Mario Kranjec | Backend Developer & IT Consultant

This Week I Realized - Recap

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 08:15:00 GMT

All things come to an end. So did this ‘This week I realized’ series.

At first I had no special plans with it, looked like something I could entertain myself with. But now looking back I realized couple of things:

my English grammar skills need improvement
writing meaningful things is hard
content could be more high-quality
high quality content was not the main goal, main goal was building a regular writing habit. Nailed that.
with help of this ‘challenge’ I appreciate people like Jure Č., Swizec, Julia E. and their content even more
getting a glimpse at ‘what did I think back then’ is something special
I’ll keep writing something similar but in a more personal matter and stop publishing it
offloading thoughts feels great
this series helped me get a better reflection at the things I did and I want to do in the future
and the best part: all the feedback I got was far surpassing what I expected in the start

Thanks for sticking around. Happy new year!

This Week I Realized - Part 9

Fri, 31 Dec 2021 07:00:00 GMT

This is the last part of this series. That was fun.
Complain mode on: 500+ MB docker images are the worst. Complain mode off.
I’m really impressed at Curve experience. One card to rule them all. And they even offer anti-embarrassment mode for times when your primary card fails, it automatically switches to second one in line.
Do you like music? Have you ever heard of Rick Rubin? No? You’re welcome.

This Week I Realized - Part 8

Sun, 26 Dec 2021 11:15:00 GMT

Office search sit-rep: with each day passing I’m more inclined on joining a coworking space. Company of like-minded professionals never hurts. That specific coworking place ticks all the boxes (and more) for me.
Realized I never visited Italy, besides Gardaland or passing through. Seems an interesting country and not that far at all.
Having a sick child is a whole another level of pain. Don’t get me wrong, I mean it in a way that as a parent you would do anything to make it go away in an instant. Instead, all you can do is sit and wait and comfort poor child. I’m starting to understand what my parents tried to tell me so many years ago.
According to some people 4chan level of communication is something completely normal. If you’re not willing to tolerate it, either on Internet or outside of it, you should “grow a pair”. I’ll spare you of my judgement.

This Week I Realized - Part 7

Mon, 13 Dec 2021 22:30:00 GMT

Seems like writing these posts is becoming a habit. Don’t need reminders or anything else to get me started which is great. I was hoping to reach this point at some time but not that soon.
Writing these blog posts also shed a light on my lack of English skills, I could and should improve them.
Office search is still “in progress”.
In more positive note, I’m looking forward to 2022. In the past I would regret all the things I didn’t do. But last couple of years, despite all the things that happened, I’m having a positive look on the past year. I’ll go into details in my yearly recap post. What can I say, I guess I’m growing up. Funny to say that at my age, mature seems to be more appropriate word.

This Week I Realized - Part 6

Tue, 07 Dec 2021 08:00:00 GMT

Figured I need to improve my budgeting process. Currently trying out YNAB. One major flaw of it is lack of auto sync with neo-banks like N26 and Revolut. I’ll give it couple of months if I won’t be satisfied I will give Toshl a chance.
Started watching The Sopranos for “I don’t even remember anymore” time. Never actually finished watching. Finger crossed I’ll finally make it this time.
Remote work started taking its toll. I guess I have to change scenery to improve my productivity. At first, I was on a hunt for a new office space. Nothing came up, except one place. One small problem, I would have to rent an entire building. Sure, let’s name it Fortress of Solitude as well. Then I got even a better idea, why not join a coworking space. Might even have an opportunity to get to know some interesting people in my area.
One of my goals for this year was one blog post per month or 12 blog posts until end of 2021. There’s still time, four more to go.

This Week I Realized - Part 5

Sat, 27 Nov 2021 23:00:00 GMT

Didn’t fall for this year’s Black Friday sales, decided to spend 0 EUR.
Over the last couple of years I noticed that a lot of sales are only perceived as sales and prices stay the same. Of course I’m lacking a proper analysis here, but usually any time of the year I’m able to find pretty similar deals. Except online courses, at least decent ones, those are usually off only for Black Friday.
I’m amazed at how much people are FOMOing into Udemy courses because they are cheap. Not all, but a lot of Udemy courses in my experience aren’t worth their price and turned out to be a waste of time. If you can’t afford a proper course in x topic then book from a respected publisher is a better alternative than a cheap course. General rule of thumb, there might be exceptions.
You’re not spending money buying a book, course or coaching membership. You’re investing. Big difference. You’re spending money when buying beer or a pack of cigarettes. Think of it as a shortcut - someone else already did that research for you. And last but not least - future you will be thankful for knowledge gained early in your life.
Future you will hate present you for buying useless courses, or even for buying good ones and not finishing them.
Speaking of which, have bunch of unfinished books to read. Womp, womp.

Appreciate you reading my ramblings. Feedback far exceeded my expectations and I decided to continue writing at least until end of this year. Thanks!

This Week I Realized - Part 4

Sun, 21 Nov 2021 12:00:00 GMT

Monitors with over 110 PPI are surprisingly rare. And before someone starts recommending Apple monitors, I would prefer not to pay 5000 € for it.
Finally, found a computer monitor which I’m satisfied with. Since newest DELL model P32* wasn’t available I had to settle with LG 34WP85C.
For n-th time started with regular physical activities. Regret not maintaining that consistency over longer time span.
Recently discovered Ulauncher and using it feels like cheating. Still figuring out my optimal workflow, but for now I’m impressed. If you’re using Mac you should look at something like Alfred.
I should look into Insomnia, I have a hunch I’m missing out on something important. What’s your favorite feature?

This Week I Realized - Part 3

Tue, 09 Nov 2021 08:00:00 GMT

Noticed that Google Analytics Android app has either caching or eventually consistency issues. Sometimes fetches fresh results, sometimes outdated ones. Interesting.
Upgrading to Android 12 was a mistake. My phone’s battery life is much shorter since upgrade. :|
Learned about pre- and post-conditions in Clojure. Amazing.
After so many years I still don’t get the concept of official hours in public services. “We’re available to you three times a week during time when you are usually working”. Imagine picking up support tickets and fixing bugs only three days a week. Doesn’t make much sense from end-user perspective, right?
Found out that there is such thing as a monitor being too big. Bought Dell U4919DW, returned it after a couple of days. Next candidate: Dell P3222QE. Fingers crossed.
My Ikea Marcus chair is squeaking. Found a possible fix.

This Week I Realized - Part 2

Tue, 02 Nov 2021 08:15:00 GMT

Surprised at how much paper and money is being wasted on monthly paper invoicing. Considering costs and environment impact, digital invoices are a no-brainer.
Obsidian seems like go-to note-taking app. Much better than 1000 scratch files in PyCharm / Webstorm IDE.
Last week I upgraded my phone to Android 12. First impression: seems like Windows Phone - and you got that right - it’s not a compliment.
Interested in the latest trends in IT? Join wwwhmb meetup today at 19.05 GMT+2

This Week I Realized - Part 1

Sun, 24 Oct 2021 12:30:00 GMT

Neglected blogging for too long. Decided to start with TWIR series (This week I realized). Thanks to Miha Medven for inspiration.
Apparently taking a vacation as an adult means changing one type of job for another. Not complaining, just following up on bunch of stuff I’ve been procrastinating on in the past.
Crypto space is huge. Staying up to date and filtering out meaningful info can quickly become a full time job.
Recently switched jobs, can’t wait to start. Haven’t felt so excited in a long time. \o/

How to migrate Google Authenticator to another phone

Tue, 24 Aug 2021 15:30:00 GMT

I’ve been using Google Auth as a 2FA app for quite some time. Don’t know why, but somehow I always preferred it over Microsoft Authenticator or Authy or any other alternative for that matter. Probably it’s just the sheer simplicity of it.

Over the time I figured that the only downside of this app for me is migration to another phone. Authy solves it for you with backup to cloud (or so I’ve been told), which is great but also terrible at the same time. Somewhere in the range of using SMS as a 2FA method.

I’d prefer not to share my TOTP secrets with anyone else.

It took me one manual one-by-one secret migration and of course quite a while to finally figure out that Google Authenticator actually offers a batch export of all your TOTP secrets in one go. If I only knew that sooner. But as they say, you live and you learn…

Here is the simple procedure of painless migration of all your TOTP secrets in one go:

bring out your old phone & open Google Authenticator
tap on three dots
tap on ‘transfer accounts’
select ‘export accounts’
bring out your new phone & open Google Authenticator
tap on ‘transfer accounts’
select ‘import accounts’ & follow procedure
congrats, you did it!

A recap of 2020

Tue, 05 Jan 2021 18:30:00 GMT

Last year was definitely one of those years that I will tell about to my grandchildren. Most of the people I know will remember it as a difficult year, but for me in general it wasn’t so bad, quite the contrary. Taking the pandemic and everything into consideration it could be a lot worse.

So, you might be wondering by now - what did Mario go through over the past year?

Becoming a parent

Year started with the splendid news of me & my SO becoming parents. Can’t describe the feeling when we got the news and after the kiddo was born. It’s one of a kind. Still is. I’m grateful for all the support and help our families and loved ones provided. Same goes for all the people I (we) work with.

Once again, thank you all. <3

On the other side, after our child was born all the parenting memes made sense more than ever.

Jokes aside, having a child is the most positive experience I (we) had and doesn’t look like this is going to change anytime soon.

Switching jobs

The projects I worked on year before that started feeling like a drag. Writing code didn’t feel like magic anymore and I decided it’s time to change that - sooner better than later.

Of course, COVID-19 pandemic broke out at that time. Most of the companies put a brake on hiring, at least on the outside. Having kid on the way didn’t help. Felt weird. Uncomfortable. On the plus side this situation motivated me to get a great job, not the first one I get accepted at. I always questioned myself - is this the company I want to dedicate a third of my life for the next few years? Is this the job I could tell my kid for years to come, “hey, your old man was part of that”.

Fortunately, I had and still have “fuck you” money fund and I could take time to “shop around”. I encourage you to have one too, since you never know when situations like COVID-19 will occur.

Spent countless of hours in interviews. Spent a bit less on interview projects. Still a lot. At that time I joined the “interviews are somewhat broken” camp. Won’t go into details, but let’s say, not all companies respect your time. Especially if interview process takes many weeks.

Fast forward, I found a great job. The one where I can sleep without a problem the night before my vacation ends. Where Mondays don’t feel like a drag.

I’m grateful for that.

Web development bootcamp instructor

Next major milestone for me was being a Web development bootcamp instructor. Over the course of 3 months I teached a class of two digit eager individuals the basics of web development. Felt “the magic” again.

Doing it beside full-time day job wasn’t easy, but I loved it. So did the young padawans. Being graded >9/10 by the students gave me the confirmation it was all more than worth it.

On-site to remote meetup transformation

Since the pandemic didn’t look like it will stop anytime soon, we had to make an important decision. Stop Spletne urice Maribor meetup for unknown amount of time or go all remote? We decided to go remote. Most of the stuff stayed the same, but you can’t replace meeting people in-person. On the positive side, we were able to host people from the other side of the pond, Swizec for example.

Credit where is due, under the circumstances the team couldn’t do it better. Thank you Jernej, Blendor, Mateja and Spela for making it happen. Great job, I’m glad I can chip in once in a while.

Special thanks to all the wonderful people willing to share knowledge. <3

You can find more about the meetup on our website, Youtube, Facebook or Twitter.

