LinkedIn: How to land software design internships

Posted: June 28, 2024 in Uncategorized
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A recent contribution I made on LinkedIn:

The act of looking for an internship is a great first step – good for you! There are many resources. First, check with your professors – they may know of open internships. Next, your school’s Careers or Counseling office. They know the sites most often leading to successful internship connections. Third, check known internship sites, like Handshake at https://joinhandshake.com/. Fourth, check out Meetups / Meetup.com. It’s often who you know, not just the little what at this stage in your career. Meetups help you create relationships in your industry of choice. Best of all, they’re free, and there’s often pizza, so you can have informal, less stressful, conversations. Good luck!

New Features in Liq Beta – including WhiskeyShelf import!

Posted: June 24, 2024 in Uncategorized
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New features in Liq added today:

  • Import from WhiskeyShelf CSV export files
  • Delete Observations (your own)
  • Auto-suggest Observations during tastings
  • Auto-suggest Distilleries
  • New Fields: Valuation, Quantity, Special Designation, More
  • Avatars during Live Tastings
  • Performance, Design, and Stability Updates

Check it out! https://liq.live and tell your friends!

Note that Liq is still in beta, so I need your feedback, please! Click the Features & Bug Reports link on the bottom if you want features, or find a bug. If there’s a bug, please provide reproduction steps and the page you were on so it can more quickly be resolved.

Now in Beta: Liq.live

Posted: June 21, 2024 in Uncategorized
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Liq, my new spirit collection and management website is now in beta! As a bourbon collector and enthusiast, this was a passion project. I wanted to be able to manage my collection AND my tastings, and share them with friends. Liq lets you do that easily, and you can hold live tastings with your friends. So all of you can join in and share notes, and recollect them later!

Check it out today! https://liq.live

Lots of awesome things you can do:

  • Manage your bourbon, whiskey, rum, cognac, gin, and other spirit bottles
  • Create tastings with standard observations, including Nose, Palate, and Finish
  • Score your tastings
  • Relate your tastings to bottles in your collection, so you can see how consistent you are over time, and how your palate and tastes change
  • Share tastings with the public
  • Hold Live Tastings with friends

If there are features you would like to see, post them here.

LinkedIn Insight: Managing roles in a SW team

Posted: June 21, 2024 in Uncategorized
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From what I posted on LinkedIn recently:

You’re the leader. That doesn’t make you the MVP. Know your team and their skills. Sacrifice your ego and empower your team, giving “best chance of getting it done” tasks to those you’re sure can do it. Empower them with the decision making authority for their area. Of course you can override – you’re accountable to stakeholders AND the team. Empowered team members will reward you with greater productivity, because you believe in them, and that bolsters their belief in themselves. If you’re going to lead a team, lead the team. If you’d rather be a hero, go join another team instead.

Is AI coming for our jobs?

Posted: June 12, 2024 in Uncategorized
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Partially, yeah – automating the grinding tasks so we can concentrate on system design.

Greatly enjoyed this related article … long, but covers AI, bootcamps, getting started with code, and how it affects software development and the industry. https://stackoverflow.blog/2024/06/10/generative-ai-is-not-going-to-build-your-engineering-team-for-you/

And another video from the Indy .NET Consortium where we had a roundtable about this:

Self-Care Routine When Working on Long Projects

Posted: April 28, 2024 in Uncategorized
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From a LinkedIn insight I recently posted.

The topic:

Self-care Routine

Incorporate self-care into your routine to maintain your physical and emotional well-being. This could include regular exercise, meditation, or hobbies that take your mind off work. Establish a work-life balance by setting clear work hours and sticking to them. Taking breaks throughout the day can also improve focus and productivity when you are working, making it easier to maintain the quality of your web applications.

My answer (link):

Accept your part of the blame if you’re burning out. You should have a good feel for how long certain tasks will take. If you sense timeline issues, bring that up to the project team, and adjust timelines as necessary. Say nothing and you end up working overtime finishing tasks that shouldn’t have been high pressure in the first place. Everyone on the team is responsible for scope and sanity checks – that includes you.

I once called out a coworker friend for working 60+ hour weeks. He said he was doing it for his bonus. I worked the normal 45-ish work week. I explained how the bonus worked – mainly billable hours, and it was capped. The extra hours didn’t matter. He revisited his approach, stopped burning out, and still got the same bonus.

Growing Your Skills When Self-Confidence as a Developer is Lacking

Posted: April 19, 2024 in Uncategorized
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Good. You admit it. Now go do something about it. You may or may not know your weaknesses. If you do, go brush up on those. Challenge yourself with tasks of increasing complexity. If you don’t yet know, ask a trusted mentor/friend/coworker/manager where you feel you need improvement, or at least a starting point on where to begin. There’s nothing wrong with asking for help – that’s how you grow. You did it as a kid, and you have to do it as an adult. A growth-driven mindset vs. an ego-driven mindset will take you far. You’ve got this!

This is a copy of my answer on LinkedIn Experts from April 19, 2024.

Preventing Overload When Tasks Come In

Posted: April 5, 2024 in Uncategorized
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From a recent LinkedIn post that asked how to prevent running out of time, all the time, and never getting your tasks done. You need, in a word, margin. Here was my response as to how I ensure I have margin during the day:

Before I tackle any task, I add it to my Microsoft To Do app list. From there I can prioritize it for “Today”, “Tomorrow” or some other time. That forces me to give myself “margin” during the day. If you take everything as it comes in, you’ll always run out of time. Put a “prioritization buffer” in front of any request. I use the To Do app because it’s in sync everywhere, and on my phone and PC. It’s changed my life, because it surfaces “today’s” tasks under “My Day” and suggests things I may have forgotten.

I also strongly recommend reading the book “Margin” by Richard A. Swenson, MD – it teaches you about making sure you don’t overload yourself. It’s easy to overload. Stop doing that. 😜

Article: Asking for Help is a Core Developer Skill

Posted: April 4, 2024 in Programming, Software Development
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I enjoyed this article about programmers asking for help when stuck. Don’t hesitate to ask for help from your team. A quarterback can’t score without receivers and blockers. You win as a team. Demonstrating humility, vulnerability, and a willingness to learn and grow, is an essential part of improving yourself as a developer. You don’t have to be the hero every time.

“Your ego will limit you if you let it”

Enjoy!

https://www.ramijames.com/thoughts/asking-for-help-is-a-core-skill?utm_source=tldrwebdev

Choosing Your First Programming Language

Posted: April 3, 2024 in Programming, Software Development
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I originally posted this as a LinkedIn contribution. Making sure you can read it on my blog 😀

If it’s your first programming language, the language itself doesn’t matter. It’s the thought process that counts. The training to:

  • think logically,
  • break a problem or process into its component parts, and
  • understanding how those parts intermingle.

If you’re just looking to learn another programming language, you don’t need to spend money. There are FANTASTIC free tutorials out there. Check out Microsoft Learn https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/ as a good starting point. You can follow entire tracks, or just one-off topics. There are videos, code examples, coding environments, tips and tricks, and more. To be fair, MS Learn is not the only option, but I only have 750 characters and you have a search engine.

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