Away From The Keyboard

Episode 80: Chloe Condon Takes The Stage

Richie Rump — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 15:00:00 +0000

The conversation starts with a discussion with growing up watching the Disney Channel which lead into a discussion of true crime podcasts. Chloe then shares her experience working as an actor. Group then talks about technology and the arts. The conversation then falls into a theme park rabbit hole. Chloe then shares her story of how she went from acting to becoming a technologist. The discussion then wraps up with the group talking about how to make technical learning fun and interesting.

Chloe Condon on Twitter

Bio

Chloe is a Bay Area based Cloud Advocate for Microsoft. Previously, she worked at Sentry.io where she created the award winning Sentry Scouts program, and was featured in the Grace Hopper Conference 2018 gallery featuring 15 influential women in STEM by AnitaB.org. Chloe holds a BA in Drama from San Francisco State University and is a graduate of Hackbright Academy. She prides herself on being a non-traditional background engineer, and is likely one of the only engineers who has played an ogre, crayon, and the back-end of a cow on a professional stage. She hopes to bring more artists into tech, and more engineers into the arts.

Episode 79: April Speight Body Slams Fashion

Richie Rump — Fri, 14 May 2021 17:00:00 +0000

The conversation starts with April talking about an injury she’s recovering from and then discusses her time in competitive bodybuilding. Then the discussion takes an unexpected turn when we learn that April played rugby. April then talks about connecting with people during COVID, treating science as fact, and meeting Bill Nye. The conversation wraps up with April sharing her love for fashion and creating her own clothing designs including creating her own brand.

Bio

April Speight is an author and developer advocate based in Beverly Hills, CA. She graduated from the University of Maryland University College with a BA in Global Business & Public Policy in addition to a certificate in Business Project Management. She later pursued and completed a MA in Luxury and Fashion Management at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

April began her professional career in the luxury fashion industry as a menswear stylist and visual merchandiser. She later transitioned into the tech industry as a project manager and systems analyst. In August 2020, she published Bite-Size Python: An Introduction to Python Programming with Wiley as a starter for adolescents to learn the Python programming language. She is currently a Sr. Cloud Advocate with the Spatial Computing technology team at Microsoft.

Episode 78: Dr. Sarah Guthals Educates Us

Richie Rump — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 19:45:00 +0000

The conversation starts with Dr. Sarah sharing how she got involved in technology and the importance that quality instructors had in her education. She then shares how she decided to shift her focus from medicine to technology. Dr. Sarah goes on to tell her immigrant family story and how she deals with imposter syndrome. The conversation then wraps up with a discussion on how the panel is dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Links

TEALS Program – Technology Education and Literacy in Schools (TEALS) is a Microsoft Philanthropies program that builds sustainable CS programs in high schools.

Bio

Dr. Sarah Guthals is a Principal Program Manager at Microsoft and focuses her life on providing access to high quality computer science education to novices of all ages, everywhere. With a Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California, San Diego, her passion is to design content, software that focuses on engaging learners. Sarah builds curriculum, teaches teachers, writes books for novices around coding, and is one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Science for her work in Computer Science Education.

Episode 77: Eugene Meidinger Slays Dragons

Richie Rump — Tue, 29 Sep 2020 20:00:23 +0000

The conversation starts with Eugene talking about his background and how he got into tech. He then talks about his experiences in developing Pluralsight courses. Eugene then shares about his struggles with diabetes and how he rose to overcome them. The conversation then moves to Eugene’s love of boardgames and he suggests some boardgames that are great for newbies. The conversation wraps up around Eugene telling us his involvement in Live Action Role Play (LARP).

Bio

Eugene Meidinger works as a Power BI consultant and full time Pluralsight author. He talks about a wide variety of data issues on the SQL Data Partners Podcast. But more importantly, he’s a lifelong fan of boardgames and a recent wargamer.

Episode 76: Cecil and Richie Strike Back

Richie Rump — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 21:30:00 +0000

Cecil and Richie both share what they’ve been up to during the Away From The Keyboard hiatus and what they have planned for the future of the show.

Bio

Cecil Phillip is a Software Developer from South Florida with many years of experience building applications on the .NET Framework. Throughout his career, his primary focus has been providing web and service based solutions for various markets. Cecil’s current tool-set of choice comprises of C#, ASP.NET MVC, ASP.NET Web API, jQuery, KnockoutJS, Entity Framework, XUnit and FakeItEasy. He has a passion for software architecture, interoperability, and testing. Cecil also enjoys experimenting with different programming platforms such as Python, PowerShell, and NodeJS. You can follow Cecil on Twitter via @cecilphillip.

Richie Rump is a software developer, data architect and project manager. Richie is a dataveloper at Brent Ozar Unlimited where he writes software that makes it easier to adminster SQL Server. He also developed http://statisticsparser.com/, a tool that helps data professionals tune SQL Server. Richie is the founder of the dotNet Miami, a community focused on enterprise development with .NET and SQL Server. He is a graduate of the University of Miami and has written software for many corporations over the past twenty-five years. He can be found on Twitter at @Jorriss or at http://jorriss.net/.

Episode 75: Lara Hogan Demystifies Public Speaking

Richie Rump — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 11:00:41 +0000

The conversation starts with Lara discussing her start in technology which believe it or not started with Lord of the Rings, international studies, a semester in Prague, and photography. Lara then goes in and discusses how she started speaking publicly, how she prepares to for a presentation, and why she wrote the book “Demystifying Public Speaking”. The panel then talks travel and their tips for traveling. Lara then shares about her trip to New Zealand and what she does when she’s away from the keyboard.

Bio

Lara Callender Hogan is an engineering leader, coach, and consultant at Wherewithall. Lara is also the author of Designing for Performance, Building a Device Lab, and Demystifying Public Speaking. She champions engineering management as a practice, helps people get comfortable public speaking, and believes it’s important to celebrate career achievements with donuts. Follow her on Twitter.

Episode 74: The Samurai’s Journey With Ian Felton

Richie Rump — Fri, 19 Jan 2018 11:00:03 +0000

In this episode, we have the pleasure of chatting with developer, author, and dedicated learner, Ian Felton. We start off the conversation talking about Ian’s background and learning how he got into technology. He tells us about his experience in college, playing in a band, and recording music. We also get some insight into how he got into NASA with some help from a college professor. Then we spent some time understanding how Ian dealt with the pressures of his figure job.

We also get to learn more about Ian’s book, The Code of the Samurai. Ian tell us where he got his inspiration from to write the book and some of the historical research he had to do. Richie asks Ian to tell us how writing books compares to writing code. Moving forward, Cecil asks Ian about his musical past.

Bio

Ian Felton has more than twenty years of professional experience writing software for organizations such as NASA, Mayo Clinic, Thomson Reuters, and many more. He is the author of, “The Coding Samurai – The Way of the Computer Warrior.” His blog, The Psychologist Coder, explores IT through the lens of psychology. Ian is also a published author of haibun, a prosemetric Japanese form of writing, mainly centered around travel and journies to far-off places. In addition to writing and wildlife photography, his interests include running his nonprofit organization, which puts musical instruments into the hands of children who need them, and practicing meditation, Chinese, and several Chinese martial arts. He’s also a graduate student pursuing a Master of Arts in Psychology and Counseling Services.

Episode 73: Aurelia Moser: Renaissance Woman

Richie Rump — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 17:00:18 +0000

The conversation starts with Aurelia sharing what she’s currently watching on Netflix. Which leads to a discussion about 13 Reasons Why and the controversies around the show. Aurelia then shares what she does at the Mozilla Science Lab and the projects she’s worked on. She then talks about her time studying Art in grad school. Cecil then inquires about Aurelia’s love for maps which leads to a discussion on open source mapping tools. The conversation then wraps up with Aurelia talking about what she does when she’s away from the keyboard including her radio show Stereo Semantics.

Bio

Aurelia is a developer and curious cartographer building communities around code at the Mozilla Science Lab. Previously of Ushahidi, Internews Kenya, and Carto, she’s been working in the open tech and non-profit journalism space for a few years, and recent projects have had mapping sensor data to support agricultural security and sustainable APIs ecosystems in the Global South. She’s taught coding classes at GDI-NYC, SVA-DSI, and Parsons. She also runs a radio show based on the Semantic Web, called Stereo Semantics, and co-hosts a show-and-tell meetup called That Belongs in A Museum. Sometimes she makes and writes stuff too.

Episode 72: Chris Coyier Puts Pen To Code

Richie Rump — Fri, 15 Sep 2017 16:00:55 +0000

The conversation starts with Chris talking about how he got started in web development and his experience as a web designer. The conversation then turns to his site, CodePen. Chris describes how CodePen got started, how they determine features, and some of the interesting things that people are building with CodePen. Chris then talks about some of the things he likes to do when he’s away from the keyboard and then describes what it was like living in Miami for six months.

Bio

Chris is a web designer and developer. He writes about all thing web at CSS-Tricks, talks about all things web at conferences around the world and on his podcast ShopTalk, and co-founded the web coding playground CodePen.

Episode 71: Kevin Kline on Writing and Professionalism

Richie Rump — Thu, 31 Aug 2017 17:00:03 +0000

The conversation begins with Kevin talking about his early childhood and how he ended up in the technology field. The conversation then turns to what he’s learned by authoring books and the difficulties in writing them. Kevin then talks about speaking and how it has made him a better professional. The conversation wraps up with Kevin sharing the problems he encountered while leading the community organization PASS.

Bio

Kevin Kline is a renowned database expert and software industry veteran. A long-time
Microsoft data platform MVP and noted leader in the IT data management industry,
Kevin is a founder and former president of PASS and the author of popular IT books like
SQL in a Nutshell. Kevin is a principal program manager for SentryOne. Kevin is a top-
rated speaker at industry trade shows worldwide. He tweets at @kekline.

Episode 70: Balancing Education with Victor Moreno

Richie Rump — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 16:00:16 +0000

In this episode, we get to chat with freelance Software Developer and educator, Victor Moreno. We start off the show with Victor telling us how influential his father was in encouraging his interest in computing. Victor also gives us the background story that lead to him becoming involved in education. We then get into an interesting discussion about his initial experiences being a teacher. Victor shares with us how he tries to maintain a balance of academic and engaging material with his students. We talk about the importance of having a support community, and also discuss what can the technical community do to help foster technical education especially for newcomers.

Bio

Victor Moreno has been working with web technologies since before CSS was invented. With 8 years of professional experience, he’s worked as a Python developer, ReactJS developer, and also has experience in managing corporate IT infrastructures in a VMWare/Windows Server environment. Victor is not only an AngularJS and ReactJS enthusiast but also an AWS Certified Solutions Architect, AWS Certified Developer, and a developer on Toptal.com. Victor‘s background in entrepreneurship makes him a programmer with an uniquely pragmatic perspective, concerned with delivering business value first and foremost. He’s very adept at cutting through hype and his software practice focuses on agility and value over buzz. Victor is involved with two early stage startups and is currently the academic director of a coding boot camp named TechLaunch.

Episode 69: Bradley Ball on TV, Film, the World Series, and Data

Richie Rump — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 16:00:11 +0000

Bradley Ball is back for his second stint on the show. The convo starts with Brad sharing what he’s excited about in the comic movie world. Then we talk about the television shows that he’s currently watching. The conversation then focuses on the excellent DC animated movies and how Batman is the centerpiece of it all. The convo then shifts to baseball and how the Cubs winning the World Series affected Bradley.

Bio

Bradley Ball is a former Microsoft SQL Server and Data platform MVP with over 15 years of IT experience. He spent 8 years working as a Defense contractor for clients such as the U.S. Army and The Executive Office of the President of the United States. He works for Microsoft on the Premier Services Developer team as a Sr. Consultant. He has presented at SQLSaturday, DevConnections, SQLBits, and PASS Summit. He can be found blogging on sqlballs.com about SQL Server or anything else that interests him.

Episode 68: Going for the Goal with Carlos Chacon

Richie Rump — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 14:00:11 +0000

This episode starts off in typical AFTK fashion with us finding out how our guest, Carlos, got into technology. Carlos let’s us know how influential his father was in the early days. Cecil asks Carlos how he went from being a SQL Server professional to starting his own company. Carlos talks us through some of the decisions he had to make and also things he had to consider, when starting his business. He also gave us some interesting advice if you’re interested in bringing on a partner into your company. In addition to this business, Carlos hosts a successful podcast, coaches soccer, is a scout leader, and is also a published author. Through this episode, we really get to dig into Carlos’ life away from the keyboard

Bio

Carlos Chacon is the managing partner of SQL Data Partners LLC a consulting firm assisting private practices with their data. He is the co-host of the SQL Data Partners Podcast, which just celebrated two years on the air. He enjoys traveling and has been to four continents, speaks Spanish and can eat his weight in raspberries (not yet proven). He and his family live in Richmond, Virginia. Connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Episode 67: Kasey Champion Educates the Young, Scrappy, and Hungry

Richie Rump — Mon, 22 May 2017 10:00:54 +0000

Part two of our conversation with Kasey Champion begins with Kasey describing how she joined Microsoft and how she was tasked with teaching the Word team how to write unit tests. The conversation then shifts to her involvement with the TEALS program and her experiences teaching at the collegiate and high school levels. Cecil asks Kasey what makes a good teacher and how does one create a course. The conversation wraps up with Kasey discussing her involvement with the edX program and a discussion on the rewarding aspects of teaching.

Bio

Kasey Champion is a firm believer that “talent is universal but opportunity is not”; she is dedicated to bringing technical education, and the economic empowerment it provides, to all students. A software engineer turned teacher, Kasey graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Electrical Engineering, in addition to her course work she was a teaching assistant for the Computer Science Department.

After graduation, she joined Microsoft as a software engineer, but every morning before work for the last 3 years she has been a computer science teacher at local area high schools with the TEALS program. Recently she was lucky enough to make her passion her full-time job and joined the Microsoft Learning team to develop computer science courseware designed to be inclusive of all students.

Her current passions include employment courses for community college students, increasing interest in tech for girls and students of color, empowering women in Afghanistan to rebuild their communities and helping kids in refugee camps fill the gaps in their education.

Episode 66: The Wonderful World of Kasey Champion

Richie Rump — Fri, 12 May 2017 16:00:57 +0000

The conversation gets started with Kasey introducing herself and her school years. The Hamilton quotes get deep as she discusses her background in the theater. Kasey then reminisces about her transition from drama into computer engineering and how 2008 the financial crisis hit her family. Kasey then reveals her love for all things Disney and how that has influenced her small business.

Bio

Episode 65: Jo Overline’s Ugly Start

Richie Rump — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:00:56 +0000

The conversation begins with Jo introducing himself and explaining how he got started with mobile apps. Jo then talks about his app biggest success, Ugly Meter. Cecil then asks Jo how he handled the success of Ugly Meter and what was some of the downsides to having 30 million downloads. The conversation then turns to Jo’s current company, SwingDev. Jo talks about the genesis of the company and some of the characteristics that makes SwingDev so special.

Bio

Jo Overline, CEO of Swing Development, has been a successful iOS app creator for over ten years. He’s built over 30 apps in various categories, and over 30 million downloads under his belt holding the #1 spot in 94 countries.

The “Ugly Meter” app was one of his most successful – it even landed him spots on the Howard Stern show on four separate occasions.

Jo’s expertise lies not only in technology and development, but in the business aspects of being an independent tech entrepreneur. Since his days as an iOS consultant, he moved on to found SwingDev, which specializes in web and mobile app development for individuals and companies ranging from startups to the Fortune 500.

Episode 64: Challenging Education with the Caribu Team

Richie Rump — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 14:00:26 +0000

In this episode, we get introduces to two startup founders Alvaro & Maxeme who have built up an education startup called Caribu. We start off this episode with hearing how Max and Alvaro got their interest in education. We then get into a conversation about what can we do with technology to help push education forward. We also talk about important of recognizing different learning styles and encouraging children in the right way. This leads us into Max and Alvaro talking to us about Caribu; their education technology app that helps parents read to their kids where ever they are in the world. They give us the rundown on some of the problems Caribu solves and the goals that they have for the future. We also talk about how author can get their books into the Caribu platform.

We get into a discussion with our guests about what it’s been like for them building a startup in Miami. Maxeme tell us about how amazing the startup community in Miami is but also some of the challenges they have to deal with. She talks to us about her organizing community events and getting more women involved in tech community.

Bio

Maxeme Tuchman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Caribu Inc., an education technology company that help parents and extended family read bedtime stories to children when they are far away. She was most recently appointed by President Obama to serve as a White House Fellow at the U.S. Department of the Treasury where she served as a senior policy advisor and worked on issues of financial inclusion. Max served as the Executive Director of Teach For America Miami-Dade and was responsible for overseeing daily regional operations for 26 staff members and cultivating over $15M of private and public support in service of over 500 current teachers and alums. Prior to that, she served in Mayor Bloomberg’s bullpen managing the NYC Waterfalls, a public art installation that generated $69 million in economic activity. She also co-created the NYC Civic Corps, an AmeriCorps VISTA program that in its first three years had 448 participants hosted by 97 organizations that then were able to utilize 1.7 million new volunteers. Her commitment to educational equity began as a Teach For America corps member, teaching 480 high school students in inner-city Miami, and has led to working on educational innovation projects with organizations such as the Harlem Children’s Zone, DC Public Schools, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She is a graduate of the Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs and the Miami Fellows Leadership Program, and a current Trustee of the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora in Miami. Maxeme received her B.A. from New College of Florida and holds an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

Alvaro Sabido is an engineer who has lived in 5 different cities around the world and has had a life-long passion for building things, both physical and digital. This ambition has taken him from re-building his grandfather’s racing motorcycle from the 50’s which he still rides today, to developing his university’s mobile app and recently founding Caribu, an edTech company based in Miami.

Episode 63: Derick Bailey’s Move From Fast Food To Entrepreneur

Richie Rump — Fri, 31 Mar 2017 17:00:18 +0000

The conversation kicks off with Derick introducing himself and talking about his experience in working at fast food restaurants. Cecil then asks Derick about his introduction into software development. Derick then talks about his blog and describes how he creates the stick figure images that he uses. The conversation then moves to Derick’s training products and the process he undergoes to create them.

Bio

Derick Bailey is a developer, entrepreneur, author, speaker and technology leader in central Texas (north of Austin). He’s been a professional developer since the late 90’s, and has been writing code since the late 80’s. Derick has build software for organizations of all shapes and sizes, including contributions to Microsoft’s MDSN library, running several very highly regarded open source projects, creating software solutions for large financial organizations, healthcare organizations, world-class airlines, the U.S. government, and more. These days, Derick spends most of his time working on content for his own entrepreneurial efforts at WatchMeCode.net, playing video games when he gets a chance, and writing code for for his few remaining clients. You can reach Derick at DerickBailey.com or on twitter, @derickbailey.

Episode 62: Breaking Into Consulting With Zack Burt

Richie Rump — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 17:00:56 +0000

In this episode, we talk to Zack Burt about his life as a Software Development Consultant. We start off with Zack telling how he got started with technology in 4th grade. He tells us how he got started building Facebook apps and a chat application called Compassion Pit. Zack then shares with the struggles he went through early on trying to get a job as a software developer. We then get into a discussion about how developers are vetted out today. Zack goes on to walk to us about ways developers can stand out from the pack. Then we discuss our experiences with LinkedIn and how effective it is. Zack also shares with us various ways that we can generate new client leads.

Bio

Zack Burt was born in Palo Alto, California in 1987. He began programming (with QBASIC) at age nine and immediately found a passion. Since 2003, he has been working in Silicon Valley and New York City in individual contributor and leadership roles. In 2007, he launched his software consultancy business after his PHP application “Lamefactor” was acquired by WikiYou, Inc. He is passionate about open source, both in submitting pull requests and launching open source projects. He currently lives in Manhattan where he enjoys playing basketball and meeting new and diverse people; he encourages you to email him if you’d like to meet.

Episode 61: Charles Max Wood On Podcasting

Richie Rump — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 17:00:09 +0000

Charles starts part two of our conversation by sharing how he started DevChat.tv and the related conferences. Charles then describes how he balances his time with all of his podcasts. Charles then discusses some of the business aspects of his podcasts including how he gets podcasts and how he handles premium content. Charles then talks a bit about his new book and what he does when he’s away from the keyboard. The conversation then wraps up with Charles giving some great advice for those who want to start their own podcast.

Bio

Charles Max Wood is a podcaster, speaker, and the CEO of Devchat.tv. He co-hosts the Ruby Rogues, JavaScript Jabber, and Adventures in Angular podcasts.

He also puts on a large number of online conferences about various topics of interest to computer programmers.

When he’s not coding or podcasting, he’s reading to his kids, watching soccer, or finding new ways to automate parts of his business.

He currently lives in Utah with his wife and 5 children.

Episode 60: The Humble Beginnings of Charles Max Wood

Richie Rump — Fri, 10 Feb 2017 17:00:16 +0000

The conversation starts with Charles describing his journey into software and starting in technical support. He then shares how he started to learn Ruby and how the community was instrumental in supporting him on his journey. Charles then describes how he became a freelance developer and what it was like talking to his wife about it. The conversations winds up with Charles sharing how his successful podcasting career started.

Bio

Charles Max Wood is a podcaster, speaker, and the CEO of Devchat.tv. He co-hosts the Ruby Rogues, JavaScript Jabber, and Adventures in Angular podcasts.

He also puts on a large number of online conferences about various topics of interest to computer programmers.

When he’s not coding or podcasting, he’s reading to his kids, watching soccer, or finding new ways to automate parts of his business.

He currently lives in Utah with his wife and 5 children.

Episode 59: Starting Up In Miami With Brian Brackeen

Richie Rump — Tue, 31 Jan 2017 13:00:53 +0000

Brian starts out with telling us about how his love for computing begin with his first Atari computer. He then talks to us about the various jobs he has before starting Kairos. Cecil ask Brian as what moment did he know it was the right time for him the launch a startup. Brian talks about Kairos, the problems they’re trying to solve and their vision for the future. Cecil ask Brian to share some of the interesting ways customers are making use of their APIs.

Brian used to work for Apple during the Jobs era. Cecil asks Brian what he learned about business from being around Steve Jobs. We then get into a discussion about why Brian decided to make Miami the home for his company. Brian gives us a run down on why Florida is a great place for startups.

Bio

Brian Brackeen is founder & CEO of Kairos, a Miami based Human Analytics platform providing face recognition and emotion analysis to businesses with developer friendly APIs and SDKs. Kairos is an Endeavor company, and currently services more than ten thousand clients in 70 countries — processing millions of faces each month. Prior to founding Kairos, Brian served as a Senior Project Manager for Apple Inc., and before Apple he was a Senior Managing Consultant for IBM.

In addition to his work at Kairos, Brian lectures extensively around the world on entrepreneurship, code, digital economy, AI and machine learning— and participates in mentorship programs for organizations like Girls Who Code, Black Girls Code and School District of Miami Dade County.

Episode 58: Luis Atencio Reacts to Everything

Richie Rump — Fri, 20 Jan 2017 17:00:20 +0000

Luis talks to us about how the advice of a family member got him into a career in technology. He talks to us about his past in Venezuela and also about having a child in the United States. We discuss moving to the US and balancing cultures for our children.

Luis talks to us about getting his first job as a student at FIU to working at Citrix. He also tell us about the importance of the cloud for software at Citrix. Then we then dive into talking about Luis’ books with Manning.

Bio

Luis Atencio (@luijar) is a Staff Software Engineer for Citrix Systems in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. He has a B.S. and an M.S. in Computer Science and now works full-time developing and architecting web applications using Java, PHP, and JavaScript platforms. Luis is also very involved in the community and has presented on several occasions at conferences and local meet-ups. When he is not coding, Luis writes a developer blog at http://luisatencio.net/ focused on software engineering as well as several magazine articles for PHPArch and DZone. Luis is also the author of Functional Programming in JavaScript (Manning 2016), Functional PHP (Leanpub), as well as co-author for RxJS in Action (Manning 2016).

Episode 57: Joe Raio is in the Technology Mosh Pit

Richie Rump — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 16:00:22 +0000

Joe introduces himself and shares how he got his start in technology. Joe then reminisces about his first technical job, his first programming languages, and how the community has grown over the past 20 years. Then Joe talks about starting three different companies and how he sold each one of them. Cecil then asks Joe to share how he transitioned from small business owner to Microsoft employee. Richie then inquires Joe’s experience with playing in a heavy metal band, recording, and album and touring. The panel then discusses their favorite playlists and what is their favorite music to listen to while working.

Bio

Joe Raio is a Microsoft Technical Evangelist based in Miami, Florida. As a technical evangelist, Joe primarily focuses on presentations leveraging the Microsoft Stack focused on website development and cloud technology. Prior to becoming an evangelist for Microsoft, Joe successfully owned and operated three small businesses centered around website development and marketing. To learn more about Joe, visit his website at http://joeraio.com/

Episode 56: The Family That Codes Together with Kathleen Dollard

Richie Rump — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 16:00:50 +0000

This episode starts off with Kathleen telling us a little about her history being a Microsoft MVP, traveling, and her C# workshops. We then get into a discussion on where her passion for community comes from. She talks about the programming languages she’s learned over the years, and even talks about programming with Clipper. Kathleen also shares with us how she’s been able to stay relevant in her career.

We then get to hear about the lineage of programmers in Kathleen’s family. She also talks a bit about the Turing School for programmers and how her younger son’s reviews pull requests for homework. Moving forward Kathleen talks to us about her workshops, teaching techniques and going to conferences.

Kathleen also gives us a fun description of the Winter season in Denver, Colorado.

Bio

Kathleen Dollard loves to code and loves to talk about code. Along the way she’s an architect, a “manager”, a teacher, a writer, a speaker, and hopefully still a fun person! She’s written tons of articles, a book, and spoken around the world. She’s the Director of Engineering for ROI Code, previously Real and has videos in both the Pluralsight and WintellectNow libraries.

Episode 54: In the Mind of Annie Ruygt

Richie Rump — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 18:08:12 +0000

We start off with Annie talking to us about her love for books, animation, and storytelling. Annie talks to us about some of her favorite illustrators. Then we get into a discussion about the emotional connection between an artist and their work. Cecil asks Annie about her first drawings. Following that, Annie talks about working for a technology startup. Annie walks us through her role at RethinkDB, and also tells us the origin story of the Thinker. We talk about her book, “The Three Things”. We also get into the role that books play in her life.

Bio

Annie is an illustrator living and creating in Napa, CA. She has worked with clients like RethinkDB, Twitter, and Let’s Mend, as well as published a few children’s books. She loves telling stories and cherishes their ability to help us discover ourselves.

Episode 53: Arturo Real’s Excellent Harvard Adventure

Richie Rump — Thu, 10 Nov 2016 17:00:16 +0000

Arturo introduces himself and shares how he and his family left Venezuela for Miami. He then talks about how he got started in technology with the CS50x course. Cecil inquires what CS50x is and how Arturo got involved with it. The pannel then chats about the Internet of Things and the Kickstarter project Jewelbots. Arturo then shares about working at Harvard and what it’s like being there everyday.

Bio

Arturo J. Real was born in Venezuela and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he works as a project manager and producer of Harvard’s Introduction to Computer Science. CS50. He is an advocate for volunteer work at all ages and in raising awareness of and action towards environmental causes.

Episode 52: Independently Mobile with Frank Krueger

Richie Rump — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 16:00:09 +0000

We start of this episode with Frank giving us some background on early days learning programming on an Apple II and the BASIC programming language. Frank also tells us about some of the books he dug into. We then get into talking about the first app that Frank wrote and also some insight into this Calca app. Frank goes into starting a company and moving to India to work on a project. Cecil asks Frank about how he put together his plan for writing his own apps for a living. Frank tells us about struggle to profitability. Cecil asks Frank to talk to us about his latest app, Continuous.

Bio

Frank is an independent mobile developer living in Seattle, WA. He started work as an embedded systems engineer, moved on to be a web developer, and eventually found happiness as an iOS developer. He has written iCircuit, Calca, and Continuous. All the while, Frank has enjoyed releasing open source projects and contributing as much as he can to the software development community. His programming interests include computer graphics, simulation, programming languages, and artificial intelligence. When he’s not at his computer, you can usually find him hiking around some mountain or sleeping in a tent by a river.

Episode 51: The Technical Wisdom of Jesse Liberty

Richie Rump — Fri, 14 Oct 2016 16:00:42 +0000

Part two of our conversation with Jessie starts with a discussion about Angular and TypeScript. Cecil asks Jessie how he manages to learn new languages and technology. The conversation then goes into how the technical interviewing process is flawed. We then talk to Jessie about his podcast “Yet Another Podcast”. Jessie then talks about his love for books and music. The convo wraps up with Jessie giving some tips for developers to have a long career.

Bio

Jessie starts the conversation by introducing himself and describing what it was like when he started in the technology industry. Cecil shares about the first book he ever had about programming, a book that Jesse wrote. Jesse then talked about his time at Microsoft and what it was like working under Scott Guthrie. Cecil then asks about why Jesse when back to independent consulting and how he finds clients. The episode ends with Jesse telling us a consulting horror story.

Episode 50: The Technical Journey of Jesse Liberty

Richie Rump — Thu, 22 Sep 2016 16:00:38 +0000

Bio

Episode 49: Daniel X Programs In An Orange Grove

Richie Rump — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 10:00:08 +0000

Daniel starts off by introducing himself and talking about the new product he developed for Fog Creek Software, HyperDev. He then talks about how he got started in web development and how he built a game for the Chrome App Store. Cecil then asks about Daniel’s venture into building a game engine and what motivates him to learn. The show wraps up with Daniel talking about his orange grove and how he handles working from home.

Bio

Daniel X Moore is the HyperDev team lead and a member of technical staff at Fog Creek Software. He’s the creator of the popular reactive templating framework, Hamlet.coffee, and has worked in a variety of web programming roles at Sony, OkCupid, and others.

Episode 48: David Neal’s Southern Twang

Richie Rump — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 16:00:54 +0000

David starts us with telling us about his Southern Twang and falling involve with the city of Nashville. He talks about the music scene and playing gigs in the area. David talks about playing in a band. We then get into a discussion on the relationship between music and developers. Cecil asks about the types of music that he listens too.

Next we start getting into David’s programming history. He then goes to journey through various careers before landing on programming. We then discuss David’s experience speaking at conferences. David also shares with us how hand drawing supercharged his presentations.

Bio

David is a husband, father of 5 boys, geek, musician, motorcyclist, speaker, software developer, and Microsoft MVP living in North GA. He spent several years building high-performance, scalable social media applications, and currently works at LeanKit as a Developer Advocate. David runs on a high-octane mixture of caffeine and bacon.

Episode 47: Jen Underwood’s Wild Beginnings

Richie Rump — Thu, 04 Aug 2016 12:30:26 +0000

Jen starts off the conversation by introducing herself and explaining how she got to Florida. She further explains the circumstances behind her “$800 and a dream” move. The conversation then takes a turn towards the wild as Jen explains the amount of wildlife in her backyard which includes snakes, bobcats, deer and alligators. The conversation then finishes with Jen talking about how she rejoined Microsoft and what she’s up to today.

Bio

Jen Underwood, founder of Impact Analytix, LLC, has 20 years of experience in “hands-on” development of data warehouses, hybrid data integration, reporting, dashboards, and predictive analytics. In addition to keeping a constant pulse on the analytics market, she has held product management roles on the Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence and Power BI teams. Jen also was honored to be a former Tableau Zen Master.

Throughout her career, she has helped customers select and succeed in adopting new technologies. She has launched new analytics products and turned around failed projects for organizations, systems integration firms and industry vendors. Today she provides advisory, thought leadership, go-to-market strategy, technical product management support services, market/competitive intelligence, technical writing, content development, training, and event presentations for a wide variety of clients, financial investment groups, research firms and cloud SaaS/software companies.

Episode 46: Diversifying Your Skills With Kyle Simpson

Richie Rump — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 14:30:53 +0000

We start off this episode by asking the question… who exactly is Kyle Simpson. Kyle talks about how he got started with making an early bet on Javascript and the making the transition to teaching. Cecil asks where did the name “Getify” come from? Kyle talks about how he started his Getify company, which then turned into becoming his own persona. We then into a discuss into Kyle’s history of web development and why he decided to make a bet on JavaScript.

Cecil asks Kyle why doesn’t he consider himself to be a “master”. We then get into a discussion inclusion in the development community and how some terminology can act as a deterrent. Kyle then shares with us his views of diversity in the technology industry today.

We end off the show with Kyle talking about some of his favorite things to do and also about Texas BBQ!!

Bio

Kyle Simpson is an evangelist of the open web. He’s passionate about all things JavaScript, writes books, teaches JavaScript, speaks, and contributes to the world of OSS.

Episode 45: Mike Bluestein Scores a Goal

Richie Rump — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 13:30:16 +0000

The episode starts with Mike talking about Hockey and how he got started playing it. The conversation then turns to the Red Sox and how winning the championship energized the Boston community. Mike then shares how he got started in technology as a kid. He also talks about his love for writing games and how he wrote a game with his kids. Cecil and Mike then discuss virtual reality technology and how technology has changed over the past few years. Mike then shares how he works from home and talks about some of the things he’s looking forward to in the remainder of 2016.

Bio

Mike Bluestein is an internationally recognized expert on the Xamarin platform, and one of the first users of Xamarin.iOS, dating back to the pre-Xamarin days when the product was called MonoTouch. As an early Xamarin employee, both as the documentation lead and later a developer evangelist, he taught many of Xamarin’s employees how to build Xamarin applications, as well as several of Xamarin’s larger customers. The majority of the content in the Xamarin Developer Center was initially created by Mike. Mike also authored the book Learning MonoTouch: A Hands-On Guide to Building iOS Applications with C# and .NET, from Addison-Wesley, which has been published internationally in multiple languages, as well as a MonoTouch course for AppDev. Previously Mike worked on a variety of engineering applications ranging from CAD software, to distributed 3D content systems. Before working exclusively as a software engineer, Mike was an aerospace engineer who did aerodynamic design for jet engines.

