Category Archives: Uncategorized

The nationwide quarantine has not reduced Sidnet’s effectiveness in any way. After all, we have been honing our remote working skills for the last 15 years. Apart from our office being empty, all meetings taking place online and the creation of a separate channel named “Coronavirus” for our company chat, our lives have not changed much.

Mozilla Foundation

The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that strives for an open, “healthy” and accessible Internet. They are also the publisher of the annual Internet Health Report, as well as such well-known open-source solutions as the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird email program.

“The very thought of spreading ideas and taking concrete actions to help build a better Internet is very close to my heart. Sharing knowledge, critical thinking, social utility and respect for privacy are all inseparable parts of the Mozilla Foundation’s DNA,” says our developer.

These values are evident in the Foundation’s most recent publications concerning the challenges faced by creators and other Internet users during the coronavirus pandemic.

Examples?

• COVID-19 & what platforms are doing to limit the spread of misinformation: Facebook. The first article in a series about how popular websites strive to counteract misinformation.
• Privacy, pandemics and the AI era. An article aimed at initiating a debate on the long-term threats related to the collection of data from people who may be suffering from COVID-19.
• Online Meeting Tips. A collection of tips on how to organize effective online meetings.

St. Brother Albert’s Aid Society

The first Polish NGO with the goal of helping the poor and the homeless. It has been operating for nearly 40 years, and currently provides housing for 3,500 people in need. The society runs dozens of homeless shelters, club rooms, kitchens, and free bathhouses.

“I think it is very important to reach out to people who need help. This holds especially true in times when indifference to the problems and the suffering of others – the elderly, people who are lonely or who find themselves in a difficult life situation – is practically commonplace,” says Łukasz to further explain his choice.

The society accepts not only financial help, but also donations of food, clothing, footwear, medicine, cleaning products and other items that may help the people under its care.

As we celebrate Internet Domain Day, we wish to support what made the Internet the way it is – databases and kittens. The man responsible for choosing the open-source and charity projects that we will be supporting this month is not just the mastermind of #SidnetDonations, but Sidnet overall.

Michał Wojciechowski has been managing our software house for 15 years. Throughout this time, he has participated in over 200 programming projects and more than 20 half-marathons – and he has also tried to stop his cats from meowing in the background during team teleconferences countless of times… 😉

Read on to find out more about Michał’s choices.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is an open-source database management system. Apart from MySQL and SQLite, it is one of the most popular free solutions of this type. It is used by such companies as Skype, Instagram, TripAdvisor and The Guardian.

More than 500 volunteer creators are actively involved in working on PostgreSQL and they have been developing the project for over 30 (!) years. The result is an efficient, feature-rich and standards-compliant program, which includes more than a million lines of code and is fully owned by the community that designed it.

“Many people claim that PostgreSQL is a worthy competitor to Oracle – a commercial solution. We have used PostgreSQL in a number of projects, including a few web applications built for the Iconaris marketing agency. It also serves as a database for some of the tools we use internally, such as GitLab”, said Sidnet’s founder.

“Futrzaki” Foundation

The foundation was established in 2015 by a group of volunteers who strive to improve animal welfare. They often help stray cats and dogs, some of which are mutilated. They collect donations, organize adoptions and constantly promote having the right attitude towards animals.

“Thanks to the ‘Futrzaki’ foundation, I now have a new cat in my apartment – Lotka. The foundation volunteers put a lot of effort into finding people who are responsible owners and offer really good homes to animals. For example, the condition for adopting Lotka in the first place was to secure my balcony with a protective mesh”, said Michał.

Before they find a new home, many cats (including Lotka) are brought to the Bajka temporary shelter.

“I visited the place two times, once to familiarize myself with Lotka and then and finalize the adoption process. The temporary shelter is run by great people, who truly love animals”, said Michał.

Calm, modest and a man of few words – Wojciech is certainly one of the most inconspicuous members of the Sidnet team. Yet, he also happens to be an effective Senior Full-Stack Developer, responsible for the continued development of the Fooder web and mobile application. Wojciech Wąsik excels in helping us achieve any business goals set by the app’s client (ZT Kruszwica S.A.), as well as the Iconaris marketing agency, which has been collaborating with us for 12 years now. Not to mention that he always beats us in poker, quiz games and Hero Realms at team meetups.

