Forem: Adrian Twarog

Framer Crash Course 2026

Adrian Twarog — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 09:01:58 +0000

This course will help you learn Framer as a beginner if you're looking to get into Web Design. I go into how to start using Framer with Stacks, Rows, Framers, I cover components, effects and responsive design:

Chapter 1 - Framer Crash Course
Chapter 2 - Login and Setup Framer
Chapter 3 - Frames Stacks and Grids
Chapter 4 - Typography Color and Styling
Chapter 5 - Bonus Design Course
Chapter 6 - Components in Framer
Chapter 7 - Responsive Design
Chapter 8 - Content Management System (CMS)
Chapter 9 - Effects Animations and Transitions
Chapter 10 - Marketplace and Templates
Chapter 11 - Publishing Website

Youtube Video: Framer Crash Course 2026

Framer Crash Course Introduction

Framer in 2026 is one of the best website builders you can use, in this video I'm going to give you a crash course on how to get started using Framer as a beginner. Learn Framer from Scratch with this tutorial that will cover how to use frames, text, blocks, effects and much more. We will be recreating a website with responsive design, hover effects, rows and columns, lets begin!

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

I tried the Apple Vision Pro as a Developer

Adrian Twarog — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 11:00:11 +0000

So I tried the Apple Vision Pro for day-to-day tasks such as programming in VS Code, designing in Figma and general day to day use like writing emails, watching videos, etc.

TLDR;

😀 The Apple Vision Pro is futuristic, it offers a clear user interface with familiar Apple menu navigation and amazing eye-tracking!
🔍 It supports multi-tasking with the ability to resize and position windows for an immersive workspace.
🎥 I did enjoy a virtual environment for focused work or entertainment, with the ability to dim or block out the real world.
💻 The Vision Pro can replicate the experience of using a large monitor or multiple monitors, but with some blurriness and focus issues.
👓 Despite the high price tag, I think the Vision Pro may not offer a significant advantage over traditional monitors for tasks like coding and design. Small fonts in VS Code are harder to see.
🤔 There are some issues using the Apple Vision Pro for everyday work, I find it more a novelty or occasional-use device.

Vision Pro is a hypothetical advanced VR device. I used it to perform various tasks, such as programming, browsing, and designing, and it is evaluated for its usability and convenience in a day-to-day setting. This of course included using it for Visual Studio Code and creating designs in Figma. But lots of other things too!

Figma in VR

Creating websites designs in Figma felt more comfortable when replicated my laptop screen in a larger view. However it was a bit difficult always looking at the design through the VR headset since it was often blurry around the edges, and I like the feel of a pixel perfect monitor close up.

VS Code in VR

Using Visual Studio Code had the same issues. Fonts are harder to read inside of Virtual reality. While AVP has come a long way with higher resolutions than its competitors, I still found using a regular monitor easier.

There is no native VS Code application either, and while GitHub Codespaces could be used inside of Safari, I wouldn't be able to work on a project locally, and would need to bring my laptop anyway. I did like the fact that the mouse and keyboard tracking carried across from my keyboard to virtual screens though!

Conclusion

Personally I wouldn't recommend using the Apple Vision Pro for coding or designing. While I really enjoy it as a tech product, it's more something worth trying out for a demo, but waiting until there is more maturity in the VR space that makes using such things long term and with higher resolution possible so that it isn't a strain to 'adapt' to using it.

I will be looking forward to what Vision OS 2 brings, and what is on the horizon with Meta Quest as well!

Ultimate ChatGPT Resource Guide - ChatGPT Tutorial

Adrian Twarog — Sat, 07 Jan 2023 15:19:29 +0000

ChatGPT is the latest from OpenAI in terms of what Artificial Intelligence brings to the table to change the future.

I've put together several videos to cover the subject in great detail. I've also created a number of resources so you can immediately start using ChatGPT to build your own products!

What is ChatGPT
How to use ChatGPT
Advanced ChatGPT guide
ChatGPT and OpenAI for Business
Building ChatGPT from scratch
Building Discord ChatGPT bot
OpenAI Starter Template for building SaaS
Other features

1. What is ChatGPT

The first video is the basics of what ChatGPT is. Which is a large language model build using OpenAI GPT3 as a chatbot.

2. How to use ChatGPT - Crash Course

The second video covers the introductions of how to use ChatGPT and it's features. This includes how to interact with it for basic prompts, etc.

How to use Prompts
Shopping List
JavaScript
Errors with ChatGPT
Short Story
Text Video Game
Legal and Copyright Templates
Jokes and Humour
Cover Letters and Resumes
Summarization and Keyword Extraction
Blogging Articles and Editing

3. Advanced ChatGPT Guide

An indepth look at not just ChatGPT, but OpenAI and it's GPT models including ada, babbage, curie and davinci. How to do prompt engineering and work inside OpenAI Playground.

Part 1. Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT & AI
Part 1. Examples of Chat GPT Prompts
Part 1. OpenAI Playground and Promps
Part 1. Example 1 AI Q&A Prompt
Part 1. Example 2 AI Airport Prompt
Part 1. Example 3 AI Code Prompt
Part 2. OpenAI Models and Uses
Part 2. GPT3 Models Davinci Curie etc
Part 2. Coding Models Codex, Crushman
Part 2. OpenAI API Pricing and Tokens
Part 2. Comparing AI Model and Outputs
Part 2. Prompt variables for Temp, Length etc
Part 2. OpenAI Fine-tuned models
Part 2. Summary and Recap
Part 3. Technical Chat GPT Introduction
Part 3. Dependencies (NodeJS, CRA, API Keys, etc)
Part 3. Create React Application
Part 3. Express Web API
Part 3. Frontend React JS Component setup
Part 3. Backend Express OpenAI API setup
Part 3. Fetch data from Client to Server to API (OpenAI)
Part 3. Intro to Advanced Uses API
Part 3. Example 1: Advanced API ChatGPT like Chatbot
Part 3. Example 2: Advanced Terminal Chat GPT bot

4. How to use ChatGPT to build Business Ideas

Taking it one step further, ways that ChatGPT can be used for generating SaaS using AI models that are customised to produce outputs based on set requirements and training!

5. Create ChatGPT from Scratch

How to create your own ChatGPT interface, including things like message history and prompts to engineer the chatbot to work any way you wish

Coding ChatGPT preview
OpenAI Template Starter Kit
ChatGPT Starter Kit
Initialising Project
Starting Frontend with Create React App
Designing ChatGPT Side menu
Styling ChatGPT Side menu
Designing Prompt Input
Styling Chat GPT Input
Coding Chatbot Interface
Styling the Chat message interface
Adding OpenAI SVG Logo
Starting Backend with Express
Preparing OpenAI Configuration and API Key
Creating Express API Routes
React Frontend handle Submit function
Cleaning up the React Components
Creating Frontend API Request using Fetch
Frontend Backend integration
Adding Features to Select OpenAI Models

6. Adding ChatGPT to Discord

Integrate OpenAI models into discord by interfacing with the Discord API and creating a bot that access the AI API to allow users to directly chat through discord with it!

ChatGPT Discord Starter Kit
Node JS Setup
Discord Setup
Create Discord Bot
Discord Token Configuration
Discord Authorization
JavaScript Initialization of Discord and OpenAI
Discord Bot Message Reply
Testing Discord Chatbot
Configuring Chatbot
OpenAI API Key
Adding OpenAI to Discord Message Replies
Prompt Engineering ChatGPT Message for Discord
Message Reply to users with ChatGPT
Testing Discord ChatGPT Chatbot

7. OpenAI Template - Starter Kit

This is new and ready for those looking to kickstart their own app or website using the OpenAI GPT models. I've built it on MERN it should save you over 100 hours if you want to build or test your own ideas! This also supports the channel if you have found these videos of benefit!

OpenAI Template Starter Kit for ChatGPT / GPT3

Starter Kit for using OpenAI with GPT3 and all its models similar to ChatGPT.SALE 80% OFF (NEXT FEW OF DAYS ONLY $99) Then back to $500Learn More: https://youtu.be/bB7xkRsEq-g?t=55sThe project comes with a Frontend web interface and backend with a database ready to go with all the requirements you would need to create your own project.Login / SignupAuthenticationPrompts and ToolsBackend DatabaseFrontend ReactJSNodeJS project under Express using API'sThis starter kit is made for demo and use purposes as a way to kickstart your own project. No responsibility is made for debugging, bugs, security or issues which will need to be applied at your applied as your responsibility. See below for examples, other features include:Styling uses TailwindcssAPI uses Express with JWTStripe is pre-configured (but disabled) if you want to include billingCredit calculator implemented on token usageThis starter template is over 100 hours of work over several weeks, and should save you lots of time if you're planning to build or try to test your own projects! *I wrote this project over a 6 month period with tens of thousands of lines of code, be aware some of the dependencies are using older versions (eg react router dom with Switches!)

enhanceui.gumroad.com

8. ChatGPT Starter Kit Template

Create a clone of ChatGPT to be run up on your own local development environment. This allows you to build and customize ChatGPT to your own purposes as a new and updated model based on those you define in OpenAI via training or fine tuning!

ChatGPT Template Starter Kit / GPT3

This Starter Kit for ChatGPT allows you to have a personalised version of Chat GPT running on your localhost! SALE 50% OFF (NEXT FEW OF DAYS ONLY $50)Then back to $100If you've been looking to run Chat GPT with your own settings and configuration, or prepare and build a business around the chatbot, this comes with the basics to help you do that. Includes:Backend: Express Web Server, OpenAI APIFrontend: React JsThis is a grass roots template made to be simple and clean to get you started. No responsibility is made for debugging, bugs, security or issues which will need to be applied at your applied as your responsibility. Some additional to what it currently also includes is:Basic HTML forms for performing chatsCSS styling for the designJavaScript method calls to the backendI wrote this to let people get started with their own projects for simple testing and use of Chat GPT in a controlled environment. If this is of benefit to you, I hope you enjoy this project and use it well! Below are some screenshots of the front-end, back-end and general use!

enhanceui.gumroad.com

9. ChatGPT Discord Chat Bot

Start interfacing directly with OpenAI models on your own discord server including the following, Chat Historym ChatGPT is typing notification, Better prompt engineering, Tagging and custom text triggers, etc.

ChatGPT Discord Bot Starter Kit

This ChatGPT Discord Bot Starter Kit allow you to host a version of OpenAI chatbot on your own discord server!SALE 50% OFF (NEXT FEW OF DAYS ONLY $49)Then back to $100If you've been looking to run Chat GPT locally on your own forum or server, this is one useful way to do it! Adding it to discord allows you to make custom commands, interact, and much moreBackend: NodeJS, Discord API, OpenAI APIFrontend: DiscordThis template is a simple starter kit made ready for you to immediately start using the chatbot on your sever. It includes:Instant ChatGPT interaction with any OpenAI modelsHistory Tracking and responding (set your own parameters)Keyword and tagging options to request ChatGPT whenever neededInstant notification when ChatGPT is preparing responses, and responding.Premade prompt engineer example for useI wrote this to let people get started with their own projects for simple testing and use of Chat GPT chatbot functionality. If this benefits you, I hope you enjoy this project and use it well! Below are some screenshots:

enhanceui.gumroad.com

Should You Learn To No-Code?

Adrian Twarog — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 10:20:37 +0000

What is nocode?

Why are more web companies, agencies, marketing businesses and branding expecting to hire developers who work with no-code platforms?

This is a serious question, one that isn’t asked enough in the programming community, akin to what will web 2.0 bring, and how will ReactJs affect the future career paths of development.

What is no-code
Why you should learn no-code
Where no-code tools are being used
How it's currently used at my workplace
How to get started
Comparing coding to no-coding

⭐ YouTube version for those who rather watch: ⭐

What is no-code?

If you have been living under a virtual rock, you might not have heard the new ranges of tools that are being released left right and center to help coders build websites faster and easier. We have Artificial Intelligence writing code for us, we have visual Figma designs automatically converted to coded components, and now we also have visual website creators dedicated to making websites without requiring the manual labour of writing every line.

Why you should learn no-code?

While developers see fads come and go, no-code is here to stay just like typescript and is already changing the fundamental way that marketing and web companies are building web pages. Slowly a change is happening that is almost unseen, where companies are shifting their process of creating websites.

Where no-code tools are being used

Traditionally websites were made in several stages. First you would have the sales or business acquisition team meet a client, get the requirements for a project to hand over to a Graphics Designer.

Their job would be to create the user interface for a website, which would normally occur in photoshop, or adobe XD, or even Figma. Finally these visual assets would be handed over to a developer, who often was forced to create the website on a platform such as WordPress, or NextJS or something that was the standard for that web company.

The last step of development was the largest, especially when it came to large complex projects, and be allocated the biggest budget and timeline, with websites taking weeks or months to complete the coding phase.

The big shift that is happening now is that development is pivoting its process from client > design > code, to client > design > no-code.

How it's currently used at my workplace

No-code means that we seeing more and more companies use tool to build the websites such as Wordpress Elementor, or Visual Composer or others because they found they get the same results (or design) with half the effort.

These no-code tools weren’t the best, they are on top of heavy platforms such as Wordpress, which already have security issues, difficulty to update, and much more.

But the benefits outweigh the pain, because updating content took half the time, and this is especially important when clients change their mind faster than a goldfish can forget whats on their mind.

And this was just a few years ago. Today, we have already far past using relics of the past, and have new platforms that are dedicated to building websites using no-code.

No-code isn’t taking developers out of the equation, but rather giving them a new set of tools to create websites using the standards they already know, like the box model, grids, flex and much more. While a lot of programmers enjoy the act of coding, there is going to be no dispute that companies in the next few years will be transitioning to using no-code tools to build their platforms on.

As such, the responsibility of programmers today will be to start skilling up on these tools. The traditional coding knowledge won’t go away, it will be a foundation to build upon as we dive deep in the next few videos into understanding how to get started with no-code.

By understanding the no-code environment, you will be preparing yourself for the future to get better employment, to get a higher salary and to stay relevant in your career.

On top of that, you’ll find that understanding no-code will also help your coding skills too, as you’ll have more time to learn and implement relevant things like react into no-code projects which you build visually.

Editor X no-code platform

I'm using Editor X to compare what normal code verses no-code looks like, and it really impressive how quickly things can be done. There will be situations where this will defiantly become the mainstream for creating websites in the future, when creating simple buttons takes seconds instead of minutes to make. (see full vid below)

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

MongoDB Atlas for a SaaS

Adrian Twarog — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 11:01:35 +0000

I decided to build a SaaS last month called Enhance AI, using OpenAI with GPT-3 to perform some interesting applications of AI to help programmers save time coding.

