I Want To Hack: Recent Episodes

Eamonn Cottrell

Web development with an entrepreneurial mindset, I Want To Hack is my caffeinated foray into software engineering. I talk about what I'm learning and what I'm building. New for 2022: Five-ish minute updates on #100DaysOfCode challenge.

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Hi there! We are looking at the 5 Import functions built in to Google Sheets. There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!πŸ‘‡

Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰

Episode Overview:

  • Video Playlist
  • Spreadsheet Example

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

More Resources:

  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Subscribe to my newsletter
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis
  • Find me on my site

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Hi there! We are talking about how to create custom named functions in Google Sheets (works in Excel too). There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!πŸ‘‡

Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:

  • Video Walkthrough
  • Demo Google Sheet
  • In depth article on freeCodeCamp

Google Sheets has over 500 built in functions you can use out of the box, but sometimes it can be helpful to create a custom one. Instead of manually typing it out every time you need it, you can create a custom named function. It's a pretty straightforward process, and I hope you find this useful!

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

More Resources:

  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! We are talking about how to reduce errors with data validation and conditional formatting in spreadsheets this week. There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!πŸ‘‡

Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:

  • Video Walkthrough
  • Demo Google Sheet
  • In depth article on freeCodeCamp

In our business, we use spreadsheets for a lot of our inventory management and ordering. We needed a way to prevent human errors in one of our order forms, and were able to do this by combining data validation and conditional formatting.

This episode is an overview of the use cases for this and the ways to save time and errors in the process.

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

More Resources:

  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! We are discussing nesting functions in Google Sheets this week! There's an accompanying video and spreadsheet demo linked below for you!πŸ‘‡

Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
I had a question in the comments on my most watched video asking how to count unique values in a comma-separated list. I was intrigued and made it my topic of conversation this week!

Here’s the functions we used:
=UNIQUE(SORT(TRANSPOSE(SPLIT(JOIN(", ",A2:A),", ",FALSE))))

=COUNTIF(SPLIT(JOIN(", ",$A$2:$A),", "),E19)

The links to my video walkthrough and article are available below.

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • Video Walkthrough of nesting functions and finding unique values
  • 30sec YouTube Short preview
  • In depth article on freeCodeCamp
  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! We are discussing how to add a grainy effect to our CSS backgrounds this week. Full video walkthrough and article in the links below πŸ‘‡

Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
I found a couple of cool ways to add a grainy-ness to solid background colors. I talk about them in the pod this week, and go through them in detail in the accompanying article and video.

The links to my video walkthrough and article are available below.

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • Video Walkthrough for Grainy CSS Backgrounds
  • 15sec YouTube Short
  • Arc site
  • Grainy Gradient Playground
  • In depth article
  • feTurbulence MDN docs
  • URL encoder for inline CSS
  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! We are using LOOKUP functions in Google Sheets and Excel this week! We're focused on the XLOOKUP in the pod, but all are explained in the video linked below πŸ‘‡

Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
Walking through the functionality of the XLOOKUP function in both Excel and Google Sheets. XLOOKUP was added by Microsoft in 2019 as a successor to VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP. Google Sheets added it in 2022. It combines the best features of VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP, and is able to be used as either a vertical or horizontal lookup function itself. It's become my favorite way to lookup data. What about you?

The links to my video walkthrough and the Google Sheet we're using are available below.

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • Video Walkthrough for XLOOKUP and More
  • Example Google Sheet with the Code
  • In depth article
  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! We are building a dynamic daily task list in Google Sheets this week!

Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
Walking through a dynamic daily task list created in Google Sheets using the =QUERY() function to pull certain data from another tab into a dashboard on the main page depending on what day it is.

The links to my video walkthrough and the Google Sheet we're using are available below.

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • Video Walkthrough for Dynamic Daily Task List
  • Example Google Sheet with the Code
  • In depth article
  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
We walk through how to create an Apps Script code to have multiple selection capabilities in the data validation drop down menus in Google Sheets. This isn't available out of the box, but I came across a great solution originally coded by Alexander Ivanov and applied it to my own sheets.

