<li>Add new article: <a href="https://leilukin.com/articles/living-with-retinitis-pigmentosa">&quot;Living with Retinitis Pigmentosa&quot;</a></li>
<li>Update my code snippet for <a href="https://leilukin.com/projects/snippets/disability-pride-flag-background">Responsive Disability Pride Flag CSS Background</a> by using the CSS <code>linear-gradient()</code> function instead of an inline SVG</li>
<contenttype="html"><p>On 30 November 2024, I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) after seeing an eye doctor.</p>
<p>My feelings after learning that I have this genetic eye disease that causes gradual vision loss and currently has no cure was more relieved than upset, because I was relieved that to have finally understood the reason behind a lot of the difficulties in my daily life as I grew older, in addition to my autism.</p>
<p>Furthermore, my parents and I already suspected that I have inherited an eye condition that causes visual impairment after learning that some of my relatives on my father's side are starting to have eyesight problems. Therefore, I have accepted the possibility that I might have some incurable eye condition even before my official RP diagnosis. I had relied on glasses throughout most of my life due to having myopia and astigmatism, so I was already not new to vision conditions.</p>
<p>In retrospect, my RP symptoms started to manifest to the point of impacting my daily life in my early 20s. I started to bump into things more often when I walk. My eyes got more sensitive to bright light, including sunlight, to the extent that I found it difficult to see things under sunlight and thus needing sunglasses. My subconscious began to get afraid of falling, causing me to get much more cautious when I walk, especially when walking on steps and crossing over drains, especially in places I was not familiar with. I also had a hard time seeing things not directly in front of me without turning my head.</p>
<p>For a while, my parents and I thought this was because of my autism, as it makes me find it difficult to multitask, including paying attention to all my surroundings at once outside, and me spending too much time sitting in front of a computer, especially since my jobs have all involved a large amount of computer usage, and thus getting less physical exercise. However, now that I was diagnosed with RP, things finally clicked into place: turns out, my peripheral vision had started to get weaker, and my eyes became more sensitive to bright light, including sunlight. In addition, my eye doctor discovered that I am having a mild cataract as a complication of RP.</p>
<p>Since there is currently no cure for RP, the best I can do is to take care of my remaining vision as much as I can, mainly by continuing to wear sunglasses every time I go out in daytime to protect my eyes from sunlight. I am also adjusting my habits of using digital devices, by making the font sizes of my devices larger to make things more comfortable for me to read and trying to take regular breaks from digital screens.</p>
<p>Being diagnosed with a genetic eye disease that can cause vision loss also made me glad that I have started to learn to use screen readers. Even before my diagnosis, I have been using screen readers such as NVDA on Windows and TalkBack on Android to test website accessibility, including my own websites. It is a good idea to prepare myself for the possibility of losing enough vision to the degree of needing low vision aid and assistive technologies. In fact, since I was diagnosed with RP through a dilated eye exam, I was unable to see things clearly for about 12 hours after receiving the eye drop that dilated my eyes, so for the immediate couple of hours after seeing my eye doctor, I needed to activate TalkBack to be able to read things on my Android phone. Furthermore, I am also planning on learning braille.</p>
<p>I do not write this article to ask for pity. I have accepted that I am visually impaired and autistic, and my disabilities are a huge part of who I am, as much as being a non-binary lesbian on the asexual and aromantic spectrum. Instead, I am sharing my story to let other people who have similar conditions that they are not alone, and we are worthy.</p>
<p>I coded a <a href="https://leilukin.com/projects/snippets/disability-pride-flag-background">responsive Disability Pride flag in CSS</a> during the Disability Pride Month in July (which is also my birth month) 2024, so it would be fitting to conclude this article with this Pride flag I coded.</p>
<div class="flag-disability flag-disability-article" role="img" aria-label="Demo of the Disability Pride flag coded in CSS"></div></content>
<li>Obfuscate my email address with CSS and HTTP redirects. (Credit to Spencer Mortensen's article, <a href="https://spencermortensen.com/articles/email-obfuscation/">&quot;Email obfuscation: What works in 2024?&quot;</a>)</li>
<li>Add table of contents to each tab section of the <a href="https://leilukin.com/links">Links</a> page.</li>
<li>Add link to my <a href="https://www.pixelcatsend.com/profile&amp;id=24121">Pixel Cat's End profile</a> to my <a href="https://leilukin.com/adoptables">Adoptables</a> page. Free free to check out my not-cats!</li>