I needed to pick a good database for this SaaS. As the title suggests, I ended up picking MongoDB, however how I came to this conclusion took some research.

Youtube Video: Creating a SaaS Database
The SaaS: Enhance AI
MongoDB Atlas: https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas/

(you can use the promo code Adrian100 to get extra free $100 of credit when signing up!)

Introduction

This will cover what I learned by picking and implementing MongoDB Atlas for my project and my thoughts. If you're expecting something technical, this won't be for you.

Defining the scope and requirements
Picking databases
Deciding local vs cloud database
Setting up the database schema
Creating the API routes

Defining the Scope & Requirements

The first thing you want to consider is your goal for a project. Mine was to build a startup, in 30 days or less. This means I needed to build fast, and have good documentation whenever I encountered problems.

There was lots of options like firestore, or mysql, however one of the most common startup stacks is called MERN, which is Mongo, Express, React and Nodejs. There are lots of youtube videos on how to set them up (now one more!) and I was quite confident as I had worked with each one of those technologies in the past.

The other requirements was working with JSON objects, which Mongo does quite well as because of the fact that it's a document/collection based database. And finally the fact that it's quite flexible in the fact that it's schema can easily be changed on the fly meant I believe it was a good choice for my startup.

Deciding local vs cloud databases

It's 2021 and soon to be 2022. You are no longer limited to setup an entire production workstation with all items installed, such as a web server, database, files and more. Microservices and cloud services now allow you to distribute all your technologies.

So the question of hosting the database locally or online is an actual decision to make. There are a few advantages and disadvantages to both approaches. Yes you have more control if everything is locally on your machine, but by comparison, having a cloud version of a database means it's accessible anywhere.

As I often swap computers, work remotely, and want more flexibility, I had a look at the cloud version of MongoDb. It's called MongoDB Atlas. I have the option to connect directly to it via my vscode with a plugin, which is quite useful. On top of that, you can scale and grow it with your needs.

Other than that, the setup is exactly the same for connecting it to your project, minus the requirement to install and actually host the database on the machine. This meant I got to save time and effort and simply copy paste the url of the database from Mongo and I was up and running in minutes.

Setting up the Database Schema

Every website and application (hopefully) is unique. However there are some items which remain the same, such as the requirement for users, authentication, etc. I took a few days to plan out how I wanted to structure my database before actually implementing it.

The main difference was the fact that I was using OpenAI, and I wanted to make sure that could help improve my GPT-3 outputs overtime, so I made sure to also implement a history schema. Using express, I setup mongoose as it's one of the easier ways to define a schema, which I could later use in my routes.

Creating the API

With the database picked, the cloud setup, the schema defined, I was able to implement the API with ease.

Most of the requests could be simple GET, POST requests which are then using the findOne command using mongoose with mongo no different to if I was using it locally.

I originally thought I might get some significant delays by using the cloud version of MongoDB, however the server was quite fast and I never had any such delays.

Conclusion

While this was a brief overview of using MongoDB Atlas, it's worthwhile that people try it over the alternative of running up a database locally and manually. You will get the same results with less time and have more flexibility moving forward.

I've done a while video which goes more into depth about this journey but hopefully this gives you a good idea of some of the items I learned during this time.

MongoDB Atlas: https://www.mongodb.com/cloud/atlas/

Youtube Video: Creating a SaaS Database

// Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1456518992781144067-88'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1456518992781144067&theme=dark" }

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Coding a SaaS in 30 days

Adrian Twarog — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 05:36:52 +0000

So I built a SaaS in 30 days... and it was way more complicated that I originally thought, but check out how I did it, including:

Picking a topic
Learning AI
Registering a domain
Creating a logo
Designing a landing page
Coding the website
Frontend and Backend design
Taking Payment with Stripe
VPS setup
Launching it!

Youtube Video: Journey of Building a Saas
Blog Post: Adrian Twarog
The SaaS: Enhance AI

Introduction

I spent seven days building my own SAS, it's gonna help developers win at life by using AI. And in this video, I'm going to show you how I did it all the fun and all the pain and an actual product. At the end, they say developers can build anything.

Well, I'm a developer, and I want to build just something, I want to build a SAS. And I'm not really sassy, per se. But a SAS is just a software as a service. And it seems easy enough to build, you just need some front end, maybe some back end. And maybe you need it to work without bugs we'll see along the way. But I want to build something really cool.

Recently, I checked out GitHub co pilot, and it uses AI tech, it's really cool AI attack that autocompletes what you're writing, and I wanted to use some of their tech to build a SAS a number of tools, maybe for developers or something like that, because I'm a little bit of a tool myself.

And whenever I jump into a problem, I always have to Google it, if there was an easier way for me not to have to Google the same things over and over, like how to perform a git merge or for example, how to, you know, just do basic commands, or even regex regex just blows my mind with some of the syntax. So I'm going to try and build a tool around that.

Now, the way I'm going to do it is I'm going to show you, I'm going to take you on this journey where I'm trying to solve this problems of building a SAS, this will be everything like trying to build the front end and the back end trying to design it and everything in between. So let's jump into my very first day of trying to do this.

