What Have I Been Working On? (2018 Edition)
Since I left my government job over 6 months ago, a lot of people have been asking me, “What have you been up to?” It’s a fair question. My life as a contractor/student has been busy and quiet all at the same time. I’ve decided to start looking for full-time employment in November of this year (2018). I hope that until then I will have enough time to study all of the things that I want to (there’s just never enough time!).
Anyways, this is a post that I hope to update periodically until the end of 2018. I think that I will make a post like this every year from now on. It’s really handy to have and nice to look back on things that you’ve accomplished throughout the year. I just want to simply list out the things that I have been working on over the year and update them as time moves on. Next year I will be sure to create a post like this near the start of the year and keep adding to it throughout the year. However this year, I am a little tardy (it’s October right now!).
2018
Well.. OK.. Here goes..
January
- Worked on studentsuccess.gov.bc.ca; a Laravel app that allows users to see school data (class size, completion rate, etc) presented in graphs and reports by school district and/or city/school name, etc
- Started working on a custom PHP CRUD application that helps update an online newsletter and allows users to update/upload documents/files
- Started taking notes 📝
- Started studying NodeJS (very part-time)
February
- Started working on the BCGov Digital Toolkit; a Jekyll based website that houses BC government policy and documentation for digital online usage/best practices
- Continued work on studentsuccess.gov.bc.ca
March
- Finished work on BCGov Digital Toolkit
- Finished work on studentsuccess.gov.bc.ca
- Started work on the BC Ministry of Education intranet Drupal theme (but never finished)
- Continued working on and completed (close to the end of the month) the newsletter web app
April
- Left my job at the British Columbia Public Service 😳
- Created projects.jonathanbell.ca; a “portfolio” website that runs on Laravel (PHP) and SQLite
- Wrote some Bash scripts to facilitate backups for timeexposure.com
- Helped create jrbeventservices.com; a Jekyll based site that helps the owners rent party/event supplies
May
- Made staceyclarke.com; a Laravel-based/custom CMS portfolio website for graphic designer, Stacey Clarke
- Coded a small hobby project, React Strava Weekly Graphs
- Forked and updated (made my own version of) the Simple Headless Wordpress Theme; a WP theme that just returns JSON data from the main route (
/) - not HTML - Ported yogapluskathleen.com from Wordpress to GatsbyJS with a Wordpress backend (it’s a yoga teacher’s website)
June
- Coded another small hobby project, React GIF Search
- Began coding the Shopify theme for silverj.com
July
- Coded alandolan.com; a Wordpress website for a community engagement specialist
- Updated laurenburkitt.com Wordpress theme
- Updated log.jonathanbell.ca back-end logic
August
- Made sonomabarnweddings.com; a small wedding venue site in Gatsby w/ a Wordpress backend
- Finished silverj.com Shopify project
September
- Re-did jonathanbell.ca in GatsbyJS; previously, it was custom PHP
- Continued studying NodeJS
- Studied Docker and deployment
October
- Helped my father in-law code custom VBA that gathers stock data for the entire Toronto and New York exchanges (yes.. Excel can do that! (I did not know it could))
- Made blizzardjudge.com; a Node/ES6 app that allows users to review, favorite, and log DQ Blizzard experiences - an essential service to the universe
November
- Re-vamped and re-coded QT Stock Watch; a fullstack React and Node application that displays a user’s stock positions on a webpage.
- Moved my Node application hosting from Zeit to Heroku
- Completely re-coded/re-factored Strava Weekly Graphs. It’s now a fullstack React and Express app that displays my Strava activity data in a stacked bar chart format by week, activity type, and year.
- Added tests to LUMDB
- Added some tests to Photogsite
December
- Redid my resume in Gatsby
- Got a job as a Software Developer at Benevity!
- Made a toy app so people can send me money via the Stripe API