Category: What I’m Up To

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Process Tampa Bay What I’m Up To

Joey’s Bizarre Adventure (or: I’m in The Undercroft’s “UC Baseline” cybersecurity education program!)

Remember that scholarship to the “UC Baseline” cybersecurity program that I wrote about last week? In that post, I also wrote:

(I’ll admit it: Although I’m not likely to qualify, I applied.)

Well, I applied, and I qualified. The combination of a promotional bonus and an I-got-laid-off scholarship gave me a deep discount on the standard $6,500 price tag for the inaugural cohort of the UC Baseline course, which starts tomorrow and runs until Wednesday, August 19th. Class starts at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.

Based in a gorgeous building in Tampa’s historic Ybor City neighborhood, The Undercroft could be described as a security startup incubator and coworking space, but they prefer to be described as a security guild and guild hall.

Here’s what Undercroft CEO Adam Sheffield has to say:

What we offer here is secure workspace for startups and medium-sized businesses in the security field that either want to start their businesses here in Tampa or make Tampa their home.

They’re also the home of a lot of interesting presentations, as this gallery of graphics for previous ones shows:

This isn’t my first exposure to information security culture, but it’s been a while, and I’m overdue for a refresher.

The first week of the program is Hardware 101, where we’ll spend five days covering the background and basics of the components that comprise modern systems. This should be fun.

To be continued!

For the next five weeks, I’ll be at The Undercroft (masked up, in a small cohort), learning. I’ll write about my experiences as I progress through the program.

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What I’m Up To

Change of plans!

Photo: Harry Potter pointing his wand at his patronus, except Harry’s face has been crudely photoshopped with Joey deVilla’s, the patronus is wearing a tie, and the caption reads “EXPECTO PWNZORUS!”

All of a sudden, the next few weeks will be busy ones for me. I’ll post details soon, but if you read one of my posts from the past week, you just might be able to guess what I’ll be up to.

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What I’m Up To

My other computer stand

Photo: Makeshift laptop stand made of (from top to bottom): Cigar box, Coffee table book about Manila, Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel “Sumber Blonde”, AD&D books (2 copies of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, Monster Manual II, Fiend Folio, Player’s Handbook, and Unearthed Arcana).
Geek stack. Tap to see it at full size.

I don’t just use books as monitor stands for my Linux setup, but for my macOS setup as well — and it’s an equally geeky set of books!

Photo: MacBook pro on the stack of books.
Tap to see at full size.

Here’s that previous article about my Linux monitor stand setup:

My Smalltalk-80 literature and monitor stand

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Programming What I’m Up To

Computer Coach’s “Intro to Python Coding” course (taught by Yours Truly) starts tonight!

The online Intro to Python Coding course that I’m teaching on behalf of Tampa Bay’s own Computer Coach Training Center starts tonight at 6:00 p.m.. For the next five weeks, on Monday and Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 10:00, I’ll be leading a class of Python learners through “code along with me” exercises in the Python programming language.

Photo: Joey deVilla points at a projected screen of code with co-presented Angela Don.
Dropping code science at BarCamp.

The format of the course will be pretty much the same as the one I use at Tampa iOS Meetup, where I lead the group through a “code along with me” exercise. I project what’s on my computer on the big screen, and everyone follows along, entering the code as I explain what’s happening.

Since Python has a REPL (Read-Evaluate-Print Loop), I can also have the class go through some exercises and try little coding challenges. It will be a “learn by doing” kind of class.

The main textbooks for the course (which will be provided to students) are Python Crash Course, 2nd Edition…

Book cover: “Python Crash Course, 2nd edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming”

…and Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 2nd edition (which is free to read online):

Book cover: “Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 2nd edition: Practical Programming for Total Beginners”In order to minimize confusion, we’ll all use the same tools in the course, namely the Anaconda Individual Edition distribution of Python 3.7 and associated tools…Logo: Anaconda…and Visual Studio Code:

Logo: Visual Studio CodeBoth are available free of charge, and run on macOS, Windows, and Linux.

It’ll be fun! Watch this space; I’ll post some snippets from the course as it progresses.

Interested in signing up? Visit Computer Coach’s site and speak to them. Don’t dawdle — it starts tonight!

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Career What I’m Up To

The Great LinkedIn Premium experiment

Image: Dee Dee from “Dexter’s Laboratory” pressing a button with the LinkIn logo on it
Ooh! What does this button do?

I decided to see if LinkedIn Premium will help with the job search and activated the one month free trial. I’ll keep you posted by writing about the features I find and my experiences with it.

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Current Events Programming What I’m Up To

I’m teaching an online Python programming course!

Photo: Man’s hand on Mac laptop, with Python book on the side. Caption: “Intro to Python course / Starts this Monday!”

Graohic: Computer Coach Training Center logoI’ll be teaching a live online course on Python programming on behalf of Computer Coach Training Center starting Monday. Here are the details:

  • What: Intro to Python Coding course
  • When: Monday and Wednesday evenings, 6:00 – 10:00 p.m., starting Monday, July 13 and ending Wednesday, August 12 (6 weeks, twice a week)
  • Where: Online.
  • How much: $900 — and Computer Coach has grants that can cover the cost if you’re unemployed and based in the Tampa Bay area (contact them to see if you qualify)
  • What you’ll need:
    • A computer that was made sometime in the last ten years. My main computer is a 2014-era MacBook Pro, but I’ll be doing demonstrations on a 2012-era Lenovo ThinkPad running Linux Mint, a 2009-era Compaq laptop running Peppermint Linux, and a $35 Raspberry Pi.
    • An internet connection. This is an online course, after all.

To register for this course, visit this page and tap the Attend Online button. Someone from Computer Coach will contact you.

Screenshot: The Meetup page for the Python course, with the “Attend online” button highlighted.

The course description

Photo: Woman’s hands typing on Mac laptop.

This is an introduction to the Python programming language. Now in the top 10 programming languages according to the TIOBE Programming Language Index, it is versatile enough to have a wide array of uses, from simple scripting to powering Instagram, Spotify, Netflix, Dropbox, and more. Its combination of simplicity and vast scientific and math libraries have made it the preferred programming language for data science and machine learning. If you’re looking for a first programming language, Python is an excellent choice.

 

This is not a passive course! This isn’t the kind of course where the instructor lectures over slides while you take notes (or pretend to take notes while surfing the web or checking your social media feeds). In this course, you’ll be actively taking part in the learning process, entering code, experimenting, making mistakes, correcting those mistakes, and producing working applications. You will learn by doing. At the end of each session, you’ll have a collection of little Python programs that you wrote, and which you can use as the basis for your own work.

The course will start at the most basic level by walking you through the process of downloading and installing the necessary tools to start Python programming. From there, you’ll learn the building blocks of the Python programming language:

  • Control structures that determine what your programs do,
  • Data structures to store the information that your programs act on,
  • Functions and objects to organize your code, and
  • Using libraries as building blocks for your applications.

You’ll write all sorts of programs…

  • You’ll use Python in “immediate mode” to perform quick calculations (and you’ll sharpen your command-line skills in the process).
  • You’ll write scripts to simplify or automate tedious tasks.
  • You’ll build web applications.
  • And since it’s a networked, data-driven world where no application is an island, you’ll learn how to use Python to interact with web services and databases.

Better still, you’ll learn how to think like a programmer. You’ll learn how to look at a goal and learn how you could write a program to meet it, and how that program could be improved or enhanced. You’ll learn skills that will serve you well as you take up other programming languages, and even learn a little bit about the inner workings of computers, operating systems, and the internet.

 

Categories
Current Events Programming What I’m Up To

RW Community Care: Free community support for mobile developers (and aspiring mobile developers, too!)

One of the reasons I write for raywenderlich.com — the premier mobile developer tutorial site — is that they’re wonderful people to work with, because they’re such good people. And as good people, they’ve put together something to help developers during this time of pandemic and quarantine: RW Community Care. It’s a series of office hours, livestreams, bootcamps, and more, running until August 22 — and all events are 100% free!

Here’s what RW Community care offers…

Read iOS Apprentice for free!

Cover of “iOS Apprentice, 8th edition”I learned iOS programming back in 2012 by reading and doing the exercises in an earlier edition of iOS Apprentice, which was written by Matthijs Hollemans. While I’d done some mobile development as a Windows Phone Champ during my time as a developer evangelist at Microsoft, it was this book that set me on my path as a mobile developer.

I owe a lot to this book, which is why it was a big honor to co-author the eighth edition with Eli Ganim. For the summer, you can read it online for free at RW Community Care. Whether you’re completely new to programming or — like me, back in 2012, experienced at programming but new to iOS development — you should check out iOS Apprentice on RW Community Care!

RW Talks

RW Talks happen weekly, cover all sorts of topics that mobile developers will find interesting, ranging from the deeply technical to the inspiring. Upcoming talks include:

You can also see past talks:

RW Chat

Can’t attend some of the other live events, or prefer to collaborate on discussions as a community? Or maybe you’re more the type to hash out challenges or problems with a group of like-minded developers? There’s a Discord server that you can join!

Office Hours

Not everyone has easy access to a senior mobile developer, especially when everyone seems so busy these days and our teams are more physically separate then ever before.

Good news: Office Hours are the next best thing to having a senior developer right next to you!

Review My Stuff

Want a senior member of the development community to look over your current project, run a critical eye over your professional résumé, or review some code you’ve been struggling with? This program is designed to do just that.

If you need someone to help you with deeper questions on your particular project, or to lend a critical eye to your resume or job search, you need Review My Stuff!