The links to my video walkthrough and the Google Sheet we're using are available below.

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • Video Walkthrough for Multiple Selection Data Validation
  • Example Google Sheet with the Code
  • In depth article
  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

View Details

Hi there! Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
A dive into dirty data. Why is it not clean already? Why do we need it to be "clean"? In this week's episode we discuss a few built in functions and features that enable us to get our data nice and clean!

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • Clean and Trim Data Walkthrough Video
  • Read my accompanying articles on freeCodeCamp
  • Find me on my site
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

View Details

Hi there! Thanks for listening, I Want to Hack is a weekly discussion of coding and spreadsheet concepts. I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
This week's topic has been Accounting and Currency formatting in Microsoft Excel. I discuss how to access these formatting options using the trusty point-and-click method as well as by using keyboard shortcuts and keyboard combos.

I've tried each year to continue to increase my productivity with spreadsheets and learning keyboard shortcuts and combos has continued to pay dividends in that regard.

Please subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • Currency vs Accounting video on YouTube
  • Accounting and Currency Formatting article on freeCodeCamp
  • Find me on my site
  • Read me on freeCodecamp
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll subscribe to follow along! Links at the bottom, but if you do nothing else, would you consider subscribing to my YouTube channel where I share spreadsheet and coding tutorials? πŸ˜‰ I'm hoping to grow this to 1000 subscribers this year!

Episode Overview:
Welcome to 2023! A quick recap since we last met in March of 2021. We've had our fourth child since then (hence the long show hiatus), and I've zeroed in on content creation and teaching outlets for the new year.

The show will be one of three primary sources of content for my weekly cadence. YouTube videos and technical articles will accompany the podcast, and I encourage you to subscribe to my YouTube channel so you can begin to follow along visually.

As of today I have 78 subscribers to the YouTube channel. This is my primary project this year - creating spreadsheet and coding content on YouTube and growing that subscriber base to 1000. This is the first time I've put any effort into building a cohesive video brand, and I'm excited for it!

The general goal of the year is to bind these three outlets together and create 50 videos, 50 articles and 50 podcasts this year. A side-quest will also be 50 YouTube shorts even though I failed to mention that on the podcast this week.

Please, please: follow along! I am doing to give back to the online learning community. Most of what I've learned in computer programming, spreadsheeting and technology has been self-taught through a host of online platforms...most of which have been entirely free.

I hope that the content I create this year will help others who are on the same journey as me. I've learned a little, and I want to pay it forward.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel. This will help out a ton.
Leave comments. Receiving feedback and interacting with folks has been almost as much fun as making the videos themselves so far!
Check out my articles on freeCodeCamp and on my blog.
Come say hey over on LinkedIn. This is my business social platform of choice other than YouTube, and I'm not really active on the other big names right now.

And of course, subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already! I really appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you on the next pod!

Resources mentioned:

  • 100DaysOfCode
  • My 100DaysOfCode Log last year
  • Find me on my site
  • Read me on freeCodecamp
  • Watch me on YouTube @eamonncottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Buy me a coffee on BuyMeACoffee
  • Laugh at me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll subscribe to follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
A walkthrough of publishing my second digital product of the year: Sacred Geometry. I discuss my motivations for this type of design-centric product as well as describe the process I went through to create and iterate it. Also, why I made it FREE. I give my brief take on using the Gumroad platform and on my continued product & project creation for 2022. Below is the link to my blog post which was featured on Hashnode.

Resources mentioned:

  • Sacred Geometry Blog Post (featured on Hashnode!)
  • Gumroad Platform
  • Youtube Walkthrough of Sacred Geometry
  • My Free Personal Finance Google Sheet
  • P5.js

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll subscribe to follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
I have officially released Infinite Memory and submitted it to Hashnode + Netlify's Feb 2022 Hackathon. I also learned how to release a proper version of a codebase on Github which led me down a brief educational rabbit hole in Git's documentation and resulted in a short blog post as well.

Resources mentioned:

  • My Hashnode Blog
  • Git Tags and Versioning Blog Post
  • Git Tagging Documentation
  • Infinite Memory Verse Site
  • Infinite Memory Github

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Finished the freeCodeCamp Scatterplot Project! As usual, it was some small mistakes that were preventing me from passing all the tests a couple weeks ago. It always pays dividends to walk away from something (when possible) and come back with a fresh perspective!
I also have some additional functionality to add to the Infinite Memory Verse Site to get it ready to submit to Hashnode's February Hackathon challenge.

Resources mentioned:

  • My Scatterplot Project
  • My Article about the Scatterplot Project
  • Infinite Memory Verse Site
  • Preview of my Sacred Geometry iPhone Wallpaper Collection
  • freeCodeCamp Data Visualization

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Finished up the memory verse vanilla js website I've been working on. Check it out. I also live streamed the recording of this podcast. Been enjoying some Twitch lately; find links to follow below!

Resources mentioned:

  • Infinite Memory Verse Site
  • Preview of my Sacred Geometry iPhone Wallpaper Collection
  • freeCodeCamp Data Visualization

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
I began another scatterplot project, but then decided to spend a fair amount of time producing geometric designs in Adobe Illustrator in the same vein as line drawings I used to love doing with pen, paper and ruler. (no spirograph for me!)

Resources mentioned:

  • Preview of my Sacred Geometry iPhone Wallpaper Collection
  • freeCodeCamp Data Visualization

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Victory is mine! I've found and corrected the error which I couldn't figure out last episode in my bar chart.

Resources mentioned:

  • D3js.org
  • Tutorials Teacher D3 reference
  • My completed project on CodePen
  • freeCodeCamp Data Visualization

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Been having a blast learning D3 over on freeCodeCamp. I walk through an overview of my current project and what remains to complete it. Including discussion of the joy that comes from solving frustrating problems.

Resources mentioned:

  • D3js.org
  • My current project on CodePen
  • freeCodeCamp Data Visualization

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Had a ton of fun with my five year old building a spreadsheet and then learning some new stuff myself as he wanted to select multiple values using data validation. I looked up a custom script to do it, implemented it and then did a short video walkthrough of how to go about it yourself!

Resources mentioned:

  • YouTube Video Walkthrough
  • The Custom Google Sheet (you can copy and use yourself!)

Links for the coding challenge I'm doing:

  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Days 4-7 of my #100DaysofCode & Web Developer Challenge.
A quick run through of what I've been working on the past few days.

Resources mentioned:

  • D3 library
  • MERN tutorial on MongoDB
  • 2022 Web Developer Challenge
  • 100 Days of Code
  • freeCodeCamp
  • Data Visualization Certification
  • freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
  • Tweet at me

My other podcasts

  • re-verse
  • Sieis Soundtracks
  • fna show
  • Swansong

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Day 3 of my #100DaysofCode & Web Developer Challenge.

I get excited about data visualization on the web. I've done a lot of this in spreadsheets and dabbled in Tableau during the course of Google's Data Analytics Certificate that I took last year, but it was a lot of fun to begin combining the visualizations with web development!

Resources mentioned:
D3 library
2022 Web Developer Challenge
100 Days of Code
freeCodeCamp
Data Visualization Certification
freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
Tweet at me

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
Day 2 of my #100DaysofCode & Web Developer Challenge.

I discuss my intrinsic motivations to do this, how I'll be combining my current business background with my ongoing desire for digital entrepreneurship, and what the next 100+ days of the coding challenge will look like.

Resources mentioned:
2022 Web Developer Challenge
100 Days of Code
freeCodeCamp
freeCodeCamp Become A Dev Challenge Log (free Google spreadsheet I made for you to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge)
Tweet at me

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
I'm starting the 2022 Web Developer Challenge and in this episode I discuss my intrinsic motivations to do this, how I'll be combining my current business background with my ongoing desire for digital entrepreneurship, and what the next 100+ days of the coding challenge will look like.

