Articles
Powerful quotes from Powerful by Patty McCord
The one where I talk about Powerful by Patty McCord.
My thoughts on RTO
The one where I talk about return to office initiatives.
One more tool in my productivity tool chest
The one where I talk about another tool I use to manage my time.
Weekly goals: Status of last week’s goals, and Goals for the week of September 30
The one where I talk about my weekly goals - how’d it go for the week of September 23, and what I plan for the week of September 30.
If you’re going to block your time, do this, too
The one where I talk about things you should do if you decide to block time on your calendar for deep work.
Weekly goals: Status of last week’s goals, and Goals for the week of August 19
The one where I talk about my weekly goals - how’d it go for the week of August 12, and what I plan for the week of August 19.
Protect your time!
The one where I talk about blocking time on your calendar to get stuff done
Busting common leadership myths, part 4: Leaders are born, not made
The one where I bust a common myth about leadership - that leaders are born, not made.
Weekly goals: Status of last week’s goals, and Goals for the week of August 12
The one where I talk about my weekly goals - how’d it go for the week of August 5, and what I plan for the week of August 12.
Stop Telling Everyone How Busy You Are
The one where I rant a bit about people who always talk about how busy they are.
Busting common leadership myths, part 3: Leaders need to be the … of the team
The one where I bust a common myth about leadership - that you need to be the best/smartest/most successful member of the team to be a leader.
Another Logseq check-in
The one where I talk about my continued use of Logseq.
Beyond Tech: What makes a great developer?
The one where I talk about what makes someone a great developer.
Weekly goals: Status of last week’s goals, and Goals for the week of August 5
The one where I talk about my weekly goals.
Question: What is your greatest achievement at your client/job in the last 12 months?
The one where I talk about a question my manager asked the team in his monthly meeting.
Working in Parallels and Docker on the host
The one where I talk about working in docker and parallels.
Working in Virtual Machines: Parallels and Azure
The one where I talk about working in virtual machines.
July - The Month in Review
The one where I talk about what I accomplished in the month of July.
My first few days with Logseq
The one where I talk about my first few days with Logseq.
Must Do, Should Do, Could Do and more for the Week of July 29, 2024
The one where I talk about the coming week.
I had an ‘aha!’ moment about taking notes
The one where I talk about a lightbulb moment I had when it comes to taking notes.
The Week in Review: Week of July 22 - How did I do?
The one where I talk about how I did during the week of July 22 in meeting my Must Do, Should Do, Could Do, and Won’t Do “goals”.
Learning things quickly: drinking from the firehose
The one where I talk about how I handle learning a lot of information quickly.
Leveling Up Time and Task Management
The one where I talk about task and time management.
What would you do if…
The one where I talk about what I’d do if I wasn’t a software developer.
Must Do, Should Do, Could Do for the Week of July 22, 2024
The one where I talk about the coming week.
Importing WordPress content to Jekyll (moving from WordPress, part 4)
The one where I talk about moving away from WordPress and show how I converted my WordPress content using some Ruby, some C#, and even a little Powershell.
The Week in Review: Must Do, Should Do, Could Do - How did I do?
The one where I talk about how I did during the week in meeting my Must Do, Should Do, Could Do “goals”.
Internal interviews as a consultant
The one where I talk about internal interviews.
Why aren’t we better at this?
The one where I talk about software development.
The coming week: Must Do, Should Do, Could Do
The one where I talk about the coming week.
Day-to-day management (moving from WordPress, part 3)
The one where I talk about moving away from WordPress and walk through how I manage things day-to-day.
Creating an Azure Static Web app (moving from WordPress, part 2)
The one where I talk about moving away from WordPress and walk through creating an Azure Static Web app.
How I moved away from WordPress (to something much better), part 1
The one where I talk about moving away from WordPress - part 1.
You never completely control the arc of your career
The one where I talk about career stuff.
What will you change?
The one where I ask a simple question - what will you change (at your next job)?
Busting common leadership myths, part 2: Extroverts only!
The one where I bust a common myth about leadership - do you need to be an extrovert to be a leader?
One question for the weekend
The one where I ask a simple question of myself.
Obligation Elimination and other lessons
The one where I talk about some great lessons from It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Moving from Gmail to HEY.com
The one where I talk about my move away from Gmail to HEY.com.
A long weekend of…
The one where I talk about my long holiday weekend
4 Ways to Beat Procrastination
The one where I talk about beating procrastination.
June Blogging in Review
The one where I talk about my goal for blogging every day in June.
Summer Learning Plan 2024
The one where I talk about my learning plan for the summer of 2024.
Question: What’s one thing you really enjoyed at a previous job?
The one where I talk about things I’ve enjoyed at previous jobs.
My 5 favorite ways of keeping the technical axe sharp
The one where I talk about keeping my tech skills sharp.
Always Be Learning
The one where I talk about the importance of learning along with some ways I learn every day.
Stir Trek 2024: My Leadership Journey
The one where I talk about a talk I gave at Stir Trek 2024.
Career flashback: Small companies are small
The one where I talk about a small company I worked for back in the day.
What’s your biggest career accomplishment?
The one where I talk about my biggest career accomplishment.
Busting common leadership myths, part 1: You definitely don’t need this to lead
The one where I bust a common myth about leadership.
Want to reduce stress and be happier? Do these 5 things.
The one where I talk about how to reduce stress and be happier.
Career flashback: One Gig, High WTF Count
The one where I talk about one of my earliest gigs as a consultant / contractor.
The Joy of Reading
The one where I talk about the importance of reading.
Be happy
The one where I talk about the importance of being happy.
The Six Books You Should Read in the Second Half of 2024
The one where I ramble on about some books you should read.
Surround yourself with amazing people
The one where I talk about surrounding yourself with amazing people.
Blog throwback: When the going gets tough or, how to improve your life as a developer
The one where I revisit some advice I gave back in 2008.
Blog throwback: How did you get started in software development?
The one where I talk about how I got started in software development!
Career flashback: A Huge WTF and Making Things Better
The one where I talk about my efforts to make a chaotic environment better.
Memories (and lessons) in a manilla folder
The one where I go through some memories and relearn a great lesson.
Don’t get upset; do this instead!
The one where I talk about a great tactic for when things are getting under my skin.
How much are you willing to put up with?
My thoughts on tolerating things in our lives.
From the code archives: Delphi and figuring out who I am
The one about some Delphi code I wrote back in the day
The information we have at the time
The one where I talk about decisions.
Revisiting old code (and more)
The one where I revisit some things I found on old backup CDs.
Failure
The one where I discuss my thoughts on failure.
My thoughts on Sharing
The one where I discuss my thoughts on sharing with David Giard.
My thoughts on Generative AI
The one where I discuss my thoughts on Generative AI with Zach Gardner.
Books of 2023
Books I read in 2023. This was meant to be published in January, but yeah…life.
People in Space! (2023 .NET Advent)
My entry for the 2023 .NET Advent - Finding out who is in space with C# with Spectre.Console with a special shout-out to The Muppet Show!
Calculating Credit Card Payoff in C# (2023 C# Advent)
My entry for the 2023 C# Advent - Calculating Credit Card Payoff in C# with Spectre.Console.
90s Flashback - Co-SysOp of a Bulletin Board System
A short trip back to simpler times.
Thoughts on journaling: Answering common questions
My thoughts on journaling; answering common questions.
Stop doing sprints? That’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous!
My thoughts on sprints, the artificial timebox we all seem to use in software development.
10 ways to be a better (technical) interviewer
My thoughts on how we, as technical interviewers, can do better.
Developer Standup: Rethinking the Three Questions
My thoughts on the Three Questions that are so common in the daily standup.
Books of 2022
Books I read in 2022.
12 Days of Christmas in C#
The 12 Days of Christmas in C#.
Karvonen Heart Rate using C# and Spectre.Console
My entry for the Dotnet Advent this year - Calculating Karvonen Heart Rate in C#.
AZ-900 / Azure Fundamentals - My approach
I recently passed the Azure Fundamentals certification exam from Microsoft, and while it’s still fresh, I wanted to write about how I prepared for the exam.
Sending a meeting request? Think before you send.
Are you about to send a meeting request? Before you do, check out this list of things you should think about BEFORE you hit send.
#incowrimo
February is International Correspondence Writing Month!
How to have a better interview
The one about interviewing.
Priorities and Twitter
The one about priorities and Twitter
Books of 2021
The one about the books I read in 2021
549 days and a new start
My last post was written on June 17, 2020 right before I started a new job. It has been 549 days since that day (1 year, 6 months, and 1 day). As priorities...
63 days
63 days. That's the number of days between the time my 90-day furlough started and the day I resigned from that company. On April 8th, me and 48 team members...
Git with a new project
I started thinking to back when I was starting with git and some of the struggles I had, especially when starting a new project.
Exercises for Programmers - Weather Checker in C#
Update: This post is part of the Second Annual C# Advent. Along with koans and katas, several books have helped me knock the rust off after a recent two-year...
Leadership
A title does not make you a leader. I don't care if you're The President, a CEO, a CTO, a team leader or just someone on the team trying to get stuff done. A...
An excerpt from my “Going Indie” book: Contracts
Yes, I'm behind on getting this thing wrapped up, but yes, it's still coming! This isn't the entire section on Contracts - just a snippet, but it's important...
2017 in review
In 2017, I Posted 52 blog posts (this is #52) Attended the following concerts Tesla Pat Benatar U2 The Who Metallica In this Moment (with Avatar and Of Mic...
The Future of KalX
Kalamazoo X 10 won’t be the last. It’ll just be the last in Kalamazoo.
Kalamazoo X Conference 2018
Kalamazoo X 2018 will be the last. It’s a conference for the heart, not the head. There WILL be cursing and crying.
Detroit.Code() is coming soon!
Detroit.Code() is a professional conference for anyone involved with the creation of software.
The first step is…
The first step is admitting you have a problem, and I definitely have a problem.
Random writing for 9/15/2016
Random writing
Random writing for 9/13/2016
Random writing for 9/13/2016 - Something different
Listen more, talk less
Biggest piece of advice I can give to anyone starting a new job…
ISTJ
Bored. Took a test.
Three Words
I was recently asked to describe myself in three words.
The 2016 Kalamazoo X Conference
Every year for the last 8 years, I've run a conference in Kalamazoo, MI called the Kalamazoo X Conference. This conference takes a lot of work, and I've been...
Starting over
Excerpt: We’ll see how long it lasts this time. :-)