See which open-source and charity projects we will be supporting this month per Wojtek’s request.

Linux Mint

Linux Mint is an open-source operating system based on Ubuntu/Debian. Since it is not at all inferior to Windows in terms of ease of use, it is especially popular among novice Linux users. Compared to other Linux distributions, its characteristic features are the modern design and improved compatibility with software that is not 100% open-source. For example, it allows users to play audio/video files both in the system media player and the web browser immediately upon installation.

“I replaced Windows with Mint both at home and at work. Not only is Mint faster, but it is also free. It was an easy choice” – said Wojtek.

The creators of Linux Mint provide information on what they plan to do with the funds collected. They use voluntary donations to finance hosting, advertising, software distribution, equipment purchases, and the work of the people involved in the project.

Znajdki Foundation

The foundation strives to combat violence against animals and animal homelessness. Their workers take dogs and cats away from irresponsible owners and look after injured, abandoned animals. The foundation actively participates in events such as Warszawski Dzień Zwierząt (“Warsaw Animal Day”) and Bieg Chomika (“Hamster Charity Run”).

“The foundation’s volunteers encourage everyone to support their work in any way they can, depending on individual possibilities. Apart from obvious ways of providing support, such as donating money or creating a temporary shelter, the foundation is always eager to accept any help at all” – said our developer.

How you can help the animal shelter:

• Donating any spare cleaning products, such as mops, brushes, washing powders and cleaning agents.
• Help in publishing announcements on adoption websites.
• Taking photos of the animals. Photos help pets find new homes or virtual caretakers.
• Playing with the dogs at the shelter and taking them out on walks.

E-mails, forms, payment process steps… When making your website multilingual, make sure all the bits and pieces are translated. Use a checklist that we created, based on a recent project we completed partially pro bono as a Christmas gift for Sarcoma Association.

1) Text in graphical elements, photos and images.

Certain template elements can contain images with text in a given language. A solution to this problem is to add separate language versions of such images.

In the case of Onkobieg, however, we chose to adjust the website template (where possible and justified) to ensure that text content and images are separate.

2) Interactive prompts.

Not all text content is available immediately upon entering a website, such as the content of subpages available from the menu or blog articles. Remember to translate all interactive elements: form validation, error messages and notifications.

3) External service integration (e.g. payment processing, YouTube website).

If the service provider’s system allows it, it is worth relaying information regarding the language version chosen by the user.

To make this possible, a single variable had to be added to the PayU integration code – ‘language’. As a result, a sudden change of language after being redirected to the PayU website will not prevent the user from making their payment.

The home page of Oncorun website includes a YouTube video. We needed to make sure the language of the video player interface matched the current language version of the site. In order to do that, we added the “hl” parameter (namely, “?hl=en”) to the URL of the video shown on the English version.

4) Automated emails.

Remember to make sure that your users receive system messages in the same language in which they browsed your site. In order to do this, add information about the version used to the user’s session. Another possible solution is to save language preferences in user settings.

5) Number, currency, date and time formats.

Take into account differences in units of measurement and formats used in different countries. Establish how these elements will be displayed in the target language version of your website and be consistent. Examples?

• Date format: DD.MM.YYYY vs. MM/DD/YYYY
• Time format: 13:00 vs. 1:00 p.m.
• Distance units: 1.609 kilometers vs. 1 mile
• Currency: zł vs. PLN

6) Different text length.

The same words and sentences can take up more or less space compared to the source when translated into a different language. Adjust your website template so that the content is displayed correctly in all language versions: avoid clipping, text extending outside button borders, etc.

9) Language version switch.

The language button should be clearly visible – place it in an intuitive location such as the site header or main menu. Make sure that it remembers which language is chosen.

Having chosen the right approach to implement multiple languages on your website, you should expect some challenges before you get everything working. Get prepared for a few common issues.

Learn what solutions we developed to resolve those common problems while working on a recent project, completed partially pro bono as a Christmas gift for Sarcoma Association.

Functions shared by the entire system

Problem:

Certain system functions may be shared and not assigned to particular language versions.

