Topping up a Suica card with cash on iOS
Frustrated because your Suica card won't top up via Apple Pay or an overseas card? Here is how I charged mine with cash at the station, as a last resort.
Ajmal Afif — RSS Feed
Always gearing myself to be in the flow state & play mode. Currently exploring living with meaningful productivity.
Latest posts
日本語
Learning Japanese is a lifelong, endless pursuit as I build a family with my Japanese partner — exciting, daunting, and a humbling privilege at once.
The Joy of React
I signed up for early access to Josh W Comeau's The Joy of React. I've never learned React properly—just Google and trial & error—and I hope this fixes that.
Fancy landing pages with react-three-fiber
Notes from a paid course by 0xca0a on building fancy landing pages with react-three-fiber and ThreeJS. My first time dabbling with both r3f and Three.js.
My personal productivity hack for deep work
Every focus hack I try starts strong, then plateaus. What actually sticks for me is self-accountability: a 'social contract' or 'over-the-shoulder' buddy.
Note to self: always do the tutorials!
I always have to learn this personal lesson the hard way, every time! It‘s so tempting to jump right in, then found myself stumbled around most of the time 😅
Tinkering with Midjourney
This year I‘ve decided to explore AI tools (such as Midjourney) more seriously. I‘m experimenting with its use cases with random stuffs or side projects.
Data Storytelling workshop by Kontinentalist
I attended the virtual 2-day workshop on Data Storytelling by Kontinentalist . I had a high expectation going in and really glad that I took it.
How my website works
The inner workings of my personal website and the insights I gained when I worked on it gradually over a few months.
Driving Grab Design System Adoption
One of the biggest challenges designing for a Super App is Design System participation and adoption. I am driving Design System adoption by leveraging Behavioral Design & System Design. “” is in draft mode I can send you an update once it’s up and ready. Don’t fill this out: Name Email Get update
Learning in public
Breaking a long silence on my own blog. A friend reminded me it's mine to do whatever I want with, so here I am, writing in public and learning as I go.
Fare Alert
Have you ever cross-checked multiple ride-hailing apps during a surge? That behavior is common. Riders tend to check the fare during high surge periods, especially those with time flexibility. Riders have to keep jumping back and forth between apps and manually do all of those steps to fare check. Fare Alert is an opt-in feature that alerts the rider when the fare drops during surge periods. In…
Earning Insight
There is a misconception among drivers that working during a surge is the best-earning strategy, especially in some mature markets. The perception was validated within the 2-way forums* and reflected with the actual driving behavior we observed in quantitative research via product analytics. * Pre-Covid time, we used to have in-person coffee chat sessions with some group of drivers in which we…
Guides to approach your Shopify store redesign
Redesigning your Shopify store can feel scary, costly, and risky enough to make or break it. Before you dive in, let me share how I'd rethink the approach.
How to approach design for Shopify stores
I've tried processes like Design Sprint and HCD, but designing on Shopify stores means working within constraints already set, and that's not a bad thing.
Tools for hosting your community
My honest take on the tools for hosting a community around your niche: Slack, Discord, Spectrum, and Discourse, with the pros and cons I weigh for each.
Moving to Singapore
I recently moved to Singapore to join Aviva Digital Garage as a UI/UX Developer — really a designer who codes. Excited to see how this new chapter unfolds.
3rd edition of ajmalafif.com — site redesign
It took a few late nights to finish the 3rd edition of my personal site — I tinkered with assemble.io, Harp and Ghost before settling on Jekyll.
Create custom page template in Roots
First create a file inside wp-content/themes/roots with this convention page-filename.php . So in my case, I named it page-ajmalafif.php
Include external JavaScript into Roots
How I add an external JavaScript file to the Roots WordPress theme: drop it into the assets/js folder, then register it in scripts.php under lib.
Fake your passion
Can passion really be faked? I think it sometimes is — a quiet survival move when career or interest demands it, even when the feeling isn't there yet.
Magic hour
Magic hour. It‘s the time where opportunity floats and luck surfaces. Magic hour is to be discovered and find out; not something to be taken for granted.
Break and Create
Breaking bad habits and creating new ones isn't easy. It takes more than mental effort — even motivation won't cut it. It asks for sacrifice and endurance.
Co-working experience in Tokyo
I was working remotely from Tokyo for about a week. This note is to document my experience as well as share what I find positive and reminders for future reference.