On the 4th of September 2021, Kamen Rider Fourze is 10 years old. While this series aired, I was also in the middle of my first real job as a web developer. This reminds me of how I typed in a Notepad++, listened to Winamp, and of course my HP V3000 with a fan that sounds like a MotoGP race.
Kamen Rider Fourze
The image above was the avatar/dummy image I always used as a test upload image. He is Kisaragi Gentaro a high school student who becomes Kamen Fourze, a rocket-themed Kamen Rider. You can see it from its head. It looks like a rocket.
Kisaragi itself dressed like a delinquent high schooler, similar to boys in Suzuran high school. Mini gakuran, baggy pants, and weird shiny hair. I bought a gakuran like him at that time. And don't forget that Chuck Taylor Flame. When I am in high school, the price for the shoes was IDR 199.000 (CMIIW), right now it's above 1 million.
The series is good, and I watched it until the end.
Web Dev
I joined this company, initialized with WWX, because I passed the coding test. The coding test was to build CRUD using PHP + HTML +MySQL. At that time this company was anti-CMS and anti-framework, so we built our own CMS. I just checked the website, it's using WordPress now. Yes, anyone can change.
I am quite happy with my job. It's a part-time job, 4 hours a day, Monday – Saturday. Yes, I still working on Saturday. The salary was big enough for a first-timer like me at that time. I work part-time because I also managed a game center. Guess what the name of my game center is? It's Henshin 🤣.
The logo is a silhouette of Kotaro Minami’s henshin pose. "Henshin" and he becomes Kamen Rider Black.
The project that I can remember and still can access is Invest Bali. Why I can remember this but not the others? Because I saved the proposal. The boss accidentally cc-ed me, so yeah. That proposal is still my reference if I am going to create one. And that proposal also opened my eyes that a website can be that expensive. If you checked the URL of the website it's so ugly. Because it still uses variables in the URL. Bye-bye SEO. The login to the admin page is kinda inspired by WordPress 😅.
And this is the era where the table tag is still in the layout system. Pain in the ass to fix things in that layout.
Talking about WordPress, at the same time my other fellow web devs, Junes, om Saylow, Prima already using WordPress and Drupal. I remember they work for Water and Stone. This company was quite famous and the salary is quite big. I knew because once I saw the vacancy ad.
Once, I asked the senior dev why we are not using WordPress or any other CMS. He said he was afraid that something we need is not available in WordPress (plugin). I told Junes and om Saylow about that and their answer changes my mindset a bit.
“Why not build your own (plugin)?” “Why reinvent the wheels?”.
(It's funny how I remember this conversation)
Of course, at that time I don't quite understand how and I only knew WordPress is just a CMS to build a blog. I have no idea how. I still don't get the big picture. My knowledge is far from custom post type and *custom field *which is the key to everything. I feel left out but the show must go on.
My editor at that time was Notepad++ andCodeLosbter. I am already happy with the colorized editor at that time, no fancy stuff like sliding terminal, prettier, like nowadays. Just pure editor. And my fellow web devs mentioned above were using Coda. You can see a lot of gaps there 😅.
I listen to a lot of music while working back then using Winamp. I listen to it using Sennheiser MX-something. The memories will come when I listen to Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now, Coldplay – Paradise, Eminem – Space Bound, AC/DC – Highway to Hell, Selena Gomez – Love You Like a Love Song, Nosstress, Dialog Dini Hari, etc. And it perfectly represents what I felt at that time.
When I am in the mood and all of the tasks are easy (Queen).
I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva I'm gonna go, go, go There's no stopping me
When the task looks like it's impossible to solve (Nosstress).
Semua cerita dalam setiap hidup takkan selamanya indah Takkan selamanya buruk Coba selalu hadapi
When personal feelings get involved (Eminem).
I'm a space bound rocket ship and your heart's the moon And I'm aimin' right at you, right at you 250,000 miles on a clear night in June And I'm so lost without you, without you, without you
Now, I am still doing these web dev things and I (still) love it!