Posts by lennys (68)

lennys November 16, 2023

Website planning, etc.

So I bought another Django book. This one covers Django APIs and React, so I'm hoping I can get something useful out of this one. It's a small book, only has 138 pages, but hopefully it'll cover the meat of the material without any fluff. I'm thinking about going through the Django projects I've done over the last year and trying to fix some bugs in the code. I've covered a lot of ground but still have far to go. I'd like to build another website that uses Django as the backend and something like React for the frontend, but I don't know JavaScript well enough to feel very confident. Hence, the new book. My main website is about 5 months old, and I'm already thinking of ways to improve it and/or replace it entirely. What I'd like it to be in the long-term is a site that hosts my resume, has a small amount of information about me and has links to some of the projects I've built. When I was developing it back in June-July I ran into an issue I couldn't figure out - I created two apps named "Projects" and "Blog", but when I tried to add links to them on the front page Django threw an error. After trying and failing to find a solution, I disabled the links so I could get the site online and have something worthwhile to show off. My LS Enterprises site is just a brochure site that I'm going to build a "Contact Us" page for, with a form people can fill out to send me an email, a working Captcha, maybe a few other things but I'm not planning on putting anything very extensive there unless I figure out a business plan. My other site, trixelated.com, still has the Local Library website I built from the Django tutorial hosted by Mozilla in their developer docs, and other than this blog it's the only fleshed-out site I have at the moment. Eventually I'll replace it with something else, but I have a lot to figure out first, and plenty of other things to do along the way. On a side note, I'm still waiting on the new engine for my truck to get here. I talked with the shop manager on Tuesday and he told me it was on a pallet waiting at some warehouse somewhere, and he'd find out when it would get here on Friday or Monday. I'm really hoping this new engine is in good shape, because I've been through enough nonsense with this truck already. It's cost me a small fortune just to keep it going, and at this point I've spent more money than the truck is worth. I just hope we can get the new engine installed and I can drive the truck for another 3 years, to get my money's worth out of it. Things at work are humming along like usual, it's pretty quiet so I'm able to work on my coding projects and stuff. There are hiccups in the network occasionally but for the most part everything's been fine as far as I know. I hope it stays that way.

lennys November 12, 2023

Thinking about what comes next.

I'm done with my Django for APIs book. It was a good introduction to building an API, but left me wanting more. It's a short book - it only took me 3 days to work through it, and I didn't run into any serious issues along the way. I'm thinking about how to make an API that I can use with this blog somehow, for demonstration purposes. I'd like to find a book about Django that builds just one project and fleshes it out more completely than what the Django books I've read so far do. Django for APIs has a section in which you build a small website using Django as the backend and React for the frontend. I'd like to do more of that kind of thing and learn to develop a website start-to-finish. Before I picked up the Django books I've read recently, I worked through a series of YouTube videos about developing Django websites with Vue as the frontend. Those videos were challenging, as they covered material I hadn't seen before (like serializers), and the "author" went through it at a very fast pace. You can find the videos by going to YouTube and searching for "Code with Stein", he has several videos that cover different projects. I especially liked the one that built an e-commerce website and wanted to take it live on the Web, but sadly the video didn't cover deploying it on a server or hosted service. So I'll have to figure that out on my own, like I had to do when I built this blog. Now I'm left wondering what to do next.

lennys November 10, 2023

A small milestone...

I finished up the Django for Professionals book yesterday. My bookstore project is live at https://lennys-bookstore-c5f5989fa0ca.herokuapp.com/ and has the basics - you can sign up for an account, log in, log out etc. Some of the bugs aren't worked out yet - the signup page can successfully sign up a new user, but the site throws a 500 error when you try. It does add the account into the admin section though. Some of the pictures aren't being rendered right either. Since this project was just for practice, I'm thinking of just moving on. I have the Django for APIs book with me and am eager to get started on that one. I'm still waiting on the new engine for my truck to arrive from Wisconsin. While I was at the gym yesterday someone with Midas called and left a voicemail, saying it would be there in 7 to 14 business days. That's going to put the actual engine install either the week before Thanksgiving, or right after. The truck seems to run okay on just 5 cylinders, but I don't trust it any more and I'm not going to go anywhere far away with it until the new engine is installed. I really hope that after all is said and done I have a good running truck, because otherwise this ordeal will just crush my spirits because of the godawful amount of money I've had to spend. Things to do: - build a sitemap for this blog - either fix Summernote, or replace it with a Markdown-enabled text editor - fix the "Projects" URL on lennyshort.com - build a "Contact Us" page on lsenterprises.tech - setup Ansible on my smaller server and Cisco equipment - get a flu shot - do some research on good business ideas at the library There's more to be sure, but that's all I can think of at the moment. I'm looking forward to getting out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday and seeing my brother and his family. I could use a break.

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