Month: August 2015

Jonas talks about programming apps with Xamarin and starting his own user group. Cecil asks Jonas how he got his passion for technology. Jonas shares his first job experience and how he created his own business. The panel discusses what it’s like to work on a problem when your exhausted and Jonas shares how difficult it is to get a coconut. Jonas explains what an Argentine barbecue is and how the “asado” is a family tradition. The crew wraps up with the panel discussing games, soccer, and everyone’s favorite toy….Lego.

Links

Asado
South Florida Xamarin User Group

Bio

Jonas Stawski is a husband, father of three, a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), and an all around geek with over a decade of experience building and architecting .NET applications for clients of all sizes. He runs his own company that focuses on custom development for Mobile, Web, and the Cloud. Jonas is very passionate about software development and loves to write articles and speaks technical conferences. When he’s am not in front of a computer hacking away, you can find him enjoying time with my family, playing sports (specifically the real football) and games. You can find Jonas on the web at http://jstawski.com or on Twitter at @jstawski

This episode begins with Luis sharing the story of wow he met his wife when he was asked to replace her work computer. Richie asks about what Luis is pivoting his career. Luis then tells us how he got into working with SQL Server and BI. Afterwards, he discusses getting into Data Science and Machine Learning. Luis defines Data Science and Machine Learning for our listeners. Cecil ask how big is big data. Luis talks about building his confidence to where he’s able to speak publicly about his new found knowledge of Data Science. Luis talks about sharing his learning plan and progress with his wife. Richie asks Luis about differences he’s noticed between living in South Florida versus Atlanta. We then talk about various attractions we’ve visited in the Atlanta area.

Links

World of Coke
Georgia Aquarium
The R Programming Language
The Python Programming Language

Bio

Luis Figueroa is Solution Architect with BlueGranite and Microsoft V-TSP. Luis is focused on delivering business solutions that leverage the Microsoft BI ecosystem of products. His area of expertise is Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence. With 10+ years of experience in the field, Luis has delivered data management solutions for companies across many industry verticals. Luis is also a contributor to many local user groups as well as the PASS Data Science Virtual Chapter.

Julie introduces us to Giant Puppy. Cecil asks Julie to describe the process of authoring a book. Julie shares why she authors Pluralsight courses instead of writing books. Julie and Richie reminisce about the problems with Entity Framework version 1. Richie asks what was the genesis of her first book. Julie shares how she became the Entity Framework guru. Julie talks about how she lives the Vermont lifestyle, Doctor Who, Dune, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Sometimes Julie has problems with convertibles.

Links

Julie on Pluralsight
Data Model Patterns Book
Deborah Kurata
Rachel Appel on Away From The Keyboard

Bio

Julie Lerman is the leading independent authority on Microsoft’s ADO.NET Entity Framework and has been using and teaching the technology since its inception in 2006. Julie is the author of the highly acclaimed “Programming Entity Framework” book series from O’Reilly Media with recent editions on Code First (Dec 2011) and DbContext (Feb 2012) . She is well known in the .NET community as a Microsoft MVP, ASPInsider and INETA Speaker. She is a prolific blogger and a frequent presenter at technical conferences large and small around the world, such as TechEd and DevConnections. She also writes articles for many well-known technical publications, including the monthly Data Points column in MSDN Magazine. Julie keeps busy creating training videos for MSDN and Pluralsight.com.

Julie lives in Vermont where she has run the Vermont.NET User Group since 2002 and was a founding board member of the Vermont Software Developers Alliance. You can read her blog at www.thedatafarm.com/blog and her tweets at @julielerman.