All the code from this tutorial here: https://github.com/riccardogiorato/cypress-for-everything/tree/main/examples/stripe

Introduction

Stripe Checkout is a prebuilt, hosted payment page optimized for conversion. It connects automatically to your Stripe Account being able to create complete eCommerce products without having to code or maintain a checkout.

Like every other part of your app you can also test Stripe Checkout with Cypress!

For this tutorial we will use the staging demo environments created directly by using Stripe APIs that we found out by playing with the official demo page:

• checkout stripe devi api demo-session

Inserting Credit Card Info and Billing

describe("Stripe Checkout", () => {
  it("Stripe Checkout test mode works!", () => {
    cy.request(
      "https://checkout.stripe.dev/api/demo-session?country=us&billingPeriod=monthly&hasBgColor=false&hasBillingAndShipping=false&hasCoupons=false&hasFreeTrial=false&hasShippingRate=false&hasTaxes=false&mode=payment&wallet=googlePay&hasPolicies=false&billingType=flat"
    ).then((response) => {
      expect(response.status).to.eq(200)
      expect(response.body).to.have.property("url")
      cy.visit(response.body.url)
      cy.url().should("contains", "https://checkout.stripe.com/pay/")

      cy.get("#email").type("SatoshiNakamoto@email.com")
      cy.get("#cardNumber").type("4242424242424242")
      cy.get("#cardCvc").type("123")
      cy.get("#cardExpiry").type(
        "12" + (new Date().getFullYear() + 10).toString().substr(-2)
      )
      cy.get("#billingName").type("Satoshi Nakamoto")
      cy.get("#billingPostalCode").type("94043")

      cy.wait(1000)
      cy.get(".SubmitButton").should(($div) => {
        expect($div.text()).to.include("Pay")
      })
      cy.get(".SubmitButton").click()
      cy.get(".SubmitButton").should(($div) => {
        expect($div.text()).to.include("Processing")
      })
    })
  })
})

In the first 3 lines from 3 to 5 we fetch a new demo URL from the stripe API that we will use just for this demo, in a real environment you will just use cy.visit to load your checkout page after the previous user steps.

cy.request(
  "https://checkout.stripe.dev/api/demo-session?country=us&billingPeriod=monthly&hasBgColor=false&hasBillingAndShipping=false&hasCoupons=false&hasFreeTrial=false&hasShippingRate=false&hasTaxes=false&mode=payment&wallet=googlePay&hasPolicies=false&billingType=flat"
).then((response) => {
  expect(response.status).to.eq(200)
  expect(response.body).to.have.property("url")
  cy.visit(response.body.url)
  cy.url().should("contains", "https://checkout.stripe.com/pay/")
})

The beauty of testing Stripe Checkout is that you don’t need to learn to use iFrames or other plugins like you would have to do with Stripe Elements. (Stripe Elements use iFrame inserted in your page making the testing a bit harder)

cy.get("#email").type("SatoshiNakamoto@email.com")
cy.get("#cardNumber").type("4242424242424242")
cy.get("#cardCvc").type("123")
cy.get("#cardExpiry").type(
  "12" + (new Date().getFullYear() + 10).toString().substr(-2)
)
cy.get("#billingName").type("Satoshi Nakamoto")
cy.get("#billingPostalCode").type("94043")

In this case we will simply be able to run the lines from 11 to 18 inserting the different fields like “email” or “cardNumber”, etc.

As the final step we wait 1 seconds or 1000 milliseconds before continuing the steps, we do this to let Stripe Api process the input cause Cypress tends to execute the previous steps too fast compared to a human and in many occasions Stripe could be still loading or validating the fields. And then we conclude the Checkout process by clicking the “SubmitButton”!

cy.wait(1000)
cy.get(".SubmitButton").should(($div) => {
  expect($div.text()).to.include("Pay")
})
cy.get(".SubmitButton").click()
cy.get(".SubmitButton").should(($div) => {
  expect($div.text()).to.include("Processing")
})

Conclusion

There is no right or wrong way to build an E2E test. The only thing you should care about is building a proper test that will automate your manual actions.

Less time to do a manual test and more time to have fun building other things!

Let us know in the comments which kind of test you would like to see next!

Resources

• Stripe Checkout example: https://github.com/riccardogiorato/cypress-for-everything/blob/main/examples/stripe/cypress/integration/stripe-checkout.ts

• cypress example directory: cypress-for-everything#examples

• Stripe Elements example: https://github.com/riccardogiorato/cypress-for-everything/blob/main/examples/stripe/cypress/integration/stripe-elements.ts

• Stripe examples: https://github.com/riccardogiorato/cypress-for-everything/tree/main/examples/stripe

All the code from this tutorial here: https://github.com/riccardogiorato/cypress-for-everything/tree/main/examples/http-response-status

Why making an E2E test for a Http Responses?

The under users of your app will always visit your website from specific urls or maybe in many occasions they will make a spell error in the URL maybe forgetting the “s” in “https://” or not adding the “www” to the URLs.

With Cypress you can test all sort of these things usually done with 300 or 301 redirects from the Servers or also testing responses to 404 pages or 500 forbidden pages from unauthenticated users.

For this tutorial, we choose to use Cypress.io cause it’s one of the most used E2E tools on the web.

Redirects 301 code

Redirects usually are done with the code 301 “Moved Permanently”, they are used when you a specific page or url has been reorganized or moved to a different one.

const baseUrlTesla = "https://www.tesla.com/"
const urlHttp = "http://tesla.com"
it(urlHttp + " end location", () => {
  cy.visit(urlHttp)
  cy.url().should("eq", baseUrlTesla)
})
it(urlHttp + " redirect", () => {
  cy.request({
    url: urlHttp,
    followRedirect: false, // turn off following redirects
  }).then((resp) => {
    // redirect status code is 301
    expect(resp.status).to.eq(301)
    expect(resp.redirectedToUrl).to.eq(baseUrlTesla)
  })
})

Found Page 200 code

The “200” response code is used for all found pages, when the server exactly finds the resource at the URL you specified in your request.

const baseUrlTesla = "https://www.tesla.com/"
const urlHttpsWww = "https://www.tesla.com/"
it(urlHttpsWww + " end location", () => {
  cy.visit(urlHttpsWww)
  cy.url().should("eq", baseUrlTesla)
})
it("200 homepage response", () => {
  cy.request({
    url: urlHttpsWww,
    followRedirect: false,
  }).then((resp) => {
    expect(resp.status).to.eq(200)
    expect(resp.redirectedToUrl).to.eq(undefined)
  })
})

Not Found Page 404 code

When you don’t find a page you will get the most beautiful and common code 404 also know “not found”!

const baseUrlTesla = "https://www.tesla.com/"
const url404test = "https://www.tesla.com/not-a-real-page"
it("404 'not found' response", () => {
  cy.request({
    url: url404test,
    followRedirect: false,
    failOnStatusCode: false,
  }).then((resp) => {
    expect(resp.status).to.eq(404)
    expect(resp.redirectedToUrl).to.eq(undefined)
  })
  cy.visit(url404test, { failOnStatusCode: false })
  cy.get(".error-code").should("contain", "404")
  cy.get(".error-text").should("contain", "Page not found")
})

Conclusion

There is no right or wrong way to build an E2E test. The only thing you should care about is building a proper test that will automate your manual actions.

With this tutorial, we won’t ever need to check again the usual pages we have for 404, we will always be able to check all the redirects we implemented and more!

Less time to do a manual test and more time to have fun building other things!

Let us know in the comments which kind of test you would like to see next!

Resources

• Testing Tesla Http Responses: https://github.com/riccardogiorato/cypress-for-everything/blob/main/examples/http-response-status/cypress/integration/tesla-http.ts

• Cypress Example directory: cypress-for-everything#examples

• Http Response examples: https://github.com/riccardogiorato/cypress-for-everything/tree/main/examples/http-response-status

What do I want to help or improve?

I would love to improve in a few areas:

1. Deep Work sessions on highly impactful projects or activites
2. Fitness related to posture, strenght, and movement

Deep Work sessions

How can I improve my deep work sessions?

1. timeblocking before work, before work I always go walking but I lose extra time waiting in front of my computer doing other things.

2. timeblocking during work, I don't usually follow pomodoros sessions but I can do it also because I should do more activites during the 9to5 hours like 10 pushups every 25 minutes!

3. timeblocking after work, most of the time I will have to "cook"/"buy grocieries"/"work on personal project or learning"/"just chill?"

4. tasks planning with Jira at work and Trello for personal stuff, removing distractions and planning which specific tasks will I work on without more context switching

Let's try to keep it simple!

What are the main areas of focus for me in the following months until the end of 2021?

1. AWS
2. Big Data, AI and ML

AWS

1. AWS Cloud Practicioner Certificate: https://aws.amazon.com/it/certification/certified-cloud-practitioner/
2. AWS CDK Development with Serverless-Stack
3. AWS Lambda parallel jobs for all types of workloads requiring Chrome instances(cypress, playwright, lighthouse testing, JSON-LD testing, all sort of other jobs that can be automated and scale linearly or exponentially)

Big Data, AI, ML

1. Google Data Analytics Certificate: https://grow.google/dataanalytics/
2. 30 Days of ML Kaggle: https://www.kaggle.com/thirty-days-of-ml
3. Kaggle Courses: https://www.kaggle.com/learn
4. Machine Learning Crash Course: https://developers.google.com/machine-learning/crash-course
5. FastAI: https://course.fast.ai/

Personal Projects to work on

1. Serverless AWS Lambdas running as a SaaS to fulfill various "developers needs" explained previously
2. Fitness and Workout tracking, linked to my challenge "DAILY STRONGER"
3. Blog articles on Web Development more in line with the approach of "swyx"

WARNING!!

Don't continue reading this article if you might get sick or get sick by looking at insects or grillons. 🐜

Isn't it crazy to eat insects?

This photo sum up many arguments that explains why a future with food made of insects might became important. We need much less resources to farm them and they provide the same nutrients.

Eating them felt strange with a really strong flavor of curry or tomato due to the fact that those things are cooked and full of spices to help you eat them without feeling them strange as you might feel them like shrimps.

Pasta made with Insects?

I also tried their pasta made with insect flour but it didn't taste as good as the plain insects from the snacks. It felt different from other kind of pasta but neither in a good or bad way. I enjoyed eating it with some tomatoes but other people might not enjoy it as well as I did.

What's going to look like our future?

Are we going to eat only insects? 🐜🐞 I don't think so. We are probably going to start eating more different food such as those that I tried for this article.

Where can I buy it?

If you want to buy a Starter Package to have some fun with your friends go and visit jiminis.com.

Thanks to jiminis.com

What's this?

A public project that will make me focus and improve the current and future status of my body and brain for the next 12 months.

A project with just two simple goals

1. Body 💪: Doing at least 5 minutes of body workouts every single day (fullbody or not, using my bodyweight, weights or other accesorries).
2. Brain 🧠: Doing at least 5 minutes of meditation, can be done with audio, low-fi sounds, guided meditations or just by writing down my thoughts on a document.

Both goals will need a timer to measure the minimum required time. If I will want to do more I will be able to! The challenge is only on reaching these tiny daily goals.

Outputs?

I will document my progress as it follows:

1. 📝 Google Sheet document where I will write my daily progress and achievements and related challenges: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets.
2. 📑 At least 1 monthly article in this blog tagged with the category "dailystronger" to document my daily and monthly progress.

Extra challenges

The project is mostly defined by the previously outlined goals. To make it more interesting I will also do these things each month:

1. prepare a list of challenges to complete during that month with a proper weekly planning
2. document these challenges in the previous document

Aren't these goals boring or not good?

1. Two simple goals to complete daily mean: less friction, less excuses and less time spent planning or doing these things.
2. We all have a single body and brain connected, without caring about one you can't have the other working fully well; you need to keep them in synch.

Timeline

• Start of the project on the 1st of July 2021.
• End next year on 1st of July 2022.

These dates are needed cause I will combine and document the complete transformation in this blog.

⚠️ The next two paragraphs are mainly written for anyone that will consider this project stupid or dumb or not creative enough.

Why posting it here? And why making it public?

Making it public will help me with:

1. Accountability: it's out there on the web and it'll add a bit of social pressure.
2. Public: being public means I will share various google sheets files with my progress publicly written on it.
3. Inspire: hopefully is going to inspire others to try to do similar challenges.

Why not simply doing these things without a "project"?

I love trying to plan, improve things and I never tried a long term project publicly focusing only on the most core essentials things we all have (brains and bodies). This will be a new challenge for me and that's all it really matters for me.

What's Jimmy Joy Plenny Shake?

It's a complete, tasty and affordable food with minimal impact on your time and wallet.

Disclaimer: I reviewed the "Plenny Shake v3.0", the current version Q2 2021, they keep improving their formulas so if you read this in the future you might have bit different experiences.

What does Plenny Shake contains?

One meal of Plenny Shake provides you 20% of the daily recommended intakes for all macronutrients and micronutrients your body needs to function well: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and more than 20 essential vitamins and minerals plus two small but powerful ingredients: probiotics and choline.

The main sources of its proteins are provided by:

• soy protein isolate.
• oats.
• soy flour.
• flaxseeds.

You will get around 400 kcal with two scoops of plenny. I usually have two scoops with super cold water and then eat some fruits to complete my quick meals with Plenny.

Here's a picture of the powder inside the boxes, the flaxseeds are completely ground so you cannot see any seed particle or feel them when drinking.

Why is it good?

I tried all these brands meal shakes and this is my current ranking of them:

• 🏆 Jimmy Joy Plenny Shake, rating 9/10, the best shake I ever had up to now!
• Bertrand, old formula in 2018, rating 8/10 felt great and feels supernatural with tiny grains and nice taste!
• Mana, formula 2020, rating 7/10, drinking it always felt like drinking flour even after shaking it for minutes.
• Alpha Foods from Amazon Vegan Proteins, rating 2/10, it wasn't drinkable and felt horrible! Don't buy alpha foods from Amazon and save some money to try Jimmy Joy shake!

And the winner is... 🏆 Jimmy Joy Plenny Shake felt the best! The closest one was probably Bertrand but I tried it ages ago.

The Taste

Plenny feels super good, the taste of the different flavors feels real and not something entirely chemically made or with strange smells. My favorite flavors are:

• banana, 10/10
• strawberry, 10/10
• vanilla, 8/10

I haven't tried the chocolate or the other flavors yet.

The Price

A single box will cost you around €14.00, within 10 meals and 8000 total kcal. Just 1.40€ for 1 meal!

Let's do a quick comparison with other "meal alternatives brands" like Huel:

• Bertrand, 2.38€ x meal
• Huel, 2€ x meal
• Mana, 1.57€ x meal
• Plenny Shake, 1.4€ x meal

And the winner again is... 🏆 Jimmy Joy! The Plenny Shake is also the least expensive but also the one with the best taste, it's a no brainer for me to choose this brand over and over again!

Buy I'm not a fanboy, I am still looking for other brands that will come in the market.

I hope to discover new brands in this space with more innovative ingredients, if you find new ones to try just let me know on Twitter!

Would you like to try it?

If you want you can use my referral link so you will get 10 euros off your first order:

• affiliate link to Jimmy Joy to get 10€ off your first order

When you make your first order, you'll also get this beautiful shaker bottle!

The steps to follow

1. First mine your CFX coins directly in a private wallet or in an exchange wallet.
2. Transfer your CFX in one of the many exchanges like okex, my favourite one to store CFX coins.
3. Sell the CFX for USDT in the exchange.
4. Transfer the USDT to your Binance account using TRX or TRC20.
5. Place a new order on Binance converting your USDT back to CFX.

Fees and Timing:

• using USDT TRC20/TRX you pay only 1 USDT and the transfer takes 1/2 minutes.
• using USDT ERC20/ETH gets much more expensive( at time of writing 2021 June) 6 USDT and the transfer will take around 3/4 minute if the network isn't congested.

Summary

Transfering CFX without strange swaps can be done easily with USDT. The problem of USDT would be if you would use ERC20 on ETH where the fees for a simple transfer would be much much higher.

Alternatives without selling CFX for USDT?

You could use this guide on "How to Cross-Chain CFX From Conflux Network to Binance Smart Chain (BSC)".

Personally I don't like this approach because it requires too many steps and actions to complete the same process, the only pros of this method is the fee, in this case just 0.25 CFX and not 1 USDT.

• Why blogging and not videos or tiktoks?
• What is brining me back to blogging?
• What do I want to do less with blogging?
• Action Items to act on now

Why blogging and not videos or tiktoks?

Writing feels more personal and more private.

You don't watch right into a camera, you don't expose yourself too much.

It's also maybe the fastest way cause you can just typeout some words and you don't need to worry about framing, color balance, audio noise, fixing the timing or peace.

What is brining me back to blogging?

1. Experiments! With a blogpost I can document my progress or experiments.
2. Reviewing and helping other find great products/experiences/things to do or places to visit.
3. Passive reaching out, people will google stuff and maybe find my content but even if they don't find me I'm happy cause the content will be present anytime, won't disappear after 10 minutes like most of TikTok uploaded daily.

What do I want to do less with blogging?

1. Going to simple on articles, without helping the end user.
2. Not experementing on myself or going too easy with ideas and tests! Try things and move fast!
3. Stopping this trend after a few weeks, I'm in this for the long term. Even if I don't rememebr how to write perfectly now I will practice each month getting better weekly.

Action Items to act on now

1. Publish this article!
2. Find 10 experiments to try!
3. Plan and try 3 experiments from these 1o in the next 30 days (one each 10 days)!

Top 5 websites to find new cryptocurrencies to mine:

Ordered by discovery grade, finding the best coins for you!

• Coin Market Cap 9/10
• 2cryptocalc 9/10
• miningpoolstats 8/10
• WhatToMine 7/10
• minerstat 5/10

Places you won't find new coins (IMHO, just my opinion)

• reddit communities, they all try to sponsor too much specific coins or too mainstream ones
• discord communities, usually full of messages and makes it harder to track the new coins or measure their share of the market

Coin Market Cap

One of the largets websites to track cryptocurrencies values and the whole market of crypto. Even if pricing tracking and other market stats are its main feature you can find only coin possible to mine using the filters here: coinmarketcap.com

Discovery grade: 9/10

2cryptocalc

Brought to you by the famous "2miners" pools, it highlights almost only the coins you will be able to mine from 2miners. You can easily get custom links to share with friends or on social media for your specific grafic card, in this case an Nvidia 2080 GPU or go directly here: 2cryptocalc.com

Discovery grade: 9/10

miningpoolstats

This is the most ugly but also probably the most straight to the point to show you how many pools or how much hashrate each coin is having currenlty next to the coin prices: miningpoolstats.stream

Discovery grade: 8/10

WhatToMine

WhatToMine is probably the most famous webiste to find coins to mine. They showcase ton of coins but they tend to vary at most once every month. access here: whattomine.com

Discovery grade: 7/10

minerstat

This has one of the best UI but it's focused too much on showing too many options like Nicehash or other multi-coin pools, and sharable GPU links, again like this for a 2080 GPU They help you find pools to earn more but with less off the trends coins, access here: minerstat.com

Discovery grade: 5/10

Why is Jesolo a good place for Remote Workers?

• Lots of new Real Estate buildings/villages
• Discounts for accomodation in off season
• Food, resturants and relax!
• The City Center and the chilly sides
• Our experience in May 2021
• Total cost of working remotly in Jesolo

Lots of new Real Estate buildings/villages

In the last few years Jesolo Lido has been fueld by huge investments and going around the city center you can see many constructions sites on each block.

We stayed in May 2021 and we had seen more than 5 constructions site just around our apartment a bit off the center area, in central areas they can be many more.

Here's a quick list of just a few apartments currently selling or available to be rented; all of them look incredible and tend to cover really high price points.

A 4-room flat of 130m2 with 2 bathroom listed for 895,000€

A 5-room flat with 2 bathroom and 3 rooms listed for 890,000€

This boom of new buildings doesn't mean you will need to go in these crazy expensive ones, it means that you will have a lot of choices for new apartments to stay in and lot of comeptition menas lower prices.

To find accomodations you can look on these websites:

1. JesoloHolidayRent: the best local provider with a ton of apartments, we stayed in one of their apartments and it was awesome!
2. Airbnb, the only one!
3. Immobiliare.it, some of these ask long contracts, not just 1 or few months, check the description if they require longer term contracts.

Discounts for accomodation in off season

You have 3 different tier of prices in Jesolo or in near coastline cities like Caorle or Lignano.

1. 💵 Cheap months are from January to April and October to December; 600€-800€/month.
2. 💵💵 Medium months are May and September, these will be the best months to find more sunny weather; 800€-1000€/month.
3. 💵💵💵💵 The most expensive months are the summer months or June-July-August, here the prices are 3/4 times higher than the other 2 periods; 3000€-4000€/month.

Food, resturants and relax!

During hot months from May to September walking along the beach feels incredible and the soft breeze makes you want to jump in the water

We are in Italy you will find incredible Pizza 🍕

The City Center and the chilly sides

As you can see in this image there are a few areas to remember:

1. the centeral area is the city center, in black, there you will find most of the bars/resturants and more expensive hotels and apartments.
2. on the chilly sides you will find a bit less movment, less shops or bars but more cheaper solutions, in the two blu squares.
3. finally the biggest supermarket are located near the city center with the biggest stores being Lidl or Famila or Aldi, in the green circular area.

Our experience in May 2021

Work Macbook with a background view of a new construction site

View from our apartment from Saint Tropez residence, Jesolo VE

Total cost of working remotly in Jesolo

• around 1000€ for 2 person, or 800€ for 1 person in less "hot" months like May or September
• around 200 to 300€ of food
• going out to bars or resturants can be a bit more pricy than other cities in Italy around 10€ for normal pizza and around 15€ for stranger ones(with more things on top) but going to bars can be really cheap if you find good spots(mostly cause you have so many bars trying to get you to drink there)

Total "drafted" cost: 1300-1500€/month in 2, 200€ less if alone.

This is just a draft or a quick reference to understand if you are looking for apartments and you might have found to crazy expensive solutions.

What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is a protocol that allows fast and free downloading of large files using minimal Internet bandwidth.

In 2018, TRON completed its acquisition of BitTorrent, bringing this platform under the control of Justin Sun. TRON is also behind the addition of cryptocurrencies to BitTorrent, as the BTT token was launched on its blockchain, a strategy designed in order to add more decentralized features to TRON’s platform.

How to "mine" BTT on a Mac?

The BitTorrent platform bases its protocol on the Delegated Proof-of-Stake algorithm. Therefore it is not possible to mine BTT in the traditional sense of the word, as is the case with Bitcoin or Ravencoin.

To solve this issue we will switch to earning BTT by mining "Monero" using unMineable! unMineable slogan/description is "Mine your favorite non-mineable crypto coin or token!"

To get started you will need a BTT wallet, if you want to have one simply I suggest you to register and use Binance.

1. Copy your BTT address like this one: "TSxPegAweaAMrvZGJEd3LRJMtZm7XC14oc" from your wallet.
2. Find the new release of Monero miner "xmrig" for your mac here.

• If you have a Mac with an M1 download the file with "arm64" at the end.
• If you have an Intel Mac download the file with "x64" at the end.

3. Unzip the miner files, in a folder that you would like.
4. Create a "btt.sh" file in the same folder where you unzipped the miner.
5. Copy this content in this file, or if you prefer get the file here:

./xmrig -o rx.unmineable.com:3333 -a rx -k -u BTT:ADDRESS_HERE.mac#0o5w-vby4 -p x
pause

6. Replace the text ADDRESS_HERE with your BTT address like: TSxPegAweaAMrvZGJEd3LRJMtZm7XC14oc.
7. Open up a terminal in the same folder and run the "./btt.sh" command.
8. Open unMineable web ui after you sent a few shares to visualize your progress: "https://unmineable.com/coins/BTT/address/ADDRESS_HERE".
9. Remember to use my referral code "0o5w-vby4" in the btt.sh file after the name of your worker after the "#", this will reduce a bit the 1% fee you would need to pay to unmineable.com.

Resources:

1. Binance Registration Link to get free BTT wallet.
2. Monero Miner to mine on your Mac.
3. BTT Miner shell file shell file to mine BTT with Monero Miner.
4. unMineable with referral link online pool to earn BTT by mining monero!

Why a new blog again?

This is a new blog without old articles!

I wrote only articles about web development for the last 2 years. But sometimes you need to change.

I will be writing on things outside of development/programming from finance, crypto, travel, remote work, food and much more!

In a summary?

New topics.

New ideas.

No old contents.

No distractions.