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Current Events Tampa Bay

Scenes from the “Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer” meetup, Tuesday, January 21, 2019

Photo by Alex Kelly. Tap to see it at full size.

On Tuesday night, Anitra and I hosted the first Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer meetup of the year at our usual place: The 7venth Sun Brewery in Seminole Heights. It drew a good crowd, as you can see from the group photo above.


This meetup’s theme was named in honor of the upcoming Chinese New Year (which happens this Saturday, January 25th): The Year of the Rat. In Chinese mythology, the rat is associated with nimble cleverness, a quality that members of Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer have in abundance.

We’d like to thank the people who came to the meetup, since they faced a couple of environmental challenges…

Photo by Bay News 9.

The smoky haze that hung over the area from the late afternoon and through the early evening. Depending on how close you were to the source — a “prescribed burn” at the Goethe State Forest in Levy County — it may have been hard to drive or breathe.

The “Low Outside Temperature” alarm on my car’s dashboard, indicating a temperature of 2°C (36°F). Photo by Joey deVilla.

Cold (for Tampa, anyway) temperatures. Temperatures dropped to just above freezing. In my old home town of Toronto, this is slightly warmer than for this time of year, but here in my new-ish home town of Tampa (I’ll have been here 6 years as of March), this is “Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining” cold.

Here are some snapshots I took of the event about a half-hour after it started:

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see it at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see it at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see it at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see it at full size.

We were also treated to three original numbers by Dan Crowley, scrum master and agile coach by day, rockin’ guitarist by night. His musical sobriquet is Tribal Knowledge, and like his name, his songs poke fun at corporate culture and cringe.

The first number he played was Kickoff — and yes, that’s about project kickoffs. He’s still working on the lyrics, but the music perfectly captures the enthusiastic feel of a kickoff meeting:

He had his lyrics sheets handy:

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see it at full size.

He followed Kickoff with a song whose title you’ve probably heard in a meeting or report: 95% Complete. You know how it is:

  • The first 95% of a project takes up 95% of the allotted time, and
  • The final 5% of the project takes up the other 95% of the allotted time.

Here are the lyrics:

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see it at full size.

Dan’s final number was White Dude in a Suit, a combination tribute and middle finger to, well, you know…

…and here are the lyrics:

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see it at full size.

Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer is takes place about once a month, and it’s all about socializing. Whether you’re creative through programming, project management, pixels, paint, poetry, or prose, you’re welcome to join us! You can find out more about the group on our Meetup page.

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

LinkedInLocal Tampa: This Thursday at Computer Coach

LinkedInLocal Tampa is happening this Thursday, January 23rd, from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. at Computer Coach Training Center! At this gathering, you’ll get a chance to catch up with your Tampa Bay LinkedIn contacts in real life.

From the event page:

The purpose is to unite people from all walks of life, in facilitated events hosted around the world, to genuinely get to know the humans behind the LinkedIn profiles, and connect beyond the job titles, business cards and company names that are so common at most networking events.

…

#LinkedinLocal Tampa is about community, and community starts with building human to human relationships first, and then acting as one to give back to those in the community who need it the most.

Our facilitated events offer the opportunity to meet your local LinkedIn connections, from behind the pfoiles, and to build a true lasting relationship.

We have a no wallflower, and no clique policy at our events. You will be immediately welcomed and introduced to other business professionals immediately after arriving.

There is a fee to attend LinkedInLocal Tampa — $15 for general admission, with a $5 discount for early birds — and once the costs of holding the event have been covered, the rest of the money goes to a charity. For this event, that charity is The Center for Cyber Safety and Education.

Please note: Tickets will not be available at the door. To attend this event, you have to register in advance!

Here’s the event itinerary:

  • 5:30 – 6:00 Registration & Refreshments
  • 6:00 – 6:10 Welcome & Introductions
  • 6:10 – 7:00 Event Program & Charity Presentation
  • 7:00 – 8:00 Facilitated, Deep Networking

LinkedInLocal Tampa is organized by the following people. If you attend tech events in the Tampa Bay area, chances are you’ll know some of them:

In a nutshell

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, January 20, 2020)

Every week, dedicated individuals and organizations in around the Tampa Bay do more than just their “day jobs”. They get involved in events where they share their knowledge, make connections and friends, and gather together to build strong tech, entrepreneur, and nerd communities. That’s why I do this every week: I put together a list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events to make sure that they can be found and you can attend them!

Here’s what’s happening in Tampa Bay this week!

This weekly list is posted as a voluntary service to the Tampa tech community. With the notable exceptions of Tampa iOS Meetup and Coders, Creatives and Craft Beer — both of which I run — most of this information comes from Meetup.com, EventBrite, and other local event announcement sites. I can’t guarantee the accuracy of the dates and times listed here; if you want to be absolutely sure that the event you’re interested in is actually taking place, please contact the organizers!

Monday, January 20

Global Game Jam 2020 takes place from January 31 to February 2, and in preparation, Tampa Games Developer Guild is hosting a session where ANYONE interested in participating in a game jam can come and learn more about what it’s about and how best to prepare. [ Find out more here ]

Tuesday, January 21

The Coders, Creatives, and Craft Beer meetup is celebrating Chinese New Year (a.k.a. Lunar New Year, which happens on Saturday, January 25) on Tuesday! Join us at 7venth Sun Brewery at 6:30 p.m. for conversation, collaboration, conspiring, and craft beer. [ Find out more here ]

Wednesday, January 22

Heart of Agile is an approach that boosts agile culture by distilling it into just four imperatives: Collaborate. Deliver. Reflect. Improve. Wednesday’s Heart of Agile meetup is all about “Deliver” — and celebrating Chinese New Year! [ Find out more here ]

Thursday, January 23

There are a couple of security meetups on Thursday: Tampa – Cybersecurity Defenders Meetup Group’s happy hour, Learn Cybersecurity Tampa’s beginner-level “capture the flag”, and Click Here.exe’s session on SQL injections.

Friday, January 24

CritAid is a full weekend of board gaming (Jan. 24 through 26) at Critical Hit Games for a cause: All proceeds from the event will go towards purchasing card and board games for underserved children getting check-ups at a Tampa USF pediatric clinic. Game for the entire time knowing that you’re promoting health and helping spread your hobby to the next generation of gamers. [ Find out more here ]

Saturday, January 25

Sunday, January 26

Do you have an upcoming event that you’d like to see on this list?

If you know of an upcoming event that you think should appear on this list, please let me know!

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 Programming

Pulling my old “Frogger / Crossy Road”-style game out of mothballs

Screenshot from the game. Tap to see it at full size.

Pictured above is Dale Mabry, a “cross the road”-style videogame in the style of Frogger, or its later cousin, Crossy Road. It gets its name from Dale Mabry Highway, a busy north-south six-lane “stroad” in Tampa. I wrote it back in 2016 as part of learning iOS game programming in Swift and SpriteKit.

Here’s a sample of the gameplay:

I lifted the code for moving the player character from the raywenderlich.com book 2D Apple Games by Tutorials. It’s from the Zombie Conga game, pictured below:

I then wrote code to move the cars and handle the gameplay.

After getting the basic gameplay working, I got busy with other projects and forgot about the game for a couple of years. I recently pulled it out of mothballs just before Wednesday’s “Share Your Mobile App” with Others meetup, because organizer Edwin Torres asked attendees to show off any apps they’d worked on.

I wrote it back in 2016, when Swift was at version 3. It took me about a half hours’ worth of work to get it up and running in the current versions of Swift and SpriteKit, which was considerably less time than I thought it would take. I compiled it, put it on my iPad, and showed it to the group at the meetup.

Now that it’s out of mothballs, my plan is to polish it and put it in the App Store later this year. and it’s going to be one of my 20 Projects in 2020.

Want to see the code for the game? You can! It’s posted on my Github.

 

Categories
Current Events Players Tampa Bay

Scenes from the LaunchCode CodeCamp’s all-women cohort’s graduation

Photo by Maria Vanessa Moreno. Tap to see at full size.

On Tuesday, Anitra and I attended the graduation ceremony for the latest LaunchCode CodeCamp cohort, a class made up entirely of women. It was an immersive “coding boot camp”-style course that they attended for 14 weeks, Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., where they learned programming in Java and Python. With the effort and time required, it’s a commitment that the students couldn’t take lightly. We’ve met a good number of the women in the class, and we were happy to attend the ceremony!

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

The goal of the 14-week program is to teach its students how to code, but more importantly, how to think like a computer programmer. The curriculum comprises these four phases:

  1. Programming fundamentals: An introduction to the concepts of programming, using Python (a good choice, in my opinion). The idea is to set up the students with the building blocks that every programmer needs.
  2. Universal web: A look at the foundations of a modern web application, as well as languages, frameworks, and other tools used in web development.
  3. Java deep dive: Hibernate and Spring MVC. The fact that they were made to use frameworks that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole and a hazmat suit speaks volumes about the dedication and capabilities of these women.
  4. Portfolio project: After all of the above, they spent the last few weeks of the program working on a project to showcase what they’ve learned and what they can do.

Here‘s local news coverage of the event:

LaunchCode is an unusual coding school: It’s a non-profit that provides its courses free of charge. Their goal is to help people enter the field of technology by providing them with what they need to do so: accessible training and job placements in paid apprenticeships.

LaunchCode was founded by Jim McKelvey, the co-founder of the payment processing company Square. Square started in McKelvey’s hometown of St. Louis, but he moved it to Silicon Valley when he couldn’t find enough talent at home. LaunchCode started as his to help people from his hometown find work in technology. It has expanded from St. Louis to four other U.S. metros, including Tampa Bay.

Here are the photos I took at the event:

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Jill St. Thomas, Executive Director of Tech Tampa Bay, gave an inspirational commencement address. She reminded us that women make up slightly more than half of the workforce, yet are underrepresented in many areas that define modern life and society, including technology and leadership. Rather than emulate men, she said that women should embrace that they are different from men and play to those strengths.

The students were given an opportunity to speak for a couple of minutes to talk about their experiences during the 14 weeks. They told stories that will be familiar to you when you think of the first time you encountered programming, look back on your first serious project, or if you’ve ever been in a group with a strong sense of camaraderie.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Congratulations to the graduating class!

Photo by Joey deVilla. Tap to see at full size.

Categories
Meetups Programming Tampa Bay

“Share your mobile app with others” meetup — Wednesday, January 15, 7:00 p.m. at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop

Tomorrow — Wednesday, January 15 — is the very first Share your mobile app with others meetup! It takes place at Fuzzy’s Taco Shop in Temple Terrace (at the corner of E Fowler and 56th), and it’s for anyone who:

  • Wants to show their mobile app to other locals, or
  • Wants to see mobile apps written by locals. That’s right, you don’t have to be a developer to attend!

From the meetup page:

Network with other inspired entrepreneurs/developers/app lovers about experiences whether it’s:

  1. App ideas
  2. Hiring developers
  3. Learning to code
  4. App marketing/advertising
  5. Comparing journeys
  6. Creating a team

I am personally not a developer but have an IT background and have hired app developers of my own and would love to share my experience with others.

I’ll be there with a couple of apps to show, and to see who else is doing mobile development in town. I’ll also answer any questions that people may have about mobile development.

The meetup page says that they’ll set up on the long island table in the middle of Fuzzy’s (pictured above). I’ll see you there!

Categories
Business Hardware Mobile

Samsung ups the version-number and number-of-cameras-on-a-phone ante, reminds me of Macromedia and Gillette

Leaked Samsung Galaxy S20 photo showing the back of the new phone

XDA Developers has released what is purportedly a leaked photo of one of the next Samsung Galaxy phones, shown above. The series is expected to go under the name “S20”, with the phone above being the Galaxy S20+.

The version number of the Galaxy phones have generally followed the iPhone’s, which is probably why they’re leaping from 10 to 20 (in case you’d forgotten, the current flagship iPhone is the 11).

While Samsung’s leap in version numbers is a big one, the concept of a version number leap is nothing new. Those of us who were working in the industry in the ’90s may remember Macromedia Freehand’s leap from version 5 to 7, completely bypassing 6, back in 1996. This was a response to Adobe Illustrator 6:

Jumping version numbers is easy compared to actual hardware changes, but Samsung are doing it anyway, with a fourth camera to counter the iPhone 11’s three. It reminds me of this Onion article which became real:

I’ll close this article with the early contender for the title of “Sticker of the Year”: