I have created some open-source projects and also contributed to a few, some of which are in my . GitHub I earned numerous profile badges, which are now displayed on my board. Also, my GitHub profile has gained much traction. holopin I also planned to create a portfolio, but I wanted it to be unique, so I finally came up with a . Do view it, and I hope you will like it 😊 unique portfolio site I have also written blogs on various platforms, like , , , , , etc. I planned to solve coding problems on a daily basis, but I was not consistent the entire year. dev.to geeksforgeeks medium hashnode HackerNoon I have consistently solved coding problems to improve my DSA without missing a day in the last two months, and I hope to continue in this manner in the coming year 2023. I have mentored a few people and guided them in their programming knowledge. Apart from tech, I have been a chess player and participated in in-person chess tournaments in my locality twice this year and many online tournaments, and this has helped me in real-life decision-making as well. Despite doing all these, I have also been consistent enough to exercise daily and I have been consistently going to the gym for the past year and hope to continue it as well. Key Takeaways At the beginning of the blog post, I would have mentioned the state of , which purely means ; I feel I am in the state of Ikigai according to me these 4 factors Ikigai a state of being What do I love? I love problem-solving like sudoku, chess, cube solving, etc. This interest has also made me solve technological problems by code by identifying loopholes and exploring the right aspect. What am I good at? I am good at problem-solving as I have taken a lot of effort from my college days practicing skills as well as solving many problems of my peers as well as my own. What can I be paid for? Technology has paid me for what I work, etc. Apart from tech, I was able to earn money playing chess as well. What does the world need? I feel my world is my family. I can be with them and support them in various aspects and am also able to help some people in programming, and few have landed good jobs. Was able to guide and help a lot of people online with their open-source contributions and also a few guidelines regarding technology aspects. The tech industry keeps on changing; never stick with a particular programming language or tool, learn to learn and unlearn things. Never compare yourself with anyone, compare yourself only with your previous self, and do things that you like or are passionate about. I got what I like in case anyone else has not got what they like to approach it with interest for having a better outcome. Never stress too much; in the end, it is health that matters. I always compare the tech industry to chess. In chess, a 12-year-old chess player can win over a person at age 35, similarly, the skillset varies. Always be curious. And, in tech, your experience may matter, but mostly, the projects and skills value more than your experience. What’s Next I am purely enjoying my work and challenging myself not to settle in a comfort zone, even if it is comfortable. I'm planning to write more blogs consistently, at least 12 for the next year, do more open source, develop my skills to the next level, complete some of my existing fun side projects, and also achieve a few other accomplishments as well. To fulfill my future aspirations and goals, I must constantly improve myself and learn new things, as well as help others. Thank you so much if you have read it so far. If you liked reading this blog, please don't forget to like ❤️, comment 👌🏻 and share 🤩 in order to show your support as your support means a lot to me. Also published here

My Dev Journey in 2022: A Year in Review

Note: This is completely voluntary and honest writing of my experience and learning as an Intern at Sqrrl.This is the longest I’ve ever written that makes sense to me. Zero to One Four semesters ago, I started college with absolutely no programming background(except CMD+C / CMD+V) having an approximate idea that college will do no good since the beginning. The only thoughts I had were of eminent aspirations of understanding and building the internal implementations of web/mobile applications or more precisely, how did people make millions of dollars primarily with tech? All this with curiosity and a nothing-to-lose mindset. I never took any particular programming course, or ever blindly-followed particularly any-one trainer while learning to code. Although, I am a great admirer of Kenneth Reitz, Armin Ronacher, and many more Python board members and core developers. While trying out new stuff, I always have an existing project or a new project idea- first to implement it and having no sample project to follow its application. People call it “Learning the hard way!” too. I’ve failed way more than I succeeded. But that’s all right. Because those failures made my moments of triumph more memorable. The Sqrrl Way As a mandatory summer training/internship that students in my university need to take up in the two months of Summer Vacations, I was placed as Python Intern at in April 2018. Sqrrl is India’s first personal finance platform aiming at millennials. In the eight weeks, I spent here, I’ve made more intellectual discoveries than I can count: All thanks to the incredible mentorship and patience of the I have been working with. In these two months, my learning was not only in the terms of tech but also in finance and marketing. - Compound interest is the eighth wonder — I understood that on real data!- Several marketing tactics like Budget Distribution etc- How the AMCs operate, Mutual Funds and SIPs work and moreover understanding how our national stock exchanges work. - Understanding Annualized Return: CAGR and XIRR Sqrrl Fintech team Whereas on the technical side, from day one I tried following the best patterns. I worked on Serverless Lambda, DynamoDB, RDS. Here at Sqrrl, on the server side, we use a very lightweight, bare-metal python framework for building speedy web APIs and app backend called Falcon. Having some experience with fully featured “batteries included” server-side web framework like Django, it took me some time for me to overcome that and grasp that kind of minimalism! At the same time, there are many perks of it like the flexible design, better in performance as compared to other python frameworks, lesser black-box stuff and of course, lesser dependencies out of the box — other than the python standard library, six and mimeparse are the only dependencies. Projects and college Back when I started off with some personal projects of my own, many disregarded about the problem I was solving, having no other option I preferred to continue with it. Iterating the user’s feedback, today it’s codebase has changed by over 90%. Present-day: it pays off well, at least way more than satisfying my expenses. Almost quarter to half a million users turn up monthly (dedicating less than 5 hours a month). The same people who disregarded it, now say it was all luck. Apparently, I’m not a lottery ticket - “Luck is a big one. Timing is everything. But you kind of make your own luck if you stay at it long enough.” - Naval Ravikant I’m not a fan of college studies, I’d say it is a period of self-discovery that revolves all-around personal growth. So frankly, one just goes there and meet people who are doing different things, join student organizations/societies and take part in activities outside their comfort zone. In my case, I joined — Association of Computer Enthusiasts, The Technical Society of Vivekananda Institute of Professional Studies, Pitampura. We are a group of talented(not me, people say this) and curious technology enthusiasts specializing in various domains like Web Development, Machine Learning, Graphic Designing, Android, IoT etc. I started off my coding journey from this society, getting inspired by the team and the projects they made using their technical skills. For the past three years, we at ACE have helped several students(including me) getting on-board with their developer’s journey and also hosted several sessions on new technologies & conducted hackathons. ACE In the upcoming months, I plan to further improve my skill set and most probably, start developing a SaaS product. We are repeatedly told life is short, Let’s not delay living the life we desire. DO IT NOW. Although this blog is written to the best of my knowledge, if you find any shortcoming you can write to me . sam@sameerkumar.website Follow me on Twitter www.sameerkumar.website

My Journey: The Sqrrl Way

It was in the end of May 2017, I saw this announcement about offering scholarship to 500 android developer in Indonesia, google will covered up the Associate Android Developer Fast Track course fee in udacity and also the fee to take Associate Developer certification exam. So without any further consideration I enrolled. google Android Actually I’ve been quite familiar with Udacity since I took a lot of free course on it from two years ago, and also udacity is the first place where I start learnt android developement. what I really like from udacity is the sensation of the learning proccess. Where I can feel that I am in a real class and taught by the facilitator face to face. A few weeks later I received an email from Google, I’ve passed the selection for the scholarship and now ready to start learning in the Udacity. The course will take about 3 months to complete and it has three projects that we need to complete but it’s not the requirements for taking the exam, when we have the scholarship we can immediately take the test. But I decided to finish all the projects in order to be more preapared and refreshed. Udacity also provide us with a timeline for this course to make sure that we keep on the track.there is also a slack channel to get any updates from udacity or even scheduling webinar to discuss some particular topics. Udacity supports are very helpful to us. I am going to breakdown all the three projects that I’ve done from the course and going to the exam process. Popular Movie 1 This is the first project that we should done in the first stage of the course. we need to create an app that retrieve data from the internet, in this case from and show it inside of an android app. In the main screen we have to show posters of the movie in form of a grid view and when we clicked the posters it will take you to the detail screen and provide some informations about the movie such as title, duration, synopsis so on and so forth. theMovieDB.org The project itself covered some basic component in android developement such as recycler view, network access, and how to design the app itself. when we finished the project then we need to submit it to the reviewer to review our work. We will get the review within 24 hours and if there is a requirement that we don’t do, we have to resubmit the project again. 2. Popular Movie 2 In the Popular Movie part two, we just need to add more functionality to the app. We required to add data persistence, feature to show the trailer of the movie that we clicked and also show the review in a form of a list. I spent quite some time in this project because the data persistence thing. I am indulged by the existence of libraries out there that we can easily use to save bunch of time in our coding process so I rarely used the native one that android provides, so I need to read some documentations, looking up for tutorial and there is one feature in Udacity where you can ask your mentor if you stuck at something. After twice time of submit my project met criteria and I am good to proceed to the next stage. yeayyyy! 3. Baking App The Final project before the certification exam, in this stage we need to create an app that can shows a step to bake a cake in form of video, the data itself provided by Udacity such as the video, description and image of the cake. For me this project covered all the topics that we’ve done in stage 1 and stage 2 also some additional topics. When we success to create all the functionality of the app we required to make a UI Test with espresso and add home screen widget. 4. Google Certification Exam Before proceed to the exam, Udacity provide us some additional resources that might be tested inside of the exam which I found really helpful and also there is this awesome that wrap all the covered topics in the exam certification. repository The exam has two stages which are the first is Coding and the second is Exit interview. The coding session you will be given a half done project that you need to complete, debug and test. All the requirements are very clear so you don’t need to worry. If you succeed at the first stage then you will be go to the exit interview. In the exit interview you will be questioned about your project and some fundamental of android developement. Chek the official page for more info here Since I am such a night person, I took the exam at 10 pm local time and required to submit it on the next day with the same exact time. Since I’ve been fully prepared for the exam so I don’t encounter with a such a big problem, yeah the key is being fully prepared both in time and the topics. My exit interview also went really well it only took less than 5 minutes. I’ve been waiting for 10 days and today I received my badge and certificate xD and officially a Google Certified Associate Android Developer My Certificate Thanks for reading this Article and last but not least. I want to express my gratitude to Chaitra Ramanathan and Iip Permana(Udacity Support), Harshit Dwivedi(My Mentor), Kartik Arora(Reviewer also my Mentor xD, this has it own story) and all of the people that involved in this amazing journey.

