Problem with Telerik’s recent geekette shirt…
Posted by: sarah on: October 30, 2011
- In: SUX | WiTty Perspectives
- 2 Comments
I have no problem identifying with being a geekette (as is obvious with my domain name). However, I do have a problem with one of the more recent geekette shirts to hit the public (this one courtesy of Telerik):
Most geekettes I know dress like a typical geek. We like our hoodies and geek tees just as much as the guy geeks. Places like ErrorWear, ThinkGeek, and SnorgTees cater to geek wear for women very well.
Sure, some of us have our girly moments of dressing up in dresses or shirts and skirts. However, most of us tend to try to blend in with the crowd. We don’t like being singled out by our gender and like being able to compete with other devs without the gender factor being brought up.
Not all of us are hourglass figures, as depicted in this new Telerik design. Not all of us like to show off our *ahem* assets *ahem* as depicted in this design.
A friend’s husband called this design “slutty”, and I can see where he got that from. I am not a fan of this design, and I would not encourage others to wear it.
This makes me miss their older geekette shirts:
Please, tools makers, keep making tools but don’t be tools who create geekette shirts without really thinking them through.
Submitting Talks, New and Old…
Posted by: sarah on: September 25, 2011
Earlier this week, I was talking with my a few speaker friends on submitting talks for conferences - as I’m specifically looking at submitting talks for:
- Ann Arbor Day of .NET (10/29)
- Central Ohio Day of .NET (12/10)
- CodeMash (Event is 1/11/2012 - 1/13/2012; Call for Speakers closes on September 30, 2011 at 11:59 PM Eastern time.)
Strategies in Submitting Talks
It’s interesting to hear some of their strategies. Some of my friends will submit all of their talks that they can do, in hopes of at least one getting picked. Some only submit talks that they’re interested in doing. Some submit talks that they’ve given over and over for the past few years. Some submit talks that they haven’t given yet but would like to give. There’re all sorts of strategies throughout my friends’ speaking submissions.
Preparing to Submit Talks for Multiple Conferences
This morning, I spent time updating my presentation topics and abstracts page. I’ve retired yet another talk, as the technologies have changed and my interests have changed. I’ve also created a new talk, inspired by my recent experiences and research.
I’ve submitted 3 of my talks to CodeMash this morning. One of my talks is brand new, but I think it would fit well with CodeMash and the topics that have appeared in the past and that are still trending. The other 2 talks I’ve given in various forms - separately and mashed together - at user groups and other events. I’ve had fellow community members ask me if I would be giving {insert a topic or presentation here} at {insert a conference here}, and every time I hear people asking for a presentation, I make note of it and try to include it in my submissions. Since CodeMash’s sessions are 60 minutes, I submitted these talks in their whole forms rather than the mashed together version.
By the end of today, I will have my submissions in for Ann Arbor Day of .NET, which happens at the end of October. I’ve got one submission in so far due to requests from the community to submit a talk, but I hope to get at least one more in, possibly my new talk if they’re interested. We’ll see how that goes.
Central Ohio Day of .NET’s call for speakers isn’t open yet. However, they’ve announced their date, which makes it easy for me to check my availability and possibly submit talks. Since I’m already in that groove for submitting talks, it makes it a little easier in determining what I want to submit to Central Ohio Day of .NET.
My Personal Strategies
For me, I’m glad to see all of these Calls for Speakers at once, because then I can get what I want to talk about figured out and submitted all around the same time. These are some of the things I think about when I submit talks to conferences:
- Is the topic something I’m passionate about? If it isn’t something I’m passionate about, then I’m not delivering the talk. For me as an attendee, I hate going to presentations that are given by a passionless speaker. If they don’t have that positive energy and aren’t excited about the technology, I’m not easily sold on why I should be interested in their topics or ideas. As a speaker, I find that it’s a lot easier to prepare and give a talk on something I’m passionate about. As a speaker, I also tend to notice the attendees engaging more and asking more questions when I show that I’m interested in the topic.
- Is the topic relevant to the conference? If it isn’t relevant to the conference, I’m not submitting it.
- Are the technologies/strategies in this presentation still relevant? If the technologies or strategies in a talk are outdated, I look to see (1) if they have been updated, (2) if I am still passionate about the updates, and (3) if they’re worth continuing to present on.
