John Siwicki

created_at: 2017-11-11 17:08:05 I saw The Big Short this past weekend. It was an excellent film, and it did a fantastic job of explaining what happened back in 2006-2008 better than most things I have ever come across.This movie got me thinking about some financial startups that we have seen over the last 3-5 years. There has been an uptick in people trying to "replace" your bank to make it simple to buy stocks or even set up different savings accounts.There is a new batch of startups that ar...

created_at: 2017-02-11 17:08:05 These last few months, I haven't been making good quality work. It has been stressing me out. None of the tricks that would normally work to get back to normal have been working. I have had a yearly goal to read 20 books. So, I decided to make a conscious effort to read more. Typically, I would be spending most of my time in the non-fiction section.But, I wanted to change things up and I wanted to change my approach to reading. I am one of those people that hig...

created_at: 2016-01-11 17:08:05 A few months ago a friend and I started experimenting with a concept for a fitness app. We wanted to take all the thinking out of working out. You would either get home or go to the gym and have some instructions ready for you. We wanted to take all of the pain out of fitness and have a professional craft a workout for you.The product focus was on email. Email is a simple way to deliver the information and very easy to build. Plus we can do all of the work manu...

created_at: 2015-06-11 17:08:05 Another blog coined the term "Flexbox Fridays." I wanted to run with that and post a few links and tutorials that have helped give me a basic understanding over flexbox.http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/05/22/centering-elements- with-flexbox/ http://demosthenes.info/blog/780/A-Designers-Guide-To-Flexbox https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/CSS/Flexible_boxes ...

created_at: 2016-06-11 17:08:05 This past year has been jammed back with new tools, tricks, and packages to fill up our build processes including. It seemed like we talked about React and PostCSS the most. SVG became a norm instead of some weird thing that nobody used.I want to break out and list some things that I want to use and some things I use on a regular basis.ColorsOne thing that I always struggle with is making a great color palette. This is one of the main things that I like to try ...

created_at: 201-12-11 17:08:05 JS Prototyping Prototyping is one of those things that always interested me. It was something that combined design and code so well. I also thought that if you were going to write code for the design process why not just start coding. FramerJs was always interesting because it used CoffeScript and anyway I can keep writing JS was ok with me.Skillshare released this intro to Prototyping class, and I decided to take the Framer finally out for a test drive. I love ...

created_at: 2016-01-11 17:08:05 I usually keep a list of of my ideas. They can range from the simple to the massive. About two weeks ago, I read https://unicornfree.com/just-fucking-ship and thought enough was enough.I launched two ideas, Mentobi and Insane Tough. I have been kicking these two ideas around in my head for weeks now. I didn't really expect many results out of the launch. It just felt great to put something out into the world.They were not pillars of web design. I had just a few...

created_at: 2018-04-11 17:08:05 Part 1: Getting StartedGetting comfortable with HTML and CSS is no easy task. These tasks are underrated in the community and taken for granted.Be it that you love writing good clean and minimal markup with accessibility concerns addressed or you have a single div and feel like you can conquer the world in your CSS file.Javascript is a natural next step for anyone who spends time writing HTML and CSS. But, depending on which way you come at JS. It can be so ove...

A Decade of Change, Fatherhood, and Looking Ahead As I stand on the cusp of my 40th birthday, I find myself in a contemplative mood, trying to encapsulate the myriad of emotions and experiences that have shaped me over the last decade. It's a time of reflection on past lessons and future aspirations, particularly in light of the significant changes in my life over the last two years. Embracing Change and New Perspectives Change has been a constant companion, reshaping my perspectives and guid...

I have been using AI almost everyday since ChatGPT has come into my life. I have been spending at lot of time working with AI and learning the ins and outs of it. I even started a Youtube channel to share my findings. I have been thinking about my own knowledge base and wanted to take more control of my notes. I use a lot of different apps and I am a heavy note taker. But, I think the importance of having some private notes and some private sections of the internet is going to be more important ...

This is not investment advice. This is merely for entertainment purposes and commentary. Do Your Own Research. Investments are always a risky situation, and you need to do your own research to make sure that it is something for you. I can't stress this enough: all of these things we are going to talk about in this piece are going to be extremely risky propositions. I had a few apps on my phone for investments when I was looking for a space to hold some of my stocks. I had an account on Public....

I like to run experiments. In the past, I would take 30 days and try to do something completely different or take that time and try to get a new habit going. I have done everything from giving up sugar to publishing a blog post every day. I like trying to find little pockets of the day that will make me uncomfortable and try and take me out of my comfort zone.I had been feeling a bit stale lately. I was using the Calm app and saw a new feature that would allow me to check-in with how I was feeli...

Glitch is one of those platforms that I find myself going back and using all the time. All of these online IDE's have interesting communities and I like to explore and look around from time to time because as with each different people are hanging out in each one and you can learn it by just looking at other people's work. Below are just a few of the great projects that are on glitch and that inspired me to build and explore these topics even more. twitterbotimage-resizeFavorite Books 2018lit-el...

Glitch was officially launched in mid-2017 after a few name changes and rebrands. Glitch is a community of developers that offers a simple and fun way to deploy your own Javascript applications. When you first go to the website. The UI and the terminology might be a bit much. So, let's walk through a few elements. Getting StartedGlitch makes it simple to get into code right away. They come with three default templates so your configuration is minimal. hello-web-page - this template generates one...

Digital Wellbeing is a new Android app that will tell how frequently you use your apps, the number of notifications you get and how many times you unlock your phone. Some apps in the past would help block apps and website and show you how many times you unlocked your phone, but this is the first time this type of information has been available on the OS level. Last week, I installed the beta of Google's new offering to help curb my cell phone addiction. I had also turned on some features in YouT...

A HTTP library is still a common plugin to include on a project. Depending on what I am working on I will still use jQuery to make some of these requests or include a library like Axios to handle the requests. If you are looking for a way to not include third-party scripts and work with native browser features Fetch will be something that you want to start to look at for including in your project. Lets take a look at a native way to make a GET request before fetch. var request = new XMLHttpReque...

Google just announced Project Stream, an experiment to stream games from Google's servers via Chrome. Google is allowing people to test streaming Assassin's Creed Odyssey during this trial period. For controls, you can use a wired Xbox controller or a PlayStation controller. For my demo, I just used a keyboard and a mouse. Game streaming services are still a new thing. I know that PlayStation has had something for a few years now. It makes sense to apply what was done for streaming music and vid...

Why Framer X Is So Exciting? I have dabbled in a bunch of different design tools over the years. I have a Sketch license and I have been hopping into Figma a lot lately. Framer X is a giant new update from Frame that bring React into design tools. Framer X offers a workflow between a typical design tool window, and React code in a text editor that comes in the form of a typescript file. Now, I haven’t used the product yet. I am just looking at windows and screenshots. I love the idea of a desig...

Airtable is slowly becoming my new favorite service. It is had to recommend another piece of productivity software as there are a million already but Airtable is something that is unquote and worth looking at getting into your workflow. Airtables has a very simple API that can help you prototype your app idea and store text for you. It can also help you build a data structure that is going to feed into your app as well. There are a lot of use cases for your app in prototyping and developing idea...

On any machine that I use I have anywhere between 3-6 browsers installed. I have a few Firefoxes, Chromes, Safari, Opera and Brave. I like to keep a lot of different options because you never know what the news will bring. One of them might bring a new feature out first and you can start playing with those ideas quicker. I started noticing new warnings in chrome after a recent update. "Input elements should have autocomplete attributes" [https://html.spec.whatwg.org/multipage/form-control- infra...

2017 didn’t end the way that I wanted. I started the year off strong. But, this year I want to make a few changes and reset quickly. One focus, this year is going to be building some systems to help me be more productive. I want to create a system that will put my back up against the wall but also force me to act more and turn off that inner critic. I want to take some things an automate and prepare as much as I can. ...

Writing was always something that I wanted to get more involved in my day to day life. Early last year, I started a blog and had some posts up, but it was nothing more than that just random posts at random times.I tried to start the habit of blogging every day for 30 days. I would write a blog post every night on a topic I was thinking about or something I was working on. What ended up happening was about 20 poorly written, not even 500-word posts and about 10 with some value to them.It was a go...

Lately, I have been experimenting with new apps that change my thinking and change my behaviors. I was using something early in the year that was basically a "mood tracker." You would just mark down if you were feeling positive or negative and it would also look at your social to see what type of stuff you would be posting and analyze that. It was cool to do for a few weeks but it was hard to see myself keeping up with something so granular like that.The 5-minute journal is basically a simplifie...

I love when giant tech companies give keynotes. If they are streaming I tend to watch them and soak in the presentation. Facebook's developer conference kicked off today and I watched with excitement to see all of the new announcements start to trickle in.I was mostly interested in anything that they are doing with VR. Having Oculus in the portfolio there was bound to be a number of announcements. They announced "Facebook Spaces" spaces are there social VR app that allows you to do certain thing...

There are certain people in your life you can have conversations with unfiltered. I mean unfiltered like you can tell them something that you trust would get a deep and honest response. You know that they will take you seriously and respect you. I am lucky to have a few people in my life that I can trust with that level of access to what I am thinking and feeling.When I talk to these folks these conversations are always the best because you learn the most from them. There is a deep admiration be...

Starting tomorrow, I am going to start a 5-week challenge to start to ship some of my ideas finally. As important as I think it is to make sure that we that we actually try to release our ideas onto the world. We also have to keep in my mind the fact of that matter that should this idea exist and who would benefit from them. I have been thinking about sales a lot and being able to make one of this challenge.One of the best feelings that I have had in the last 6 months was selling a copy of a cou...

Do you have a notebook or a list somewhere of some ideas that you thought were just amazing? Have you ever been out with friends one day and came out with a killer t-shirt idea? Or even worse have you made something and shared it with the only friend and then put it away to never be seen again. I am one of those people who rarely ships but ends up collecting a bunch of ideas and concepts that I believe in. But, I don't ship. I make excuses and blame the world. But, I don't ship. If you can relat...

In 2009, a documentary was released called, "We Live In Public." The film follows Josh Harris, founder of the site Pseudo.com. While watching this movie, it was hard to believe that it all took place in the 90s. Josh Harris founded a streaming TV network during the 90s boom.The movie was an interesting look at the tech climate in the 90s. These are companies and scenarios that some of us might not remember quite well. In the 90s boom, some of us were only a few years old.It is almost hard to bel...

Last year, I started doing this challenge on Medium where I would post 100 words a day. 100 words each day and that was one of the rules. I did this for a number of months and some of the writing I am sure was brutal. But, having that daily win and that daily sense of accomplishment was something that was just contagious. Since, I stopped this a few months ago, I have only written three posts. Then previous three months it was almost 65. I wanted to that mentality back to the blog and start to e...

Growing up, there were only two rooms in the house that had air conditioning. We would all fall into those rooms on days when it was too hot. I always remember that feeling of walking from the cool, air conditioned room, opening the door to get out, and hitting that wall of moisture and heat.The summer is always a time that my mind associates with the movies. Overtime, my once weekly ritual has become, "we can wait till Netflix."Things started to changed last winter when "The Force Awakens" remi...