Journey to be Google Certified Associate Android Developer

Detecting Scroll Direction in React: a StackOverflow Answer Turned NPM Package

প্রতিক্রিয়ায় স্ক্রোল দিক সনাক্ত করা: একটি স্ট্যাকওভারফ্লো উত্তর NPM প্যাকেজ পরিণত হয়েছে

Erkennen der Bildlaufrichtung in React: Eine StackOverflow-Antwort wurde zum NPM-Paket

Detectando la dirección de desplazamiento en React: una respuesta de StackOverflow convertida en paquete NPM

Détection de la direction de défilement dans React : une réponse StackOverflow transformée en package NPM

प्रतिक्रिया में स्क्रॉल दिशा का पता लगाना: एक स्टैक ओवरफ़्लो उत्तर एनपीएम पैकेज बन गया

React でのスクロール方向の検出: StackOverflow から NPM パッケージになったもの

React에서 스크롤 방향 감지: StackOverflow 응답이 NPM 패키지로 전환됨

Detectando a direção da rolagem no React: uma resposta StackOverflow transformada em pacote NPM

Определение направления прокрутки в React: ответ StackOverflow превратил пакет NPM

React'te Kaydırma Yönünü Algılamak: StackOverflow Yanıtı NPM Paketine Döndü

Phát hiện hướng cuộn trong React: Câu trả lời StackOverflow đã chuyển gói NPM

在 React 中检测滚动方向：StackOverflow 答案转向 NPM 包

This is not a typical article. Instead, I have written about my past five years, highlighting the key moments, achievements, learnings, and that ignite my passion for business. failures Let’s start my journey from the beginning. At 16, after being inspired by Martin Garrix’s , I started teaching myself music production. This led me to begin uploading my beats and songs to platforms like Spotify when I was 17. innovative sounds I signed with my first label, Dualist Music & Film Animation, at 17. I am so happy. But here’s a twist, I got scammed. I learned the hard way that the music label I signed had shady business practices. When they sold my music rights without my permission, this early betrayal was devastating and temporarily put my music career on hold. However, this experience taught me invaluable lessons about protecting your work as an artist. I gave myself six months to heal, hustle and learn every aspect of the music industry and how everything works. At 18, I launched an online community (on Discord) for artists and producers, which grew to over 5,000 members in just a year. We began creating and distributing free presets, sample packs, and tutorials to our community, totaling over four terabytes of music material. By mid-2020, I expanded my services by offering freelance mixing, mastering, and ghost production work (That helps me to make money and helps me to maintain my storage server) Though I had to shut down the community due to issues with people selling copyrighted materials, I continued leveraging the network I had built. At the beginning of 2021, I continued my freelance services because of the large network I created. However, I failed my 4th-semester exam in automobile engineering. I realized that I didn’t have much time to focus on both music and studies, so I stopped making music and also started exploring different business ideas. I co-founded a social media consulting startup, and we helped five early-stage businesses optimize their social presence in 6 months. I passed my Automobile engineering in 2022 and considered entrepreneurship full-time. I launched an online media company with a co-founder, but our interests diverged, and we were unable to make it big. I quickly pivoted to a new SaaS startup to make data analytics more accessible to small businesses through AI. Within nine months, I had over 200 beta users, but I struggled to attract investors. Instead of continuing to bootstrap, I made the tough choice to pause operations for now. These experiences, while difficult, expanded my skills in technology, marketing, and product development. I learned to test ideas quickly, fail fast, and iterate. Many of my ventures did not work out as planned, but each one gave me new connections and knowledge. I have learned so many things during this time. I have made money and lost money. It was a great roller coaster ride for me. Thank you for Reading If you have any questions, thoughts, or comments, please feel free to write below. Also published . here

The Fire Within: How Early Failures Ignited My Passion for Business

I currently work in a SaaS startup as a Product Manager. I’ve about four years of experience in the SaaS domain and have worked in various functions in my career. I spent my time hustling and struggling hard to reach where I am now. Get ready for an exciting story ahead. In my 10th holidays, I started working as a data entry operator in a small shop at 3k per month for nearly 10 hours a day. My family was happy to see that one more family member had the means to earn income apart from my dad as a helping hand was much required back then. I was working all day with my studies on those days. All things considered, it was getting hard for me to concentrate on my studies while carrying out a responsibility. I fell into the money trap, the adage which you ought not ever. What’s more, one acceptable day, in the wake of having a few conversations with my parents, I chose to drop school. My parents were not happy with the choice I made; unfortunately, we didn’t have any other option. Never fall into the money trap and don’t run behind it. Instead, focus on adding skills to your resume, and that will ultimately help you earn money. Everything got normal following a couple of days; however, I was feeling the loss of my school friends; thus, they are. However, I was making most of my first full-time job as I was earning and supporting my family. Now, the time had come to change the city because of some close to family reasons and needed to move to a greater city. Following a couple of long periods of to a great extent, we settled in our new residence. I began searching for my next job, and doing as such, I’ve applied for around 20 organizations. Out of the 4 have called me for a meeting. The following day, I prepared for my meetings and began doing interviews. The first organization dismissed, the subsequent organization declined, etc. I got a dismissal from each organization I met. Following four meetings that day, I felt that I’d committed a great error of not finishing my studies. At each call, organizations were requesting for a degree as I didn’t have much experience. After right around 13 interview meetings, I got chosen by a call center company for 10K/month. That was a happy moment for my family and me. Meantime, I checked that some of my neighborhood buddies were working in IT firms. They were making a decent amount of money and living a great life. I used to visit their home and started trying to learn and research more about the kind of work they did. I mostly remembered them doing some work on a black computer screen all the time.:) After much research and following the conversations I had with them, I discovered they were into website designs and mobile app developments, which was a little new and crazy to me back then. I found their career path interesting and started doing more research on it while learning more about IT Companies and what they did. I realized that I am not a call center guy, and I shouldn’t be doing this for my entire life. My friends were also insisting on switching my career. If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time. Again started hunting for a job but now with a clear target in mind. It was apparent that I wanted to join an Information Technology company. With that said, I improved my resume and started doing interviews after my office hours. I need to admit that it was the toughest time of my life. Each to a great extent, I confronted dismissals from each IT organization I met. So my inspiration begins falling, and I was really tense and disappointed with whatever was going on with me. On the double, I believed I messed everything by not finishing my college education, and I’ve destroyed my profession totally. Nobody was prepared to hire me, not a single organization. Never stop trying. Never stop believing. Never give up. Your day will come Karma may take its time, but it is inevitable. As the above statement expressed, I tried constantly. One wonderful day after different meetings, I got a proposal from an IT organization, and they were building a SaaS product. I despise everything and appreciate that day, which was an upbeat second for me however not for my family this time. You might be addressing what happened to my family now? Let me reveal to you the answer; the new organization where I got chosen has offered me 7K every month, which was 3K less than my continuous (BPO) work. So my parents addressed me saying what’s the reason behind dropping an incredible job where you were acquiring 10K every month and why I needed to downsize myself financially. Nonetheless, I knew about my future. Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward. I immediately joined the new company in the next two days as a customer care executive. On the first day at the office, we were around 4–5 people in the company. The first couple of weeks was centered on understanding the product. In the meantime, I saw that my founders were battling to recruit team members so I hopped into that and began discovering applicants and planning interviews. We did recruitment for five months, and we grew from 5 to 15. Out of 15, there was one scout who joined the group, and henceforth I moved back to customer care. I recall everything that day, composing my first email to a client, and my founder reproved at me for my unprofessional email and my use of English. He at that point showed me how to compose a lovely and expert email. That second shook me and terminated a warmth inside me, a fire of learning, and developing myself. I concluded that I will upgrade my communication skills, and to do as such, I began reading books and watching films. I would state reading has changed my life completely, and I should state everybody should read books. I endure passionate feelings for reading. Not all readers are leaders but all leaders are readers. Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. As a part of my responsibility, I started attending to customer’s requests via live chats and email services. Every day was a change for me as each passing day was filled with learning new things. Fast forwarding, worked as a customer support executive for almost two years and got promoted to customer success manager. Now everything was set in my life. I was enjoying the work I was doing. Being a part of the customer service team I get the chance to collaborate and interact with the customers a lot. All things considered, I got a lot of feedback and bits of knowledge for our product which I communicated to the product team. While Working on customer’s requests and feedback, I used to cooperate a great deal with engineers. I needed to disclose the customer’s concern to engineers in a manner they comprehend, to get it appropriately executed. I like to be the voice of the customers and connect with engineers to speak with them on what to build and why and the effect of it on the customers. That Is where I heard the word Product Manager from my boss and made some research on what they did, I saw it as something I ought to do because it was very fascinating. I got some information about working with engineers and how everything functions. I was an all-out newbie in that field. I began going to day by day stand-ups and scrum gatherings to get my hands dirty and gather more knowledge. With strong customer empathy, in-depth product knowledge, and business acumen, I got the opportunity to work as a product analyst in the product team. There is nothing you can’t achieve by hustling in the right direction Then, I started learning more about Scrum, Sprint, Agile, and every project management term to understand the basics. Since I would be working as a part of the engineering team. I started writing user stories and creating wire-frames. Being a first product guy in the product team, I was opportuned to work directly with the founder on creating a product roadmap & prioritizing features. With each passing day, I got a lot more excited as I learned new things and dived deeper into product management. Don’t wait for your boss to create opportunities for you–create them yourself. I worked for around one year as a Product Analyst. The journey proceeds from Product analyst to Associate Product Manager and currently I work as a Product Manager. If I can do it you can as well. Let nothing stop you. I hope my story inspires someone out there. You can connect with me directly on . Twitter

From Being A College Dropout To Becoming A Product Manager

This is own life story of how I managed to accumulate a Bitcoin without any financial investment. This is my story of how I earned my first full bitcoin with Zero investment. It will be unfair to say there was zero investment. Maybe not in financial terms, but I do have invested my precious time and have put considerable efforts to reach my goal. Introduction Unlike others, I am relatively new to Crypto. My first experience with crypto was in October 2017, when a customer enquired about Bitcoin ( I am working in a Bank). This triggered my curiosity, and I started browsing to find out more about it, and my journey started. My salary was enough to cover my monthly commitments but didn’t any extra money to invest. So I wanted to be 100% sure that I was making the right decision. I decided to watch and learn before I jump into the crypto world. Well, that turned out to be a costly decision. It was early December. In a matter of days, Bitcoin just exploded. It was the start of the Bull run. I decided that it’s the right time. I took a loan from one of my friends and invested in crypto. My first purchase was the hot favourite of that time “ “. I brought my first bunch of tokens for 0.08 USD. Being naive, I invested 100% of my fund in one single coin. In a matter of weeks, I saw my initial investment climbing up from 0.08 USD to 0.3 USD per coin. TRON I kept on holding, thinking that TRON is going to be 1.00 USD as TRON fans were shilling. In a matter of days, TRON price went downhill. I was still able to salvage some profits. As usual, I reinvested all my funds in some new projects based on shilling from some so-called crypto gurus on Twitter. Unfortunately for me it as PnD scheme and I lost the majority of my capital. I was dejected and took out what left of crypto. To payback my friend, I had to break a Fixed deposit. ( Lesson learned: Invest what you can lose) Resurgence. Being a banker It was a shock to me that I made such stupid mistakes, and I was determined to gain everything back. I got my bonus of that year, and I decided to retake my chance and to invest that money back to crypto. This time I was more careful and I started DYOR stuff. I was able to make some good investment and started booking my profits as well. In a month, I was able to regain all my lost capital. I sold all the crypto and replaced my early broken Fixed deposit for my child. Mission 1 BTC It was my dream to own 1 BTC and 1 ETH. It may sound funny now, but when I entered the crypto scene, 1 BTC was trading around $18,000 and 1 Eth around $ 1200. This was a massive amount for a common person. So I decided to earn 1 BTC and ETH without any financial investment. To reach my destination, there were some basic tools needed. 🌟 Twitter account( Started following all major crypto accounts) 🌟 Telegram accounts (The more, the better) 🌟 Disposable email id’s (Never use your office or personal emails) 🌟 Functional ERC-20 Wallet — enable multiple addresses ( I used , ) imToken Trust Wallet 🌟 A good web browser( Brave/Chrome/Firefox) with enabled. MetaMask With my tools, I started my Mission for 1 BTC Airdrops The easiest way to earn crypto is via . An is a distribution of a crypto currency token by a new ICO or some times an existing project, mainly used for promotional purpose. Airdrops airdrop The typical way of getting airdrops merely is signing up for newsletters, referring other users, joining Twitter /Discord/Slack/Telegram communities, and other similar activities. Unfortunately for me, ICO was dying, and there were not enough opportunities. I started foraging various ICO websites, ICO ranking sites(icodrops, ICObench, etc.) to find out airdrop opportunities. I participated in hundreds of airdrops, but most of them turned out to be dud as the tokens turned out to be worthless or not getting listed in good exchanges. To increase my allocation, I used multiple email address, various telegram ids and even multiple eth address but still was unfortunate. The best one I got was worth $200 only, and others earned me around $25 to $50 each. After four months of running around, my total earning was 0.05 BTC and 0.2 ETH. Twitter Giveaways While I was hunting for various airdrops, I was lucky enough to stumble upon multiple twitter giveaways promoted by crypto projects and exchanges. This turned out to be great for me as I was able to win some of them. The best ones I won was with: imToken wallet( 1000 ZRX, one rare imToken dragon) Huobi Exchange OKEX WorldCup predictions Bytom which helped me gain good rewards. My total earning from twitter giveaways were 1 Nano S wallet, 0.1000 BTC and 1.5 ETH (Selling of rare imToken dragon). Now my total earning stood at 0.15 BTC and 1.7 Eth (Yupiee) Bounties Over time, Airdrops turned out to be not viable as the bears started wreaking havoc. Twitter giveaways were more of luck and were rare as well. So I began to look out for better opportunities, and it came in the form of Bounties. I came across bounties when I was hunting for airdrops . . A bounty program is mostly launched by an ICO ( Pre-ICO or post-ICO) to reward the so-called bounty hunters for fulfilling a given set of tasks Mostly, the payments were in the form of native tokens or sometimes in USDT/BTC/ETH. The payments in a bounty program are always on the higher side than the airdrops, ranging from a $50 Stake or even to 1000’s of dollars. A majority of the bounty programs are hosted in or . Among all the task, the best-paying ones are T Bitcointalk forum Bounty0x.com ranslation Campaigns, Bitcointalk Signature Bounties, Youtube Campaign and Article Writing. Since I didn’t have any experience with the first three segments, I decided to try out my luck with Article writing. I faced some initial difficulties, but gradually, I was able to improve my quality of writing. Rather than chasing Pre ICO bounties (Unless it was super hyped, e.g. Aergo), I concentrated on the ones which were already listed(E.g. Kambria, DATAx, MITX, Probit). Within four months, I was able to earn around $3000 ( BTC was trading around $4000 range those days). Now with the addition from Bounty Campaigns, of my total earning stood at 0.9 BTC and 1.7 Eth. Odd Jobs I got an opportunity to be the part of Huobi’s “ Do you know your cryptocurrency”? Article competition. I was lucky enough to be in the top 5 rankings and was rewarded 1000 USDT. I also moderated bounty telegram group of a leading Exchange house for a month earning another 500 USDT. Now my total earning stood at 1.27 BTC and 1.7 Eth hitting my mission targets. Closing words As I said in the beginning, Time and effort was my investment. I also had a hint of luck on my side. With Bitcoin hovering around $3500–4000 in those days, it was easier for me to get more amount of bitcoins at a lower price. If I had tried the same experiment at the current scenario( with BTC @ $10000 USDT ), It could have taken more time and efforts to reach my goal. Apart from all the crypto's I earned, I feel discovering that I can write is the greatest gift for me. Writing has given me a new purpose in life and also helped me to see life from a different perspective. If you wish to know what I did with my 1 BTC, I have created a crypto portfolio for my daughter, and I will be gifting it on her 18th birthday.

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