Tag: web

Try Hack Me – Cyber Security Challenges

Sometimes I just stumble across these random resources that I immediately want to share with fellow geeks. If you like computers and programming, you should definitely have a look at…

https://tryhackme.com

TryHackMe started in 2018 by two cyber security enthusiasts, Ashu Savani and Ben Spring, who met at a summer internship. When getting started with in the field, they found learning security to be a fragmented, inaccessable and difficult experience; often being given a vulnerable machine’s IP with no additional resources is not the most efficient way to learn, especially when you don’t have any prior knowledge. When Ben returned back to University he created a way to deploy machines and sent it to Ashu, who suggested uploading all the notes they’d made over the summer onto a centralised platform for others to learn, for free.
To allow users to share their knowledge, TryHackMe allows other users (at no charge) to create a virtual room, which contains a combination of theoretical and practical learning components.. In early 2019, Jon Peters started creating rooms and suggested the platform build up a community, a task he took on and succeeded in.
The platform has never raised any capital and is entirely bootstrapped.
https://tryhackme.com/about

I don’t have any affiliation or whatever with the platform, but I just think it’s a super cool resource if you want to learn more about hands-on computer stuff.

Here’s a nice demo on an advanced programmer taking on one of the first challenges. I definitely still have a long way to go, but it’s fun to watch someone sneak into a (dummy) server and look for clues! Like a proper detective, but then an extra nerdy one!

There are many “hacktivities” you can try on the platform.

And if you’re serious about learning this stuff, there are learning paths set out for you!

If you like their content, do consider taking a paid subscription and share this great initiative!

JavaScript for R — ebook

The R programming language has seen the integration of many languages; C, C++, Python, to name a few, can be seamlessly embedded into R so one can conveniently call code written in other languages from the R console. Little known to many, R works just as well with JavaScript—this book delves into the various ways both languages can work together.
https://book.javascript-for-r.com/

John Coene is an well-known R and JavaScript developer. He recently wrote a book on JavaScript for R users, of which he published an online version free to access here.

The book is definitely worth your while if you want to better learn how to develop front-end applications (in JavaScript) on top of your statistical R programs. Think of better understanding, and building, yourself Shiny modules or advanced data visualizations integrated right into webpages.

A nice step on your development path towards becoming a full stack developer by combining R and JavaScript!

Yet most R developers are not familiar with one of web browsers’ core technology: JavaScript. This book aims to remedy that by revealing how much JavaScript can greatly enhance various stages of data science pipelines from the analysis to the communication of results.
https://book.javascript-for-r.com/

Want to learn more about JavaScript in general, then I recommend this book:

Learn to style HTML using CSS — Tutorials by Mozilla

Cascading Stylesheets — or CSS — is the first technology you should start learning after HTML. While HTML is used to define the structure and semantics of your content, CSS is used to style it and lay it out. For example, you can use CSS to alter the font, color, size, and spacing of your content, split it into multiple columns, or add animations and other decorative features.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn/CSS

I was personally encoutered CSS in multiple stages of my Data Science career:

When I started using (R) markdown (see here, or here), I could present my data science projects as HTML pages, styled through CSS.
When I got more acustomed to building web applications (e.g., Shiny) on top of my data science models, I had to use CSS to build more beautiful dashboard layouts.
When I was scraping data from Ebay, Amazon, WordPress, and Goodreads, my prior experiences with CSS & HTML helped greatly to identify and interpret the elements when you look under the hood of a webpage (try pressing CTRL + SHIFT + C).

I know others agree with me when I say that the small investment in learning the basics behind HTML & CSS pay off big time:

ok listen……. i finally took a few hours to learn some CSS basics and big time recommend to any and all #rstats people who have always felt absolutely clueless looking up CSS stuff on stack overflow
— Sharla Gelfand (@sharlagelfand) June 30, 2020

I read that Mozilla offers some great tutorials for those interested in learning more about “the web”, so here are some quicklinks to their free tutorials: