Well, nothing like realizing the talk you're giving the next day is based off a completely wrong interpretation of the main article used for inspiration. At 11:45 the night before. No wonder the demos didn't work. It would have helped if I hadn't been so swamped for the last three weeks at work with server STIG-ing. (I'll tell you where to STIG those servers!)

Well. Nothing for it. Time to re-invent. I went to bed @ 2:30 AM Friday night/Saturday morning, and got up at 6:15.

I checked in, listened to the start up talk, then headed for the nearby starbucks. I hate coffee, but I ordered two venti Tazo ice teas, claimed a table with a plugin, paid for internet access ($3.99 for 2 hours, not bad, in my book), and went back to 'work'.

I only missed two talks.

At 3, it was my turn. Wouldn't ya know, the laptop wouldn't go into dual screen mode, so I could only use the main projector screen.

There were about 8 people there, and one left. The rest were fairly interested. It was a high level ish talk, very niche. And I hadn't done anything like this in at least 11 years.

Negative: I could have had better demos. I could have been a little more polished with my words. I used 'um' and 'okay' way too many times. My powerpoint deck sucked (way out of practice). One person left the talk about 10 minutes through.

Positive: I stayed engaged for 50 minutes out of the hour. Only one person left the talk. I answered questions without freaking out. I vaguely remembered how to stand up there and make eye contact and present without looking like a nervous idiot.

Conclusion: I definitely want to keep this up. I don't want to go back into training as a regular gig, but I do want to reacquire my presentation skills so I lose much of the nervousness I had last week. I'll be working on a set of interesting but unique topics that I can submit for code camps that won't be like everyone else.

In other news, the fam damily is coming for the spring birthday/memorial day shindig. I don't know that we'll be swimming, though - depends on the weather. Also, now that code camp's over, I'll definitely be moving my PC from the family room to the yarn room, and finally installing Windows 7 RC. 8.5 days left of kindergarten, and 9 and 2 half days left of first grade.

Disclaimer – this is an opinion piece (and not even a well organized one, at that).

There’s a recent discussion around the internets about something specifically offensive, and the discussion has also segued into various talks about women in IT, specifically programmers.

Guys, there are females who program. Girls, yes, you too can be a programmer, if you like logic puzzles and can describe clearly how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

I’ve been programming since I was 12. Back then, I was one of two females out of about 40 students (5% ) in the summer school computer class (way back in the late 70s). Any computer clubs I went to, I was usually the only girl.

Now, 30ish years later, I’m speaking at a code camp. Out of 24 speakers, there are two females (looking at the names). Which my ms calc says is 8.3%. Not much of an increase there. At my current company, the split seems to be about 50/50 company wide, but at the last several places I’ve worked, I’ve been the lone female developer, often the lone female in IT. (It’s a good thing I like action movies and football.)

This is my opinion, but for most, programming is a solitary task, and for the most part, women are social creatures (Myself not included – I wouldn’t have a social life if not for my kids). And until “social programming” emerges as a viable methodology, IT and programming will remain populated by those who don’t mind the long silent hours populated by the occasional outburst or the required social interaction when getting a drink from the fridge.

But, hey, that’s just me.

This is a test of the Live Writer blogpost editing system. If this were a real blog post, this content would be meaningful. This is a test. This is ONLY a test.

Inserting test picture:

Cool.

<geek alert>

In my quest to learn something well enough to give a talk, I’ve been looking at WPF and Silverlight, and XAML which governs both, and all this whole new paradime (mistake intended) for programming front ends/user interfaces.

I submitted a proposal for code camp, and they accepted. I will be speaking at Nova Code Camp on Saturday, May 23, at 3. (No pizza for me, this time!)

So, I’ve been busy with working on the demo, and I’ll be doing some practice talks here at work. I’ve also decided to do the demo in C#, so I’m in the middle of a re-write. I may make the sample code available in both flavors, but professionally I need to begin programming full time in C#. I’ve been semi-promoted to developer team lead for a major webification effort of an existing ugly winforms system, and the target language is C#. I’ve coasted with VB.net, and now it’s time to get serious.

</geek alert>

 

Just finished three by Linnea Sinclair. OMG! The first one I had trouble slowing down until I knew I could jump right into the second one. The second one I had trouble starting a bit because I was sick, but once I felt better, it was over just like that. So I started in on the third one. It was read in 2 days. And these aren't small books. They have WORDS.

Book Links
Gabriel's Ghost - read this one first
Shades of Dark - sequel to Gabriel's Ghost
Hope's Folly - the whole saga continues, but focuses on a major Minor Character from the first two.

There was a rumor a coupla weeks ago, when I had difficulty in installing SPD on a standalone, no internet system (gasp!), that MS would make SharePoint Designer 2007 free on April 1. Well, considering the date, I was semi-skeptical, but optimistic to the point in suspending my attempts to check.

On April 1, you still had to buy it. On April 2, it was indeed, free. I have now installed on the disconnected system with no issues.

You can get it here.

Three weekends in a row have been horrendous – stress, illness, weather. Although, my sister’s wedding was pretty good, it was surrounded by stress, illness, weather…

Children, on the other hand, have shown remarkable improvement in behavior - for the most part. Both have received kudos from teachers in the last two weeks about their improved behavior and actions.

It was my turn to be sick this past weekend, so I didn’t get much reading done, other than some blogs I keep up with and the news headlines.

I did watch the second Harry Potter movie with the girls this weekend – in two parts. It’s a little scarier than the first one. We’re going to acquire the books and begin reading them. They were fascinated by the world of magic. Although I constantly remind them that it’s all pretend. We do discuss how the computers have added the special effects, and how special camera shots make it look a certain way.

Hopefully, this will be a better reading week and I’ll be back with booklinks in the next day or two.

 

 

I got the annoying throat tickle yesterday, and today, the only thing keeping me going is Dayquil. I’ve had to miss so much work due to kids, that I’m trying not to miss any this week and actually have a real 40 hr work week. Nyquil last night, no TV, straight to bed. I’ve got Bones epis piling up on the TIVO.  

So even though I want to look at the new WPF Composite App guidance in VB.net, I only got as far as the download and install. Maybe when the 2^nd dose of Dayquil kicks in…

In the meantime, I’m attempting to document this crazy scanning app platform that I’ve inherited. Enterprise Records Management cots, Enterprise Scanning Server, Enterprise PDF Search Engine, and custom client that marries the three together in some very weird ceremonial way. Configuration is a pain, and coding, well, I’ve read the code. I THINK I know what’s doing, with whom, and when.

 

I entered a proposed presentation for Nova Code Camp. I’ve been attending for years, and I’ve been looking for something I thought I could either know enough about to give an interesting talk, or to find something that I could talk about that wouldn’t be more of the same.

And I’m nervous. If I get picked, I’ll have less than two months to perfect the talk, then speak in front of a bunch of guys (and a few girls – typical code camp ratio is 5–10% female), some of whom may know much more on the topic than I do, without looking like a complete idiot. (And if I don’t get picked, I’ll forever wonder why.)

Early on, I started in this crazy profession as a trainer, so you’d think I’d be okay. But it’s been over a decade since I’ve done any regular stand up and talk in front of people.

But it’s time. Time for me to start publicly declaring my technical knowledge I’ve accumulated. And continue to.

BTW, the book purchase dry spell is pretty much done. On Sunday, I picked up two Linnea Sinclair paperbacks from Barnes and Noble – in the store – and Tuesday I ordered WPF in Action (w/vs 2008). Book links below. However, I’ll still be keeping the actual purchases of new books to a minimum, since we’ve got disney world at the end of June.

Book Links

Linnea Sinclair – Gabriel's Ghost

Linnea Sinclair – Hope's Folly

Arlen Feldman and Maxx Daymon – WPF in Action with Visual Studio 2008

Crazy weekend after crazy week and previously crazy weekend does not a happy Leah make.

However, I waved goodbye to sick hubby, then ditched the girls with Big Sis, and caught a Clive Owen double feature yesterday – First Duplicity then The International. So, when I finally retreived the girls, and then had to feed them @ 7:30, I was no where near as cranky as I had been at noon, when I dropped them off.

Also, I caved and bought a coupla books. I had some time to kill before the first movie (Amazon link to the theatre apparently doesn’t know about EDT) and the bookstore is one level down from the massive theatre complex at the mall.

I’m making progress on my book app, and I’m figuring also how to apply the same methodology to my knitting app. Primarily desktop, but social features enabled upon demand. For the anti-social persons in all of us.

I’ll try to get pics from my sister’s wedding (this past Saturday) up in the next coupla days.