My Auth0 swag arrived today! This means I can finally partake in the techie tradition of making the traditional “Look at the stuff I got when I joined the company!” post.
The laptop arrived on the Friday of my first week, and it’s a nice one:
When I got hired, incoming Auziros — that’s the internal term for “Auth0 employee” — got the choice of either a 13″ or 16″ MacBook Pro.
Many developers I know prefer to go with a smaller, lighter notebook. As a person who carries an accordion to social events, conferences, and bars (or at least, I used to, before the plague), I have a distorted sense of what “lightweight” is, and consider a 16″ laptop dainty. I don’t mind the extra weight, and I appreciate the extra processing power, screen real estate, USB ports, and battery size.
The swag arrived in a box at noon, and most of it is Auth0-branded and in the official colors.
The goodies are:
2 Auth0 t-shirts
2 Auth0 stickers
A reversible booklet, which reads “Auth0 Product Vision” on one side, and “Auth0 Brand Vision” on the other
An Auth0 water bottle
A metal cup, labeled “One giant leap”, and below it, a lunar footprint with the Auth0 “shield” logo in the middle
An Auth0 spiral-bound notebook
An Auth0 laptop zip-pouch
A Tile Mate bluetooth tracker
The laptop pouch can hold the 16″ MacBook Pro, and it certainly stands out. It’s a good thing that orange is one of my favorite colors:
I’m going to have to ask an Auziro who’s been around longer what the “One Giant Leap” promotion was all about. It is a nice mug:
Companies function better when their people can actually tell the story of the company and articulate what the company’s all about. And for the people who work at a company, knowing the company’s vision and the image it wants to project to the world can help give a sense of meaning and purpose to the work they do.
That’s why I think one of the best things in the box o’ swag was the double-sided booklet, with Auth0’s product vision on one side…
…and Auth0’s brand vision on the other:
It’s not unusual for a tech company to provide swag like branded bottles, bags, mouse pads, mugs, and stickers. In my more recent experience, I’ve been fortunate to get a really nice “welcome” package from Shopify, Smartrac, and Sourcetoad.
Some companies stand out by providing something a little more unusual with the welcome swag. Auth0 is one of those companies, as they didn’t just include a Tile Bluetooth tracker, but also put the box in a sleeve with nice messages. They could’ve just thrown it in with the rest of the stuff, but they took the trouble to make it a little more personal:
I’ll admit it: I’ve gotten a little used to working at smaller companies, where there’s no monitoring of company computers, and it’s the Wild West as far as what you can install on them.
That’s no longer the case for me. I now work at Auth0, a company with a headcount that’s quickly approaching 800, with unicorn status and Series F funding, and it’s in the security industry. Naturally, there’s a full-fledged security team that monitors company-issued computers.
In my excitement to take the new version of macOS — Big Sur — out for a spin, I’d forgotten that the Security team hasn’t yet approved it for use. They very quickly (and I should add, nicely) contacted me and let me know that I needed to reinstall macOS Catalina as soon as possible.
There are other reasons why you might need to go back to Catalina after installing Big Sur:
It’s still very new, and very new versions of operating systems always have some set of issues, whose effects can run the gamut from mildly annoying to catastrophic. If you can’t afford to lose time dealing with these issues, you should wait for the updates.
For the benefit of any who need to downgrade, here’s a step-by-step guide to reinstalling Catalina after you’ve installed Big Sur. You’ll need a USB key and the better part of an afternoon.
Step 1: The preliminaries
1a: Start downloading the Catalina installer from the App store
The first thing you’ll need is the macOS Catalina installer.
It’ll take up around 9 gigabytes of space on your hard drive, and the App Store will put in your Applications folder.
Once it’s completely downloaded from the App Store, the installer will start automatically. When this happens, close the installer. You’ll make use of it later.
The installer will take some time to download. Apple’s servers will be busier than usual, as many users are downloading Big Sur and other upgrades.
