Category: Reading Material

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Developer Relations Hardware Reading Material What I’m Up To

Stuff that arrived over the weekend

Joey de Villa’s NetFoundry business card

A few goodies I’d ordered all arrived nearly at once on Saturday, and I thought I’d share them here.

Business card

A snapshot of Joey de Villa’s desk, showing two boxes of his business cards. One business card is raised so it is readable. Beside the boxes are a mechanical keyboard and a steel mug with a stciker on it that reads “Punch today in the face”.
New business cards! Tap to view at full size.

It’s been a while since I’ve had an honest-to-goodness business card, but since NetFoundry makes them available to employees and since a good chunk of my job is about making myself available to the public, I placed an order and received two boxes containing a few hundred cards in total.

These days, I tend to simply display my LinkedIn QR code on my phone when exchanging contact details with people, but I still like the old-school feel of giving someone a card (which just so happens to contain my LinkedIn QR code).

Book: Developer Relations Activity Patterns

Joey de Villa, smiling and holding up a paperback copy of the book Developer Relations Activity Patterns.
It arrived! Tap to view at full size.

Another thing that arrived on Saturday was my copy of Developer Relations Activity Patterns, written by Ted Neward, Scott T. McAllister, David Neal, and Chris Woodruff, and published by Apress, which is now an imprint of Springer Nature.

I know a couple of the authors. Way back in 2016, Ted reached out to me after I’d landed a developer relations job with SMARTRAC and wanted to see how they did developer relations. I also know David from my time at Auth0, because shortly after I joined, Auth0 merged with Okta, where David worked. In fact, to prepare for my technical interview with Auth0, my primary resource was David’s 2019 article in the Okta Developer blog, An Illustrated Guide to OAuth and OpenID Connect.

Since I’m now pretty much Supreme Developer Advocate at NetFoundry (I’m the only one; it’s a small, scrappy company that punches above its weight class), I figured the book would be useful.

Also, I have a policy of buying books written by people I know, as illustrated in the meme below:

Meme with title “When you tell someone about your book and they say ‘oh cool’ instead of buying it immediately.” Below the title is a cat wearing cool sunglasses and a gold chain necklace saying “That wasn’t very cash money of you”.
I try to be cash money all the time. Tap to view at full size.

You may have noticed that I bought the dead-tree edition instead of an electronic one. This also follows a rule of mine:

  1. If the content is ephemeral or likely to be outdated in a couple of years (or a couple of months, given the pace of change these days), get the electronic version.
  2. If the content is likely to be longer-lasting or seems timeless, get the paper version.

Also, it’s nice to get away from screens from time to time. I’ve carved out a little time each day to sit on the rocking chair on our front porch and read paper books, and  Developer Relations Activity Patterns will be one of them.

Teeny-weeny hard drive

Joey de Villa holding up his Lexar external drive side-by-side with his NetFoundry business card. Viewed from the top, they’re the same size.
Nice and compact! Tap to view at full size.

Between the RAMpocalypse brought about by AI data centers hogging all the storage chips and the war in Iran blocking off access to a large chunk of the world’s helium (it’s a key part of making high-end chips; see my earlier article for an explanation), SSD prices are climbing.

Fortunately, there was a very short-time deal for a two-pack of 2TB Lexar SL500 SSDs for about $400, so we placed an order so that Anitra and I could each have one. They arrived on Saturday, and they’re about the size of my business card!

Joey de Villa holding up his Lexar external drive side-by-side (and on its side) with his NetFoundry business card. The drive is quite thin!
Skinny! Tap to view at full size.
Categories
Artificial Intelligence Programming Reading Material

More notes

Because some people asked, and because I’m going to be busy for the next day (I’ll explain later), here are more shots from recently-added pages to my notebook. These are notes on RAG and LangChain, taken and condensed from a couple of books, a couple of online sources, and my own experimenting with code. Enjoy!

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Artificial Intelligence Current Events Reading Material What I’m Up To

Where Cory Doctorow’s line, “When life give you SARS, you make sarsaparilla,” comes from

Lately, a lot of friends have been telling me that they were listening to an interview with Cory Doctorow about his latest book, Enshittification, and heard him attribute this quip to me:

“When life gives you SARS, you make *sarsaparilla*.”

The YouTube short above tells the story behind the quote (which also appears in this old blog post of mine), which also includes a tip on using AI to find specific moments or quotes in videos, and a “This DevRel for hire” pitch to hire an awesome developer advocate.

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Artificial Intelligence Reading Material

Humble Bundle deals for aspiring AI developers!

Here’s what I consider to be a pretty good deal for the aspiring AI developer: for $18, Humble Bundle’s The A-Z of Machine Learning provides 19 video courses from Packt Publishing on all sorts of machine learning topics:

  1. Python – Complete Python, Django, Data Science and ML Guide
  2. Machine Learning for Absolute Beginners – Level 1
  3. Machine Learning, Data Science and Generative AI with Python
  4. PyTorch Ultimate 2024 – From Basics to Cutting-Edge
  5. Mastering Image Segmentation with PyTorch using Real-World Projects
  6. R Ultimate 2024 – R for Data Science and Machine Learning
  7. Machine Learning – Modern Computer Vision & Generative AI
  8. Math 0-1 – Matrix Calculus in Data Science and Machine Learning
  9. Natural Language Processing – Machine Learning Models in Python
  10. Cluster Analysis and Unsupervised Machine Learning in Python
  11. Natural Language Processing – Deep Learning Models in Python
  12. Recommender Systems with Machine Learning
  13. Basics of Chatbots with Machine Learning & Python
  14. Algorithm Alchemy – Unlocking the Secrets of Machine Learning
  15. The Complete Guide to Azure Machine Learning – 2025 Edition
  16. DevOps to MLOps Bootcamp: Build & Deploy ML Systems End-to-End
  17. Fundamentals of Machine Learning
  18. Mastering Machine Learning Algorithms using Python
  19. Real-world End to End Machine Learning Ops on Google Cloud

You may have had the expression pictured above when you saw that The A-Z of Machine Learning comes from Packt, of all places. Given their reputations for “shovelware” books, I’d be suspicious too, and I was even a technical reviewer for one of their books:

My new gig doing developer relations for HP’s ZGX Nano AI station will require me to create a lot of tutorials, so I purchased The A-Z of Machine Learning as well as the Humble Bundle below to get a better feel for the sorts of AI tutorials that are out there.

Having gone through a couple of the courses in The A-Z of Machine Learning and skimming the others, I can say that it’s not bad. I’d feel robbed if I paid full price for all 19 courses, but at 18 bucks — less than a buck each — it’s a pretty good deal, and an inexpensive way for the beginning AI/ML developer to get started.

(While I generally only buy Packt’s stuff when it’s on Humble Bundle, there are exceptions. The iOS books by Tampa’s own Craig Clayton are quite good, and I paid full price for them.)

At the time of writing, The A-Z of Machine Learning will be available for 14 more days.

Also worth checking out is the Create the Future Now bundle, a set of 21 books and online courses from Manning’s Early Access Program (or MEAP for short) for $25:

  1. Python Workout, Second Edition
  2. Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja, Third Edition
  3. A Damn Fine Stable Diffusion Book
  4. AI Agents and Applications
  5. AI Applications Made Easy
  6. Robotics for Programmers
  7. Emotional UX
  8. Open Source LLMs on Your Own Computer: 3 Project Series (liveProject)
  9. Transformers and Explainable AI for Computer Vision: 4 Project Series (liveProject)
  10. Four AI Algorithm Projects with Python: 4 Project Series (liveProject)
  11. Modern CSS for a Portfolio Page: 4 Project Series (liveProject)
  12. Build Your First Microservice: 3 Project Series (liveProject)
  13. Software Design in Python
  14. Learn Docker in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition
  15. Fight Fraud with Machine Learning
  16. Building an AI Voice Assistant: 4 Project Series (liveProject)
  17. Moving to C#: 4 Project Series (liveProject)
  18. Build a Custom Chatbot Using LangChain and ChatGPT: 3 Project Series (liveProject)
  19. Modern C, Third Edition
  20. Build Python Web Apps with Streamlit
  21. A Responsive Web App with C#, .Net, and React: 4 Project Series (liveProject)

This one’s a little pricier that the Packt offering, but it’s from Manning, which has a stronger reputation than Packt’s, and goes beyond just Python and AI. If you’re looking for a mix of books and online lessons and want to be a little more well-rounded, this Humble Bundle is for you!

I also purchased this bundle. At the time of writing, the Create the Future Now bundle will be also be available for 14 more days.

 

Categories
Artificial Intelligence Reading Material

Get 18 O’Reilly books on AI and machine learning for just $25 at Humble Bundle!

Would you like ALL THE BOOKS pictured below for just $25?

You can get all 18 of these O’Reilly books on AI and machine learning for a mere $25 at Humble Bundle — but only for the next 13 days (at the time of writing)!

Find out more and get the deal here.

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Deals Programming Reading Material

Humble Bundle’s great set of computer science books for $2 each!

For the next four days — until 2:00 p.m. EDT on Monday, March 24, 2025 — Humble Bundle’s Computer Science the Fun Way bundle will be available, giving you 18 books for as little at $36, which puts the cost of each book at a mere two bucks!

All the books come from No Starch Press, a publisher of some great books, and the folks behind my current favorite books for my Python courses.

Check out their page, and if you want 18 useful computer science books for as little as two bucks, get them now!

Categories
Artificial Intelligence Reading Material Video What I’m Up To

Easier ways to learn how neural networks work

If you’ve tried to go past the APIs like the ones OpenAI offers and learn how they work “under the hood” by trying to build your own neural network, you might find yourself hitting a wall when the material opens with equations like this:

How can you learn how neural networks — or more accurately, artificial neural networks — do what they do without a degree in math, computer science, or engineering?

There are a couple of ways:

  1. Follow this blog. Over the next few months, I’ll cover this topic, complete with getting you up to speed on the required math. Of course, if you’re feeling impatient…
  2. Read Tariq Rashid’s book, Make Your Own Neural Network. Written for people who aren’t math, computer science, or engineering experts, it first shows you the principles behind neural networks and then leaps from the theoretical to the practical by taking those principles and turning them into working Python code.

Along the way, both I (in this blog) and Tariq (in his book) will trick you into learning a little science, a little math, and a little Python programming. In the end, you’ll understand the diagram above!

One more thing: if you prefer your learning via video…

  1. The Global Nerdy YouTube channel will be kicking it into high gear soon. If you’d like, you can follow it now!
  2. Watch 3Blue1Brown’s video on how neural networks work: