Categories
Entrepreneur Tampa Bay

Tampa Bay’s tech startup future is female-led

Photo of Tonya Elmore, Lakshmi Shenoy, Jill St. Thomas, Rachel Feinman, and Linda Olson
From left to right: Tonya Elmore, Lakshmi Shenoy, Jill St. Thomas, Rachel Feinman, and Linda Olson.
Photo by Amy Pezzicara for Tampa Bay Business Journal. Tap to view at full size.

While the U.S. technology landscape is by and large defined by young, straight white men, almost every Tampa Bay hub that supports technology startups is run by a woman:

These women recently participated in a “virtual sit-down” interview panel with Tampa Bay Business Journal, and the result is their article, The Future is Female-Led.

As its tagline says, “Almost every major startup organization in the region is led by a woman. They’re setting a tone that will have a ripple effect across the entire tech ecosystem.”

If you’re wondering what the Tampa startup scene is like, you’ll definitely want to read this article.

Categories
Programming

What to do when the Xcode 13 beta Canvas view doesn’t work and has no Simulators

Still photo from “The IT Crowd” — Rory at his desk on the phone, with the caption “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

I downloaded the Xcode 13 beta and waited through its lengthy installation process…

…and when I launched it once it had been installed, something was wrong. The SwiftUI Canvas preview screen didn’t work, and there were no Simulators available.

And then I remembered that this happened to me with the beta edition of the previous Xcode version. The Canvas makes use of the Simulators, and both work properly when you reboot the Mac after installing Xcode, which appears to reload some necessary files.

Simply put, the way to fix it is to use the classic IT solution: Turn the computer off and on again.

I did just that, and Xcode 13 beta now has a properly-functioning Canvas and a full set of Simulators running iOS 15 beta.

Categories
Programming What I’m Up To

Putting iOS 15 beta on the “sacrificial iPhone 6S”

My iPhone 6S during the iOS 15 installation process.

One of the two phones that I’ve held onto for sentimental reasons is my rose gold iPhone 6S, which I’ve had since late 2016. I got it during my all-too-brief stint in the fashion industry (I’ll save the details for another time), I used it in writing an app at a hackathon that was so funny that they made up a new prize just for it, it survived being driven over (thanks to its Otterbox case), and it was my test platform for my first app in the App Store.

It turns out that iOS 15 supports the 6S, which makes my old “sacrificial phone” a suitable candidate for the new OS and trying out iPhone development with the Xcode beta, Swift 5.5, and the new SwiftUI.

I’ll keep you posted.

Recommended reading

Categories
Programming

Xcode 13 beta is available now!

Tap to view at full size.

The first day of WWDC ’21 has come and gone, which means that the beta for the upcoming version of Xcode is available now!

If you’ve been itching to try out the new Xcode (and especially the new SwiftUI), you can get it at Apple’s Developer site’s Downloads page. It’s currently installing on my machine as I write this.

Let’s do this.

Just a quick warning if this is your first time working with Xcode: the installation process can take a while. On my Auth0-issued 2019 MacBook Pro (2.6 GHz 6-core i7, 16 GB RAM), it took about a half hour or so to unzip itself into a functioning application.

Categories
Humor Programming

The Programmers’ Credo

Plaque of Pinboard’s August 5, 2016 tweet: “The Programmers’ Credo: we do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they were going to be easy.””
Thanks to Santosh Hari for the find!
Tap to view at full size.

I had no idea that one of the best tweets about programming had been turned into a plaque.

Categories
Conferences Humor

“Dogecoin to the MOON!” (or: Tell me again why people dismiss Dogecoin as a joke cryptocurrency)

In case you missed it, a Dogecoin fan crashed the stage at this weekend’s Bitcoin conference in Miami during a session where Square CEO Jack Dorsey was talking about their LDK (Lightning Development Kit).

The gate-crasher appeared onstage in a dark suit and dress shirt, addressing the audience by saying “Excuse me, everybody — we have a very urgent announcement.”

That’s when he stripped off his suit, revealing a Doge t-shirt and yellow shorts and started screaming “Dogecoin to the mooooon!”, complete with interpretative dance moves.

He was very quickly removed from the stage with hilarious efficiency. You should watch the video to see how someone (security? stage crew?) picked him up as if he were an misplace stage prop:

Truth be told, I would’ve been disappointed if a Dogecoin fan hadn’t done something like this.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, June 7, 2021)

Here’s your list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the week of Monday, June 7 through Sunday, June 13, 2021.

This is a weekly service from Tampa Bay’s tech blog, Global Nerdy! For the past four years, I’ve been compiling a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events happening in Tampa Bay and surrounding areas. There’s a lot going on in our scene here in “The Other Bay Area, on the Other West Coast”!

By “Tampa Bay and surrounding areas”, this list covers events that originate or are aimed at the area within 100 miles of the Port of Tampa. At the very least, that includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater, but as far north as Ocala, as far south as Fort Myers, and includes Orlando and its surrounding cities.

How long will this list contain only ONLINE and OUTDOOR events?

A month ago, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that anyone who is fully vaccinated — meaning that they had their final vaccine two weeks or longer ago — can now stop masking and social distancing, including indoors in many cases. That means this list will start including in-person events, right?

Not just yet. This list will stick to online and outdoor events for the time being.

As I write this:

  • 39.6% of the Florida population has been fully vaccinated (I’m one of them), and 49.7% has had their first dose.
  • 41.6% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated, and 51.5% has had their first dose.

Those numbers are a good sign, but they could be better. I’m holding off on listing indoor in-person events until after the 4th of July for the following reasons:

  • Most of the events aimed at a tech, entrepreneur, or nerd audience are still being held online.
  • The CDC’s announcement depends on people exercising good judgement. We live in Florida. Do the math.
  • If the CDC’s call was right, we’ll know by July 4th. If the CDC’s call was wrong, we’ll also know by July 4th.

I’m looking forward to life getting back to normal, but I’m also happy to exercise a few weeks’ worth of caution because I think it’s worth it.

Stay home, stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

This week’s events

Monday, June 7

Tuesday, June 8

Wednesday, June 9

Thursday, June 10

Friday, June 11

Saturday, June 12

Sunday, June 13

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

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