Episode 49: Daniel X Programs In An Orange Grove

Daniel starts off by introducing himself and talking about the new product he developed for Fog Creek Software, HyperDev. He then talks about how he got started in web development and how he built a game for the Chrome App Store. Cecil then asks about Daniel’s venture into building a game engine and what motivates him to learn. The show wraps up with Daniel talking about his orange grove and how he handles working from home.

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Bio

daniel_x_moore_bioDaniel X Moore is the HyperDev team lead and a member of technical staff at Fog Creek Software. He’s the creator of the popular reactive templating framework, Hamlet.coffee, and has worked in a variety of web programming roles at Sony, OkCupid, and others.

Episode 48: David Neal’s Southern Twang

David starts us with telling us about his Southern Twang and falling involve with the city of Nashville. He talks about the music scene and playing  gigs in the area. David talks about playing in a band. We then get into a discussion on the relationship between music and developers. Cecil asks about the types of music that he listens too.

Next we start getting into David’s programming history. He then goes to journey through various careers before landing on programming.  We then discuss David’s experience speaking at conferences. David also shares with us how hand drawing supercharged his presentations.

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David_Neal_BioDavid is a husband, father of 5 boys, geek, musician, motorcyclist, speaker, software developer, and Microsoft MVP living in North GA. He spent several years building high-performance, scalable social media applications, and currently works at LeanKit as a Developer Advocate. David runs on a high-octane mixture of caffeine and bacon.

Episode 47: Jen Underwood’s Wild Beginnings

Jen starts off the conversation by introducing herself and explaining how she got to Florida. She further explains the circumstances behind her “$800 and a dream” move. The conversation then takes a turn towards the wild as Jen explains the amount of wildlife in her backyard which includes snakes, bobcats, deer and alligators. The conversation then finishes with Jen talking about how she rejoined Microsoft and what she’s up to today.

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Jen_Underwood_Bio

Jen Underwood, founder of Impact Analytix, LLC, has 20 years of experience in “hands-on” development of data warehouses, hybrid data integration, reporting, dashboards, and predictive analytics. In addition to keeping a constant pulse on the analytics market, she has held product management roles on the Microsoft SQL Server Business Intelligence and Power BI teams. Jen also was honored to be a former Tableau Zen Master.

Throughout her career, she has helped customers select and succeed in adopting new technologies. She has launched new analytics products and turned around failed projects for organizations, systems integration firms and industry vendors. Today she provides advisory, thought leadership, go-to-market strategy, technical product management support services, market/competitive intelligence, technical writing, content development, training, and event presentations for a wide variety of clients, financial investment groups, research firms and cloud SaaS/software companies.

Episode 46: Diversifying Your Skills With Kyle Simpson

We start off this episode by asking the question… who exactly is Kyle Simpson. Kyle talks about how he got started with making an early bet on Javascript and the making the transition to teaching. Cecil asks where did the name “Getify” come from? Kyle talks about how he started his Getify company, which then turned into becoming his own persona. We then into a discuss into Kyle’s history of web development and why he decided to make a bet on JavaScript.

Cecil asks Kyle why doesn’t he consider himself to be a “master”. We then get into a discussion inclusion in the development community and how some terminology can act as a deterrent. Kyle then shares with us his views of diversity in the technology industry today.

We end off the show with Kyle talking about some of his favorite things to do and also about Texas BBQ!!

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Kyle_Simpson_BioKyle Simpson is an evangelist of the open web. He’s passionate about all things JavaScript, writes books, teaches JavaScript, speaks, and contributes to the world of OSS.

Episode 45: Mike Bluestein Scores a Goal

The episode starts with Mike talking about Hockey and how he got started playing it. The conversation then turns to the Red Sox and how winning the championship energized the Boston community. Mike then shares how he got started in technology as a kid. He also talks about his love for writing games and how he wrote a game with his kids. Cecil and Mike then discuss virtual reality technology and how technology has changed over the past few years. Mike then shares how he works from home and talks about some of the things he’s looking forward to in the remainder of 2016.

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Mike_Bluestein_BioMike Bluestein is an internationally recognized expert on the Xamarin platform, and one of the first users of Xamarin.iOS, dating back to the pre-Xamarin days when the product was called MonoTouch. As an early Xamarin employee, both as the documentation lead and later a developer evangelist, he taught many of Xamarin’s employees how to build Xamarin applications, as well as several of Xamarin’s larger customers. The majority of the content in the Xamarin Developer Center was initially created by Mike. Mike also authored the book Learning MonoTouch: A Hands-On Guide to Building iOS Applications with C# and .NET, from Addison-Wesley, which has been published internationally in multiple languages, as well as a MonoTouch course for AppDev. Previously Mike worked on a variety of engineering applications ranging from CAD software, to distributed 3D content systems. Before working exclusively as a software engineer, Mike was an aerospace engineer who did aerodynamic design for jet engines.

Episode 44: Looking All The Way Up With James Montemagno

In this episode, we start off with James telling us about his love for music. James gets into how he got into hip-hop and how he listens to albums. Cecil and James talk about what type of music they put on to help to get in the zone. They talk about making playlists and whats wrong with the top charts lists. The discussion the moves into how albums are composed and being able to enjoy the entire body of work.

The conversation quickly moves into how we set priorities and how those priorities change over time. James reminds us how important it is to put our devices down and connect with the world around us. We also briefly discuss the pros and cons of being in time where we’re more connected than ever before.

Cecil asks James about cycling and not having a car. James tells us the story of how he started getting in better shape and what got him into cycling. We end off with James talking about his most memorable traveling experience.

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James_Montemagno_BioJames Montemagno is a Developer Evangelist at Xamarin. He has been a .NET developer since 2005 working in a wide range of industries and before joining Xamarin was a professional mobile developer and has now been developing with the Xamarin platform since 2011.

Episode 43: Newt Porter Is Keeping Score

Newt introduces himself and talks about his company, CareerScore, and how it originated. Newt then explains how he came from an economics and finance background and started to learn how to code. He then goes on to discuss how to find quality people and what CareerScore offers companies.Cecil then asks what is it like to work in a startup incubator. Richie then hops in an asks how CareerScore can help the job seeker. The conversation then wraps up with Newt sharing what he’s looking forward to in 2016 and what he does when he’s away from the keyboard.

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Newt_Porter_HeadshotNewt is the CEO and co-founder of Careerscore, a career engagement platform helping tech professionals accelerate their careers. The spark for starting the company began while attending the University of Florida where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in Economics and master’s degree in Finance. Newt is a Miami native, a data nerd, a fitness enthusiast, and a private pilot. Follow him on twitter @newtporter.

Episode 42: Getting Back Up With Aaron Stannard

In typical AFTK fashion, we start us with asking Aaron where his passion for technology came form. Aaron tells us how his father got into software development and also how his father got him into writing software. He goes on to share a story from the Engineering Department of Vanderbilt University. Aaron also tells us about his first business at 9 years old.

Cecil asks how MarkedUP came about. Aaron tells us how he went from working at Microsoft as an Evangelist to venturing into his first startup. He shared with us how he was able to leverage his contacts and work with investing to get funding for his company.

Aaron talks about the decline of the Windows Desktop application market and having to shutdown MarketUP. Cecil asks Aaron about the lessons he’s learned through this experience. Aaron describes it as his PhD in Engineering along with an MBA at the same time. Moving on, we get into a discussion about explicit communication and asynchronous workflows for software teams. Aaron then talks to us about Petabridge and the need for an Actor Model implementation in .NET.

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Aaron_Stannard_BioAaron is the founder and CEO of Petabridge, and the co-founder of the Akka.NET open-source project. Prior to Petabridge, Aaron founded MarkedUp Analytics, a real-time in-app marketing and analytics service used by 1000+ developers. Prior to that he worked at Microsoft as a Startup Developer Evangelist.

Extra 2: Our Favorite Mobile Apps

While we were at the Podcast Movement conference last year we had the opportunity to record in the Buzzsprout recording booth. The limited time that we had was a perfect opportunity to record another Extra episode. In this episode we discuss our favorite mobile apps. Enjoy.

Cecil’s Top Picks

apps_airbnb Airbnb
apps_flipboard Flipboard
apps_shazam  Shazam

Richie’s Top Picks

apps_starwalk2  Star Walk 2
apps_glympse  Glympse
apps_tripit TripIt

Cecil’s Honorable Mentions

apps_feedly Feedly

Richie’s Honorable Mentions

apps_lastpass LastPass
apps_authenticator Google Authenticator

Episode 41: Amir Rajan Pwns the App Store

Amir starts by introducing himself and then shares about how he got started in game development. The panel then discusses their favorite video games. Amir then describes how he builds games and his toolset. He then goes to talk about his best selling game, A Dark Room, and how he brought it to life. Amir then talks about his next game and his inspirations for making games. Richie then asks Amir if he plays any board games. Amir then shares some knowledge about how to get started in mobile game development. Cecil then asks Amir about his new book “Surviving The App Store: How to Make It as an Indie Game Developer”. The show wraps up as Amir talks about his passion for drawing and for the TV show, The Bachelor”.

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Amir_Rajan_Bio Amir Rajan is a pretty decent dev and is constantly trying to improve in his craft. He’s a jack of all trades, being comfortable with a number of platforms and languages.

Last but certainly not least, Amir is the creator of A Dark Room iOS. This RPG conquered the world and took the #1 spot in the App Store and placed in the top #10 paid apps across 70 countries. It has been downloaded over 2.5 millions times and is a staple game in the App Store with over 25,000 five star reviews.

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