Blog

RESTful API with Spark Kotlin

The not-so-mainstream way of building an API

When speaking of building a backend API, the most common tools is either Spring Boot for Java or ExpressJS for JavaScript. Even for Kotlin, Spring Boot and JetBrain’s own ktor is the usual option to go with. But today I’ll explore into the less popular option of spark-kotlin. Disclaimer : I am not in anyway affiliated nor do I work at the project. I just simply stumbled upon it and started using it when working on a side project. (coming soon™) ...

March 21, 2018

Being lucky

Getting an engineering job as an international student

Ah, you’ve graduated. Now what? Oh right, still no job offer! *panics* As an international student, I have come across hundreds of guides on “how to land an interview”, “how to get a job”, “how to solve DSA questions” etc but almost none of them were specifically written with an international student in mind. I’m not here to dismiss the quality of such guides but rather, to be an add-on (or plugin if you will), to help international students understand their challenges better. ...

February 10, 2018

I could become you tomorrow and no one will know

because I have your IC number, your house address and phone number.

Backstory # I lied, but maybe someone else could. If you didn’t know already, Malaysia just suffered possibly its largest data breach ever with personal data of millions of Malaysians (including your full name, IC number, phone number and home address) up for grabs as long as the price is right. If you are not freaked out yet, you should be and I’ll tell you why. I don’t think many people understand how dangerous these data can be. I’m also honestly mildly infuriated about this. No, not about the creator of sayakenahack.com (hereafter referred as Keith) but rather how this whole thing panned out. I’ve mentioned before in private conversations with friends about my concerns on cybersecurity in Malaysia but never really gave it too much thoughts. Not until I discovered this whole fiasco. ...

November 20, 2017

Use Terminal in Windows with Style

Windows [Linux Shell (Powerline + Hyper)]

When the Linux Shell in Windows was first released, I used it and didn’t quite like it. Fast forward a year later, I heard it is a lot better now (also the fact that my familiarity with terminal commands improved helped) so I decided to give it another try. It is a really fun experience so far. In case you haven’t install the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), follow this step-by-step guide by Microsoft to get started. Then, install Hyper for Windows from here. If you didn’t already, you will also need node.js for the package management for plugins of Hyper. ...

August 15, 2017