Succeeded:

started a second (or even third?) iteration of personal blog
avoided signing up to work for a company that declared bancruptcy a few months later
switched jobs in the middle of the pandemic
after almost a year, no remorse on switching jobs - yes, I count this as a double success
became open source maintainer (for a while)
completed 3 month web dev bootcamp with 15 students as instructor
continued with remote work
on-site to remote meetup transformation (Spletne urice Maribor) still going strong

Failed to:

prepare a meetup talk in 2020 (lost a bet there)
polish my frontend skills
keep my ‘oooh, shiny’ character in line

Plans for 2021:

let’s keep that a secret for now. :)

Becoming more productive with git aliases

Sun, 26 Jul 2020 15:30:32 GMT

We all know in order to be more productive we have to do things quicker (ideally automate it) or we hire additional help. But not all scenarios are optimizable - like 9 women can’t deliver baby in a month. Fortunately we’re discussing tech here, so let’s leave biology out of this discussion.

Strictly IT speaking, in order to optimize our workflows we either build new tools or extend existing ones. So regarding git, I do not miss any features but I do wish for shorter commands and there’s a solution for this problem!

In GNU/Linux we do know a concept called shell aliases, which are just shortcuts for commands that you define them yourself. If you’re using Bash shell you’ll find them all under ~/.bash_aliases.

Here are my git aliases:

alias gbr='git branch'
alias gcane='git commit --amend --no-edit'
alias gcm='git commit -m'
alias gc='git checkout'
alias gcmn='git commit -n -m'
alias glo='git log --oneline'
alias gpr='git pull --rebase'
alias gprd='git pull --rebase origin develop'
alias grh='git rebase -i HEAD~2'
alias grv='git remote -v'
alias gs='git status'
alias gd='git diff'

Save it to ~/.bash_aliases and run source ~/.bash_aliases to load them and start using them right away.

There’s even better solution. You can use global .gitconfig, usually found under ~/.gitconfig and put git aliases there.

[alias]
  br = branch
  cane = commit --amend --no-edit
  cm =  commit -m
  cmn = commit -n -m
  co = checkout
  d = diff
  last = log -1 HEAD
  lo = log --oneline -n 10
  pr = pull --rebase
  prd = pull --rebase develop
  rh = rebase -i HEAD~2
  rv = remote -v
  s = status

You can add them also by using git config command:

git config --global alias.br branch
git config --global alias.cm "commit -m"

And then add only one alias to ~/.bash_aliases:

alias g=git

Simple problems, simple solutions.

Which (git) aliases do you use? Tweet me @kranjski

Kubernetes invalid certificate

Wed, 20 May 2020 11:30:32 GMT

I am currently reading through Marko Luksa’s Kubernetes in Action, first edition. As a lot of things changed since release of first edition, second edition of this book is on it’s way and it should be released sometime this year. So, it’s expected some things to be either different in newer versions of either Kubernetes or Minikube issues are expected.

I have setup Minikube with docker driver on Ubuntu 18.04. All fine and dandy, until I reached part where author proposes creating ReplicationController. More detailed explanation below:

kubectl run kubia --image=luksa/kubia --port=8080 --generator=run/v1
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Flag --generator has been deprecated, has no effect and will be removed in the future.
Unable to connect to the server: x509: certificate is valid for 172.17.0.2, 10.96.0.1, 127.0.0.1, 10.0.0.1, not 172.17.0.3

--generator parameter is deprecated. I suppose fun time is over. After a bit of googling I found a link to official documentation where they recommend using Deployment with configured ReplicaSet as preferred / recommended way of doing replication.

Solution: I might as well skip this, as I haven’t reached Deployment part of the book.

Next problem: invalid certificate. This one always ruins the mood.

Solution: minikube stop && minikube delete && minikube start.

If this doesn’t work for you, try removing minikube directory located in ~/.minikube, don’t forget to stop minikube before you delete this directory.

How to stop Youtube videos being paused

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 15:30:32 GMT

Up until now I never felt the need to play Youtube videos anywhere other than my browser (at least music ones), but Youtube’s politics of pausing videos every now and then finally pissed me off so much that I decided - that’s it. I’m ending it.

