Dev

Playing with Cordova, I was getting this error when building iOS version: Error: xcode-select: error: tool 'xcodebuild' requires Xcode, but active developer directory is a command line tools instance Even full install of Xcode didn’t fix this error. The solution was to run the following command to use full Xcode instead of command line tools version that I had installed earlier: sudo xcode-select --switch /Applications/Xcode-beta.app/Contents/Developer

I followed instructions here: https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-and-configure-postfix-as-a-send-only-smtp-server-on-ubuntu-18-04 Everything seemed okay but emails were not getting delivered. Logs showed me that smtp connections were timing out: tail -f /var/log/mail.log May 3 12:28:10 postfix/smtp[3160]: connect to gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[172.217.197.27]:25: Connection timed out May 3 12:28:10 postfix/smtp[3160]: connect to alt1.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[2800:3f0:4003:c00::1a]:25: Network is unreachable May 3 12:28:40 postfix/smtp[3160]: 4984C41A1E: to=<xxxx@gmail.com>, relay=none, delay=3246, delays=3186/0.01/60/0, dsn=4.4.1, status=deferred (connect to alt2.gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[2a00:1450:400b:c00::1a]:25: Network is unreachable) However, I could ping any of the above ip addresses just fine. ...

Without full understanding, I had enabled HSTS on amerkhalid.com with option includeSubDomains. I had a subdomain that was used as “Custom Domain” to SmugMug site. After enabling HSTS, these subdomains started to throw NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID. The fix is of course simple, don’t use includeSubDomains. But that opens up your top level domain to man in the middle attacks. For now, I decided to follow the best practices and leave includeSubDomains enabled. And decided to not use a custom domain for my SmugMug site. ...

While playing with https://github.com/alexa/interactive-adventure-game-tool, I ran into the following error: > interactive-adventure-game-tool@1.0.0 start /Users/amer/alexa/interactive-adventure-game-tool > node node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js /Users/amer/alexa/interactive-adventure-game-tool/node_modules/require-dir/index.js:97 if (!require.extensions.hasOwnProperty(ext)) { ^ TypeError: require.extensions.hasOwnProperty is not a function at requireDir (/Users/amer/alexa/interactive-adventure-game-tool/node_modules/require-dir/index.js:97:37) at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/amer/alexa/interactive-adventure-game-tool/gulpfile.js:1:85) at Module._compile (module.js:660:30) at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:671:10) at Module.load (module.js:573:32) at tryModuleLoad (module.js:513:12) at Function.Module._load (module.js:505:3) at Module.require (module.js:604:17) at require (internal/module.js:11:18) at Liftoff.handleArguments (/Users/amer/alexa/interactive-adventure-game-tool/node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js:116:3) npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE npm ERR! errno 1 npm ERR! interactive-adventure-game-tool@1.0.0 start: `node node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js` npm ERR! Exit status 1 npm ERR! npm ERR! Failed at the interactive-adventure-game-tool@1.0.0 start script. npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above. npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in: npm ERR! /Users/amer/.npm/_logs/2018-01-02T05_12_24_832Z-debug.log The solution was to update require-dir to version 0.3.2 in package.json and run npm install again. ...

Setting up Ingress is an easy process but when it doesn’t work it gets really painful. First, make sure you have Ingress Controller setup correctly. This is in addition to Ingress resource and should be automatically setup by your cloud provider. When I was trying to setup a Kubernetes cluster on IBM Cloud, I ran into a lot of issues. It seems due to my permissions level something went wrong during provisioning of Kubernetes and Ingress Controller was not setup correctly. I went through a lot of steps including recreating alb , ingress resources, etc. The final fix was to login to IBM Cloud as superuser to change Access Policies for the cluster. Once I did that, everything just worked magically. ...

I got my iPad Pro at the end of 2017. Before buying it, I had read many blog posts by various developers who were using iPad for programming and web development. But soon after I bought it, I realized that serious web development on iPad is hard. The biggest issue was debugging JavaScript and CSS without web tools. At first, I was having buyer’s remorse but I loved the form factor of iPad and loved drawing on it. I am used to reading on Kindle and iPad was just too heavy for long reading sessions but it was a very decent reading device for quick reading sessions. So I kept it. ...

One of the most common technologies that new professional developers struggle with is git. Many junior developers are eager to start using all of the powerful commands of git and usually end up getting more confused. Here are a few commands that I recommend to anyone learning git for the first time: clone This downloads the entire git repo from a remote server, usually. You will get all revision history and branches. ...

I use 13-inch MacBook Pro for personal projects and 15-inch for work. My personal MBP would be the last traditional laptop, hopefully. Since most of my work can easily be done on Linux VPS. I have been using a 10.5-inch iPad Pro with Blink shell for most of my side projects. I like the form factor of iPad Pro and I am getting better at Linux administration. Now I am also setting up Docker images so I can bring up new images as needed. ...

Occasionally, when people find out I am a programmer, they ask me if I will build them a website or an app on the side. As I spend all day programming at my work, I rarely have the motivation to continue programming after work. However, talking to most people, I realize they don’t need a programmer; most of their needs can be met by a simple SaaS solution. Recently, I directed a few friends to WordPress.com, SmugMug, Shopify, etc. They all were happy with the results and ease of use. Also I am glad they talked to me because one guy was ready to spend a few thousands on a developer for a WordPress-based site. ...

Managing WordPress can get time consuming. I have tried to move to static website several times but kept going back to WordPress. But there are several advantages of static site generators, so I finally moved for good. I am also advising a lot of my clients to use Hugo especially when they know that they will rarely ever update their sites. Here are some of the main advantages of Hugo (or other static site generators) vs WordPress and other CMS. ...