1b: Back up your files!
In the process of reinstalling Catalina, you’ll need to completely erase your Mac’s hard drive. If you have any files that you can’t live without, this is the time to back them up.
I didn’t have to worry about this, since:
All my work product is either code (which lives on GitHub) or content (which lives on GitHub or Google Docs), and
I’ve been at Auth0 less than a month, and between onboarding and offsites, there just hasn’t been that much of a chance for me to accumulate that many files on my hard drive!
1c: Get a nice fast USB key that stores at least 16 GB
The process will involve booting your Mac from a USB key containing the macOS Catalina installer, so you’ll need a key with enough space. An 8 GB USB key won’t be big enough. Because digital storage is all about powers of 2, the next size up will be 16 GB.
I strongly recommend that you use a USB 3 key, especially one with read speeds of 300 megabits/second or better, such as the Samsung Fit Plus. Doing so will greatly speed up the process. Don’t use a USB key that you got as conference swag — it may have the space, but more often than not, they tend to be slow, because they’re cheap.
If the USB key contains files that you want to keep, back them up. You’re going to erase the key in the next step.
Step 2: Make a bootable USB key containing the macOS Catalina installer
2a: Format the USB key
Plug the USB key into your Mac, then launch Disk Utility.
Select the USB key in Disk Utility’s left column, then click the Erase button:
Tap to view at full size.
You’ll be presented with this dialog box:
Enter MyVolume into the Name field, and for Format, select Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Click the Erase button. This will format the USB key with the volume name of MyVolume.
2b: Install the macOS Catalina installer onto the USB key
In Step 1a, you downloaded the macOS Catalina installer and closed it after it started automatically. In this step, you’ll transfer it to your freshly-formatted USB key.
Open a terminal window and paste the following command into it:
(The command above assumes that you gave the USB key the volume name MyVolume.)
Once you’ve provided sudo with your password, you’ll be asked if you want to erase the USB key. Entering Y in response will start the process of making the USB key a bootable drive and copying the macOS Catalina installer onto it:
Tap to view at full size.
The Erasing disk process will be relatively quick, but the Copying to disk process may take a while. This is where using a nice, fast USB 3 key will pay off.
Be patient and let it get to 100%, and wait for the Install media now available message to appear and the command line prompt to return.
2c: If your Mac is from 2018 or later, set it up to boot from external media
Check the year of your Mac’s manufacture by selecting About This Mac under the Apple menu:
If your Mac year is 2017 or earlier, you don’t need to follow the rest of this step. Proceed to Step 3.
If your Mac’s year is 2018 or later, you’ll need to change its security settings to allow it to boot from an external drive.
Here’s how you change the security settings:
Restart your Mac and hold down the ⌘ and R keys when you see the Apple logo. This puts the computer into recovery mode, which provides many setup options.
In the menu bar, select Utilities, and then select Startup Security Utility from the list that appears.
The Startup Security Utility window will appear:
Under the Secure Boot section, select Medium Security. This will allow you to install Catalina without having to connect to a network.
Under the External Boot section, select Allow booting from external media. This will allow you to install Catalina from a USB key or disk drive.
Tap to view at full size.
Step 3: Install macOS Catalina
Restart your Mac, and hold down the Option key while it restarts. Your Mac will present you with a choice of startup disks.
Choose the USB key. Your Mac will boot up and you’ll be presented with the macOS Catalina installer screen:
Go ahead and install Catalina.
Once Catalina is installed, you can proceed reinstalling your other software.
Once that’s complete:
If your Mac’s year is 2017 or earlier, you’re done installing Catalina. You can now go about reinstalling your software and restoring your backed up files.
If your Mac’s year is 2018 or later, you’ll need to restore its original security settings. The process is described in Step 4, below.
Step 4: If your Mac is from 2018 or later, restore the original security settings
If your Mac is from 2018 or later, follow these steps to restore the original security settings once Catalina has been installed:
Restart your Mac and hold down the ⌘ and R keys when you see the Apple logo. This puts the computer into recovery mode, which provides many setup options.
In the menu bar, select Utilities, and then select Startup Security Utility from the list that appears.
The Startup Security Utility window will appear:
Under the Secure Boot section, select Full Security.
Under the External Boot section, select Disallow booting from external media.
Once again, here’s the weekly list of events for events for Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds. Every week, on GlobalNerdy.com and on the mailing list, I scour the announcements for events that are interesting to or useful for those of you who are building the future here in “The Other Bay Area, on The Other West Coast”.
This list covers events from Monday, November 16 through Sunday, November 22, 2020.
I’ve opted to list only those events that I can confirm are happening online. I’m not yet listing in-person events, as we’re still in the middle of a pandemic in one of the hardest-hit states (875,000 cases, which is an increase of 31,000 since last week, and 17,488 deaths, which is up 1,572 from last week) in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world (11 million cases, which is an increase of 1 million from last week, and 245,000 deaths, which is up 7,000 from last week).
Events — especially virtual, online ones — can pop up at the last minute. I add them to the list as I find out about them. Come back and check this article from time to time, as you might find a new listing that wasn’t there before!
If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.
Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!
.NET 5 is the 5th major version of the .NET framework, the bedrock of modern Microsoft platform development, and it’s out today!
(For the official details, check out the announcement on the .NET Blog: Announcing .NET 5.0.)
In addition to being the replacement for .NET Framework 4.8 as well as .NET Core 3.1, .NET 5 unifies the various flavors of .NET — “.NET Framework”, .Net Core, Mono, the various Xamarins, Unity, and Universal Windows Platform — into a more cohesive whole.
With this new version of .NET come new versions of its programming languages: C# 9 and F#5, as well as ASP.NET Core and EF Core.
Once again, it’s this Saturday, it’s online, and it’s free-as-in-beer to attend. REGISTER HERE.
The conference will be made of bite-size (15 minutes or shorter!) presentations by Tampa Bay techies and demos of capstone projects by Suncoast Developers Guild alums.
I’ll be presenting on PyGame!
I’ll be doing a presentation in the afternoon, on the topic of…
…PyGame! I try to keep my topics both technical and fun, and what’s more technical and fun than Python and game development?
There will be coding, and I’ll also provide source code and a free book.
What was the last Suncoast Developers Conference like?
The last conference took place in the summer, and was also free and online. You can watch the entire thing below…
…and if you want to jump to a specific presentation, use these links:
In another life, I was a developer evangelist who travelled across North America and I saw tech scenes from Palo Alto to Peoria. I can tell you that one of the signs of a healthy tech community in a small- to medium-sized city is a coding school that acts as a social/technical/gathering place. If your city had one, things were looking up for local techies. If not, it was a safe bet that the place was experiencing a brain drain.
Here in Tampa Bay, Suncoast Developers Guild fills that vital role, and it does so spectacularly. They’re a key part of the heart and soul of tech in the area, and it shows in their efforts, such as events like this.
Once again, here’s the weekly list of events for events for Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds. Every week, on GlobalNerdy.com and on the mailing list, I scour the announcements for events that are interesting to or useful for those of you who are building the future here in “The Other Bay Area, on The Other West Coast”.
This list covers events from Monday, November 9 through Sunday, November 15, 2020.
I’ve opted to list only those events that I can confirm are happening online. I’m not yet listing in-person events, as we’re still in the middle of a pandemic in one of the hardest-hit states (844,000 cases, which is an increase of 41,000 since last week, and 15,916 deaths, which is up 1204 from last week) in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world (10 million cases, which is an increase of 800,000 from last week, and 238,000 deaths, which is up 8,000 from last week).
Events — especially virtual, online ones — can pop up at the last minute. I add them to the list as I find out about them. Come back and check this article from time to time, as you might find a new listing that wasn’t there before!
If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.
Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!