Episode 44: Looking All The Way Up With James Montemagno

Richie Rump — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 15:15:24 +0000

In this episode, we start off with James telling us about his love for music. James gets into how he got into hip-hop and how he listens to albums. Cecil and James talk about what type of music they put on to help to get in the zone. They talk about making playlists and whats wrong with the top charts lists. The discussion the moves into how albums are composed and being able to enjoy the entire body of work.

The conversation quickly moves into how we set priorities and how those priorities change over time. James reminds us how important it is to put our devices down and connect with the world around us. We also briefly discuss the pros and cons of being in time where we’re more connected than ever before.

Cecil asks James about cycling and not having a car. James tells us the story of how he started getting in better shape and what got him into cycling. We end off with James talking about his most memorable traveling experience.

Bio

James Montemagno is a Developer Evangelist at Xamarin. He has been a .NET developer since 2005 working in a wide range of industries and before joining Xamarin was a professional mobile developer and has now been developing with the Xamarin platform since 2011.

Episode 43: Newt Porter Is Keeping Score

Richie Rump — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 10:00:26 +0000

Newt introduces himself and talks about his company, CareerScore, and how it originated. Newt then explains how he came from an economics and finance background and started to learn how to code. He then goes on to discuss how to find quality people and what CareerScore offers companies.Cecil then asks what is it like to work in a startup incubator. Richie then hops in an asks how CareerScore can help the job seeker. The conversation then wraps up with Newt sharing what he’s looking forward to in 2016 and what he does when he’s away from the keyboard.

Bio

Newt is the CEO and co-founder of Careerscore, a career engagement platform helping tech professionals accelerate their careers. The spark for starting the company began while attending the University of Florida where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in Economics and master’s degree in Finance. Newt is a Miami native, a data nerd, a fitness enthusiast, and a private pilot. Follow him on twitter @newtporter.

Episode 42: Getting Back Up With Aaron Stannard

Richie Rump — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:00:35 +0000

In typical AFTK fashion, we start us with asking Aaron where his passion for technology came form. Aaron tells us how his father got into software development and also how his father got him into writing software. He goes on to share a story from the Engineering Department of Vanderbilt University. Aaron also tells us about his first business at 9 years old.

Cecil asks how MarkedUP came about. Aaron tells us how he went from working at Microsoft as an Evangelist to venturing into his first startup. He shared with us how he was able to leverage his contacts and work with investing to get funding for his company.

Aaron talks about the decline of the Windows Desktop application market and having to shutdown MarketUP. Cecil asks Aaron about the lessons he’s learned through this experience. Aaron describes it as his PhD in Engineering along with an MBA at the same time. Moving on, we get into a discussion about explicit communication and asynchronous workflows for software teams. Aaron then talks to us about Petabridge and the need for an Actor Model implementation in .NET.

Bio

Aaron is the founder and CEO of Petabridge, and the co-founder of the Akka.NET open-source project. Prior to Petabridge, Aaron founded MarkedUp Analytics, a real-time in-app marketing and analytics service used by 1000+ developers. Prior to that he worked at Microsoft as a Startup Developer Evangelist.

Extra 2: Our Favorite Mobile Apps

Richie Rump — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 10:00:49 +0000

While we were at the Podcast Movement conference last year we had the opportunity to record in the Buzzsprout recording booth. The limited time that we had was a perfect opportunity to record another Extra episode. In this episode we discuss our favorite mobile apps. Enjoy.

Cecil’s Top Picks

	Airbnb
	Flipboard
	Shazam

Richie’s Top Picks

	Star Walk 2
	Glympse
	TripIt

Cecil’s Honorable Mentions

Feedly

Richie’s Honorable Mentions

	LastPass
	Google Authenticator

Episode 41: Amir Rajan Pwns the App Store

Richie Rump — Thu, 19 May 2016 16:00:12 +0000

Amir starts by introducing himself and then shares about how he got started in game development. The panel then discusses their favorite video games. Amir then describes how he builds games and his toolset. He then goes to talk about his best selling game, A Dark Room, and how he brought it to life. Amir then talks about his next game and his inspirations for making games. Richie then asks Amir if he plays any board games. Amir then shares some knowledge about how to get started in mobile game development. Cecil then asks Amir about his new book “Surviving The App Store: How to Make It as an Indie Game Developer”. The show wraps up as Amir talks about his passion for drawing and for the TV show, The Bachelor”.

Bio

Amir Rajan is a pretty decent dev and is constantly trying to improve in his craft. He’s a jack of all trades, being comfortable with a number of platforms and languages.

Last but certainly not least, Amir is the creator of A Dark Room iOS. This RPG conquered the world and took the #1 spot in the App Store and placed in the top #10 paid apps across 70 countries. It has been downloaded over 2.5 millions times and is a staple game in the App Store with over 25,000 five star reviews.

Episode 40: Michael Kennedy Goes Around the World with Python

Richie Rump — Mon, 09 May 2016 10:00:31 +0000

In this episode we’re excited to have Michael Kennedy on the show. We start off with Michael telling us how he got into working with Python. We then get into some popular examples of Python usage, such as Dropbox, YouTube and more. Cecil asks Micheal about getting into podcasting and what keeps him going. We also share with Michael some of our motivations for our own podcast. Micheal also share some of his favorite podcasts with us.

We ask Michael bout creating online courses, his very successful Kickstarter, and we also get into his future projects. The discussion then goes into the topic of the “computer science” in the education system and what is the difference between computer science and computer literacy? Finally, we end the show with Michael telling us about his latest adventure of living in Germany for a year!

Bio

Michael Kennedy is the creator and host of the Talk Python To Me podcast and founder of Talk Python Training an online training company for Python developers. He is also an author, an instructor, and conference speaker. While working at DevelopMentor, he has taught over 100 week-long training courses to professional software development teams throughout the world. Follow him on twitter via @mkennedy.

Episode 39: Santosh Hari Directs Transitions

Richie Rump — Fri, 22 Apr 2016 15:00:14 +0000

Santosh gets things started and explains how he got into technology after getting his electrical engineering degree in India. He then explains how he moved to the US to attend college and the difficulties in the transition. Cecil asks Santosh about the kinds of food one can expect in Mumbai. Santosh talks about his role as Director of Software at Spectrum Bridge and how he grew into the role. He then shares on how he got involved with the OneTug user group and how he facilitates the creation of software for the group.

Bio

Santosh is a software entrepreneur with experience building products on the .NET platform since 2002 and over 15 years in the software industry. Before 2000, his claim to fame was working on projects that saved the world from the Y2K disasters.

Santosh currently works for Spectrum Bridge, a wireless startup, where he leverages his software skills to help build high quality, affordable wireless broadband to the developing world. He also dons the volunteer cape and helps the Orlando .Net User Group (ONETUG) organize meetups and Orlando Code Camp. After hours, he helps out at Sand Dollar Technology, a joint tech venture with his wife.

Santosh is a public speaker in the areas of geospatial data and Azure. He has given talks at meetups, code camps, barcamps and also at Ignite Tampa Bay in 2013. When not working on software projects, Santosh loves playing tennis, rescuing animals and rooting for his favorite sports team, the Florida State Seminoles.

Episode 38: Truth, Justice, and the Bradley Ball Way

Richie Rump — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:45:18 +0000

In this episode, we drive into the comic book world with our guest Bradley Ball. We start off with Bradley talking to us about the passion he has for his career and why he decided to accept a leadership position at Microsoft. He talks about all the considerations he made and the questions he had to ask. Cecil asks Bradley is he ever considered working for himself.

We get into Bradley’s love for comics. Richie asks why Superman is so compelling. Bradley talks to us about why Superman is his favorite comic book hero and the story of the Elite. We then get into a discussion on the current state of Marvel and DC comics. The show ends off with Bradley sharing some suggestions on comics people might want to get started with.

Bio

Episode 37: Planes, Aurelia, and Automobiles with Ashley Grant and Guest Host Julie Lerman

Richie Rump — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 10:00:56 +0000

Entity Framework guru Julie Lerman guest hosts on this special episode. Ashley explains his roots in South Carolina and his experience at Florida State University. Ashley talks a bit about his affinity for cars and how he started a car club. Ashley talks about studying for his pilot’s license and the process of obtaining it. Then he shares how he joined the Aurelia core team and became the community champion. Julie shares the many different ways maple syrup can be used and Ashley talks about how he loves to cook.

Links

Aurelia Javascript Framework

The Data Farm – Julie’s Blog

Bio

Ashley is a full stack web developer from Tallahassee, FL with over ten years of industry experience. Ashley blogs at http://blog.ashleygrant.com/ on whatever strikes his fancy. He recently discovered just how awesome modern javascript development can be and is passionate about sharing the awesomeness! As a Aurelia Core Team Member, Ashley focuses on community outreach and making sure everyone knows that their voice matters in the future of the web.

Episode 36: Microsoft Adopts Nik Molnar

Richie Rump — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 06:00:59 +0000

Cecil asks Nik what’s he been up to since the last time we had him on the show. Nik starts off with telling us about he first few months at Microsoft. We get into discussing Glimpse and how it’s now being sponsored by Microsoft. Cecil asks what it’s been like making a living off of his open source project, Glimpse. Nik tells us the backstory of how he got to where it is today. We go on to talk about the state of open source in the enterprise and how developers can get involved. Nik tells us about his experience adopting his daughter and how his life has changed. We end off the show with Nik telling us about his new projects for 2016.

Links

Glimpse
Glimpse GitHub
Lake Bill
OSI
Impostor syndrome
Up for grabs

Bio

Nik Molnar is a Program Manager on Microsoft’s Cross Platform and Open Tooling team and co-founder of Glimpse, an open source diagnostics and debugging tool. Living in Austin Texas, Nik specializes in web performance, debugging and development. In his spare time, Nik can be found cooking up a storm in the kitchen, hanging with his wife, speaking at conferences, and working on other open source projects.

Episode 35: Dan Hermes’ Magical Mystery Mobile Tiki Tour

Richie Rump — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 06:00:05 +0000

Cecil asks Dan about his company, Lexicon Systems, and how they started in mobile development. Dan discusses the app his company built that was nominated for a 2014 Xammmy award. Dan then discusses the transition from dev to business owner and the true value of networking. Dan shares that he’s not only a fine artist but also a composer that has released albums. He also shares what kind of music he listens to when hes coding. Cecil and Dan talk about his new book “Xamarin Mobile Application Development” and the surrounding book tour he’s currently on. Finally, Dan talks about his fascination with making Tiki drinks and how to make the perfect Zombie.

Bio

Dan Hermes is a Xamarin MVP, software consultant, and founder of Lexicon Systems, an award-winning Xamarin and .NET consulting firm. Dan helps developers create great mobile apps and helps businesses develop a winning mobile strategy. He speaks at conferences and teaches software development at colleges, developer user groups, and corporate training centers. A contemporary Renaissance man, Dan is also active in the arts. He is a recognized composer and his classical crossover music has been aired on National Public Radio (NPR). He is an active digital artist, exhibiting his work internationally, and a founding director of Art Technology New England (ATNE).

Dan is the author of a new book entitled Xamarin Mobile Application Development.