- Is there public interest in this topic? If there isn’t interest in a topic, then there aren’t people to listen to it or to converse with about it, which means there is no point in delivering this presentation.
I don’t think twice about submitting new talks - every talk I’ve given was a new talk at one point in time. Most of the time, I try to debut talks at a smaller event - be it in an office environment for a lunch’n'learn, at a local user group, or at a developer community event.
Conclusion
There are different strategies out there for submitting talks to conferences. My advice is find what works for you and stick with it. Do you have any strategies or advice on submitting talks that you’d like to share? Leave a comment here!
Lessons from the boat
Posted by: sarah on: September 11, 2011
Last week, I started working on my part-time contract with LeanDog. In the 3 days there, I’ve been privileged to work with a great team (Mike Lutton, Tim Conner, Bill Holmes, Huey Petersen, and Doc Norton). These are just some of the things I’ve observed so far.
Team Collaboration
As I mentioned above, I’m working with an awesome team. We have different backgrounds and can feed off of each other’s past experiences and strengths. It was great to feel a good chemistry with the team early on. But we’re not the only team on the boat. They have other teams for other projects, and it’s great to see those teams working together and bouncing off ideas as well. Yes, even though there are language differences (Python vs. Ruby vs. .NET vs. Java vs. others), we can still learn quite a bit from each other. Working on a boat surrounded by such diverse talent and collaborating with the groups - it’s been a great experience so far!
Pair {Anything}
This past week, I’ve been exposed to all sorts of experiences that weren’t afforded to me in other jobs. Since I’m still learning the ropes of the project and still the new kid, I’ve been able to pair with one of the guys in trying to work with some stuff. We’ve had pair testing, pair troubleshooting, and have decided that you can probably pair on any task.
But wait… our team knows no limits. While pairing works, sometimes, you need to solve a problem or learn a technology as a team effort. This is when Tim Conner’s “quinting” comes into play - 5 of us, 1 codebase, all figuring out the joys of Gherkin and SpecFlow.
New agile technique: quinting. Great Gherkin/Specflow session yesterday with @hueypetersen, @mlutton, @sadukie and @wch42 @leandog.less than a minute ago via web 
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And now a pic of quinting (thanks to Mike Lutton!)…
@leandog quinting: five guys pairing on the same box! http://t.co/VD20MPycless than a minute ago via HTC Peep Favorite Retweet Reply
Understanding TDD
In my past job, they talked of TDD as a goal, but never something that was really well-explained. Thankfully, most of my friends have been exposed to TDD, and I’ve actually listened to them, even at times when I would ask “Why should I write more code?”. If I’m asking “why”, I’m either not convinced of something or really am curious to know why to use something and will “why” my way to an explanation that makes sense. All of the things they’ve told me really made sense this week when I saw unit tests. Everything just clicked and made sense. There were even times when I looked at a test and realized “That shouldn’t be behaving like that.” Having been nervous about TDD and then just dropping into that environment - I’m very happy in this setting.
Feeling at Home
It’s nice to go into a place and feel at home, even as a contractor. In many places, I’ve seen contractors treated as outsiders, locked with more restrictions than the average employee. I’ve seen companies treat contractors as second-class citizens at times. And those are the companies I remember… so that I never contract with them. While working on board, I don’t feel like an outsider… I truly feel like a LeanDogger, and that helps me take pride in working for them even more.
Going Forward
I’ve known many of the guys at LeanDog for awhile, as they are well-known in Cleveland’s tech community. LeanDog hosts many user groups and is involved in a variety of the tech events here - including Ignite Cleveland and Cleveland GiveCamp. I’m looking forward to helping these guys and their clients out where I can. It’s good to finally be working alongside these guys!
SUX Adventures with the Dell Latitude E6520
Posted by: sarah on: September 5, 2011
While in the middle of surfing a web page in 1 tab in Google Chrome, with nothing else in the background, my favorite blue screen came back. It’s frustrating that this blue screen doesn’t stay up long enough to get details and also doesn’t log to the Event Log. But the KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE errors continue, even with the new hard drive.
So what else could it be? My frustration was getting me to the point of wanting to go Office Space on the laptop… all I wanted was a reliable laptop that worked and this thing has proven unreliable so far.
Rather than calling ProSupport again, I talked with my IT guy, my awesome husband. We talked through this headache and ended up finding out that Dell issued another BIOS update just recently. Hmm… let’s see what they fixed…
1. Addressed CD boot issues.
2. Addressed Hard Drives hang issue in AHCI mode.
3. Addressed Hard Drives encryption issue in ATA mode.4. Fixed issue where the MAC address would be incorrect after disabling the Integrated NIC in Setup.
5. Added support for Signed Firmware Update Transition BIOS.
6. Updated to the MOB_P_11 version of the Intel microcode patch.
7. Updated to the 1.2.0 version of Intel System Agent reference code.
8. Updated to the 1.2 version of Intel PCH Reference Code.
9. Updated to the 1.2.1.1 version of Intel PPM Reference Code.
Hard drive hang issue… hmm…
We’ve applied BIOS A06 and are now hoping it stays stable again.
I would love to write a positive SUX story about this laptop, without focusing on ProSupport’s awesomeness. But this is more and more a struggle.
Dying hard drives on new laptops SUX
Posted by: sarah on: August 26, 2011
Just a few weeks before devLink, I purchased a new laptop to replace my ASUS G51JX. I ended up getting a Dell Latitude E6520. Within the first few days of getting it, the laptop had a KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE blue screen and lost sight of the hard drive. After rebooting a few times and working with Dell ProSupport, it came back up. Unfortunately, we couldn’t identify what had caused the issue. We figured it would be a one-time deal, perhaps a fluke.
Fast forward to today… so the laptop made it through devLink without showing any adversity. However, this morning, while listening to Zune, reading emails in Outlook, and chatting with my husband on Lync Communicator, the laptop decided to spontaneously throw another KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE error. Unfortunately, this BSoD doesn’t log info or create minidumps and reboots quicker than you can say “Dude… don’t get a Dell!” So my frustration was back. Rebooted, couldn’t see the hard drive… rebooted again and the hard drive came back just fine.
This special 512e hard drive just doesn’t like me. I think it’s a 512evil hard drive for as stable as it has appeared. However, we’ll see if its replacement is any better.
After an hour and change of diagnostics with Dell ProSupport, I’m getting a new hard drive. I’m thankful for Dell ProSupport - support in English with a very knowledgable crew. I didn’t have to deal with a script, and Todd in Nashville was great at getting me what I needed.
Why am I Wi-flagged with laptops lately?
devLINK 2011 Recap – Sadukie’s Tales, Part 4
Posted by: sarah on: August 20, 2011
Last day of devLINK… I started off in Open Spaces, giving John Kellar and Leanna Baker live feedback on the conference. It was great to hear how planning worked this year, and I gave them some suggestions for next year.
After giving feedback on the conference, I was off to the Mobile Smackdown. First of all, Mobile Smackdown is the brainchild of my friend Jeff Blankenburg. I’ve seen other versions of this at CodeMash and StirTrek, so I was curious to see how the devLINK version would be. Add to it that I wanted to see how my friends Ben (on Android) and Sam (on Windows Phone) would fare, and I was curious to see John‘s approach to iPhone. Little did I know, this was John Baker’s first time in front of a group - in my honest opinion, for the first time around, he did an amazing job. It’s one thing to present in front of a group and totally different to live code in front of a group. Ben was about one line of code away from finishing in the allotted 15-minute time period. Sam had it all written and just needed to run the code. John still had a feature to add. I enjoyed seeing the Mobile Smackdown and seeing the different platforms. It reminded me…
- Windows Phone - C# - This makes sense.
- Android - Java - Hey, I can read that! Maybe one day I could write it again…
- iPhone - Objective C - Um… not a chance. Reminded me sorta of my C++ days. Don’t think I’d go back along that route.
Now that I’m on my own, I can finally look into building my Windows Phone apps that I’ve wanted to build for awhile. But I gotta give the Windows Phone Mobile Smackdown veterans - Samidip Basu, Jeff Fansler, and Jeff Blankenburg - a lot of credit. That would be nerve-wracking to be live coding in front of a large group. However, it did inspire me to get moving on some of these apps.
After Mobile Smackdown, a group of us caught lunch at Niko’s Southside Grill. I had the avgolemono and stuffed grape leaves, which were delicious.
