Jeff Lau's website

Reflections on 2021 2021 was one of the best years of my life for my career. It really allowed me to grow as a developer as I spent most of…

A skill I have recently been developing is writing long twitter threads. The reason why I started writing twitter threads was just as an…

As I write this in my flat in Taipei on the day of my 30th birthday, I thought I’d have a think about all thes things I’ve learnt over the…

2019 started off in Thailand. Myself and my girlfriend went to Thailand with some friends. I went to India for the first time and did…

I got tired of looking up shortcuts dozens of times before I learn them, so I’m creating this post for myself to learn the shortcuts and…

I’ve been working remotely for almost 6 years now and I have been an avid cafe goer for most of that time. There was an excitement to going…

I started working on ENS in June 2017. It was just a small project I managed to pick up off of Ethlance. Through a little bit of friendly…

This year was the first year I spent half the time in the west and half the time in the East. From January til June i was in Asia, and July…

ENS is a decentralised naming system. I like to compare it to a global decentralised phone book where most of the time you want to associate…

I met Makoto online over 2 years ago and we spent a few months learning Ethereum together. During that time Makoto wanted to build something…

If you want to unit test your components that contain the or render prop components from , it’s a little difficult as they would have to…

I’ve mainly avoided testing my React components, because quite frankly, it seemed complicated. Instead I’ve chosen to test mostly things…

Progress on current goals So it’s been about 3 months since the new year and I’ve been working towards my 5 major goals this year. Here’s a…

Over the last 3 months or so I’ve been playing with GraphQL, a lot. I’ve built a fully functioning Q&A app, with users, comments, bookmarks…

I’ve been interested in animation for as long as I remember and ever since I started designing and building for the web I’ve been interested…

I’ve been recently introduced to the world of GraphQL and I’m loving it. The thing I like most about it is that it is a self documenting. So…

Spent the last two days catching up on some open source work. I have one project to be exact (that anyone actually uses) and I made it in…

Its common place these days to write your react components pure components with them only taking props and having container components that…

I’ve been using Meteor for years, and even though it is showing its age in some respects, it is still the quickest and easiest way to get a…

Resolve Functions - little routers Could be from any database on another API. This hides backend complexity graphql handles multiple queries…

The first thing you need to understand for creating a GraphQL API is your schema. Your schema defines the interface to your data, so you…

The Concept implemented My last blog post was about the idea that GraphQL could be used more in the front-end. Since then I’ve made a proof…

As someone that teaches beginners Javascript day-in-day-out I’ve found that it’s confusing what are ‘nice to knows’ vs what are essential…

I’ve been exploring GraphQL for the last few weeks first through building my blog using Gatsby and now through Apollo. Both great frameworks…

Over the last 3 years I have spent most weeks teaching people 1-on-1 on Skype. Although it’s not always been my main source of income, it’s…

I spent a few days last week rebuilding my blog with Gatsby. My last blog was built on Ghost, but the upgrade process was such a pain that I…

This is the last week I will be teaching at bloc.io. It’s been over 3 years since I’ve been at Bloc and it feels like the end of an era. I…

Here are my 5 new years resolutions for 2018. Become a better computer scientist Get more work in the blockchain space Build an open source…

##Short intro to 0x I’ve been playing around with the 0x smart contracts recently as a means to getting better at Solidity. I decided to…

The winning teams and organisers of EthWaterloo The EthWaterloo hackathon was held in Waterloo, Canada from 13-15 October 2017. 400 people…

Buying Ether in the UK is a little difficult. There are a few exchanges that do let you deposit GBP, but because they aren’t based in the UK…

In an effect to get myself back into blogging again, I’m going to do a short post on my goals for 2017. Climb a V10 route on the moonboard…

Whether you’re trying to grow mentally or physically, we usually attribute growth and progress to hard work. Hard work is always the start…

I’m used to using something like Heroku or Digital Ocean to deploy my applications, but I’ve been recently working on mostly client-side…

As someone that teaches Javascript day-in-day-out, I know this is one of the most confusing parts of programming. Most of my students don’t…

Lately I’ve been stretching. A lot. I climbing regularly and my body has taken the toll. My wrists hurt and I can’t lie on my side when I…

Immutablejs is a library by facebook to give your immutable data structures. I’m aiming to only cover the very basics to get you started in…

This follows on from my previous post What I’ve learnt from 2 weeks of React Native. These posts will read like personal notes from what I…

###CSS Layout is not the same You have access to the same flexbox features to do flexible layouts, but all other measurements have to be…

##Write once, run everywhere doesn’t work I’ve been an advocate of Javascript Applications for native for a long time. Writing an app once…

About two years ago I heard about Meteor. As a front-end developer it taught me a lot about how to be a full-stack developer, but from a…

Functional programming has always interested me, but I’ve only picked up a few things that I use in my everyday development practice. One of…

If you’ve been reading my blog, you will know that I’ve been super interested in Ethereum recently. And that passion has turned into working…

Last week I had dinner with my friend. We had a great chat, went to have coffee after and I go home thinking all is well. I get back to my…

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. I recently had a speaking engagement cancelled. It was one of…

Why do we listen to the radio in the car? Because the act of driving requires hand eye coordination, but not our hearing. The act of driving…

==*Note: This post is going to be long and it’s going to be comprehensive. Last updated 2nd May 2016 *== Front-end development is hard. And…

I’ve decided to learn Vim and this is why: ##RSI I’ve realised that I’m getting RSI from using the mouse too much and it hurts quite a lot…