Learning AI

So the first thing I need to do is get access to some AI tools. There are lots out there, Google has their own machine learning suite, so does Amazon and even Microsoft themselves. But this isn't what got me excited in the first place. What really I enjoyed was GitHub co pilot. And that was made by a company called Open AI.

And they created their own AI tech called GPT. Two and now also GPT three, which created the model that they're using, which is I think called codecs that they have for developers using VS code. That's what I wanted to use to create some of these tools. So I tried to jump onto their website.

And unfortunately, even though there are companies called Open AI, you can't just jump in there and get access and sign up, you actually have to go through a waitlist and a process. So I did just that. And I waited, and waited. And eventually I did get in. So now here I am inside of their playground. And I'm going to try and see if some of these ideas that I have around building tools with AI actually even work.

So let's try them out. I jumped on the open AI website to try and figure out how it all works. I was a little scared at first because sometimes documentation can be terrible and some developer websites. But honestly, the open API documentation is some of the best I've seen so far. I'd actually even reminds me of stripe documentation, which is world class. But this does not mean I know what I'm doing.

I jumped into their playground system. And I was overwhelmed with all these different things like models response temperature, Toppy frequency presidency, I was just at a loss. So I jumped into their examples here, it shows off some of the things you can build with open AI.

And for me, I wanted to kick things off with a regex completer. I played around with a lot of different settings and prompts until I got a number of things working like a JavaScript chatbot and even the regex. So it means that it is possible seems like there is some cool merit to this idea around creating natural language to solve programming problems that we all have. But let's have a look at the next most important step in building their SAS. And that is to register the domain name.

And to do that I need a business name. And that is one of the hardest things to do. I thought about all different types of options. And I came up with a name called sub writer, or was it sub editor? I can't remember but I immediately went to register, there is new domain names out there. called.ai.

Registering a Domain

So I jumped on and registered subeditor.ai domain. And actually then after spending, I think two $300 I decided no, no, I don't like this domain name, I need to register another domain name. One of the things that I've been doing recently is building enhance UI, which is a book for developers to learn design. So I thought I might as well keep up the trend and create enhance AI, which can be a bunch of tools for developers to use AI to improve their daily jobs, write blogs and stuff like that. So let's register that domain name as well.

Creating a Logo

Now that we've got this done, we can look at the hardest part of creating any sass product as a developer, and that is to create the logo. Now for a logo, it's going to have to be something amazing when people look at this logo, it has to have the representation of developers and tools and open AI and all of that. So what I did was put some circles and squares together and here's the logo.

Designing a Landing Page

Next up, we need to create a landing page so that when people have a look at this product, they're more inclined to try out and even purchase it. To do this, I'm going to jump on to figma. And we're going to create a design based off the logo, what I want to do is pull in some of those colours from the logo, some of those shapes like the squares and the circles.

And I want to create a design that sort of gives people an idea of how the tool works. So I might send her it with a nice box and give them an example of how maybe he can explain code and what it's doing, as well as have lots of call to actions for people to sign up.

This is a designer sort of came up with, it's nothing too fancy. And I probably continued to play around with it. But at least it's up and running. So the next thing we have to do is actually code it. So I'm going to code it in just some basic HTML and CSS. So let's try and do that right now. So I opened up VS code installed, tailwind CSS, and started coding it all from my figma design. And in no time I was done, I don't often have nightmares.

But last night, I had a nightmare that I'm gonna have to write out every single individual line of code for this SAS. Now, that's sometimes an interesting take as a developer because you enjoy coding, but sometimes it's just too much.

So I'm going to try and use a page builder. And please don't judge me when I say this, I'm going to use web flow, I'm going to see if you can redesign some of these tailwind designs inside there. And if it takes me as long or quicker, just as a test. And if in this case, it's easier, I might just swap the whole landing page to webflow. And then when we actually build the app, I'll then definitely build that on react. But for the landing page, it's going to be changed all the time. And I just think that react might be overkill to build this thing.

Front end and back end

Now it's time to build the front end and the back end, the best parts, let's work with the front end to start off with, let's use create react app for that. And I'll just start building that. And at the same time, I also need a backend to do even basic stuff, like logins. So let's use our favourite node Express and Mongo, I might use the cloud version of Mongo, just because later, I want to make sure that it persists if I'm going to scale it.

But it's a traditional route for building an a SAS. So let's just get started with that. Next, we'll need a payment processor, like for example, II way or PayPal or even stripe because you do not want to store credit card information yourself. So I decided to go with stripe because they're a popular one. And I do want to do subscriptions.

So that should be easy to set up. It wasn't easy to set up. But now that it's done, then it's all working. And every time someone jumps in, they can do a free trial to test out the product before they fully sign up and commit, which is something you want to do. Because no one wants to purchase something immediately without actually trying it out these days. Next, we need a place to host this entire system, both the front end and the back end, because it's not going to host itself, which was Linode

Launching

Finally it's done! I create a post on Twitter, and Article on Hashnode, and a video on youtube. You can find them below.

