http://alexzirbel.com/ Recent content on Alex Zirbel Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Alex Zirbel. All rights reserved. Mon, 10 Sep 2018 19:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/graphql-apollo/ Mon, 10 Sep 2018 19:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/graphql-apollo/ For the last couple months, I’ve been building a language learning app with a friend. We set up the project from scratch, so we got the chance to play with some new toys. All technologies shine in some places more than others, so this reflection only makes sense in context. We’re making an advanced language learning app with some social features. I’m the only developer for now, so it’s still a small code base. http://alexzirbel.com/touch-bar-timer/ Sat, 28 Apr 2018 08:30:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/touch-bar-timer/ Mini project! Touch Bar Timer is a little stopwatch for your Mac’s touch bar. I made it to track how I spend my time over the course of the day. I really only care about one metric: time spent on my #1 priority project. There are other good timer apps, like Thyme, but tapping the touch bar is just that little bit faster. And you can see it in fullscreen. http://alexzirbel.com/npoint/ Tue, 24 Apr 2018 10:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/npoint/ Today I’m officially launching an old side project: npoint.io is a JSON storage service with schema validation. It allows you to save JSON bins online (similar to the well-named jsonbin.io, which I’m a fan of). n:point is different in a couple ways: It’s focused on really easy editing It lets you set and lock a schema, so you can be confident your downstream app will never break It’s open source (GitHub) Backstory Over the last couple years I’ve hit the same scenario a bunch of times: http://alexzirbel.com/side-project-emails/ Thu, 05 Apr 2018 10:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/side-project-emails/ I recently had to add password-reset emails to my project npoint.io. In case you haven’t heard, creating HTML emails is a huge mess. Think back to 1999, when we called ourselves “webmasters” and used Frontpage, WYSIWYG editors and tables to mark up our websites. Not much has changed in email design. In fact, it has gotten worse. With the introduction of mobile devices and more and more email clients, we have even more caveats to deal with when building HTML email. http://alexzirbel.com/return-to-the-about-page/ Wed, 28 Feb 2018 10:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/return-to-the-about-page/ Previous in series: Episode 2 A couple years went by since escape #2. I guess I must have actually been working. Meanwhile, Opendoor was growing like bananas. In early 2018 we had over 400 employees in 6+ markets. That’s a couple too many employees to fit on one about page! So we replaced it with a shorter description of the founders and executive team: (JD and Ian are cut off, find them at opendoor. http://alexzirbel.com/escape-the-about-page-2/ Mon, 26 Feb 2018 10:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/escape-the-about-page-2/ Previous in series: Episode 1 Next in series: Episode 3 Sneaking off the about page a second time would be harder. My co-workers were suspicious of me, and on top of that, Visnu had a bot checking the page every now and then to make sure I was there. I wasn’t sure how the bot worked, since I couldn’t see its source code. I was still determined to make it through a proper code review while sneaking off. http://alexzirbel.com/escape-the-about-page-1/ Mon, 12 Sep 2016 19:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/escape-the-about-page-1/ Next in series: Episode 2 My company hires an artist to draw caricatures of all our employees. We take these and put them on our about page. It looks like this: When I joined in August 2015, the same artist drew a picture of me: I didn’t really like it, so I asked for another one. Version 2 looked like this: I didn’t really like version 2 either, but I had to admit that the problem was probably me. http://alexzirbel.com/goodbye-likes-and-feeds/ Sat, 02 Jul 2016 17:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/goodbye-likes-and-feeds/ I’ve decided to stop using any social media/news site that uses the concept of a “like” or a “feed”. This is an experiment, so I’ll do it for a month or so and then post an update on how it’s going. Reading news and social feeds takes a lot of my time, and I don’t even enjoy it. Or rather, I enjoy it barely enough to scroll down and see one more piece of “content. http://alexzirbel.com/hello-world/ Thu, 03 Mar 2016 23:00:00 -0800 http://alexzirbel.com/hello-world/ This is my first “real” blog post! At the risk of being boring right out of the gate, I thought I’d use this post to explain why I’m starting a blog. On blogs The first reason I’m starting a blog is because I love blogs and wish that more of them existed. In fact, I wish all my friends had blogs. Actually, they don’t have to be blogs. What I like about blogs, and want more of, is the mindset they encourage: http://alexzirbel.com/ Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 http://alexzirbel.com/ Projects: Touch Bar Timer n:point A fun story in three parts: Escape the About Page, Part 1 Escape the About Page, Part 2 Glorious Return to the About Page Other posts: Two months with GraphQL + Apollo Hassle-free side project email setup Goodbye, Likes and Feeds Hello World I made this blog using Hugo. It was a great experience, and I’d definitely recommend it. The only tough part was that I wanted to use SASS and other new stuff, which required having a build process.