<li>Improve footnotes by enlarging the target area of reference links and footntoe backlinks.</li>
<li>Update article <a href="https://leilukin.com/articles/accessible-footnotes/#update-3-december-2024-enlarge-link-target-area">&quot;How I (Tried to) Implement Accessible Footnotes&quot;</a> with information about improving footnote links' target area.</li>
<li>New blog post: <a href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-12-01-indieweb-carnival-november-2024-impact">IndieWeb Carnival November 2024: Impact</a></li>
</ul>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>IndieWeb Carnival November 2024: Impact | Blog</title>
<contenttype="html"><p>Alexandra, also known as <a href="https://xandra.cc/">Xandra</a>, is hosting the <a href="https://indieweb.org/IndieWeb_Carnival">IndieWeb Carnival</a> for November 2024, with the topic being <a href="https://library.xandra.cc/indieweb-carnival/">&quot;Impact&quot;</a>. It is a great topic for self-reflection, and Xandra has provided prompts as jumping points for us to share our thoughts and experiences related to the topic. I have some of my own to share as well.</p>
<p>I believe everyone is capable of making an impact on someone else's life, no matter how small, and even if in an indirect manner, because our actions and choices have consequences.</p>
<div class="heading-wrapper h2">
<h2 id="impact-of-a-kind-and-generous-stranger">Impact of a Kind and Generous Stranger</h2>
<p>One of the people who have made great impact on my life was a stranger whose name and face I have unfortunately forgotten, but I still fondly remember the moment when she helped me.</p>
<p>At the time, I was about to travel back to my home state for the first time since I began to attend university, which was located on a different state from my home state. I was supposed to take a regular train to a station closest to my parents' hometown, but due to my lack of knowledge, I accidentally took rapid transit that was not even connected to my home state, so I realised my mistake only when the rapid transit began to travel back to the direction of the state where my university was located. I contacted my parents about my situation, and they suggested me to drop by the next stop in the neighbouring state to my home state and wait for them to pick me up and bring me to my parents' hometown.</p>
<p>There was a woman passenger who intended to leave the rapid transit at the next stop learned about my situation, then acting as my temporary guide at a place I was unfamiliar with, and suggest me to stay in a shopping mall while waiting for my parents, while giving me her phone number so I can call her in case I need her help again. Eventually, through continuous contact with my parents, my father managed to locate me, pick me up, and safely brought me to my parents' hometown.</p>
<p>I never saw that woman again, and I lost her phone number, but despite being a stranger, her kindness and generosity had left a great impact on me, for being a major reason why I can still have faith in humanity to this day despite everything. She made me genuinely believe there are still humans who are willing to help out strangers in times of need, and why I strive to be a kind person myself.</p>
<div class="heading-wrapper h2">
<h2 id="strangers-impact-on-my-career-choices">Strangers' Impact on My Career Choices</h2>
<p>My career choices from graphic design to web development were another major example in my life of how strangers can still capable of making a profound impact on me.</p>
<p>During my teenage blogging years, I was following a Taiwanese blogger who was also a professional web designer. I was impressed by her web design skills displayed on her blog, especially her Flash header. She ended up becoming the main inspiration for my interest in design, and I picked up some basic HTML and CSS knowledge and skills. However, I lack the knowledge of how to break into the web design field, so I studied graphic design in university and subsequently worked as a graphic designer instead. After working in the field for 8 years, I was burned out from graphic design as a profession, for many reasons, including my mistaken belief that I could get web design work as a graphic designer.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to 2022, I discovered <a href="https://neocities.org/">Neocities</a> through Tumblr, and thus discovered the resurgence of personal websites. My interest in HTML and CSS was fully rekindled after learning to code my personal website from scratch for the first time on Neocities. Eventually, my interest grew large enough to take online courses to teach myself web development, starting with <a href="https://www.freecodecamp.org/">freeCodeCamp</a>. I decided that I wanted to become a web developer after hearing other web and software developers' stories about getting developer jobs without a computer science degree, including stories of those who previously worked on a different occupation.</p>