In the case of the Onkobieg website, the login form was such a shared function – it was available in a modal window which redirected the user to the main page after logging in. This solution was sufficient for a single-language website, but a website translated into different languages requires more context – information on the language version used by the visitor.

Solution:

Website language version info was added to the user’s session.

Content hard-coded in the site template

Problem:

Certain elements (e.g. website footer) can be hard-coded (fixed) in the template code. Implementing different language versions necessitates the transfer of such content to the CMS or language files.

The complexity of the HTML code used by the Onkobieg website made it impossible to manage content via the CMS or a WYSIWYG editor. Such attempts could scramble the HTML code structure.

On the other hand, the website code contained links, for example. This is why it should not be copied to different language files.

Solution:

We rebuilt the problematic part. We rewrote the CSS rules, simplifying the HTML code so that it can be edited in the CMS.

Consent forms (e.g. GDPR)

Problem:

Some websites have advanced clause management systems.

For example, in order to participate in Onkobieg, you need to accept among others: the race terms and conditions, PayU terms of service and the privacy policy.

Giving consent in one language should be equivalent to accepting the content of the translation. We decided to add some safety measures to protect our client should two translations of the same consent form differ from each other – for example when an updated version of the English clause is already in force, but its Polish version has not yet been uploaded.

Solution:

At this time, the clauses on the Onkobieg website are not grouped together. This means that accepting a clause in one language is not equivalent to accepting its translation.

We have “one simple way” of dealing with the upcoming Blue Monday – supposedly the most depressing day of the year (though this has never been proven scientifically). We use this method once every month, and its results can be truly astonishing. How do we deal with the winter blues then? Through the monthly #SidnetDonations, of course. As part of this initiative, we donate funds to open-source and charity projects based on requests from our colleagues.

This time, the projects that we will be supporting were selected by Mariusz Różański. Despite being the youngest of our team members, he already has several years of experience in web development, as well as being a dad. Mariusz works remotely from Toruń, primarily on projects for our British clients: THG and UK2.

Webpack

Webpack is an open-source JavaScript tool. It allows the user to merge resources, styles, scripts and graphics to create a single, optimized output file. Webpack combines individual project modules (e.g. JavaScript, Sass, Less, HTML files, external libraries and others), while also taking order and dependencies into account.

Mariusz has been using this tool for several years, both for simple and complex web projects.

Which of Webpack’s features does he particularly like?

• Configurability. Webpack is known for its extensive configuration options. It makes it possible to easily adjust every single detail to perfectly suit the project’s needs.
• Website optimization. Webpack allows the user to split output files into smaller pieces. These so-called “chunks” may be set to load in certain circumstances but be skipped in others (e.g. in the mobile version).

“New frontend technologies are created virtually every day, with some being useless or borderline pointless. There is even a joke website counting the days since the creation of the last JavaScript framework, and so far I haven’t seen the counter go over 3 days. Among all these tools there are also those that actually increase productivity and become an inseparable element. For me, such a tool is Webpack,” Mariusz said.

TipTop Foundation

The organization helps children suffering due to disability, poverty or difficult life circumstances affecting their families.

“The TipTop Foundation is close to my heart because it helps children with reduced and increased muscle tone. The pain and discomfort that babies experience from the very first days of their lives make rehabilitation necessary and require strong perseverance on their parents’ part as well. This I know from personal experience,” our developer said.

The foundation supports parents through such activities as financing treatment, organizing rest and rehabilitation and assisting in collecting funds. It helps orphanages by carrying out renovation works thanks to donations, as well as providing the necessary equipment and helping the children directly.

“Some children are simply unable to develop properly without external assistance. It’s a wonderful thing that TipTop Foundation volunteers to look after them. If detected early, all ailments related to muscle tension can be cured completely. Therefore, nothing should prevent children affected by this condition from receiving the help they need to grow into strong, thoughtful people who will go on to build a better future for all of us,” Mariusz added.

Planning to add more language versions to your website? This is a step-by-step guide on how to do that. A real project we completed partially pro bono as a Christmas gift for a charity organization will serve as an example.

It’s Christmas season and time to play Santa… oh wait, we do that every month. After all, we give gifts to charities and open source developers every month. This time, it was Łukasz Nowicki, our remote Senior WordPress & PHP Developer who selected the most ‘well-behaved’ foundations. Łukasz is living in the Masurian Lake District, where he is working on a project for our UK-based client, THG and UK2 (a THG company).

Which organizations will receive Christmas donations from Sidnet this year?

WordPress Foundation

The WordPress Foundation has been striving to ensure that access to online publishing tools remains free and democratic since 2010. And since it was founded by Matt Mullenweg, the creator of WordPress, it fully reflects the philosophy behind the WordPress platform itself.

It promotes projects and software which:

• are covered by the GNU Public License,
• are available free of charge – for everyone and for any purpose,
• can be modified and re-shared at will,
• enable users to translate their content into other languages,
• can make use of plugins to extend their functionality without the need to modify the core software.

“I discovered WordPress in 2005 when I was looking for something which would allow me to set up a blog in an easy way, as such things were not as obvious back then. I tested several different solutions. I knew about the existence of b2/cafelog, as well as its evolution, i.e. b2evolution. But then I learned that another branch of this evolution existed as well. And that branch was, of course, WordPress”, Łukasz recalls.

As of today, WordPress is much more than just a blogging platform. It is a lifestyle. There are 140 WordCamps and 700 different groups organizing regular WordPress-themed meetings around the world. In addition, the website itself offers over 200 language versions, as well as 54,000 free plugins and 3,000 page templates. The entire WordPress platform consists of 350,000 lines of code, a number that amounts to 91 years of development work.

WordPress has not only been Łukasz’s basic work tool, but also a genuine passion, for years. He even provides his own plugins to other users: “My plugins available in the WordPress catalog are utilized by thousands of active websites in various parts of the world. I know that someone somewhere finds my work useful, even though I have no idea who they are or where they live. It truly is an amazing feeling”, our developer added.

Unaweza

The Unaweza Foundation was established by Martyna Wojciechowska, who is known for her TV program called ‘Woman at the End of the World’. The goal of the Foundation is to equalize the social, legal and economic opportunities of women and children from various parts of the world.

The foundation is currently collecting funds to help:

• albino children from Tanzania who are being hunted and mutilated,
• children forced to dig through refuse in Mexico due to a lack of better life options,
• women and young girls who are victims of human trafficking in Romania.

“Tanzania and Mexico may seem quite distant, but Romania certainly is not. Nonetheless, it is Romania that tops the European statistics in regard to the number of children sold into slavery and forced to become sex workers. Unaweza works closely with the Reaching Out Romania organization, which saves women and children from such a cruel fate”, Łukasz said.

The foundation will soon expand its activities to other countries as well, including El Salvador, the Philippines, Bolivia, and Lebanon. Its name comes from the Swahili word ‘unaweza’, which means ‘you can’.

“A long time ago, I had the pleasure to meet Martyna Wojciechowska at the Orlen Trophy 4×4 rally. I support the Unaweza Foundation privately as I find Martyna trustworthy. I am thus very happy that Sidnet will also donate to her cause, according to my wish”, our developer said.

She brings a human touch to our team of engineers, translating from technologese into the language of users. Olga is responsible for marketing communication at Sidnet, combining analytical thinking with creativity. The open source and non-profit projects she selected exemplify this.

Discover the human side of technology – projects which our marketing expert considers worth supporting.

Creative Commons Polska

The Polish branch of Creative Commons (CC) – a non-profit organisation which helps adapt copyright laws to the realities of the Internet and promotes open access to culture and research. Creative Commons has been a provider of licences and legal tools for authors of photographs, recordings, books and websites since 2001, giving creators control over how they want to share their work online, and empowering users of shared materials.

4 basic types of CC licences:

Attribution, CC-BY. You can copy, alter, publish and distribute the material under the condition that you indicate the author of the original and the original licence.

ShareAlike, CC-SA. You can copy, alter, publish and distribute the material under the condition that you share it under the same licence as the original.

NonCommercial, CC-NC. You may copy, alter, publish and distribute the material, but you cannot profit from doing so.

NoDerivatives, CC-ND. You can copy, present and distribute the material only in its original form. You cannot adapt, build upon or remix the material.

These symbols can be found in various combinations on sites such as Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, Medium and Behance.

“I learned about Creative Commons thanks to CC0, a tool which enabled me to use photos and graphics without listing their authors. This was very useful back when I was at university, where I was responsible for promoting our student organization – I wanted to do it for free, but at the same time as professionally as possible. I want to support the Polish branch of CC, which, together with Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska, helps cultural institutions, teachers and others share and use open-access resources”, says Olga.

Icons: Creative Commons, CC BY 4.0

hospiCare

hospiCare is a mobile app project facilitating the work of those involved in caring for domestic children’s hospice patients.

“I did not know what domestic hospices were until I met Eliza and Paula – the creators of hospiCare. I wasn’t aware that a terminally ill child could stay at home at all times and still receive care from a hospice. Or that, in practice, it involves visits by a dozen doctors every day, hundreds of phone calls and messages, large amounts of medicines and scattered medical records which grow in size every day”, says Olga.

The hospiCare app can facilitate the work of medical teams and help carers in their everyday tasks. Its features will include online access for authorised users to the complete medical records of a given patient, medicine dosage reminders and tools making remote medical consultations easier. The app will be available for free to all children’s domestic hospices in Poland.

“I admire the project, and its creators even more. The girls draw on their own experiences looking after terminally ill family members, but are far from wallowing in suffering. They have concrete ideas on how to finance hospiCare. They want to involve other parents of ill children who cannot find work despite their education and skills”, Olga adds.

The hospiCare team needs more funds to develop and maintain the app. To support the project, you can donate to Fundacja Zostaw Swój Ślad via bank transfer with the title “hospiCare”.

Last Saturday I attended a conference organized by our friends of JUG Łódź. In between supporting the organization of the event, I had a chance to watch the presentations covering the topics of MVVM and CI/CD in the domain of mobile app development. I would like to share my impressions and thoughts.

“Building a CI/CD pipeline for your mobile app”

As we use CI/CD processes at Sidnet I wanted to check how others approach this practice to make sure that we aren’t missing anything important.

Peter-John Welcome, a guest from Johannesburg, has showcased the whole process in a very clear manner and it was mostly consistent with my experience. The Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (/Delivery) practices are nothing more than the automation of manual processes that occur during the Software Developer’s daily work, and the improvement of its various aspects.

The speaker recalled the fact that the processes in the IT domain do not necessarily follow strict rules. For example, Peter-John Welcome mentioned the topic of using code-verifying bots to check for coding standards or formatting. He said that if no heated discussions at the stage of Code Review emerged, the automatic check could be skipped.

The idea is harmless but, in my opinion, it is also far from optimal. Speaking from my experience I can say that standardization eliminates senseless disputes. It becomes quite clear for everyone involved in the project, as to what formatting shall be used. The bot’s task is simpler as well. It is to make sure whether the given code matches the defined standards. Automation of this step is a time-saver for the whole team, so I wouldn’t recommend getting rid of it from the processes.

“MVVM as good (anti)pattern in iOS”

The developer world has been recently buzzing with regards to the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) pattern. Is it a righteous step to utilize it in iOS apps? Mateusz Szklarek considers this to be an error. Szklarek bases his beliefs on experience. His conclusions come, for instance, from a project concerning a mobile app involving 250 thousand lines of source code.

As noted by Szklarek, MVVM eliminates the Massive View Controllers file problem, quite frequently emerging when MVC (Model-View-Controller) pattern is employed. In case of MVVM another problem is quite prevalent – namely, the Massive View Models.

MVVM is far from perfect. However, no perfect solution exists, to be honest. Whether the given idea or tool would work depends very much on the way in which it is utilized by  devs themselves. Szklarek said that following the crowd and using the MVVM methodology the way everyone uses it, is not really a valid strategy.

Solution? Common-sense, as usual. Any patterns or tools are there for you – just make sure you are using them in a manner that is rational. The solutions should be tailored to a problem, not the other way round. I would like to emphasize the fact, as the speaker I am referring to did, how important programming principles are. Following them makes it possible to tailor the given pattern and thus, to overcome the issues emerging in each and every model.

Although I was not able to participate in all presentations, I am glad that I could help the organizer.

“Krzysztof, respect for being ready to work hand in hand during the conference. Thanks for your mobilization!”

Marek Defeciński
Mobilization Organiser