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Current Events Deals Programming Reading Material

Happy Programmer’s Day! / Fanatical’s deal on FREE programming books

The origin of Programmer’s Day

The 256th day of the year (the 100th day in hexadecimal) is known as the Day of the Programmer. On most years, it’s September 13th, but on leap years — which includes this one — it’s September 12th.

The day was proposed by two Russian programmers, Valentin Balt and Michael Cherviakov, who petitioned their government to recognize this day. The recognition came on September 11, 2009 when Russian president Dmitry Medvedev signed the decree, making it official.

The deal

Whenever an “official unofficial” day like this happens, there’s always at least one vendor offering a deal. Day of the Programmer is no exception, and Fanatical are offering a bundle of three books from Packt for free in its honor!

Yes, I know that Packt is almost industry shorthand for “Not necessarily good, but not necessarily bad,” but at this price, you can’t say that these books aren’t worth every penny.

Here’s a video that goes a little deeper into deal, and a little deeper into poking a little fun at Packt:

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, September 14, 2020)

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, September 14 through Sunday, September 20, 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 in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world, and we’re closing in on 200,000 deaths.

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!

Monday, September 14

Tuesday, September 15

Wednesday, September 16

Thursday, September 17

Friday, September 18

Saturday, September 19

Sunday, September 20

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

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

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!


Categories
Humor

The general idea behind VPNs

Unfortunately, VPNs don’t finish their tasks with a great song-and-dance scene.

Categories
Career Current Events Tampa Bay

St. Pete College offers free tech training for laid off/furloughed residents in Pinellas County

If you’re:

  • In the Tampa Bay area (Pinellas County in particular),
  • in technology or looking to get into it, and
  • your job was affected by the pandemic…

…you might be eligible for some very useful free training from St. Pete College’s Rapid Credentialing Scholarship program. It provides full-tuition scholarships to eligible students, and it does so in weeks as opposed to years.

The program offers training in a number of fields. Under technology, here’s the training offered:

You are eligible for the program if you meet all of the following requirements:

  • You’re unemployed, underemployed, furloughed, or expecting to be furloughed
  • You’re a resident of Pinellas County
  • You are a U.S. citizen or permanent resident
  • You are 18 or older
  • You have an Employ Florida account (which you can sign up for here)

To find out more…

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer’s next meetup happens next Tuesday!


We’re long overdue for a Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer meetup, so let’s fix that — the next one happens on Tuesday!

Here are the details from the Meetup page:

Calling all techies, creatives, and creators!

This September it feels like we’re all going back to school, even those of us not in a classroom. We’re students of life, learning to navigate our new normal. We’re looking for ways to make it in an uncertain world. This opens up opportunities to learn.

Fire up your smartphone or computer and let’s discuss topics like:

  • What are you learning?
  • What do you want to learn?
  • What have you been doing to stay sane?
  • What projects are you starting or trying to finish?
  • What small thing could help you?

Let’s connect and look for ways to learn from and inspire each other during these crazy times.

Join us on Tuesday September 15th for an online Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer. Bring your favorite beverage or food and let’s hang out.

Online meetup details will be posted.

The event details:

We’ll see you there!

 

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, September 7, 2020)

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, September 7 through Sunday, September 13, 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 in one of the hardest-hit countries in the world. We’re also seeing the mandated return of students to schools, which will likely  exacerbate the situation.

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!

Monday, September 7

Tuesday, September 8

Wednesday, September 9

Thursday, September 10

Friday, September 11

Saturday, September 12

Sunday, September 13

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

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

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!


Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

Drop off your old laptop or iPad and help a Tampa Bay kid remotely go to school!

One of the side effects of COVID-19 is that it’s shown how wide the digital divide can be. While today’s tech makes distance learning possible (can you imagine what it would be like if the pandemic happened during the era of flip phones, 56K modems and Windows 98?), not every family can afford a personal computer, tablet, or even decent home broadband service. There’s a way for Tampa Bay techies to help, thanks to Tampa Bay WaVE, Think Big for Kids,  Boys & Girls Club of Tampa Bay and ECycle.

They’re holding a Drop Off event this week at the lobby of Tampa Bay WaVE’s office building, located at 500 East Kennedy Blvd. They’ll take your old laptop or iPad and get it to a local school-age child who otherwise wouldn’t be able to e-learn.

Right now, I have one laptop for each limb. That’s more than I can possibly use at any given time, so I’m taking the one pictured above (it’s the one I installed Peppermint Linux on, a few weeks back) to the Drop Off on Thursday. To me, it’s a spare Linux server that I can spin up for experimentation, but to a student, it could be a whole lot more.

If you’ve got a laptop or iPad to spare, please consider dropping it off at the WaVE tomorrow or Thursday, and help show the Tampa Bay tech spirit!

For more information about this program, contact Heather McMillian, Senior Operations Manager at  hmcmillan@tampabaywave.org.

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