Aryan Sharma's Blog Writing by Aryan Sharma, a Purdue AETM student: hands-on notes on software, self-hosting, and infrastructure, plus reflections on college life and travel. https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/ 2026-10-10T00:00:00Z Aryan Sharma https://www.aboutsharma.com/ One Week Before Finals: A Road Trip to Kings Island https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/one-week-before-finals-kings-island/ 2026-04-26T00:00:00Z 2026-04-26T00:00:00Z A pre-finals road trip from Purdue to Kings Island: 400 miles, two rides, long lines, and a tired but memorable night in Cincinnati. The Silent Power of Human Touch https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/the-silent-power-of-human-touch/ 2025-09-06T00:00:00Z 2025-09-06T00:00:00Z A quiet evening by Purdue's Bell Tower turns into a reflection on distance, vulnerability, and the hugs we often skip. Ping-Ponging Traffic Between GitHub Pages and a Dorm-Room Server with Cloudflare Workers https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/cloudflare-ping-pong/ 2025-08-31T00:00:00Z 2026-10-10T00:00:00Z A free, automatic failover between GitHub Pages and my dorm-room server, using a health ping and a Cloudflare Worker that preserves the path and query. Meal Plan Analysis at Purdue https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/meal-plan-analysis-purdue/ 2025-07-26T00:00:00Z 2025-07-26T00:00:00Z A numbers-first breakdown of Purdue's 7, 10, and 14 meal plans for Fall 2025, with the real cost per meal and tips for getting the most out of swipes. My Lessons from Steve Jobs: Rethinking Time, Work, and Impact https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/lessons-from-steve-jobs-speech/ 2025-07-22T00:00:00Z 2025-07-22T00:00:00Z What listening to Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech every night during my internship in Tanzania taught me about time, work, and staying hungry. Witnessing Inequality: Reflections from Tanzania https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/reflection-on-inequality-tanzania/ 2025-07-20T00:00:00Z 2025-07-20T00:00:00Z What I saw of wealth disparity, education, and healthcare while interning in Tanzania, read alongside Bill Gates' thoughts on inequity. VPNs and the 403 Forbidden Error https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/b4_VPN_forbidden_access/ 2025-06-16T00:00:00Z 2025-06-16T00:00:00Z Why a running VPN can make localhost return 403 Forbidden, and the settings, bindings, and firewall rules that fix it. Lessons from XAMPP: Reliability Challenges https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/b3_XAMPP_lessons/ 2025-06-13T00:00:00Z 2025-06-13T00:00:00Z What building a PHP accounting and inventory system on XAMPP taught me about data corruption, recovering InnoDB files, and backups you can trust. Building the Footprints Page: A Technical Deep Dive https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/b2_Building_the_footprints_page/ 2025-05-21T00:00:00Z 2025-05-21T00:00:00Z A deep dive into how I built the interactive 3D globe behind my Footprints page, kept image bandwidth low with Cloudinary, and added the IronGate defense layer. End-to-End SQL Backup, Compression, and Notification System https://www.aboutsharma.com/blogs/b1_Automated_SQL_backup_system/ 2025-05-21T00:00:00Z 2025-05-21T00:00:00Z How I automated daily MySQL backups with native Windows scripts: compressed dumps, an rclone upload to Google Drive, and email alerts for every run.