After lunch, I caught a couple more sessions. Seeing StudioShell in action in Jim Christopher‘s presentation gave me some food for thought. It’s neat to see navigation of Visual Studio projects with PowerShell. I also caught Kevin Griffin‘s jQuery Mobile talk, which showed how simple it was to use attributes to easily create a mobile version of a website.
By the end of Kevin’s session, I was truly exhausted. I stopped at Chattanooga Cupcakes, based on a friend’s recommendation. The red velvet cupcake I had was delicious, and I picked up a peanut butter & chocolate cupcake for another friend. After cupcakes, I headed over to St. John’s Meeting Place to meet up with some friends for dinner. Their Caprese salad with fresh heirloom tomatoes and mozzarella that melted in my mouth was to die for.
After dinner, I figured I’d get things on their chargers and start packing. Instead, I fell asleep as soon as I made it back to my room. I think the exhaustion of the week finally caught up with me.
Overall, it was a great week. I learned a lot of stuff that I can apply to my new adventures. I enjoyed my time with new and old friends, especially those who I only see at these events. I look forward to devLINK 2012 and what lies ahead!
devLINK 2011 Recap - Sadukie’s Tales, Part 3
Posted by: sarah on: August 18, 2011
Standing room only at 8am… what a way to wake up! Thanks to all of you who attended my “Develop IT - Intro to PowerShell” talk at 8am. It was great to share my love of PowerShell and how to get started with those who wanted to learn more. We started at the basics and then looked at some PowerShell building blocks. My second session was less attended, but those who were there asked questions that showed they were interested. We looked at script versus binary versus manifest versus dynamic modules. Code samples were written in both C# and PowerShell. Thanks to all of you who attended, and especially thanks to those who left feedback. I’ve read through the feedback and look forward to expanding on these talks. As I mentioned, there are some great resources for working with PowerShell:
- Hey Scripting Guy! Blog
- PowerShellCommunity.org
- #PowerShell on Twitter
- Automating Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration with Windows PowerShell 2.0: While the book suggests administration, it is laid out similarly to my talks - basics and then into more in-depth stuff.
The music video that I kicked off both sessions with was Highway to PowerShell - Part IV - A New Hope, as performed by Sean Kearney, a.k.a. energizedtech on Twitter:
In the afternoon, I caught my friend Michael Eaton‘s “Going Independent” talks. Since I’m just starting out on my own with Cleveland Tech Consulting, LLC, I wanted to hear it from him and others as to what are some things I may need to account for. While I may have talked with some of my friends who are company owners and independent consultants, I still wanted to see what I may have missed. I learned a lot about myself and my decisions for going forward, including trusting my instinct and not being afraid to walk away if something doesn’t seem right.
Since I left the hotel in a hurry that morning, I needed to take the evening off to bounce back from my rushed morning. I caught dinner with a group of friends - including Jeff x 3 (Jeff Blankenburg, Jeff Fansler, and Jeff McWherter) and a few others - at The Terminal Brewhouse. Pizza π Rolls and Mr. Frog’s Super Happy Fun Journey are both very tasty appetizers.
It was also great that Jeff McWherter brought some of his Gravity Works Design & Development employees with him to devLINK. I really enjoyed hanging out with them!
After dinner, I spent some of the evening hanging out with friends and the rest just resting. It’s been a great event so far, and I’m already eager to see what devLINK 2012 will have in store for us!
devLINK 2011 Recap - Sadukie’s Tales, Part 2
Posted by: sarah on: August 17, 2011
After spending time with friends yesterday, I needed to take the morning off to catch up on my talks. After reading my abstracts, I realized that my first presentation wasn’t setup right - it was more setup for a .NET developer user group and not purely intro level. I reworked that talk to be purely intro level, in hopes that it’d be well-received. I ran through both talks to make sure that they’d be fine for Thursday morning. After catching lunch with one of my friends named Jeff, I made my way to the convention center.
Now I noticed on the devLINK site that there was something about the FREE Electric Shuttle through downtown. Riding it reminded me of my days of riding the local buses here in Cleveland long ago. It was nice to walk right across the driveway to catch the shuttle and take it to the convention center.
Once at the convention center, I figured out the lay of the land, visited with some of the sponsors including checking out the ComponentOne booth, and headed into a couple sessions. The first session I caught was “Making (More) Money with Phone 7″ by Russell Fustino of GrapeCity. I enjoyed seeing some tips and tricks for marketing apps on the Windows Phone marketplace - including tips for trial apps, globalization, and other ways to get your app noticed. I was really excited to see the Runtime Intelligence Service instrumentation in action - some of my friends are at PreEmptive Solutions, which is around the corner from me in Cleveland. The second session I caught was “Managing the mentoring process”, facilitated by Randy Walker. It was a great discussion with those attending the session on mentoring versus teaching versus managing and what our experiences have taught us. I really enjoyed this discussion.
At the end of the day, a group of friends stopped for dinner before catching some of the attendee party at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel. We ended up at Urban Stack - which specializes in burgers. The Italian burger with sweet potato fries was messy, yet delicious. Afterwards, I spent some time winding down by playing games with some of my friends. Overall, it’s been a fun experience so far.
devLINK 2011 Recap - Sadukie’s Tales, Part 1
Posted by: sarah on: August 16, 2011
While planning for devLINK this year, I figured that I’d get there a day early to meet up with friends for lunch, maybe catch a summit in the afternoon, and then head to the VIP dinner on Tuesday. Well some of that happened and some didn’t - for me, meeting up with friends started with meeting up with Kevin Griffin in Atlanta, before our flight from ATL to CHA. We had breakfast before our flight and then, once settled into the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, we met up with friends and headed to The Terminal Brewhouse for lunch.
After catching lunch with friends, a group of us met up and played Killer Bunnies in the hotel lobby. There ended up not being a summit this devLINK, so we just hung out instead. Eventually, we moved on to the VIP dinner at Blue Orleans. It was great to discover that one of the guys I worked with in college - Travis Smith - was also speaking at devLINK - great chance to catch up with him. If there’s something this day showed me, it’s that Chattanooga has food places to find and enjoy and that this week will involve good times with friends.
Starting a New Chapter in my Career…
Posted by: sarah on: August 12, 2011
- In: Careers | Goals
- 3 Comments
753,120 minutes… 753,120 moments so dear
753,120 minutes… how do you measure, measure a career?
Today marks my 4 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days anniversary at OverDrive, Inc. This is the longest I’ve been at any company, and it will hold that record for at least another 4 years, 3 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days. That’s because today also marks my last day there.
Growing as a Developer
In my time at OverDrive, I’ve really grown as a developer. This was where I honed my C# developing chops and really started understanding my architectural and user experience points of view. I also had the privilege of working with some of Cleveland’s most talented developers. It was great pair programming with some, sharing lunch’n'learns with some, and just working with all of them. Not only did I work with great developers, but I really enjoyed working with everyone in the company as a whole. OverDrive staffers are friendly, knowledgeable, and fun to work with.
It was a great place for me to go 4 years ago. I escaped the brick wall of no growth and found a home in a company that let me explore technology and put it to use. Each project was a learning experience, and each of those experiences have helped me to become the person that I am today.
However, in those 4 years, I uncovered my passion for technology and let it run. I’ve gotten involved in various developer communities, speaking at events - including user groups and a national conference, and have found how to channel that passion for the good. I’ve found that I really enjoy sharing my knowledge with others and helping others out when I can. However, an 8-to-5 job has been getting in the way of me putting my technology to use for the greater good. So it’s time for me to move on.
Finding Growth as a Business Owner
I’ve always had the dream of owning my own business. However, I’ve never had the time to do it. Then I realize something… if I want it to happen, I have to make the time to make it happen.
Now I’ve had friends ask me… “Why not Sadukie LLC?” or “Why not make Sarahwares Productions official?”. While I’m known as “Sadukie” everywhere, it just doesn’t sound professional. As for “Sarahwares Productions”, it’s another site of mine that’s for side projects, but again, it really doesn’t sound professional. When forming my own business, I wanted a professional sounding name. However, I had struggled a bit coming up with a name. Special thanks to my awesome husband Kevin, I now have Cleveland Tech Consulting, LLC.
So if you hear about Cleveland Tech Consulting, LLC, now you know who’s behind it. I hope to be doing business with many of you in the future!
1569 days * 8 hours per day * 60 minutes per hour
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