I made a Google Sheet here to track your own motivations, notes and progress for the Web Developer Challenge. Make a copy and use for yourself if you'd like!

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

Episode Overview:
This episode walks through how I've been structuring my web development life within my hopefully healthy life of work, family and recreation. It's already a full plate, but I do aspire to continue learning and creating, and I believe there's enough margin to do some of it all!

Hugo Static Site Course Trailer & Playlist

This Season Overview:
I'm going to be trying to make money on the internet as supplementary income this year.

I'll be trying out at least 7 different ways to do this including:

  1. Software as a Service
  2. Digital Products
  3. Digital Services
  4. Traditional Products
  5. Drop Shipping
  6. Educational Products
  7. Contract Work.

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis
  • Email me at eamonncottrell at gmail dot com

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Hi there! Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll follow along on my journey!

I'm going to be trying to make money on the internet as supplementary income this year.

I'll be trying out at least 7 different ways to do this including:

  1. Software as a Service
  2. Digital Products
  3. Digital Services
  4. Traditional Products
  5. Drop Shipping
  6. Educational Products
  7. Contract Work.

I would love to hear from you!

  • Find me on eamonncottrell.com
  • Follow me on Twitter @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on Linkedin @EamonnCottrell
  • Follow me on gitHub @sieis
  • Email me at eamonncottrell at gmail dot com

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♦ Connect!

  • I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter.
  • Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here.
  • Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

β™₯ This week's episode: Hope

Some reflections and encouragement regarding

  1. Crucifying Complacency
  2. Computer Programming
  3. Lifelong Learning
  4. Community
  5. Hope

β™  I Want to Hack

  • I Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.

♣ Undertow & Eamonn

  • I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.
  • I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

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♦ Connect!

  • I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter.
  • Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here.
  • Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

β™₯ This week's episode: ICO not ICO

Some small but fun things this week so far. I do love the satisfaction of finding out how to do the little stuff. It irked me recently why my github pages site displays a generic, lame preview without any image when I share the link with anyone via text. Well, all it takes is a little Googling to figure out how to throw down the proper meta tags and link up a sweet image to fix that.

  1. Apple Technical Notes for Link Previews
  2. Favicon Generator. Simple and works like a charm.
  3. Tripetto. Sleek functional and free form builder. Well played.
  4. Google Forms. Functional and free but not sleek. Averagely played.

β™  I Want to Hack

  • I Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.

♣ Undertow & Eamonn

  • I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.
  • I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

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♦ Connect!

  • I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter.
  • Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here.
  • Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

β™₯ This week's episode: Heat(around(the(corner)))

The journey continues into algorithms in CS50, and I'm hoping to knock out a brief rebuild of my personal site using the JAMstack this weekend.Some thoughts today on finite time and the infinite possibilities in this world of computer science and web development. Staying on track while not neglecting the necessities in a full life.

  1. Harvard's CS50 (the full course)
  2. CS50X (somewhat abridged version used by edX for the open ended and free course.)
  3. Stackbit: an outstanding addition to the Jamstack ecosystem that I discovered this past week via an episode of the JAMstack Radio podcast.

β™  I Want to Hack

  • I Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.

♣ Undertow & Eamonn

  • I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.
  • I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

View Details

♦ Connect!

  • I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter.
  • Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here.
  • Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

β™₯ This week's episode: JMSTK'N

Some things dismal; some phenomenal. And with CS50 progress still underway, a combination of the two in many cases. I have found a great intrigue with the Jamstack and specifically this past week with Stackbit, a tool to spin up jamstack sites super easily and efficiently. I powered through some difficulties in ARRAYLAND with CS50's week two assignments. And, I'm looking toward the future as a solo coder/learner hoping to find ways to collaborate with others without the luxury of a bootcamp environment.

  1. Harvard's CS50 (the full course)
  2. CS50X (somewhat abridged version used by edX for the open ended and free course.)
  3. Stackbit: an outstanding addition to the Jamstack ecosystem that I discovered this past week via an episode of the JAMstack Radio podcast.
  4. My caesar.c code: quite satisfying after some head scratching over the mechanics of the cipher switch

β™  I Want to Hack

  • I Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.

♣ Undertow & Eamonn

  • I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.
  • I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

View Details

♦ Connect!

  • I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter.
  • Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here.
  • Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

β™₯ This week's episode: CS50_go_time

Widely regarded as a premier introduction to computer science, my own knowledge, though currently broader in scope, will no doubt benefit from the wealth of topics and deep dives into the subject. I've been attracted to the course and the professor's dynamic teaching style for many years, and am finally going to set out what I first began in my early MOOC days.

  1. Harvard's CS50 (the full course)
  2. CS50X (somewhat abridged version used by edX for the open ended and free course.)
  3. My credit.c code: not elegant, but it works!
  4. Hack Reactor part time remote program
  5. Galvanize scholarship

β™  I Want to Hack

  • I Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.

♣ Undertow & Eamonn

  • I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.
  • I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

View Details

♦ Connect!

  • I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter.
  • Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here.
  • Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

β™₯ This week's episode: Static Site Generators

These things are awesome. Super fast load pages with a zillion use-cases.

  1. List of Static Site Generators
  2. Hugo (which I'm currently using)
  3. GitHub Pages for hosting and deploying a simple site at [.github.io]
  4. Netlify for auto-deployment from Github or GitLab etc
  5. My GitHub Repo for the current site
  6. Current site at eamonncottrell.com

β™  I Want to Hack

  • I Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.

♣ Undertow & Eamonn

  • I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.
  • I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

View Details

♦ Connect!

  • I'd love to say hey; follow me over on Twitter.
  • Want to show the show some quick love? Thank you! You can buy me a coffee here.
  • Please leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

β™₯ This week's episode: Multiple SSH Keys for GitHub

I ran into an issue where I needed to push changes to a repository that was on a second GitHub account I created for a simple website project. I was receiving an error from the terminal in VS Code that I didn't have permission to do that. I had already added the SSH key to my GitHub account, but was still giving me an error. I found help in GitHub's docs by telling my computer's ssh-agent to add the newly created key, and was ultimately able to solve the problem and rejoice in my victory! :)

β™  I Want to Hack

  • I Want to Hack began documenting my desire to code and explore software engineering in the early 2012's, and re-emerged in 2020 after many years of working in small business, starting an engineering degree and doing a bunch of self learning in the web-development world.

♣ Undertow & Eamonn

  • I Want to Hack is part of The Undertow Podcast Network.
  • I am COO at Cups, and aspiring software founder. I enjoy hanging with my family, running ultramarathons, playing piano, launching podcasts, and drinking great coffee.

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java. that. hut() details Eamonn's discovery of Java scripting behind the scenes of GoogleDoc spreadsheets. Eamonn and Angela take a peek at a large spreadsheet Eamonn constructed for work and disect the functions behind it.

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Eamonn and Angela fight off a poltergeist while walking listeners through two coin flipping/probability functions in Python.

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Be sure to listen on iTunes!

So we've been in a discussion sequence centered around object-oriented programming during the last few sections of Python. Among a wealth of items that orbit over my head, we have learned about creating user-defined classes.

Here's what wikipedia has to say about classes.

This has been excellent, albeit slow, work. Join Angela and I as we (mostly I as she is exhausted today) rant a bit about the problem set I did defining various classes in order to implement a program that has a robot clean the surface of a rectangular room.

The graphical display of the program plus some of the Rectangular Room functions and class definition.

I cannot take credit for the programming of the graphical representation of the cleaning robot program that was written. The Python shell that we're using comes with PyLab, a built in program that allows you to generate line graphs and other types of graphical representations while using Python. The instructors for the course actually programmed all the PyLab code for the rectangular room and robot seen above.

Here's a link to the entire code that was written for your viewing reference.

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