My life in software development
January 6, 2018 1 Comment
CC 2.0 image courtesy Jon DeCamp on Flickr
With the new year upon us, it’s always worthwhile to reflect on the previous year. Here are some statistics about my contributions to MSDN blogs and my speaking engagements.
May 31, 2017 Leave a comment
CC 2.0 image courtesy Marco / Zak on Flickr
As a public speaker and someone who helps run a user group, I see a lot of presentations by developers. One thing devs sometimes forget is that their everyday settings are not always suitable when projecting to a crowded room. One of these settings is the font and window size of both Windows Command Prompt and Windows PowerShell.
This article shows you how to bump up your fonts in these tools.
March 11, 2017 Leave a comment
CC 2.0 image courtesy Eddy Hamamci on Flickr
I learned this week I am speaking at two Canadian conferences during spring/summer 2017. My abstracts were accepted at both Prairie Dev Con in Winnipeg, MB and DevTeach in Montreal, QC.
February 20, 2017 4 Comments
CC 2.0 image courtesy eltpics on Flickr
As a Microsoft MVP, my job is to help people with their technical problems. I also advise people who are looking to get started on the road to being an MVP. For some it could be by blogging or by answering forum questions, for others it could be by speaking at technical events.
I have been asked a few times in the last while about how to get started speaking. Being a technical speaker is a great way to share your knowledge, build a name for yourself, travel, and attend conferences for free. You also meet many people who can help you as you move through your career.
May 12, 2016 Leave a comment
I will be speaking at CloudDevelop 2016 in Ohio this August. This is one of the few conferences in North America dedicated to cloud computing. CloudDevelop “aims to bring together people exploring every aspect of cloud computing.”
Last year was the first time I applied to the conference, and I was successful. The trip down to Columbus, OH from Canada was nice and the whole experience was awesome. I created this article about my experience.
My talk this year will be on Azure App Service to Create Web and Azure App Service to Create Web and Mobile Apps. Click this link to learn more about Microsoft Azure App Service.
If you are planning to attend what should be a great CloudDevelop conference, then please introduce yourself in the comments section below or at the conference. I look forward to speaking with you.
January 30, 2016 1 Comment
I learned last week that I have been accepted as a speaker at DevTeach 2016 in Montreal this July 5-7. This is exciting as Montreal has an active developer community and this conference comes back to the city for the first time in several years.
DevTeach’s mission is “where we see the developers taking control of their future. We see developers forming a strong and organized community, which can influence the future of the product that we use. After all we are the one that are investing time and money in learning how to create solutions. It’s just normal that we should be involved in the design of future products versions.”
While at the conference I will be giving two presentations:
You can find the abstracts for my talks and all the other speakers on the DevTeach Sessions page.
To learn more about the conference and to receive an early registration discount, visit DevTeach.com.
If you are planning to attend what should be a great conference, then please feel free to introduce yourself in the comments section below or at the conference. I look forward to speaking with you.
November 24, 2015 2 Comments
In my previous post, I talked about the fact that I started scheduling my tweets well in advance when I speak at conferences. This allows me to plan my social media strategy beforehand so that I can concentrate on prepping for my presentation and networking with other attendees on the day of the talk.
I finished my last article by stating that I will be writing next about the tool I used to schedule my tweets and some of the methods I employed. First, I will talk about the methods and then we will look at TweetDeck, the tool I used for my scheduled tweets.
The way I approach the idea of queuing tweets is to focus first on the day before the event. I send out a tweet by announcing that I will be speaking at the conference. I also try to include the hashtag of the technology I am speaking about. I have browsed articles on what the best time to tweet is and that is generally early afternoon. By then most people are thinking about what they will be doing the next day, especially if they are going to a conference.
On the day of my presentation, I send out a tweet saying that I am headed to the conference to give my talk. I then send out a tweet 30 minutes before I speak with the session title and room number. I send another tweet with the same info 10 minutes before the talk. By then, attendees are moving to their next session.
Another strategy to employ is to tweet during meal times. Normally, attendees will have some time to kill before their sessions. If your seminar is upcoming then this is a good time to remind people about it. If you have already spoken, then take this time to share your slides or to thank the conference organizers and sponsors.
Be judicious though in your tweets. This article recommends tweeting once per hour and alternating your tweets each time. Make one tweet about self promotion and then make the next tweet about promoting the event. As always, make sure you use the official conference hashtag when tweeting so that your message appears on the conference twitter stream.
The tool I use to queue tweets is TweetDeck. It is the official app of Twitter and it is similar to Hootsuite (which can also be used to schedule tweets). When you browse to the TweetDeck website you can log in with your Twitter account. There is also a Google Chrome App that you can use if you prefer.
Once you log into the app you can create your scheduled tweet. To do so, create a tweet as you normally would with TweetDeck by clicking the New Tweet button. The New Tweet flyout will appear.
Once your tweet has been written, instead of hitting the blue Tweet button to send the tweet immediately you can hit the Schedule Tweet button. Choose the date and time you want the tweet to appear and then click the blue Tweet button. As it says on the screen, “Your scheduled Tweet will send even if TweetDeck is not running at the time”.
Finally, if you want to see your scheduled tweets you can display them in their own column. To do that, click the + (plus) button to add a new column. Select Scheduled to add the Scheduled column to your app.
Within this column you can see your scheduled tweets. You can Edit them to change the message or timing, and you can also Delete them..
If you have tips on how you prep for your talks, or if you prefer another tool to schedule tweets, let me know with a comment below.