Website: https://www.enhanceai.ai
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EnhanceAI

// Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1432615192404234244-650'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1432615192404234244&theme=dark" }

// Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1432326985657683973-824'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1432326985657683973&theme=dark" }

// Detect dark theme var iframe = document.getElementById('tweet-1432906410572980229-261'); if (document.body.className.includes('dark-theme')) { iframe.src = "https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?id=1432906410572980229&theme=dark" }

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Programmers That Don't Blog Should Start Right Now

Adrian Twarog — Thu, 22 Jul 2021 08:50:31 +0000

Programmers that don't blog should start right now. You're future self with thank you when your blog helps you getting a better job, earn more money and of course, have an easier time learning new concepts.

Your blog is your portfolio
It provides a way to share your knowledge
You can use your blog is a way to make more money
Blogging is a great way to help you learn
Blogging is a way to interact with other programmers

Programmers That Don't Blog Should Start Right Now

Programmers are often judged by their past work. Blogs are a great way to show prospective employers your work and skills. This is especially true for programmers who are self-taught and don't have a formal education. I have found that employers are often impressed by self-learning programmers.

If you haven't taken the time to blog about your work, you're missing out on a terrific opportunity to show prospective employers what you're capable of. I would stongly recommend that you get started right now. What are you waiting for?

It provides a way to share your knowledge

I'm sure that right now you probably have a lot of knowledge in your head that you would like to share with other people. Blogging is an excellent way to do that.

Here are some of the things that you can share with your readers:

Your experience
Your knowledge
Your opinions
Your ideas
Your mistakes
Your thoughts

You can use your blog is a way to make more money

I believe that most people don't blog because they don't see how it can be used to make more money. Here are some of the ways that you can use your blog to make more money:

You can use your blog as a form of self-promotion
You can use your blog as a way to get money from advertisements
You can use your blog as a way to get money from sponsors
You can use your blog as a way to promote your products

Blogging is a great way to help you learn

I believe that the best way to learn a new programming concept is to share your thoughts and ideas. Blogging is a great way to do that because you can write about your thoughts and you can also get feedback from the people who read your blog.

When I write a blog post, I often find that I have to think about the concepts that I'm writing about and I can't help but think about them more.

Blogging is a way to interact with other programmers

I believe that blogging is a great way to have a voice in the programming community. Here are some of the ways that you can use your blog to interact with other programmers:

You can show the things that you have learned
You can talk about your ideas
You can share your opinions
You can get feedback from your readers
You can help other programmers
You can offer your knowledge
You can answer questions

I started blogging

I started blogging, the first step was surprisingly easy but you need to make sure you find a good blogging platform. There were lots of options out there, like medium, which was already established for writing articles, but locked you into their platform and wasn't very coder friendly, especially for code snippets.

I also saw other places that let you post like devto, but those aren't really for blogging, and more akin to things like reddit.

The option I decided on was Hashnode

For those who haven't heard about it, it was one of the newer platforms, and this means that you get the opportunity to ride the wave of growth that comes along with that. If you want to get noticed, I would join in now because I can see this platform becoming as large as freeCodeCamp and other communities specifically for developers.

And the reason this was possible is because they combine of both your own personally blog, alongside a community of developer blogs that show up as a feed. This means that your articles will be recommended to others while also remaining your own. I wanted to give them a try.

I registered the domain adriantwarog.com recently, and wanted to see how this works. The first step was to setup the DNS to point towards hashnode, and then, that's it!

Conclusion

I'll be posting the video for this article on Thursday where I'll go more into depth about my journey in content, blogging and why I think it's important, but hope you enjoyed this sneak peek!

If you haven't already, sign up to Hashnode and try writing your first article, your future self will definitely thank you!

https://hashnode.com/

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Want to see more:

I will try to post new great content every day. Here are the latest items:

How to Become a Remote Developer

Adrian Twarog — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 12:35:39 +0000

Finding a job can take a lot of effort and energy, especially in the current climate of the world. But now, remote work and learning is something we can all take seriously.

Going to work in a physical location such as an office is no longer the only way to learn or work. There are multiple ways we can work, especially for developers.

I've had direct experience making the switch to remote work. So I wanted to share some things I have done to find remote work and to work effectively away from the office. And all of things have meant that I enjoy my life and have a lot more freedom when it comes to work.

For those who might not have the time to read the whole article, here is a quick TLDR you can quickly check out:

Request a single day for remote work to start
Produce better outcomes as a result of working remotely
Use the evidence of performance to request more remote options
Ensure a good remote work/learning/life balance
Go full remote!

Requesting a single day for remote work

It may seem like a simple request, and it is. But it's also one of the most difficult to complete. Once you actually ask to start working remotely, the rest is relatively easy.

It's always good to see if there are other people at the company who already work remotely, whether you already have the job or not. Some online applications only state full time on site positions, but those options are much more flexible when discussed in person.

The first step will be to organise a meeting in person with the supervisor, manager or recruiter to discuss the ability for you to work remotely. You want to introduce the concept, test the waters with the idea, but also be firm in your resolve that this is something you are interested in.

In this conversation, you want to bring up points in favor of remote work. For example, discuss how working remotely is well accepted, and talk about how you believe you will do a better job if you can take advantage of space outside of the office.

Even if your company isn't immediately open to remote work, this conversation can be used as a stepping stone in future negotiations. They'll probably slowly ease into the idea of remote work.

For me, this took several conversations and negotiating, but I was able to start with a single day. Then I moved on to 2, and finally complete remote work.

Produce better outcomes as a result of working remotely

It's great that you have gotten your first day(s) of working remotely, congratulations! However if you want to prove that you deserve to keep them (or increase your remote work time), you need to indeed show evidence that you are more productive from home.

This shouldn't be too hard, since a number of key areas will allow you to deliver better results. By working remotely you will no longer need to spend time getting ready to go to work, traveling, having those pre-office rituals of grabbing coffee, checking email, conversing with colleagues, meetings, and heaps of other generalities which don't overall help productivity.

Instead, working remotely means you can now immediately start work (from home, at the park, or anywhere remotely). This time savings alone will show you can produce better results.

But, make sure you organise follow up meetings with your supervisor where you can clearly express and show the improved productivity you now achieve on your remote day(s).

Use that evidence to request more remote options

You are on a great path now where you've started working remotely, and you've shown the positive results. The next step is to use this evidence to request a little more. The goal is to find the right balance of working in the office and working remotely that fits for you. For some people, they are most effective entirely remote, while others prefer a 50/50 balance.

Find out what works for you, and work towards that result.

There are new possibilities that working remotely provides. With the additional time you have, you will be able to learn new things, such as doing tutorials, guides, or course online that can improve your skillset.

This can help you become better at your job. And this in turn helps provide evidence that you are performing better and producing results. Your company will see that remote work is a good option for you.

Ensure a good work/learning/life balance

The transition into remote work as a developer can be scary at first, since you will be managing your own time. Starting out on a single day might be easy, but if you have the whole week to yourself, you might lose track of your work life balance.

Therefore, it's important to schedule out your day to make sure you have time for learning, working, and your own life.

You don't want to suddenly be working more than you did in the past because you forgot where the lines start and stop. You might also find that you underestimate the time certain activities take and leave them to the last moment.

These are traps that I and others have fallen into, and sometimes the only way to avoid them is to learn through experience. Hopefully this advice will help you steer clear of (or at least deal with) these mistakes.

Go full remote!

If you have started working remotely, and you're up to half the week or more, then you will be ready to go fully remote. I personally started working fully remote about 5 years ago, and haven't stopped since. I have monthly in office meetings, and weekly Monday meetings, but the rest of the week is mine to utilise as I see fit.

Some days I am able to spend the morning learning and teaching, and the evenings working and producing websites. Others, I wake up before the sun rises feeling extra productive and finishing the day before lunch.

This freedom is something that has allowed me to grow as a developer in a way I would have never been able to do in the past.

For anyone who has ever even considered working remotely, I would definitely recommend trying it. The worst that could happen is that you might actually like it.

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Want to see more:

I will try to post new great content every day. Here are the latest items:

What I learned after 10 years of development

Adrian Twarog — Sun, 09 May 2021 09:16:07 +0000

I've been coding for a long time, over 10 years

During all that website development of JavaScript, HTML, CSS, I learned a few things they don't teach in class...

Things like:

Always improve
Learn with projects
Stay healthy
Apply yourself
Network
Don't Burnout

https://youtu.be/zhTVcA8fuRI

Always improve

The first thing is to always keep learning early on when I started development, I really didn't take this very seriously. So this meant that while I was tinkering with lots of different projects, I never learned how to use a proper language or framework in full. The game changed for me a lot.

When I actually picked one thing that I wanted to learn, which was react, I decided that I wanted to know it inside and out. So I took out a course and I completed it from start to end. This opened up lots of possibilities for me.

I was finally able to build some of the projects I've always wanted to, and people at work started to realise this too, and came to me when they had different ideas and opportunities, always keep learning is essentially now a motto that I like to keep. And that's why it's first on this list.

After learning react, I decided to continue on I learned WordPress and bootstrap and lots lots more. Once I learned something the journey wasn't over, though, I often had to relearn it over and over even react pretty much changes every couple of years where you'll need to learn how to do hooks, and who knows what the next thing is.

Learn with projects

Find a project that you're truly interested in and use that as a medium to continue to learn these go hand in hand because the fact that you will always have ideas and projects that you want to build.

But the problem is learning on its own is hard, you can feel like you're overwhelmed. And sometimes there's just too much to know, there have been so many times in my life where I've just given up on learning a language simply because it just felt too difficult.

I just didn't have the endurance to keep on going. The difference a project makes is that if you're doing something you're truly interested in, then the learning is a byproduct of completing the project.

It took me two years to try and figure out PHP just learning it by itself. But once I had a project where I had to build out a VPN using PHP, I learned it old in three months.

Stay healthy

I know that for a long period, when I was in development, I sort of let myself go in the terms that I just ate whatever it was that had, I'd get takeout and I would just get fast food. And this really wasn't very good for my body.

Taking your health into consideration means making sure that you're eating good fruit and good vegetables, making sure that you're sitting properly, all of these things can add up in the long run. So whatever you do, make sure that you take care of yourself.

Apply yourself

Apply yourself, this can come in so many different formats. The first is obviously that whenever you do any piece of work, put your heart and soul into it, you'll learn a lot more by doing so and you'll constantly be improving.

The other aspect is that even when you do get a job or a piece of work, always look for the horizon, look for what else you can do, keep applying for better jobs or looking how you can earn more money. And if you keep doing this, the result will be that you will end up achieving those goals.

My goal has always been to give myself a bit more free time to enjoy myself and do the things that I like, this didn't happen immediately. It took me about 10 years to get to where I am now. And for a lot of time, I just spend that time working really hard on all the things that I wanted to. But now that I have, I've got the opportunity to spend a bit more time with the things that are important to me, such as my son, my family, and working on the kinds of projects that I really enjoy.

Network

Build your network.

This isn't just having people that you know, it's actually making friends with them and collaborating with them on different types of projects. When I was starting out as developer, I didn't really try to collaborate with other people, I tried to do most projects by myself.

This meant that when I got stuck, I could be stuck for an entire week trying to solve a problem. After being forced to work with other people in a startup, I actually found that I quite liked it.

Some of my closest friends even talked to me about creating a startup which we built, and it was successful and other people I knew put me in touch with their friends. And they helped me get my very first job in web development to which I'm still working to this day. The power of networking and connections and just friends in general cannot be understated in whatever field you are in.

Don't Burnout

Burnout is the next item on our list here. And it's a real thing that happens to a lot of developers. burnout for developers might not always be easy to recognise because we get so into the projects that we do. And when we're in that zone. Sometimes it's hard to know when we're pushing ourselves over the limit.

It's important to have checks and balances. I know that sometimes we can be really passionate about a project. But if we don't sleep enough, or if we drink too much coffee, or even if we just work too hard at it, we might lose the inspiration and motivation that gets a project over the line. And trust me I know what it's like having hundreds of projects unfinished, simply because I lost that motivation. When I worked myself too hard.

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Want to see more:

I will try to post new great content every day. Here are the latest items:

Navbar in Bootstrap 5 Tutorial

Adrian Twarog — Sat, 03 Apr 2021 09:10:41 +0000

Learn how to make a menu or navigation bar in Bootstrap 5. The navbar is something that basically every website has, so this quick tutorial will cover the basics of how to create one that is:

Uses Bootstrap 5
Simple with HTML, CSS
Is responsive
Has Dropdowns
No jQuery!

https://youtu.be/qNifU_aQRio

This is part of a series of Bootstrap Tutorials I am doing which describes how to build the fundamentals.

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Want to see more:

I will try to post new great content every day. Here are the latest items:

How do you make a website look good?

Adrian Twarog — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 09:58:23 +0000

How do you make a website look good?

It's a good question with many answers.

My recommendation is to take 5-10 mins to really look and consider the UI and UX of a page and improve it by at least 1%.

Keep doing this, and you get something great!

Recommendations

Consider Information Hierarchy
Keep Content Consistent
Provide visually enjoyable content
Use great colors
Always spend some time to continually improve the design

We often create a page, like a portfolio, and then forget about it. A much better approach is to gradually work on it bit by bit until you create something amazing, and even then, continue to spend time to improve it's UI and UX.

You will learn more about web design in the process of doing it, rather than trying to complete it in a single go, with the possible result not being exactly the way you imagined!

If you want to learn more about web design, I'm trying to put more videos together through my Enhance UI series, if you want me to review your own design, check out the link below:

📘 Enhance UI

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Want to see more:

I will try to post new great content every day. Here are the latest items:

Don't lose your eyesight as a Developer (5 Tips to Reduce Eye Strain)

Adrian Twarog — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 12:57:49 +0000

Eye strain is something overlooked for those of us in the field, yet it affects many of us.

I wanted to take time to remind us that its an important topic, as usually its one we dont think about until its too late and the damage is done.

Making sure that you look after your eyes will benefit you now and in the long run. Vision will get worse if you don't put effort into taking care of it.

Here are the 5 Tips I recommend to reduce eye strain:

20/20/20 rule, every 20 mins, spend at least 20 seconds looking at something 20 feet away
Reduce the brightness of your monitor
Use a lamp or light source when working at night
Wear glasses that blue harmful blue light
Use dark mode when possible for viewing sites

If you want to see more, check out the video below where I cover this topic and my experiences of it.

Follow and support me:

Special thanks if you subscribe to my channel :)

Want to see more:

I will try to post new great content every day. Here are the latest items: