Business-Side

I hope you had a great summer vacation.  We sure did and are trying squeeze in a mini-vacation before the summer is officially over after the Labour Day long weekend.

Now that your summer vacation is over you want to share your pictures with friends, family, subscribers, and strangers on the Internet.  How do you do that?

Today you just login to Facebook, Flickr, Snapchat, iCloud, Google Photos (formally Picasa), Shutterfly, etc, and upload your pictures.  If you took the pictures with your phone your picture might have been auto-magically uploaded to iCloud or Google.  You don’t need to worry about the size of the picture or how much memory it consumes.  Often the service will compress your picture on the fly as needed.

Are you passionate about software development and want to share your passion with others?  If so then the Edmonton .NET Users Group is looking for you. Specifically as the newly elected Program Director I’m looking for you to speak at one of our meetups.

Already a member?  That’s even better.  Don’t hold back, share with the group.

You don’t have be a world-renowned speaker.  In fact, the .NET Users Group is a friendly and supportive environment for first time speakers.  The biggest thing we ask for is passion and willingness to share your knowledge.

I was inspired to get Mini-Compressor to UWP into the Windows 10 Store a while back this summer. I saw this video several months ago when it was called Project Centennial:

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2015/2-692

Then a couple weeks ago there was a form you could fill out and a Microsoft employee would help you convert your application.  So I filled out the form about my tiny little application called Mini-Compressor and was surprised when I heard back.  The fellow was very helpful but in the end we couldn’t get Mini-Compressor ported to UWP.

I am about 1 month early on my traditional “what I learned this summer” blog post, but I’m learning so felt the need to write it down!  For those following along at home, here are the lessons covered: 2012, 2013, and 2014.

And now, in the midsummer of 2016, amid the rainstorms, travelling fairs and mosquito bites, I declare that I am learning a lot.  The software developer that I’m married to (Chris) is a lot like an artist or a Granville Island shopkeeper.

As we continue to work on Goal Buddy I’ve been reading books and research papers about goal setting and its cousin productivity.  Productivity is just a fancy word for saying “get stuff done”.

Some interesting articles/podcasts about productivity I recently read/listened to are:

Freaknomics: How to be More Productive

Joshua Kennon: The Secrets of Highly Productive People

However, these articles don’t hold a candle to this best article about productivity.  Be warned that reading this article will shake you to your core.  You will re-think how you approach work and view your co-workers in a different light.  Make sure you are sitting down.