Episode 34: Ryan Hall On Code Fever

Richie Rump — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 06:00:47 +0000

Cecil asks how did Ryan get involved in technology. In his story, Ryan shares with us how he got into a TedEx event by volunteering and linking up withe Felecia Hatcher. Cecil asks where did his drive to be an entrepreneur and speak come from. Ryan tell us how his family has been the inspiration for his ambitions.

We then get into talking about what is Code Fever Miami and what do they do. Ryan talks to us about their target demographic and how they differ some other programming educators. We talk about the Code Fever programs, who their target audience is and what are some of the future goals of Code Fever. Cecil asks what does it cost the student to get involved in such a program.

We then get into find out about what BlackTech Week is. Cecil asks if BlackTech week is open to everybody. Ryan talks to us about the diversity of the event and reminds us that Trick loves the kids! Ryan lets us know that BlackTech week is open to everyone and discusses their want to reach outside the US. We end the show with Ryan telling us about his love for writing.

Bio

Ryan Hall is an accomplished digital marketing consultant, web developer, and instructor for Code Fever. He’s been involved in the Miami Tech and Entrepreneurship scene since high school having volunteered for events like TEDxMiami and SFL Hack & Tell back in 2011. He’s a programming and entrepreneurship instructor for Code Fever. Over the years, he’s helped many local Broward/Miami-Dade entrepreneurs, small business owners, and artists build their web presence and design their digital marketing campaigns and content strategies.

Episode 33: Juan Soto Accesses A Niche

Richie Rump — Thu, 18 Feb 2016 11:00:21 +0000

Juan starts off by telling us a little about himself and what he thinks about The 5th Wave. Juan then tells us how he got started with Access and how he turned his knowledge of Access into a business. He then shares what it was like hiring and working with an employee with a disability. Juan shares some business tips including how to get started, how to use Google Ads, and how to get your potential clients to “yes”. He goes a bit deeper into running your own business by sharing how he uses contractors and how he diversifies his client base. The conversation closes with how to have longevity as a consultant.

Bio

Juan is the President of IT Impact, a custom software consulting firm with 14 employees and a focus on Access with SQL Server. He has been named an Official Access MVP for the last five years and is a frequent author on the official Microsoft Access blog as well as the first Access Expert Developer to be profiled on their site.

He is the founder of Access User Groups with groups throughout the USA and the world, where users go online to discuss monthly topics on Access. Juan frequently travels throughout the US and the Caribbean hosting workshops and mentoring professionals in the industry. He is an avid poker player and loves to travel. He can be found on twitter at jsoto22 and on LinkedIn.

Episode 32: Erez Testiler Software Developer & Furniture Maker

Richie Rump — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 15:00:45 +0000

We start off this episode by digging into Erez’s college past, his business degree, and how the need for income brought him into building software. He also shares with us how he started working on websites and taught himself how to program. Cecil asks Erez how he got into working with a startup while at college, and how much value he gained from that experience.

Erez talks about his Software Company, Taskmastics. Erez tells the story of how they went through multiple iterations to get to a quality product. Cecil asks what it’s like building the next version of Taskmastics on unreleased versions of ASP .NET Core. We discuss how it affects clients, timelines and more.

Erez gets into his pull request to the ASP .NET Core the merits of contributing to open source. He then goes into his experience working with the ASP .NET team and getting his changes merged. Erez is a pretty hands on type of guy. He talks to us about building his own trailer for his car. Then his hobby of woodworking and all the cool things he’s built.

Bio

Erez Testiler is an experienced developer, specializing in Microsoft technologies. He has worked in a wide range of areas such as healthcare, consumer electronics and e-commerce. He’s designed and built scaled-out web applications, multithreaded desktop applications and high throughput backend services. His latest venture is architecting solutions for JBS and working on Taskmatics Scheduler. After work he enjoys spending time with his wife, baby girl and ferocious pug. He also enjoys biking and kayaking.

Episode 31: Dave Noderer and Erik Lindgren Build Community

Richie Rump — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 14:00:51 +0000

Dave starts off talking about the early days of starting user groups and developer communities in the early days. Our panel discusses the some concerns that user group leaders have to address today. Cecil asks about the potential for improved user group collaboration. Richie talks about having to be ready for volunteers. Dave talks about getting Erik involved with South Florida Code Camp (SFLCC). Cecil asks Dave and Erik to talk about SFLCC. Dave starts off with the history of code camps. We dig into the benefits of attending an event like SFLCC. We discus meeting experts and stepping up to become the experts ourselves. Cecil asks what does it take to put on an event like SFLCC. Erik talks about his experience helping out for the first time. Dave and Erik discuss the various topic tracks at the event. Finally, Richie asks Dave what advice would he give to someone wanting to start a new user group today

Bio

Dave Noderer is CEO / President and founder of Computer Ways, Inc., a Microsoft Partner. Dave co-founded FlaDotNet.com User Groups in 2001 and still runs a monthly Coders Café meetup. He spent 3 years as an officer and director of INETA (International .NET Association) where he oversaw the enrollment and support of hundreds of .net user groups worldwide. Dave has also been organizing the annual South Florida Code Camp since 2004 which attracts 1000 developers for a day of free software developer education and networking.

On the non-technical front Dave has been key volunteer with the Deerfield Beach Historical Society, Kiwanis of Deerfield Beach, Deerfield Beach / Lighthouse Point Relay for Life, Hillsboro Lighthouse Preservation Society and the Deerfield Beach Chamber.

Erik Lindgren is a former teacher and software engineer who now focuses on software “delivery” and Agile coaching. He lives in South Florida, works in Tampa, and spends a lot of time on the road. For fun, Erik likes to travel and learn languages. A native speaker of English and Swedish, Erik also speaks French and Spanish passably well, and a smattering of 5 other languages. Say something to him in Russian or Mandarin and see how he reacts! For a more professional view of Erik, please see www.linkedin.com/in/jeriklindgren.

This episode was recorded on January 7th, 2016.

Episode 30: Adam Saxton Is A Guy In A Cube

Richie Rump — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 06:00:03 +0000

Adam tells us who he is an why he doesn’t describe himself as an expert in SQL Server. He then goes on to describe his role at Microsoft and his YouTube channel, Guy in a Cube. Cecil asks Adam about his tools of choice for making videos and Adam gives some advice for new content creators. Richie asks Adam to talk about all the great stuff Adam has in his cube. Richie asks if we can expect continued rapid growth for Power BI in 2016. Adam tells us what he’s looking forward to in 2016.

Bio

Adam Saxton is a Senior Content Developer for Microsoft’s Business Intelligence products. Prior to that, he supported the Business Intelligence products along with connectivity for SQL Server which included all of the drivers used to communicate with SQL Server. He is based in the Dallas/Ft Worth area in Texas and has been working at Microsoft for over 10 years. Adam has been active in the PASS community and has spoken at PASS Summit and SQL Saturdays. He blogs and for the last year has been producing videos on a YouTube channel where he has the brand “Guy in a Cube”. He is married with two kids, loves playing video and board games when he isn’t working.

Episode 29: The Wizardry Of Buck Woody

Richie Rump — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 06:00:10 +0000

Buck gives us a run down of his fascinating career. Cecil asks Buck what was his military experience like? Buck talks about working at NASA and some of his philosophy on computing. Buck elaborates about his time at NASA and explains what it was like working at Kennedy Space Center when the shuttle program was active. Buck tells us how the Space Shuttle got it’s engines, how he uniquely solved a problem with an Amiga, and other stories from his time at NASA. Finally, Buck shares some tips for experienced and novice speakers.

Bio

Buck Woody works on the Microsoft Machine Learning and Data Science Team, using data and technology to solve business and science problems. With over thirty years of professional and practical experience in computer technology, he is also a popular speaker at many conferences around the world; the author of over 650 articles and seven books on database and Machine Learning technologies, teaches Database courses and sits on the Data Science Board at the University of Washington, and specializes in data analysis techniques.

Episode 28: Aimee Knight’s Journey From Figure Skater to Software Engineer

Richie Rump — Tue, 12 Jan 2016 06:00:13 +0000

Aimee introduces herself and talks about her life as a figure skater. She then shares how she transitioned from athletics to software engineering. She describes her time at the Nashville Software School. The group has a conversation about mentors and how Aimee not only is being mentored but also mentors others. The panel has a discussion about her presentation for Angular Connect and what her preparation was like.

Bio

Aimee Knight is a former figure skater, and software engineer at SparkPost. Outside of work, she’s a weekly panelist on the JavaScript Jabber and Angular Air podcasts, and co-organizer of CharmCityJS. In her spare time, she’s usually playing with a new library or technology, running along the Baltimore harbor, or trying out the latest flavor of Kombucha. Find her, and her contagious enthusiasm on Twitter @Aimee_Knight!

Extra 1: Our Favorite Podcasts

Richie Rump — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 17:01:12 +0000

This is a special episode that we released earlier in the year to those that subscribe to our newsletter. To get more episodes like this sign up to our newsletter! Thanks for a fantastic 2015. Happy New Year!
Way before we became podcasters we were podcast listeners. In our first bonus episode, what we’ll be calling our Extra episodes, Cecil and Richie go over their top three podcasts and throw in a few more for good measure. You can listen to the episode or you can just review their picks below. Enjoy.

Cecil’s Top Picks

	This Developer’s Life – I love this show because it’s so introspective for me. The topics they cover such as learning, and even the most recent episode, they talk about faith. They’ve also covered motivation, pressure and criticism. Those topics for me, hit so close to home. I’ll go back two or three seasons and I just re-listen to the old episodes over and over again because I just love them that much.
	Get Up and Code – So I’m not a super-athlete like John is really or anything like that but I like working out. It’s another dimension of me that I do when I’m not writing code or doing something involving technology. I like swimming. I like going to the gym. This podcast actually discusses a lot of little techniques, discussion nutrition, different types of workout techniques, and even about the technology behind it and different apps that you can use to help supplement your workouts.
	The Freelancers Show – I really like this show because they discuss a lot of the things you wouldn’t know about freelancing. This show really goes into the different things a freelancer needs to do such as budgeting, how to plan out your projects, how do you bring on new people, how you quote estimates, and acquire new clients. They give really good advice. I love the show and I highly recommended it.

Richie’s Top Picks

	Rachel and Miles Xplain the X-Men – Rachel and Miles have endeavored to go over the entire forty year history of X-Men and explain every issue. This show is funny and honest look at the X-Men comic series from two of it’s biggest fans. It’s so enjoyable to hear people talk about their passions and for these two, it’s the X-Men. The unique way they explain the crazy, somewhat nonsensical history of the X-Men is truly amazing. I love it. You need to check it out.
	WDW Radio – I’ve listened to this show almost from its inception. I enjoy this show because as a kid I really loved Disney. Walt Disney World meant so much to me growing up. So much so that when I was in college, I interned there for two summers. Lou Mongello does such a great job of showing what’s going on in the parks and interviews interesting guests. One would think, “how long can one person talk about for Disney World?” Well for Lou, it’s over nine years. The show has won numerous podcast awards and has some of the highest production values in any podcast.
	.NET Rocks – I’ve been listening to this .Net Rocks from the beginning. Back in the day when .NET just came out, there was no content for .NET except for the documentation but we did have .NET Rocks. Even if you listen to those early episodes they’re still relevant. From a technical perspective, I don’t think you get any better than in Carl Franklin and Richard Campbell they both really know their stuff. But my favorite episodes are the Geek Out episodes. They are just straight wonderful. If you’re a .NET developer and not listening to .NET Rocks, you really should be.

Cecil’s Honorable Mentions

The Web Platform Podcast – I’m a big web guy. I love talking APIs, HTTP, and JavaScript Frameworks. This show talks to a bunch of the people that are in the web space. They’ve talked to the Angular team, the HTTP2 team, and the people that are creating browsers and web servers. Most of the technology they talk about is upcoming stuff and things we should be paying attention to.

The Changelog – I really like The Changelog because they talk about stuff that I have no idea about. They discuss Ruby, PHP, Go, concurrent systems, and all this other stuff that I typically don’t touch in a regular day. So for me, it’s good to step out of my comfort zone and expierence something that I’m not completely familiar with and really try and see where the other side of the development world is going.

Richie’s Honorable Mentions

	Freakonomics Radio – I think what makes Freakonomics Radio a really great show is that they really get into the kind of the ‘why’ certain things work in the world. They obviously have a more of a business-y, economic way of looking at things, but they always make it interesting. It always makes you step away and think,”Wow. I didn’t think of it that way.” That’s why I really love Freakonomics Radio.
	Hanselminutes – I love the way Scott Hanselman interviews. He gets down to the nitty-gritty of things and always has different and unique guests on the show. It’s not what you expect from a technology podcast. Hanselminutes is definitely one of those unique shows you should check out.
	Nerdist – Nerdist interviews a ton of different celebrities and people in the entertainment industry. Chris Hardwick is really, really good at interviewing people and he just has a conversation and things just really flow. It’s really funny. It’s not safe for work. Doesn’t mean you can’t listen to it at work but just have headphones on. It’s really one of those shows that I really enjoy to pick up.

Special Mention

Serial – Serial is amazing. Serial is a long-form reporting that investigates a murder of a girl. Throughout the show, they take different aspects of the case and you’ll constantly going back and forth saying, “He did it. He didn’t do it. He didn’t do it. He did do it.” It’s a really great mystery.

Episode 27: The Evolution Of Joel Martinez

Richie Rump — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 20:00:11 +0000

Cecil asks Joel about the beginnings of ONETUG (Orlando .NET User Group). Joel tells us how the group got started with his curiosity in the .NET Framework and how the community stepped up to help out. Cecil asks how was Joel able to rally the community prior to the advent of popular social networks. Joel talks about he leveraged contacts, mailing lists, UCF and more to grow the group.

Joel then goes in the how being involved has helped his career and made him much more knowledgeable about aspects of .NET. Cecil asks Joel if his networking helped in guiding him to become an author. Joel tells us about how his mentor, Ray West, got him into writing.

Cecil asks what technology has got Joel exited right now. We get into a discussion about the Maker movement and IoT. We then get into a discussion on fitness as Joel talks to us about boxing and breaking through mental barriers. Joel makes sure to warn his kids to be prepared for the zombie apocalypse. We then get into a discussion about working remote for Xamarin.

Links

Bio

Software Engineer at Xamarin. He is the founder of the Orlando .NET User Group, and an author of several books. Joel is also a functional programming enthusiast. Joel is excited about data science, machine learning, the simplification of hardware, hacking, and connectivity. More on Twitter @joelmartinez and his blog at codecube.net.

Episode 26: Deep Thoughts with David Haney

Richie Rump — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 06:00:07 +0000

Cecil and David talk about the amount of information on the internet and how we need to find better ways to filter information. David discusses how he feels how some social apps are creating a generation of vanity. The panel discusses the difficulty of remote work and the need for personal human interaction. Richie asks David how was the transition from developer to manager. Richie shares how he went from developer to manager then from manager to developer again. David shares how being a manager is emotional work and it’s something you can’t just leave at work. David shares how he’s taken up golf and explains his love of the movie going experience.

Bio

David Haney is the Core team Engineering Manager at Stack Overflow. He practices servant leadership by solving problems and improving processes. Previously he was a lead developer on Fanatics’ e-commerce platform which hosts over 10,000 websites including the NFLShop – The Official Online Shop of the NFL and NBAStore.com – The Official NBA Store. David is the creator of Dache, an open source distributed caching framework. His spare time is spent brewing and drinking beer, playing video games, and watching movies at old-school one-screen theatres with his wife.

Episode 25: Michael Glukhovsky and Slava Akhmechet Rethink DBs

Richie Rump — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 10:00:45 +0000

Micheal tell us the story of how he and Slava met at college. Cecil asks how they got into open source database space. Micheal and Slava talks their mission to improve the usability of infrastructure software. Cecil asks why they decided to build RethinkDB and what problems it specifically tried to solve. Slava talks about the rise in event driven frameworks and the lack of databases in that space.

Cecil asks about building a company on an open source database. Michael shares how it has been advantages for them to build their product in the open on Github. Micheal continues on to talk how community is an important aspect to open source. Michael shares how important it is for their company to interact with the users. Michael and Slava both share stories about their involvement in open source before working on Rethinkdb. We then discuss on hardware thinking and handmade craft. Cecil then asks about startup culture and how does it compare to Silicon Valley the show.

Links

RethinkDB
Slava Blog
ReQL
RethinkDB Slack
Silicon Valley HBO
Coupa Caffe
DIY Electron Microscope

Bio

Slava Akhmechet was a systems engineer in the financial industry, working on scaling custom database systems. Slava is a frequent speaker and a blogger. He blogs about his interests in open source, developer tools, building delightful user experiences, and distributed systems on defmacro.org. He is currently on leave from a Ph.D. program in Computational Neuroscience at Stony Brook University.

Michael Glukhovsky is passionate about user experience and building infrastructure software. Prior to RethinkDB, Michael attended Stony Brook University and specialized in human-computer interaction.

Episode 24: David Haney Brews Diversity at Stack Overflow

Richie Rump — Fri, 06 Nov 2015 06:00:53 +0000

David explains how he got involved with technology. The then tells of the difficulties he had transitioning from Canadian to the American culture. David then shares how Stack Overflow hires its developers and how only one in two hundred fifty applicants get hired. David also explains the difficulties that Stack Overflow has had to become more diverse. David explains how Stack Overflow changed the way they wrote job postings to encourage more women applicants. David then discusses his home brewing setup. Cecil then asks David what are the different kinds of beers? David then shares his experience with brewing his own beers and how it doesn’t always turn out the way you expect.

Links

Diversity Is Really Freaking Hard – HaneyCodes
Why Stack Overflow is a Good Workplace for Women

Bio

Episode 23: Devin Knight Powers BI

Richie Rump — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 19:00:51 +0000

Devin tells a story about how some Microsoft offices block Azure. Cecil brings up how the cloud scares some IT staff. Devin talks about embracing the opportunity to learn PowerShell. Devin further discusses his role as a trainer and how he leverages Azure virtual machines for his students. Cecil asks how does one choose what to focus on. Richie shares how we use Power BI for analyze the metrics for the podcast. Devin tells us the story of how he went from working at Blockbuster Video to learning SQL Server. Devin shares an interesting story on how his brother didn’t hire him. Devin tells us about the Pragmatics Works Foundation that helps military veterans to find work in technology.

Links

PowerShell
Power BI
Pragmatics Works Foundation

Bio

Devin Knight a Microsoft MVP and the Training Director at Pragmatic Works Consulting. He is an author of six SQL Server books and speaks at conferences like PASS Summit, PASS Business Analytics Conference, SQL Saturdays and Code Camps. He is also a contributing member to the PASS Business Intelligence Virtual Chapter. Making his home in Jacksonville, FL, Devin is the Vice President of the local users group (JSSUG). He can be found online at devinknightsql.com and on twitter at @knight_devin

Episode 22: Brent Ozar Loses His MVP

Richie Rump — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 06:00:54 +0000

Richie asks Brent what’s a MCM (Microsoft Certified Master not Man Crush Monday) and what was his journey to becoming one. Cecil and Brent discuss the relevance of certifications today. Brent describes what it’s like being a popular speaker and how it adds anxiety to every presentation. Brent tells he became a great speaker and describes his pre-speech rituals. Finally, Brent tells how he got married in Vegas in a red convertible Mustang.

Links

Brent Ozar Unlimited
eater.com

Bio

Brent Ozar loves to make SQL Server faster and more reliable. He created sp_Blitz® and sp_AskBrent®, and he loves sharing knowledge at BrentOzar.com. He holds a bunch of certifications and awards including the Microsoft MVP award.

Episode 21: Brent Ozar Takes Over The World

Richie Rump — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 06:00:40 +0000

Brent answers the age old question “Who is Brent Ozar?”. Cecil asks Brent how he went from developer to DBA to entrepreneur. Brent talks about what it’s like to be your own boss and Richie shares why he’s not an independent consultant. Cecil asks Brent what kind of skills Brent needed to grow in order to build his business. Brent shares what it was like hiring his first employee. Brent shares what’s next for Brent Ozar Unlimited.

Links

Brent Ozar Unlimited

Bio

Episode 20: Elijah Manor Counts Every Dollar

Richie Rump — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 06:00:31 +0000

Elijah tells us the story of how he became a part of the Dave Ramsey Team. He shares with us how employee well-being and family life are a part of the company’s core values. Cecil asks about financial tips for technical folks. Elijah explains how to take “baby steps” to get out of debt. He highlights other options such as investing and setting up an emergency fund. Richie ask how did the Every Dollar app came about. Cecil asks Elijah’s thoughts on the evolution of web development. Elijah talks about a metric he calls JS IQ. Elijah gives us a peek into his family from things like homeschooling, his daughter’s paintings and even family dates. He talks about doing the Code.org day of code. Elijah discusses making the decision to homeschool and various challenges his family faces.

Links

Every Dollar
Dave Ramsey
Scratch
Code.org
Swim America

Bio

Elijah Manor is a Christian and a family man. He works at Ramsey Solutions (@daveramsey) as a senior front-end web developer. He is a Microsoft ASP.NET MVP, ASPInsider, IE userAgent, and a Pluralsight author. He enjoys blogging at http://elijahmanor.com/ and tweeting (@elijahmanor) about the things he learns.

Episode 19: Stacey Mulcahy Inspires Our Youth

Richie Rump — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 23:00:30 +0000

Cecil starts the conversation asking Stacey if she is a gadget geek. Stacey shares about disconnecting and being analog. Cecil asks Stacey her thoughts on the Internet of Things. Cecil is terrified that his devices are talking to each other. Stacey talks about her passions especially Young Gamemakers. Stacey talks about her love of biking and what she does to relax. What in the world is SkrillTRex?

Links

Young Gamemakers
Researcher says can hack GM’s OnStar app, open vehicle, start engine
SkrillTRex

Bio

Stacey Mulcahy is a technical evangelist at Microsoft focusing on making the web a more interesting place. She is an international speaker, teaches kids how to code with www.younggamemakers.com and is a consumer of cupcakes. She can be found ranting on her blog at www.thebitchwhocodes.com

Episode 18: Ptah Dunbar: Captain of Code

Richie Rump — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 01:00:32 +0000

We start off with Ptah talking about living in Luxembourg and Atlanta. Cecil and Ptah talk about the early days of Flash and using the Swift tool. Richie asks about Ptah’s involvement with WordPress and how he became a WordPress contributor. Ptah discusses some of the interesting projects going on in the local WordPress community. Richie asks how the WordPress community has affected his life. Ptah starts by sharing the transitions he’s made as a WordPress developer. He then discusses speaking at various events and also working with the local WordPress community. Cecil inquires on what are the use cases for WordPress and how easy it is for beginners to customize. Ptah talks about the various plugins already built that handle concerns such as event management and online marketplaces. Ptah shares the details of his motorcycle accident, his path to recovery, and how the WordPress community stepped in to help. Richie asks about how he life has changed since. Ptah talks about the aftermath and how he’s been able to cope. Richie and Ptah talk about the merits of a good technical community.

Show Notes

Bio

Pirate Dunbar is a Full Stack JavaScript Architect and Professor of Computer Science at Miami Dade College. Ptah speaks over 10 languages, teaches people how to code and is on a mission to write software that impacts a billion people within the next decade. When he isn’t traveling or contributing to open source, you’ll often find him learning about ALL THE THINGS and teaching the next generation in universities, conferences and community events. To learn more about his journey, you can follow him on twitter @ptahdunbar or piratedunbar.com.

Episode 17: Jonas Stawski Barbecues Software

Richie Rump — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 06:00:55 +0000

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

Episode 16: Transitioning With Luis Figueroa

Richie Rump — Tue, 11 Aug 2015 06:00:02 +0000

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.

Episode 15: Julie Lerman On Becoming The Expert

Richie Rump — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 06:00:09 +0000

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.

Episode 14: Gareth Swanepoel Reenacts a South African Tour Guide

Richie Rump — Tue, 28 Jul 2015 06:00:59 +0000

In this episode, Gareth shares his passion for Ametuer Dramatics and talks about getting started in high school plays in South Africa. Richie and Gareth discuss history as Gareth gets into his pass time of reenacting the civil war. Cecil asks about the state of technology in South Africa. Cecil and Gareth get into a discussion about South African and Caribbean food. Sadly, our friend Richie is not a fan of the curry. Gareth discusses a few national delicacies, South African wine and also his special Chili. Richie gets educated on the mechanics of cricket. Our panel compares rugby with american football, and discuss the rise in USA soccer

Links

Tech Night at the Ballpark
Brian Lara
Bobotie Meat Pie
Boerewors Sausage
Cornmeal Porridge
Pinotage Grapes

Bio

Gareth Swanepoel is a sysadmin-turned-SQL Server DBA. He has been working in the IT industry doing support and administration for over 20 years. He enjoys solving the complex problems that his clients encounter when deploying SQL Server in a data warehouse environment. He is an accomplished author and speaker. Current projects include contributing content for the SQL 2014 Extended Events book. He also currently serves as one of the PASS Regional Mentors for the US SouthEast region.

Episode 13: Dmitry Lyalin is a Product Manager not a Marketing Suit

Richie Rump — Tue, 21 Jul 2015 01:00:26 +0000

Dmitry introduces himself as a software developer and a gamer. He also describes his role in putting on the massive Build conference. Cecil asks Dmitry what’s it like working for the “new Microsoft”. Dmitry shares about what his position as a Product Manager is like and how he produces videos for Microsoft. Richie asks Dmitry what is the difference between a program manager and a product manager. Dmitry shares how he was able to keep evolving and progressing in his career. Richie asks Dmitry how Visual Studio Code came to be. The panel discuss video games and how playing games can be a communal activity.

Bio

Dmitry Lyalin has been building software for 16+ years and has worked in various industries including payroll, education, banking, media and more recently Microsoft Consulting & Premier Support. Currently Dmitry works as a Product Manager for Visual Studio team out of Redmond, where he moved to from NYC a few years back. In his spare time Dmitry loves building mobile apps, cloud services and is a very dedicated PC gamer.

Episode 12: Kendal Van Dyke Gets Spacey

Richie Rump — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 06:00:11 +0000

Kendall explains how he cooks for his user group every month. Kendal talks about how he got his pilot’s license at 15 years old. Cecil and Kendal talk about their experiences watching Space Shuttle launches. Richie talks about how awesome the Atlantis exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center. Richie and Kendal discuss the new Space Launch System (SLS). Kendal talks about his experience with the NASA Social program. Kendal gives some resources to learn more about space and space flight.

Links

NASA
NASA Socials
Spaceflight Now
Kennedy Space Center
The Year of Pluto – New Horizons Documentary

Bio

Kendal is a database strategist, community advocate, public speaker, & blogger. A practiced IT professional with over 15 years of SQL Server experience, Kendal excels at disaster recovery, high availability planning/implementation, & debugging/troubleshooting mission critical SQL Server environments. Kendal is a Principal Consultant at UpSearch SQL (http://www.upsearch.com),/ a Microsoft MVP, & President of MagicPASS (http://magicpass.sqlpass.org),/ the Orlando, FL based chapter of PASS.

Episode 11: Paola Valiente on Modeling and Coding

Richie Rump — Wed, 01 Jul 2015 06:00:29 +0000

Paola talks about modeling, acting, and why she decided to become a technologist. Cecil asks Paola why she decided to investigate WordPress. Paola talks about her desire to be a front end developer and how she’s looking into a formal program. Paola asks the guys how they got started in technology. Richie asks Paola what’s it like to be in a session where you have no background in the topic. Richie talks about the challenges of hiring young developers, his internship with Walt Disney World, and a new hire gone wrong. Paola talks about her desire to continue to model and code.

Links

Juan Night Stand Short Film
Meetup.com
WordCamp Miami
Code Academy

Bio

Paola Valiente was born and raised in Corozal, Puerto Rico. As an actress she’s worked in commercials for Minute Maid and Puerto Rican Lottery. She co-starred with Braulio Castillo, Jr. in a short film called Juan Night Stand (2013) which got to the Short Film Corner of the Cannes Film Festival in France. Her experience in modeling includes national campaigns, fashion editorials, and runways. Paola now lives in Miami where she has taken a new adventure, learning to code. You can find her on Twitter at @PaoPaoDaily or on the web at https://thepaopao.wordpress.com/

Episode 10: Matt Mawhinney Spreads The Love For Code

Richie Rump — Tue, 23 Jun 2015 06:00:55 +0000

Matt introduces himself and how he got started in technology. Matt explains why he get involved with LaunchCode. He explains what LaunchCode is and some of the challenges that LaunchCode faces. Cecil ponders the statistic of one million programming jobs will be unfilled by 2020. Matt talks about LaunchCode getting a mention by President Obama. Cecil shares a story on the LaunchCode website of an individual that went from stocking groceries to writing software. Matt describes the typical LaunchCode student. Cecil asks about how LaunchCode’s partnership with edX works.

Links

LaunchCode
LaunchCode South Florida CS50X
Tested at ChefSteps: How To Cook Amazing Ribs without Smoke or Fire
Sous-Vide

Bio

A Sunshine State native, Matt Mawhinney is the Community Manager for LaunchCode South Florida, a non-profit that helps people from non-traditional technology education backgrounds start careers in tech. Matt is also an alumni of Wyncode, Florida’s first accredited web development bootcamp and is actively involved in South Florida’s technology, entrepreneurial, and creative communities. In his spare time, Matt likes to cook, travel, and do improv comedy–if people in the audience promise they will laugh. You can follow him on Twitter @TweetsbyMatt and on Instagram @GramsbyMatt.

Episode 9: Rey Bango Fights For The Developers

Richie Rump — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 06:00:19 +0000

The group discusses the perception of Microsoft over the years and how it’s changed recently. The panel discusses their history with jQuery. Rey talks about the pitfalls of using libraries without understanding the underlying language. Richie asks Rey how he became so passionate about developer adv..advoc..advocacy. Rey explains the difference between evangelism and advocacy. Rey talks about how he keeps a high level of professionalism in a world where social media is everywhere. Rey tells a story of how he was booed on stage because he was representing Microsoft. Cecil asks Rey what are the more interesting developer communities that he’s visited. Richie asks how communities can be less argumentative. Rey talks about his love for diving and how he got certified.

Links

jQuery
Mozilla Foundation
Microsoft Edge Browser
Charles Petzold – When Worlds Collide
Underwater Unlimited
Pompano Dive Center

Bio

Rey is a lover of the web and an advocate for web standards. At Microsoft, he’s focused on helping developers build awesome cross-browser experiences and being a feedback conduit for the community. He’s privileged to be an original member of the jQuery Project Team.

Episode 8: Todd Gardner Tracks Your Errors

Richie Rump — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 06:00:12 +0000

Todd gives a quick introduction about himself. Todd talks about what he’s learned about starting a product based business. Todd emphasizes the importance of getting customer feedback early and measuring what people do with your software. Todd describes how his product, TrackJS, was created and how it helps your application track errors. The panel discusses the frustration of monitoring systems via e-mail. Todd shares his vision of what TrackJS could look like in the future. Cecil inquires about the TrackJS stack. Todd talks about moving away from Azure and onto physical hardware and the performance boost his application is seeing. Todd doesn’t really like JavaScript!

This episode was recorded on May 7th, 2015

Links

TrackJS
Lean Startup
Wat

Bio

Todd H Gardner is the president and co-founder of TrackJS (trackjs.com), an error monitoring service for modern JavaScript applications. He also consults with companies to help develop their business and their products for the web. With over a decade of experience building software systems, Todd has built large enterprise systems, complex software products, and launched businesses. He is also at the keyboard when he should not be. He can be found on Twitter at @toddhgardner.

Episode 7: Esteban Garcia Starts It Up

Richie Rump — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 06:00:58 +0000

Esteban and Richie talk about their new standing desks. Esteban shares about starting his own company, using a co-location facility and hiring staff. Esteban describes the emotions he had while making the decision to leave his job and start his own company. Esteban talks about how he finds balance with starting a startup and having a family. The panel talks about how they can teach their kids about technology. Esteban talks about organizing the Orlando Code Camp and the challenges around hosting a large community conference.

This episode was recorded on April 22, 2015.

Links

StandDesk
Nebbia Technology
Julie Lerman – Entity Framework Guru
ONETUG
Orlando Code Camp

Bio

Esteban Garcia is the founder and Chief Technologist at Nebbia Technology, an ALM consulting and Azure-powered technology company. He is a software developer with a passion for ALM, TFS, Azure, and software development best practices. Estaban is a Microsoft Visual Studio ALM MVP and ALM Ranger, Pluralsight author, and am the president of ONETUG (Orlando .NET User Group). Esteban can be found on twitter at @EstebanFGarcia and the web at http://www.almguide.com/

Episode 6: Shayne Boyer On Fitness, Community, and Tech

Richie Rump — Wed, 27 May 2015 12:00:14 +0000

Cecil has never had a Yoo-hoo! Shane explains how he runs marathons and how obstacle races isn’t for him. Shane talks about how Jiu-Jitsu helps him keeps control. The panel talks about how community is important fitness and in technology. Video games frustrate Shane. The panel discusses fitness trackers. Cecil destroys FitBit bands. The panel discusses how health data could be used in nefarious ways.

Recorded on March 28th, 2015 at the Orlando Code Camp.

Links

Orlando Code Camp
Yoo-hoo!
Kennedy Space Center
FitBit
Microsoft Band

Bio

Shayne Boyer is a Solutions Architect with over 15 years experience working with Microsoft based solutions. He is an ASP.NET MVP, INETA community speaker, and Telerik Developer Expert. Over the past 10 years he has lead development teams working on enterprise solutions with a focus on productivity, performance and sustainability. Shayne often publishes content on ASP.NET, TypeScript, Node.js. JavaScript and Web API development and can always be found on twitter @spboyer or on his blog at tattoocoder.com.