<p>In mid-2024, I decided to get more involved in the personal web by joining its communities. In June 2024, I joined a personal web community for hobbyist web developers named <a href="https://32bit.cafe/">32-Bit Cafe</a>, which was <a href="https://32bit.cafe/about/">started by Xandra herself</a>, on both its Discourse forum and its Discord server. In <a href="https://discourse.32bit.cafe/t/hello-its-me-leilukin/1029">my introduction thread</a> on 32-Bit Cafe's Discourse forum, I introduced myself as an aspiring web developer, because I was already in the process of working towards my goal of switching my career path from graphic design to web development.</p>
<p>I was drawn to 32-Bit Cafe because it appears to share my values, after reading its <a href="https://32bit.cafe/about/codeofconduct.php">code of conduct</a> and <a href="https://discourse.32bit.cafe/guidelines">community guidelines</a>, and I was proven right. I have been enjoying my time in the 32-Bit Cafe community and have always felt welcomed there. Interacting with other webweavers has provided me a lot of inspirations for my own website as well.</p>
<p>Finally, after spending almost 2 years to teach myself web development, I reached my goal of becoming a professional web development in August 2024. I shared the news of my official career transition from graphic design to web development on <a href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-12-01-indieweb-carnival-november-2024-impact/2024-08-18-from-hobbyist-to-professional-web-developer.md">this blog</a> and <a href="https://discourse.32bit.cafe/t/tell-us-some-good-news/1091/16?u=leilukin">32-Bit Cafe's Discourse forum</a>, and received a great deal of support and positive responses. I even received messages from other people in the personal space, including members of 32-Bit Cafe, that my story of transitioning from hobbyist to professional web developer has inspired them to learn web development more.</p>
<p>I made the decision to pursue web development as a profession after being inspired by other people's stories, so I was pleased to hear that my own story has inspired others in turn too. This shows the impact we can have on others by sharing our stories.</p>
<div class="heading-wrapper h2">
<h2 id="what-impact-i-hope-to-make">What Impact I Hope to Make</h2>
<p>My life and experience have taught me that everyone is capable of making an impact on other people and the world, and making connections to people from all walks of life on the web only cemented such belief.</p>
<p>I have used the internet for most of my life, with blogging being my first foray into creating things on the web, and thus planting the seed of my love for the web. Participating in the independent web as an adult has given me hope that a better web is possible. Now that I am a professional web developer, I aim to make use of my knowledges, skills and abilities to make the web better.</p>
<p>I cannot predict how long I will live, but I hope to do what I can to make a positive impact on the world by channelling my desire to want to make the world a better place into my actions and creations.</p>
<li>Officially launch my <a href="https://leilukin.com/shrines/pokemonoras"><cite>Pokémon Omega Ruby</cite> and <cite>Alpha Sapphire</cite> shrine</a> to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the games' release.</li>
<li>Expand the home page of my <a href="https://leilukin.com/shrines/cassettebeasts"><cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> shrine</a> by adding a <a href="https://leilukin.com/shrines/cassettebeasts/#cassette-beasts-my-ultimate-comfort-media">&quot;<cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> — My Ultimate Comfort Media&quot;</a> section.</li>
<li>New blog post: <a href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-10-28-re-social-media-personal-blog">&quot;Re: Social Media Hasn't Killed the Personal Blog Just Yet&quot;</a></li>
</ul>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>Re: Social Media Hasn't Killed the Personal Blog Just Yet | Blog</title>
<contenttype="html"><p><a href="https://jimmitchell.org/">Jim Mitchell</a> wrote a blog post, <a href="https://jimmitchell.org/2024/09/21/social-media-hasnt.html">&quot;Social Media Hasn't Killed the Personal Blog Just Yet&quot;</a>, discussing the decline of personal blogs after social media took off, and the question of if social media killed personal blogs, and if personal blogging can make a comeback. This post caught me by surprise when I discovered it, because recently I have been reflecting on my blogging history, and how social media changed that, with my thoughts ended up being incredibly similar to Jim's.</p>
<p>Blogs have always had a special place in my heart and my history with the web, because blogging was my first foray into creating things and sharing things about myself on the web way back in the 2000s as a teenager. Teenage me was deeply fascinated by the concept of writing a personal journal on the web, and being able to connect with other people on the internet through reading and commenting on each other's online journal. I have loved writing and like to express myself through writing since I was a child, so blogging seemed to be a great way to do so.</p>
<p>Then social media began to take off. Jim Mitchell wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Personal blogs didn’t just disappear in one big poof. It was more like a slow fade. As Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter took off, people – me included – found it easier to share bite-sized pieces of life. Why write a long, reflective post to publish on your personal site when you could sum it up in a quick status update that some “friend” you don’t really even know could give you a mindless like?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I can attest to that, because I was there when bloggers began to use social media, and how social media platforms gradually replaced their personal blogs as means share their thoughts and life updates. I was introduced to Facebook in the late 2000s by other Malaysian Chinese bloggers. As more of us bloggers use Facebook, updates of our personal blogs have gradually decreased.</p>
<p>Jim Mitchell's post talked about the shift to niche or professional blogging, which is a phenomenon I have noticed as well. I do not think blogs ever died, and in fact, even before discovering the personal web and coding my own website from scratch for the first time in 2022, I still found niche blogs to follow and subscribed to their RSS feeds, but social media and search engine optimisation (SEO) have made personal blogs obscure and more difficult to find than niche and professional blogs.</p>
<p>That said, exploring the web outside social media and seeing the resurgence of personal websites and blogs on platforms like <a href="https://neocities.org/">Neocities</a> and <a href="https://bearblog.dev/">Bear Blog</a>, gave me hope. I am happy to see people on the personal web are bringing back personal blogs too, which motivated me to include a blog to my website.</p>
<p>As Jim Mitchell concluded in his post:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Is social media the death of the personal blog? Not quite. It may have nearly killed it, yes. But for those of us willing to carve out our own space in the digital landscape, personal blogs still have a heartbeat. It just takes more effort to keep it alive.</p>
<li>Add <a href="https://leilukin.com/adoptables/#Pantson-Color-Club">Pantson Color Club section</a> to my <a href="https://leilukin.com/adoptables">adoptables page</a>, including my own colour card for the pixel club.</li>
<li>Replace the estimated reading time of articles and blog posts with word count, by using the <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/eleventy-plugin-wordcount-extended">eleventy-plugin-wordcount-extended</a> plugin.</li>
<li>New blog post about me officially becoming a professional web developer, <a href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-08-18-from-hobbyist-to-professional-web-developer">&quot;From Hobbyist to Professional Web Developer&quot;</a>.</li>
</ul>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>From Hobbyist to Professional Web Developer | Blog</title>
<contenttype="html"><p>I am pleased to announce that I am officially a professional web developer now — starting from 16 August 2024, I am working for a local traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) healthcare company, with my job involving web development, UX design and graphic design. I owe much to this very website for inspiring me to pursue web development as a profession.</p>
<div class="heading-wrapper h2">
<h2 id="my-web-design-origin-story">My Web Design Origin Story</h2>
<p>My interest in web design and development go back as far as my teenage years in the 2000s. I had a GeoCities account, but by the time I started to participate on the web when I was around 14, blogs were on the rise, so blogging was my first foray into creating on the internet, so I did not experience creating and coding a personal website like other GeoCities users did. That said, I got my start on HTML and CSS through blogging, by editing the codes of widgets and blog themes, while being inspired by many other blogs.</p>
<p>In particular, there was a Taiwanese blogger who was a professional designer whose blog had a gorgeous header made with Flash, who ended up being an inspiration for me to aspire to become a graphic designer when I grew up. I did study graphic design, earn a diploma and began working as a graphic designer. However, years in the field, I got burned out; there were multiple factors contributing to my burnout from the graphic design field, but the short version is that the reality of graphic design work, at least in my experience, did not turn out as great as what my younger self had expected and hoped for.</p>
<p>Fast forward to 2022, my interest in web design was rekindled when I discovered Neocities through Tumblr and the resurgence of creating personal websites, so I decided to build and code my own website to gather various stuff I have created and curated across various online spaces. For this, I re-learned HTML and CSS, and began to truly experience the joy of carving one's own space on the web, and the more I worked on my website, the more I learned about not only web design, but also web development, by dabbling in JavaScript.</p>
<p>Furthermore, despite being burned out from graphic design as a profession, my graphic design background does come in handy in building Leilukin's Hub, by designing and creating graphics for my website, including header image, site button, favicon, etc., as well as applying my design knowledge and skill to design my own website, from colour schemes to layout.</p>
<div class="heading-wrapper h2">
<h2 id="web-development-more-than-a-hobby">Web Development: More than a Hobby</h2>
<p>Over time, my interest in web development evolved enough to take online coding courses, starting with <a href="https://www.freecodecamp.org/">freeCodeCamp</a>, then <a href="https://scrimba.com/">Scrimba</a> shortly after. Taking these courses made me realise that these languages have evolved a lot since more than a decade ago. I applied the HTML, CSS and JavaScript skills and knowledge I learned from these courses to make improvements to my website.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, learning that there were people who became developers without a computer science degree inspired me to consider switching my career path to web development. In other words, web design and development have become more than a hobby to me. I did not expect it to be easy, so I did put as much as I could in learning and practising web development. That said, Leilukin's Hub remains a hobby project, and it serves as a good platform for me to practice and experiment my front end web development.</p>
<p>After teaching myself to code for almost two years, and received multiple code and tech-related certifications, I updated my résumé with information about my interest in switching career from graphic design to web development, and hope for transferring my creativity and design expertise into building the web. I started to try hunting for front end web developer jobs, but my attempts to apply for the job for many companies did not succeed, then I received a surprised belated birthday present in the form of a job interview invitation.</p>
<div class="heading-wrapper h2">
<h2 id="new-job-interview-a-surprise-belated-birthday-present">New Job Interview: A Surprise Belated Birthday Present</h2>
<p>On 29 July 2024, a day after my birthday, I received an invitation by the managing director of a local traditional Chinese medicine company to attend an interview with him. The company was looking for someone with web development expertise to work on and improve their website, which is built with WordPress, and the managing director discovered my résumé on a Malaysian job hunting website I had registered an account on.</p>
<p>During my interview, I explained to the managing director that I have been looking to switch career from graphic design to web development. Turned out, the company was also interested in hiring a web developer with design expertise to improve the front end of their website, so my 8 years worth of graphic design experience was a bonus. A week after the interview, the managing director sent me a job offer, and I accepted and got hired, with my responsibilities include web development, UX design and graphic design.</p>
<div class="heading-wrapper h2">
<h2 id="wordpress-developer-by-day-eleventy-developer-by-night">WordPress Developer by Day, Eleventy Developer by Night</h2>
<p>Starting my professional web development journey with WordPress is going to be a new experience for me. I had brief experience with working on WordPress websites as a website administrator in one of my previous jobs, but never as a developer. Furthermore, prior to receiving this job offer, I never studied WordPress development, nor built my own website with WordPress.</p>
<p>That said, I hope to apply the programming knowledge and skills I learned from the coding courses I had taken to adapt to learning WordPress development. My confidence in my ability to learn new tech skills was bolstered by the time I created a <a href="https://leilukin.com/projects/code/bellabuffs-phpmailer/">fork for the fanlisting script BellaBuffs with SMTP support</a> despite my inexperience with PHP. I am looking forward to learning more about PHP with my new job as well.</p>
<p>Although now I work on WordPress in my day job, my personal website will continue to be built with Eleventy. One of the reasons I wanted to pursue web development as a profession is the freedom to learn and use different tools outside day job while continuing to grow as a developer.</p>
<p>None of the coding courses I took taught about Eleventy or any static site generator, but <a href="https://leilukin.com/blog/posts/2024-04-21-april-2024-leilukins-hub-overhaul-with-eleventy/">rebuilding Leilukin's Hub with Eleventy in April 2024</a> allowed me to learn more about web development, not to mention I do have a lot of fun with using Eleventy. Therefore, I am content to be a WordPress developer by day, Eleventy developer by night.</p>
<p>Looking back, even I am amazed by the fact that building this very website kickstarted my path to become a professional web developer, especially since I did not come from a tech educational or industrial background, but I am glad that it happened.</p>
<p>I am happy to be able to switch my career path to web development despite not having a computer science degree, and that my prior working experience as a graphic designer helped with getting this new opportunity.</p>