There are multiple (valid) solutions to this problem, one of them being writing a browser extension. I decided to go the other way, why exactly I might explain in one of my future posts.

Because I’m a big fan of VLC I was surprised it doesn’t support playing Youtube videos out of the box. Or does it?

Simply adding Youtube video URL to playlist and playing it didn’t work. VLC managed to parse video name but after that removed the video from playlist. I figured something might be wrong with the Youtube parser. You bet it was!

Luckily, VLC is an open source software. I pranced to Github repository and found out they support more than just Youtube. The list includes:

Soundcloud
Vimeo
Twitch
DailyMotion
Jamendo etc.

Perfect. But I still haven’t figured out why playing Youtube videos doesn’t work. According to Github repo latest stable version is 3.0.x, version 4.0 is still in development phase. Let’s check installed version on my computer (using Ubuntu 18.04 btw).

vlc --version

returns: 
VLC media player 3.0.8 Vetinari (revision 3.0.8-0-gf350b6b5a7)
VLC version 3.0.8 Vetinari (3.0.8-0-gf350b6b5a7)
Compiled by buildd on lcy01-amd64-014.buildd (Sep 11 2019 11:39:37)

Seems like something was changed between September and now. Ok, let’s find out where VLC is installed. You might think following command would work:

which vlc

returns:
/usr/bin/vlc

Nope, it just return path to VLC binary. Not quite there. But where is it?

Few minutes later, looks like there is a similar command which returns more detailed information like path to binary, source and man pages. Perfect!

whereis vlc

returns:
vlc: /usr/bin/vlc /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc /usr/share/vlc /usr/share/man/man1/vlc.1.gz

Seems /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc is the way to go. Copy the content of this file to

/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/lua/playlist/youtube.lua

and restart VLC.

That’s it, fixed it! Youtube videos can now be played directly in your VLC player without annoying pauses.

N26 Changes Their Fees And Services

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 13:30:32 GMT

Here’s what they have sent to their users:

At N26, transparency and simplicity is at the core of everything we do, and we believe that you should never be caught by surprise when it comes to your money. That’s why we’re getting in touch—to update you on how our fees and services are changing on May 24, 2020. We’ve made changes to better reflect the costs of certain features so they remain clear and simple, and are only applicable to the customers who use them. These updates improve our products, while also encouraging an increasingly digital mindset. For more information, check out our blog post.

You won’t notice much of a difference, but here’s a brief summary:

Metal customers will now benefit from 8 free ATM withdrawals per month.

N26 You customers will continue to enjoy 5 free ATM withdrawals per month.

Customers with a standard N26 account, and who don’t use it as their primary account, will have 3 free ATM withdrawals per month. Those who use this account as their primary account will continue to have 5 free withdrawals, and can always access our CASH26 network of 14,550 European retailers.

To be more environmentally-conscious, we’ve revised our card replacement fees to encourage customers to only order them when needed. Replacing an N26 Standard, N26 Business, N26 You or N26 Business You card will now cost €10, or €30 with express delivery. Metal card replacement remains unchanged.

What does this mean for you?

If N26 is your primary account, you can still enjoy 5 free ATM withdrawals per month. As a reminder, this means that you get your salary paid directly into your N26 account, or you receive at least one payment of €1,000 or more for at least 2 consecutive months.

Want even more flexibility? Check out one of our premium plans for more ATM withdrawals, travel insurance, hand-picked partner offers, and many other exciting benefits.

You can review the full breakdown of our revised services and fees in the attachment below.

If you’re happy with these new terms, that’s great—you don’t have to do anything or take any further action.

However, if you don’t want to accept them, we’ll sadly be unable to still offer you an N26 account. Please let us know if you decide to reject the new changes via email before 24.05.2020 at terms@n26.com. We’ll then have to cancel your account—at no cost to you, of course. Bear in mind that your right to do this at any time without a notice period still remains the same.

If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out to Customer Support via chat in the N26 app, or the web app.