🪅 Heap Heap Hurray Ed. #84

Sending you joyful vibes this beautiful Friday morning!

It was a slow news day - and this reflects in today’s newsletter.

#CrashingParty - A newly discovered odd character bug can cause your iPhones and iPads to briefly crash. This bug is triggered by typing just four characters on your iOS device. According to iOS security researchers, this is not a security issue and there’s “no evidence yet to suggest anyone other than an iOS device owner manually typing the characters could trigger this bug”

#ThrowbackToMyspace - Instagram is taking a leaf out of MySpace’s book. It is slowly rolling out a feature that offers users to add songs to their profile - so when somebody visits your profile in Instagram, the song will start playing. MySpace, a social network that was popular before Facebook had a similar feature.

#EUExclusive - Apple announces changes to default apps in iOS 18. Users will be able to change defaults for more app categories. Apple says the changes are only for customers in the European Union.

Indian Government's ONDC Expands into Financial Services
Since its launch in 2022, India's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has grown rapidly, enabling 12 million monthly transactions. Now, it's expanding into financial services, introducing APIs for digital lending, allowing unsecured loans to salaried and self-employed individuals in just six minutes.

Windows Control Panel to be deprecated in favor of Settings app
Microsoft has announced the planned deprecation of the Control Panel, a feature that has been around since Windows 1.0 in 1985. Although it's still available for compatibility reasons, Microsoft encourages users to switch to the more modern and streamlined Settings app.

Midjourney's AI Image Generation Website Now Open to Everyone
Midjourney is a company that specializes in AI image generation, and today they announced that their dedicated website is now open to everyone for free. You can create and refine AI-based images, and it's a lot easier than the previous process that required using Discord. You can sign up with Google or Discord, and even merge your accounts to switch between them. The website has different sections for exploring other people's images, creating your own, and editing them. You can even add new elements to an image.

Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch's Yacht Tragedy
Bodies of former Autonomy CEO Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter Hannah have reportedly been recovered from the wreck of the yacht Bayesian. The capsized ship presently rests 49 metres below the surface, about half a mile from the coast. Lynch was among seven people who went missing around 5am on Monday after a storm swamped his vessel. Mike Lynch was touted as the UK’s version of Bill Gates.

Dasel | Select, put and delete data from JSON, TOML, YAML, XML and CSV files with a single tool. Supports conversion between formats and can be used as a Go package.

React Awesome Reveal | React components to add reveal animations using the Intersection Observer API and CSS Animations.

Working with Tailwind CSS Best Practices for a Smooth Development Process
This article provides best practices for using Tailwind CSS to avoid headaches and maintain a smooth development process. Developers will learn how to implement design tokens and a component-based approach to ensure uniformity and scalability in their projects. By following these tips, youwill be able to prevent code confusion, make maintenance easier, and work more efficiently with Tailwind CSS.

React Full-Stack Evolution
React, with its addition of Server Components and Server Actions, is evolving into a full-stack framework. Once the most popular frontend framework, it has now successfully bridged the gap between frontend and backend to reign over both sides of the chasm.

Debugging as an Interview Test
Here's a unique interview style that reflects everyday software development, is fun, and allows candidates to self-assess their progress. The "bug squash" interview involves fixing a reproducible bug in a foreign codebase, showcasing skills like debugging, problem-solving, and tool proficiency.