Since this was a 101 workshop our goal was to introduce students to the API world and postman. As the participants, we thought it would be better to first include the students of the Higher National Diploma in Software Engineering program.
Within a week of announcing the workshop, there were more than 60 students registered and we were to a great start.

Let's take a peek at the highlights of this thrilling event.

Unveiling the API World:

The workshop kicked off with a dive into the fundamentals of APIs, breaking down complex concepts with real-world and digital examples. It was about demystifying the language of APIs and understanding their significance in the tech ecosystem.

Industry Insights:

Exploring examples of companies harnessing the power of APIs added a layer of real-world relevance. Witnessing how giants in the industry leverage APIs for seamless integration and innovation brought the theoretical concepts to life.

Postman Essentials:

Next on the agenda was getting hands-on with Postman. What is it? How can it revolutionize your API game? These questions found answers as participants delved into the essentials of this powerful API development tool.

Request and Response Dynamics:

Understanding the basics of API communication—request and response mechanisms—was like deciphering the language of the digital world. The intricacies of how systems talk to each other became clearer, paving the way for practical applications.

Hands-On Training:

The core of the workshop was the hands-on training with Postman. Participants had the chance to apply their newfound knowledge, turning theory into practice. It was all about coding, testing, and understanding the dynamics of API development.

Future Steps – Student Expert Certification:

For those aiming to take their API journey to the next level, the roadmap to becoming a Postman Student Expert was discussed.

Swags Galore:

What's an event without some swag? Challenges peppered throughout the workshop provided participants with the chance to win exclusive Postman Student Program merchandise. A little fun competition never hurt, right?

We hosted two challenges,

1. Social Media Challenge.

   Share what you have learned during the workshop using #PostmanStudent on X (formerly Twitter) or on LinkedIn.

2. Blog Writing Challenge.

   Write a detailed blog post explaining the CRUD operations you performed during the workshop with screengrabs and your learning.

There were many submissions and it was a really hard job to select the winners.

Q&A Session:

No workshop is complete without addressing the questions bubbling in the minds of participants. The Q&A session offered a platform for clarifications, insights, and a chance to deepen the understanding of APIs.

Conclusion:

The API 101 Workshop held at the NIBM Galle Centre was more than just a series of sessions—it was a dynamic expedition into the intricate world of APIs, guided by the lens of a Postman Student Expert. As the event unfolded, it became evident that the thirst for knowledge and curiosity among the participants mirrored the boundless potential that APIs hold in shaping the future of technology.

In retrospect, hosting the API 101 Workshop was a gratifying experience as a Postman Student Expert. Witnessing the fusion of enthusiasm, curiosity, and practical learning among fellow tech enthusiasts affirmed the transformative power of knowledge-sharing events. The API landscape continues to evolve, and as we part ways, the echoes of exploration and discovery linger—a testament to the limitless potential that APIs offer in shaping the future of technology. Here's to more workshops, more insights, and more journeys into the expansive world of APIs! 🚀💻🌐

If you love someone, there should be a fire in that love. Not something mediocre but something so intense so fierce that it will burn everything down, burn everyone down. Only thing that should withstand that flame is the person you love. If your love is not burning as fire, then there is no reason to be in that relationship.

I too want to love and want to love so extremely that it will burn the world down. The only problem with this is sometimes it will burn yourself or the person you love. If the person you love is not in that extreme position where he or she can handle the fire, it’ll come back and burn you to the core.

My mistake in loving is, it’s just too extreme, too intense. I want to know what is going on, I want to care as much as I can; I want to see my loved one healthy, fine, and happy. I do give that person pre-approval of everything; I do hold her above and higher from everyone, from everything. Everything and everyone will come second to her. Every time she requests something, she wants something, she needs something will be before the world. Friends will have to take a backseat. If I get time I would want to spend it with the person I love. But these fires that I’m talking about, the more intensely you do it, and the more you love in return you would want the same love. You would want the same fire. If love becomes that extreme you will be involved in that other person’s life too much.

Space! Such a simple word. But in this word the entire universe is situated. When you are involved with such fire, such passion, such love you will suffocate the person you love and the person you love will want space. It means stay back, relax, let me be me, I don’t want that attention, I don’t want that much involvement from you. Why can’t you treat me like someone else?

My mistake is I want to be pre-approved. I want to stay in a higher ground than others. I want to be treated more than a friend. I should be more than a friend. I want a burning flame all around me. I want to burn with the intensity of love. I don’t want to treat someone else and the person I love in the same way. I don’t want to be treated equally. I don’t want to be ignored. Not even for a fraction of a second. But these are my mistakes. These are too much to ask. One should never ask for such things, one should never get so involved that the other person is suffocated with all the smoke from the fire. One should just stay back and relax.

My world doesn’t work like that. In my world love has a different meaning and as someone told me ‘sometimes it takes more than love to be with someone’. I kept asking for more than love. I kept asking for the fire to burn me.

As the hole becomes apart I strike to burn but the flame returns.

It hurts. Burning in your own flame, it hurts. All the ignorance you faced in love and in life, all the disappointment, the painful feeling when your loved one tell you ‘you suffocate me’, the hurt you get for loving someone more than love and yet you are asked to take a step back. Its too much to take.

You know why I love joker? Because he is mad. He is the only person who can have fun even when someone is striking him down even when he is hurt. He is mad. Madness is the emergency exit. You can step outside and, close all the door on all those dreadful things that happened. You can lock them away forever.

Initially, the site used PHP as its backend language & I hosted the site on Infinityfree cuz at the time it was the only hosting provider I could find that was free to host a PHP site. But with Infinityfree, one of the biggest problems I faced was they didn’t support PHP’s native mail functionality. So, either I had to drop the contact form or find an alternative way. After a lot of googling, I found a way to send emails with custom SMTP servers. Since I didn’t want to pay for an SMTP service I managed to set up emails using google’s SMTP server with my personal Gmail.

Even though it worked ok, the website’s speed was so slow. After several months, I found out about Cloudflare pages, and I wanted to migrate my site to them. But the problem was they only support static sites, so that means I couldn’t use PHP. So, I was able to redesign the site to use only client-side languages except for the contact form. However, by now I had some knowledge about Js and the rest APIs, So I did a little bit of research and found the Mailgun email service. They gave me the ability to send emails with their rest API but there was only a 3-month trial other wise I had to pay a monthly subscription. However, I signed up for the trial and set up my email API endpoints on Cloudflare workers.

With that on 2022.04.24, I deployed my site with Cloudflare pages and workers & website speed improved a lot.
But still, I wanted a permanent solution for the email problem. And that’s when I found out about SendGrid. They offered a trial for email solutions with 100 emails per day and that was more than enough for me. However, I had to contact them privately and explain how I’m going to use their service, to get my free plan activated because they were concerned about using their resources for spam emails.

On 2022.06.17, I decided to “GoFullStack” & add an API to it. It wasn’t necessary, but I wanted to add a backend to my site. So, with the help of Deta, I added a NodeJS back-end and created an API to fetch the certificate details.

Fast forward to the present, now it is a fully functional full-stack website with, a 100% SEO score and milliseconds of response time.
I can send and receive unlimited emails and have unlimited email addresses under my domain with 0$ cost.

Also, there is a status site that shows the uptime status of my websites (status.supunsathsara.com) with a built-in real-time notification system, which means if the site goes down there are telegram bots, and discord bots to notify me and also there is a Twitter bot that gonna send out a tweet about the incident. (Currently, I’m working on a WhatsApp notification system & will deploy it soon)

Finally what I’m most proud of is the fact that all these things only cost me like $10 per year. Also, that is only for the domain and otherwise, all the operations are free. Nevertheless, I believe I can proudly say it is better than most of the sites out there that cost a fortune to maintain.
So here’s to another year 🍻

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