Tech

More Fun with images

I thought it would be fun to try another experiment with images. I came across a post on Buzzfeed the other day. You know the kind of posts they do, where they steal images from other websites, and string them together into an inane article while barely giving credit to the source in tiny little letters? This article was about funny posts on Facebook Marketplace, where people are selling things, but aren’t quite sure how they’re spelled.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024 | 2 minutes Read

Slides from CincyDeliver

For those who attended my talk on Soft Skills for Developers at CincyDeliver last Friday, here’s the slide deck. When I get some spare time, I plan to rework the talk a little and record it for YouTube, but that’s a few weeks off. Soft Skills - Cincy Deliver

cincydeliver

Monday, July 31, 2023 | 1 minute Read

What's The Deal With ChatGPT

ChatGPT is all the rage right now. People are using it for all kinds of things, both good and bad. It seems every day there is a new article or story about it and how people are using it. And most of those stories have a fairly negative connotation to them. A mental health company experimented with using it to respond to patients seeking help. Universities and high schools are freaking out, or giving in, because students are using it to write papers. It even passed (barely) exams from business and law schools.

Tuesday, January 31, 2023 | 11 minutes Read

The Employee Right to Privacy

I’ve seen a lot of posts on social media in recent months where people are complaining about their companies spying on them and what they’re doing on their employer-issued equipment and accounts. I want to put this in as plain a statement as possible. ANYTHING you do on employer-issued equipment or using employer-issued accounts is, at the very least, subject to monitoring by your employer. And at worst, belongs to your employer.

Tuesday, September 13, 2022 | 7 minutes Read

The Ethics of Being a Software Developer

There’s a lot of pain in the world right now. In nations where freedom exists, the rights and privileges of their citizens are eroding away. The world is changing. Freedom is under attack from every corner and by every means possible, be it war, oppression, apathy, or the destruction of rights by those who have been entrusted to uphold and sustain those rights. As technologists, we have a duty and responsibility to evaluate our roles in those changes.

Wednesday, July 6, 2022 | 11 minutes Read

My Favorite Podcasts & Video Channels for 2022

I’ve posted a couple of times (here and here) in the past about my favorite podcasts and I figured it’s past time for an updated list. So here’s my current list of favorite podcasts. And this time I thought I’d add my favorite YouTube video channels. Some are developer-related, and some are not.

Wednesday, June 1, 2022 | 3 minutes Read

Contributing to the Community

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve taken the opportunity to participate in a number of “coffee chats” with some who are just getting started in the developer community. They come from all over the place: Ohio, North Carolina, Nigeria, Panama, South Africa, India. But they all share a common desire to join the developer community. I’m grateful to be a tiny part of their learning process and I wanted to share just a little bit about my experiences so far.

Tuesday, March 15, 2022 | 7 minutes Read

The Mysterious Vanishing Hard Drive

I was having an issue with the main PC that we use at home. Over the last couple of months, from time to time, one of us wouldn’t be able to log in. It was the famous infamous Windows 10 black screen. When they logged in, a cursor would appear over a black background and then nothing else. The only thing people can say for sure about the black screen of death in Windows 10 is that there are a figurative crap-ton of things that can cause it. It can be anything from video drivers to Microsoft Store corruption. Or it may be failed Windows updates or firmware issues. It has many causes, and no quick solutions.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018 | 3 minutes Read