Category: Kev’s Blog

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Deploying to github pages with gh-pages

Using gh-pages npm module to build and deploy a React app to github pages I get this error:

Failed to get remote.origin.url (task must either be run in a git repository with a configured origin remote or must be configured with the "repo" option).

According to this answer to an issue logged on the project, gh-pages expects your remote repo to be named ‘origin’ and doesn’t work if you use any other name when you ‘get remote add’ you repo for a project. Add the same repo with the name ‘origin’ and then it works as expected.

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Managing and switching node versions with nvm

If you’re working on multiple projects with different node versions, switching versions can get tricky. nvm is a version manager for node that allows you to easily switch between versions. For example, I have a later non-LTS version installed, but to avoid issues like this one that I run into with later versions:

opensslErrorStack: [ 'error:03000086:digital envelope routines::initialization error' ],
  library: 'digital envelope routines',
  reason: 'unsupported',
  code: 'ERR_OSSL_EVP_UNSUPPORTED'

… I need to switch back to the current LTS version to avoid this error. This is easy with:

nvm use --lts
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Connecting ForeFlight to MS Flight Simulator with Flight Events

Some Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) apps such as FltPln and ForeFlight can also connect to most of the popular flight sim apps like Xplane, MS FSX and FS Flight Simulator 2020.

FlightPlane has some great instructions for connecting to flight sims using a number of different approaches. The easiest option I’ve found so far is to download the Flight Events app from https://events.flighttracker.tech/ . Press the Join button top right and follow the instructions.

Enable the ‘Broadcast data to local network’ option. Initially ForeFlight didn’t show the Flight Events panel under ‘More… Devices’ until I entered the current ip address of my iPad on my network in Flight Events (instead of the default broadcast option) :

and the Flight Events appeared in the Devices panel here:

Click ‘Flight Events’, enable, and then ForeFlight is sync’d with your sim.

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Invest in your skills development

Software development is an industry still in it’s infancy. Technologies are continually evolving, and trend come and go. What’s hot today can quickly get replace by something new tomorrow.

It’s foolish to think that you can learn one thing and then be done with your learning and continue in your software development career for the next couple of decades without learning anything new. The past decades have already shown that what’s the hot in-demand tech skill now is likely to be in demand several years from now. That said, there have been programming languages that have stood the test of time: COBOL. C, and Java are some examples.

In order to stay relevant, it’s important that you spend time to keep your skills up to date. Make a commitment to learn something new (a new language, a new framework) every several months. As you gain more experience you’ll start to make better decisions on new trends that you think will stay around for longer, or those which seem like they’re likely to disappear within a few years.

Bottom line: expect and and plan to keep your tech skills up to date.

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