Victor's Notes

Find and kill process locking specific port on Mac

Problem: Sometimes when you start a local node.js server, it may be stuck running at the background. When you try to start the server again, you will hit error saying that the port (for example 8080) is already is in used and locked:

Product Management

How to work with Product Manager as a Software Engineer

I know that feel bro, cuz I'm also a software engineer. With years of experience, I have met some great Product Managers (PM) and a couple of bad ones. It is difficult to work closely with a bad PM every day, a bad relationship

Adobe Experience Manager

Register Sling Servlet in Adobe Experience Manager

In Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), a Sling servlet can be used for handling some RESTful request-responses ajax call. It is written in Java programming language and it can be registered as OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) services. In order to trigger the script, there

nextcloud

Install Nextcloud on AWS EC2 and using S3 storage

I want more privacy, so I decided to minimize the use of Google products. I can replace Chrome with Firefox, replace Gmail with ProtonMail and replace Google Drive with Nextcloud. Nextcloud allows me to self-host of cloud storage and gives me control over my

php

Debug php code on browser

In javascript, you can console.log('whatever") in your browser for troubleshooting. However, in php code, a little bit trick is required to do so. Here are the steps: Create a php helper functionfunction debug_to_console($data) { $output = $data; if (is_array($output)

Ubuntu

Install Ubuntu 19.10 on Macbook Pro 13,1

I was frustrated by the macOS Catalina, so I decided to switch to Ubuntu as the main operating system on my MacBook Pro, 13-inch version without touch bar. As a software developer, the macOS bundled a lot of tools with the Xcode which takes

MongoDB

Setup MongoDB with Koa.js

I'm building a Koa.js server and need to connect to MongoDB to store and retrieve data. Here is how to do it with some simple steps: Step 1: Connect the database before Koa app initialised const initDB = require('./database'); initDB(); const app

blog

Migrate blog from medium to ghost 3.0

Ghost 3.0 just released. (https://ghost.org/3/). I hate Wordpress with PHP but love Ghost with Node.js. It is open source and the dark theme is pretty cool. So I decided to switch my blog from medium platform. However, there is

JavaScript

Setup npm proxy in a corporate network

It’s painful to work behind a corporate network and everything does not work out of the box. Simple command like npm install would not work and here is how to work through the proxy: Assuming you somehow get nodejs installed in your corporate

Berlin

My MBA study trip to Germany

The key personal learning from the Germany trip is anti-fragile. Travelling involves many uncertainty and randomness. Despite my flight was delayed in Helsinki at Finland and I was suffering from the stressful presentation with jet lag, the journey is worth it as I learned

Digital Transformation

Case study: Li & Fung family business

In this article, I would discuss the lesson we can learn from this Li & Fung’s family. The insights we can get from this family to last over one thousand years is the culture to reinvent itself in order to survive. There are

Finance

MiFID II — What are the impact and opportunities for investors?

MiFID II is designed to bring greater transparency and investor protection to the financial markets. It introduces more protection for all investor types from retail to professional and extends the types of financial instruments in scope. Impact beyond Europe Markets directly impacted include France,

Data Analysis

Getting real-time data from Web to Excel

An undergraduate student asked me how to get real-time data from a website into an excel. The data is used for his homework assignment, but many financial data are not free of charge. Therefore I gave him a simple solution, which I am going

Aws Ec2

Enable HTTPS on AWS EC2 instance with Node.js and Nginx on Ubuntu server

I have an AWS EC2 instance running with NodeJS and Nginx on a Ubuntu 16.04 server. I am going to show you how to enable HTTPS instead of HTTP for your website using Let’s Encrpyt. HTTPS helps prevent intruders from tempering communication

Microsoft

Replace text in xml files with Powershell

Powershell Script Yesterday I was working at client site. It is a Windows server isolated from external network. It is not allowed to install any third party software in the machine. However, I got a task in hand to replace all xml files name

Batch Script

Replace text in a file using Batch script

Yesterday I was working at client site. It is a Windows server isolated from external internet access and prohibited to install any new software. I got a task in hand to remove all yaml files id to null. For example, the input file temp.

Business

A look into Chile’s startup ecosystem

In retrospective, my Chile trip was amazing. Despite it was tough to fly over 30 hours from Hong Kong and suffering from jet lag, the journey is totally worth it and I learnt a lot beyond classroom. The tour was full of insightful and

APM

Upgrade AppMon from version 6.5 to 7.1

I am working on upgrade for Dynatrace AppMon from version 6.5 to 7.1. AppMon is a tool for gathering performance data, trusted by many clients and it helps developers to troubleshoot for issues in the application. This version upgrade includes new features

AWS

AWS Cognito User Pools with mobile sdk for iOS using custom challenge

I was integrating AWS Cognito user pool to an iOS application. The sign in feature is using custom challenge for authentication, but there is a lack of documentation about how to use the iOS sdk. After many trial and errors, I have finally able

Boss

Managing your boss

Managing your boss means consciously working with higher level manager to obtain the best possible results for you in the traditional top-down organization. Effective managers not only take time and effort to manage subordinates, but also their bosses. An inability to manage upwards is

Business

Leadership that gets results

Research found that six distinct leadership styles have a direct impact on the working atmosphere and financial results in terms of revenue growth and profitability. The six leadership styles include coercive, authoritative, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting and coaching. More importantly, it indicates that leaders with

Android

Debug iOS traffic on iPhone device

I’m doing production support for an iOS mobile app. The pain point is hard to debug HTTPS traffic between the iPhone and our server. In this article, I will explain how to capture the requests, response and the HTTP headers. Step 1: Download

Leadership

How to motivate your problem people

In order to get people to follow your lead, the only way to succeed is by getting the people to motivate themselves. The common mistakes managers make on their attempts to motivate problem people is by using the sales pitch to push solution, hoping

Charisma

Learning Charisma — Transform yourself into the person others want to follow

Charisma can be learned. We can practice to acquire the ability to inspire followers towards a clear vision and instill deep levels of trust. We can earn the charismatic skills by effort even though we were not born and naturally gifted. We can be

Analytics

Evidence based management

Life is a series of decisions. From day to day business operations to critical decision for the future directions of a firm, managers are always demanded to make many decisions. It becomes more and more important for managers to know how to make good