Episode 5: It’s All Food and Games With Nik Molnar and Mike Wood

Richie Rump — Tue, 19 May 2015 06:00:04 +0000

Mike and Nik talk about their presentations at the South Florida Code Camp. The panel discusses how to become a specialist and finding your passion. Nik explains how he became a foodie. Cecil is embarrassed after watching Master Chef Junior. Mike talks about some of the board games he plays with his family. Nik explains how he cooks with a device that was originally designed to preserve organs. Nik mentions that the secret to great barbecue is Excel. Nik and Mike give their tips on how to follow your passion. Nik turns the tables and starts interviewing Cecil and Richie.

Recorded on February 7th, 2015 at the South Florida Code Camp.

Links

PASS Summit
Ticket To Ride
FlashPoint
Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game
Immersion Circulator
Richard Campbell

Bio

Mike Wood is a Technical Evangelist for Red Gate Software on the Cerebrata Team. He describes himself as a problem solving, outdoorsy, user group founding, dog-loving, blog writing, solution creating, event planning, married, technology speaking, father of one kind of guy. When he’s not living up to that title he’s an avid reader, (horrible) violinist and gamer. Michael is a Microsoft MVP in Microsoft Azure, an Azure Insider and the Editor for JustAzure.com. You can follow Mike on twitter under the handle @mikewo.

Nik Molnar is a New Yorker, Microsoft MVP, ASP & Azure Insider and co-founder of Glimpse, an open source diagnostics and debugging tool. Originally from Homestead Florida, Nik specializes in web development, web performance, web API’s and community management. He is a frequent speaker at international conferences and on technical podcasts. In his spare time, Nik can be found cooking up a storm in the kitchen, hanging with his wife and working on other open source projects. Nik can be found online at http://nikcodes.com/ and on twitter at @nikmd23.

Episode 4: Build 2015 Review With Rich Dudley

Richie Rump — Tue, 12 May 2015 06:00:41 +0000

Rich talks about how cool HoloLens is. Then he talks about Universal Windows App and how you can write one app that runs on many different form factors. The panel talks about the Window 10 bridges which allows iOS, Android, Web Apps and Windows 32 apps into the Windows 10 Store. Rich then explains .NET going cross-platform. Cecil has been doing some testing with Visual Studio Code, the new cross-platform code editor. Rich gives the low-down on Windows 10. Richie goes over some of his favorite SQL related announcements and how the machine learning scares him. Finally, Rich shares what it’s really like attending Build and if you should go next year.

Recorded On May 5, 2015.

Links

Hands-On with (a Near Final) Microsoft HoloLens
Universal Windows apps
Introducing the Universal Windows Platform Bridges
Introducing ASP.NET 5 – Scott Hanselman @ Build 2015
Deep Dive into ASP.NET 5 – Scott Hanselman @ Build 2015
VSCode: Creating an Application with Yeoman aspnet generators
Shayne Boyer
Windows 10
Azure SQL Database previews major updates for BUILD

Bio

Rich is a Senior Software Engineer for Quicken Loans, supporting Marketing via the Microsoft stack. Rich has been using Microsoft technologies to build data driven and e-commerce websites since 2001. Rich and his wife are known throughout the floral industry for their adoption and use of technology to expand their florist business. Rich holds an MS in molecular biology, and his work prior to software development includes surviving cholera and purifying radioactive neurotoxins. Rich is also a co-leader of the Pittsburgh .NET User Group, an ASP Insider and a Packt author. You can find him online at http://rjdudley.com/ or on twitter at @rj_dudley.

Episode 3: Learn the Dave Nicolas Way

Richie Rump — Tue, 05 May 2015 06:00:40 +0000

The panel discusses why some people think that the technology community doesn’t exist. Dave discusses how we can improve our technical skill by creating time and killing our egos. Cecil talks how being involved in the technical community has improved his career. Richie talks about why we should have a learning plan and Dave explains why this doesn’t always work for some people. Dave tells a story of how he got a co-worker to learn code through fantasy football. Dave talks about how becoming a manager doesn’t mean you have to give up writing code. The panel discusses how to delegate. Richie tells how hard it was when he was a manager to be technical and be a manager. Dave talks about his hobbies. Dave tells us how to keep our passion for technology. Rails is slow. Cecil asks Dave what technologies/languages make him excited.

Recorded On January 29, 2015.

Links

Brent Ozar
Jon Skeet
Andy Warren

Bio

Dave Nicolas is a senior Software Architect, with an insatiable for technology. He has been developing software for over 10 years and primarily focuses on Microsoft technologies. However, he is open minded to other platforms available in the open source community. Dave is a co-founder of the dotNet Miami user group where he shares his passion with fellow developers. He currently manages the Software Development initiative at Banker’s Healthcare Group and holds a BS in Computer Science from Florida International University. He also runs a SaaS consulting firm where he and his team offer software services in the wild. You can follow Dave on Twitter at @dvee81.

A Podcast Is Born

Richie Rump — Thu, 30 Apr 2015 09:00:56 +0000

It started with a simple statement, “We should record this.” I made that statement said during a dotNet Miami after party. The after party always has interesting discussions about programming, projects, and life. The next month I made a recording of the dotNet Miami after party hoping I could get some usable audio. What I got was interesting but not interesting enough to publish and the audio quality was poor. I spent the next few months mulling the idea of a dotNet Miami podcast. I started talking to Cecil Phillip about it and we realized that having a dotNet Miami podcast, although cool, wouldn’t be compelling.

Richie takes a selfie with Lou at Podcast Florida.

I was still enamored with the idea of starting a podcast and so was Cecil, so we made a day trip to Orlando in December to attend the Podcast Florida conference. The conference was amazing. We met some fantastic people that make phenomenal podcasts. I was able to Meet Lou Mongello, host of WDW Radio, a podcast I’ve been listening to for years. We also met Jared Easley, host of the Starve The Doubts, a great dude that gave us some awesome encouragement. We also met Steve Cherubino, who’s Udemy course was a great help in understanding how to get a podcast up and running. It was a long day but Cecil and I got a lot out of Podcast Florida. We came up with a name, Away From The Keyboard (I registered the domain name in the middle of one of the sessions) and we got a better idea of what we needed to do to execute a podcast technically. We also came up with a concept: “a podcast for technical people that focused on the human side of technology”. Lastly, we got a ton of encouragement and a feeling that “we can do this”.

Two months later we found ourselves at the South Florida Code Camp in the speaker room with a bunch of audio equipment and a slate full of guests. We were able interview five very talented technologists and had some great conversations. It was great to be able to finally sit down and record. A month later we recorded another couple of episodes at the Orlando Code Camp and we set a deadline of April 7th to launch the podcast. We still had two Trello boards worth of tasks to do, the biggest task was to create the Away From The Keyboard website. We’ll, we missed the April 7th date but we were able to unveil the website a week later on April 14th.

It was a long road, taking an idea from concept to reality, but pushing our first episode earlier this week felt so good. We’ve have a bunch of interviews recorded and we have a bunch more planned. We hope you enjoy the stories that the guests going to tell. We hope that these stories entertain, enlighten and inspire you to do great things.

Episode 2: John Sonmez Makes It Simple

Richie Rump — Tue, 28 Apr 2015 06:00:32 +0000

John talks about why he created short chapters in his new book, Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual and his experience in writing the book. He also discusses why he doesn’t quit in the middle of a personal sprint. The panel discusses how to build a personal brand and why you need to be a specialist. John goes into how you can be fit and healthy. Richie asks John on how he’s able to read so much. Cecil asks John how we can find balance in our lives.

Recorded on: February 7, 2015 in the South Florida Code Camp Speaker Room.

Links

Julie Lerman – Entity Framework guru
Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual
Superhuman By Habit: A Guide to Becoming the Best Possible Version of Yourself, One Tiny Habit at a Time

Bio

John Sonmez is the author of Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual. He’s published over 50 courses on topics such as iOS, Android, .NET, Java, and game development for the online developer training resource, Pluralsight. He also host two podcasts to help developers: Get Up and CODE: http://getupandcode.com/ and Entreprogrammers: http://entreprogrammers.com/ He’s a life coach for software developers, and helps software engineers, programmers and other technical professionals boost their careers and live a more fulfilled life. He empowers them to accomplish their goals by making the complex simple. You can find him online at http://simpleprogrammer.com/.

Episode 1: Between Two Rachels

Richie Rump — Sun, 19 Apr 2015 20:30:17 +0000

The panel discusses what really is Miami music. Rachel Appel explains that Chicago Pizza isn’t really pizza and the concept of the Rachii. The Rachels discuss the state of women in technology. Rachel Appel tells how she got started in technology and how she may have fractured a few rules during her start. Rachel Terman talks about her start in technology and how her business background propelled her. Rachel Appel tells a conference story when a male developer decided to be offensive and rude. The panel discusses how to get more diversity in conference speakers. Richie cons Rachel Terman into speaking at dotNet Miami. Richie shares his love for Cecil’s voice.

Recorded on: February 7, 2015 in the South Florida Code Camp Speaker Room

Bios

Rachel Appel is a 20+ year software engineer, author, mentor, and speaker. Rachel currently works as an independent consultant following a tenure at Microsoft; however she still works closely with Microsoft as an ASPInsider and IE userAgent. You can read Rachel’s monthly “Modern Apps” column for MSDN Magazine, or her blog about software development at http://rachelappel.com/. Catch her speaking at top conferences such as VSLive, DevConnections, Devlink, and Netconf UY. Her expertise is in web development on the Microsoft stack, including ASP.NET MVC, Web Forms, SignalR, C#, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and TypeScript. Rachel also deals with data as a DBA and data scientist).

Rachel Terman is the Director of Operations for Schuman Feathers. Previously, she was the Vice-President of Product and Development at XEQ Information Solutions where she specialized in SharePoint, Office365, C# and VB.Net. Rachel is an active member of South Florida Development community and helps organizes events such as the South Florida Code Camp and dotNet Miami. She is also the founder of the Tech Night at the Ballpark, a networking event for the South Florida Technical Community held at Marlins Park in August. For more information go to http://technightattheballpark.com/.

Episode 0.1: And So It Begins…

Richie Rump — Tue, 14 Apr 2015 00:00:38 +0000

This is it. The beginning…of what we’re not exactly sure. Cecil and Richie talk about what Away From The Keyboard is and how it came about. Richie mentions dotNet Miami way too much and Cecil explains why pineapple and coconut water is better than pizza and Mountain Dew. They also discuss the real reason why we write software and the importance of community. Buckle up folks the ride starts here.

Show notes:

dotNet Miami

And We’re Live

Richie Rump — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 01:40:23 +0000

And we’re live. It took four months, tons of discussions, and planning but we finally hit publish. Away From The Keyboard is the end result of two guys talking about “What ifs” after a user group meeting. “What if we created a podcast?” There were so many great conversations, so much knowledge shared and we were greedy and kept it all to ourselves. Well, we decided to share.

The core of Away From The Keyboard is technologists sharing their stories. Stories about how they started, how they grew, how they learned, and how they unwind. These are our stories and we’re excited to be sharing them with you.

We already have some great interviews already recorded with Rachel Appel, Rachel Terman, John Sonmez, Dave Nicolas, Nik Molnar, Mike Wood and Shayne Boyer. We can’t wait for you to hear them. We’re also discussing having recap show for conferences like Build. Let us know in the comments if you would like a show like that.

Every Tuesday we’ll release an episode. So subscribe to us on iTunes and let us know in the comments or on Twitter if you’re enjoying the show or what we can improve on. We’d love your feedback.