Consistency is key. As an avid learner, I’ve realised that consistency of said activity is more important than the intensity. Obviously, if…

A good friend of mine is a Lisp convert, he codes mainly in Clojurescript, a flavour of Clojure that compiles into Javascript, allowing you…

Many people, such as myself, are learning about Ethereum now without any background knowledge on blockchain technology. We know what Bitcoin…

If you’ve used bitcoin wallets and backed them up yourself, they work in the same way, so if you’re coming from that background, you…

As someone that is learning Ethereum, the ecosystem and how to make dapps, I’ve decided to share the resources I’ve found to ease you into…

Ethereum is a decentralised, distributed platform that allows you to run ‘smart contracts’ on its network. In essence it is a decentralised…

Photo credit: Long Dong cliffs taken by my friend Mandy. Although metaphorically I like the ring that has, I mean that very literally. I’ve…

13th September 2013. The day I left the UK. 370 days I haven’t been back to my home town of London. It’s been an incredible journey so far…

It’s hard to invent anything new these days. Everything we do seems to have an app that does it for us. At the same time though most of…

I’m back in Singapore from Taiwan, and I’ve got some pretty big news. I’m starting a company in Singapore. I originally decided I was going…

Life is a long journey we all must take and from a young age we are taught to be prepared for the big wide wild. Most parents, schools and…

Independent coffee shops are becoming more and more popular for those that work remotely or those in the creative industry. They’re…

Recently, I’ve been giving my brother advice on learning Chinese. Both of us as kids never learnt Chinese, so we’ve both struggled to learn…

I’ll be returning to Taiwan on Tuesday from a 3 week period travelling Malaysia and Singapore. I saw relatives who I haven’t seen in years…

I’ve been travelling around Malaysia for around 2 weeks with my Taiwanese girlfriend. During this time I’ve been seeing family I haven’t…

When I say get into language learning. I don’t mean just start learning the language, I also I mean get into the language learning scene and…

It’s been almost 5 months now since I’ve left London. I’ve been to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and most recently Taiwan. I’ve…

Note: The photo for this post is my Taiwanese family (not by blood) that I’ve lived with for the last 3 months. It’s meeting people like…

I’ve been teaching recently in a couple of different ways. The first one has been ‘how to learn a language’, which I’ve been teaching…

I’ve been learning Mandarin quite intensely for the past year or so and I’d like to share with you a quick guide to learning a new language…

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.” Mark Twain Note: Image above is the park gym that is near my house where I do…

2013 self reflection and goals for 2014 Last years posts can be found here It’s been a fantastic year. For 9 months out of these 12 months I…

Note to reader: No teddy bears were harmed in the making of this post. And he has nothing to do with this post, he’s just cute that’s all…

This is the bane of all language learners, that I am now experiencing in Chinese. Being stuck in the phase of being an intermediate learner…

The best way to learn anything is by creating a habit and sticking to it. But this can have its downsides when you start to experience…

Note: This applies mostly to intermediate language learners and above. As a beginner I believe your passive vocabulary should be your active…

I’ve always wondered why travelling is so much fun. Is it the new country? Is it that the people are better in another country? Is it…

I’ve been staying at my host family’s house for a day now and I just a super long conversation with them about the religion they practise…

I just spent part of my day earlier this week helping my friend with his application for his dream to be a pilot. He’s spent the last few…

For a few weeks now I’ve been getting involved with a Facebook group about motivating yourself to build a habit. It involves a goal and a…

First of all. Yes that is a ceiling fan hanging by a hanger on a light bulb. That’s a mistake waiting to happen, and no that’s not what I’m…

It’s been over a month since I’ve started my travels around Asia and I’m currently in Hong Kong. I’ve had a lot of fun so far and learnt a…

Why travelling is a good thing. Travelling on your own is completely different from going on holiday. If you backpack or travel for an…

After about two years of my old site being up, I woke up a couple days ago and thought “I’m sick of this - what was I thinking?”, so I’ve…

About a month ago I did a talk at my work about learning Mandarin and learning languages in general. I try to make it as general as possible…

Tech, Design & Development .NET (print periodical and web magazine) http://www.netmagazine.com/ .NET I’ve been reading since before I could…

I’ve recently changed my Mandarin learning from massive output (speaking/writing) to massive input (listening/reading). My technique for…

After reading this blog post by a guy also trying to learning Chinese. http://mychinesenotebook.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/how-to-say-hello-in…

2012 in review 2012 was a good year for me in terms of my career. I landed my first agency job with Mr Gareth Thompson at Codepotato. And…

Learning programming and learning languages are very similar in many ways. If I phrase it as ‘learning how to code and learning how to…

It’s been almost 2 months since I decided to take learning Chinese seriously. I’ve spent atleast an hour a day learning Chinese, and most…

New words are sometimes difficult to learn without context and sometimes even with context they are hard to remember when they are on their…

This review is long overdue as I bought this app almost a year ago after one of my failed Mandarin learning sprints. Mindsnacks is a company…

So I’m about a month into dedicating time everyday to learning Chinese, and I came across this article by Niel from confusedlaowai.com about…

This week I’ve been keeping up my Chinese. I even had a short lesson during my lunch break at work so my progress is steady. I think I’ve…

I’ve been trying to learn Chinese for 7 years. I’m 22 years old right now and I started when I was 15. I’m Chinese by blood and I was born…

So i’ve been learning Chinese on and off for about 7 years - more on the off than the on. I started Chinese school when I was 15 and did it…

I’ve been trying to build and launch my personal website for over 6 months now, and most people experience - building your personal site…