lennys January 20, 2025

lennyshort.com and general web design stuff

So I have the new lennyshort.com design up and running now. It's been in the works since November, so it's a relief to have it up and done. I started out with just a basic HTML and CSS template, plus some basic "Hello World!" content from the original lennyshort.com website. From that I gradually put together a new Django project, grafted the content into it, and tweaked it until I was satisfied with the result. This last week or so I've been working on getting the blogging feature running, which I finished for the most part yesterday. I haven't made any blog posts yet, so that's something I'll have to do soon. I can do them through the admin interface, and I can use Markdown to make it look pretty and stuff. I used some AI agents to help me with the code, which saved a lot of time and frustration. Today I spent some time reading through some stuff about building Django + JavaScript projects on a site I found a few days ago. From there I found some "boilerplate" Django designs on GitHub that I might try to use in the future. There's so much stuff available online that it almost doesn't seem like its worth it to write basic HTML and CSS any more, as you can create some pretty slick looking web designs with a running backend baked in. A lot has changed since I first learned HTML in college. Website design and development has changed so much over the years I'm having to learn how to do it all over again.

lennys January 11, 2025

Whoops

So I had a new blog post all written out yesterday, but I forgot to save it and closed the browser by mistake. Oh well, today's another day. It's Saturday at 6:26 am and there's nothing going on at work like usual. I'm thinking about what all I have to do: I need to catch up with Scrimba, there's a couple of quizzes on DataCamp I can do, I need to get the Contact Us form on lennyshort.com working again, and there's always work to do on my routers in my cabinet. Too much to finish all of them today, but hopefully I'll make some progress somewhere. I managed to get the new lennyshort.com design deployed yesterday (after much tweaking and troubleshooting, thanks Google) and I'm happy with it so far, but it still has some unfinished sections in it that I want to figure out. I'll be working on that periodically for a couple of weeks, I imagine. I did manage to get the captcha working properly on the Contact Us form in lsenterprises.tech, and I had it working in lennyshort.com prior to the new deployment, and so far I have seen a large reduction in the amount of bot spam I was receiving via those email forms. I had to fiddle with both websites a lot longer than anticipated to get it all working right, which just shows my inexperience working with Django. I have noticed that since spending a lot of time over the last 12-18 months studying Python that I understand the Django code better, which is good. My main objective in studying Python to begin with was to become a better developer, so overall I'm pleased with the improvement. There's still a long way to go though.

lennys January 05, 2025

Christmas come and gone

So it's January 5th now, and the holiday season is over. People are back at work and life goes on. Overall I had a good holiday, I spent Christmas and New Years at Mom's house in Oregon. I don't know when I'll be going back there again, but I think it's going to be a while. We had a difficult discussion while I was there about my future plans, and since then I've come to the conclusion that it's time to look for a different job. I've gotten to the point at my current job where I don't think I can grow any more there, and I feel like I've been trading water for a long time now so it's time for a change. I've put together a new resume and cover letter, so the next step is to start looking for a suitable position somewhere in the Bay Area. Finding the right position is going to be difficult I think, because I want to work a regular Monday to Friday daytime shift at the new job and those may be hard to find if I want to stay working in a data center somewhere. So I'll be trying to broaden my view with the positions I consider and apply to. I've got a pretty wide-ranging skillset by now, and that plus the certifications I've earned over the last several years hopefully will give me a shot at securing a good job somewhere. I'm starting the hunt today. I finished reading a Stephen King novel while on vacation in Oregon, and now I'm reading a book called The Wager (fiction) about a group of early 1800s sailors that shipwrecked on the coast of Brazil and had to survive some very harsh conditions. I haven't gotten very far into the book yet but it's been holding my interest pretty well. I'm also reading Dune Messiah, the second book in the Dune series. It's very political, but I'm enjoying it so far. I'm reading it on a Kindle I got for Christmas, which is a neat toy. I think I'll be getting some good use out of it going forward. I'm also starting on a new diet plan this week. My mom is on the Mayo Clinic diet now so I had to eat what she prepared while I was in Oregon, and she convinced me to give it a try. I'm working my way through the food I have in the pantry right now so I don't have to throw anything away, so technically I'm not on the diet yet but I'm preparing for it now. I ordered a new bathroom scale from Amazon which will be here tomorrow, along with a salad shooter kitchen gadget. I'll be shredding a lot of vegetables soon with this new diet so I needed to get the proper tools. Hopefully I'll lose some weight with this diet, because so far with my regular diet and exercise regimen I'm not seeing much of a change.

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