Category: Podcasts

iOS

Podcast Episode 16 – WWDC 2014 Recap

WWDC 2014 Logo In episode 16 of the podcast, I recapped the 2014 Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC). I had the keynote on in the background when it was broadcast (Monday, June 2nd), but I hardly paid attention to it. I was getting regular updates from co-workers and I saw Twitter explode when Swift was announced. I also went and read recaps and listened to other podcast recaps, but they didn’t really hit on the details. They focused on the headlines.

I had it in my mind that day to do a WWDC recap episode, but I needed to make the time to watch the 2 hour keynote for myself and take copious notes. I finally tackled that yesterday and sat down immediately after and shared my thoughts in this latest episode. This is actually my longest “solo” episode at 27 minutes, but I really tried to have it as full of material as possible. If you have been interested in the keynote and didn’t have time to watch it (or just wanted to hear my thoughts), check out this episode!

You can also subscribe to the podcast at any of these places:

Thanks to all the people who listen, and a special thanks to those who have rated me. I really appreciate it.

The episodes have been archived. Click Here to see the archive page.

Podcasts

Podcast Episode 15 – Is College Worth It?

The Ohio State University Campus In this week’s episode, I tackle the tough question of whether a college degree is worth the expense. My focus is for programmers, but you can easily apply my logic to your course of study.

If you listen to the podcast, I can understand if you might think that I have a confirmation bias because I ultimately recommend the course that I’ve taken. I have honestly been aware of that and tried to take it into account as I formed my opinion to share on this podcast. I not only looked at my life, but at others who took many different paths and compared the outcomes. Over and over again, I saw a pattern emerge and that pattern is what led to what has now become episode 15 of the podcast.

As I mention on the episode, if you disagree with me, I’d love to hear your side. I hope that you also will try to look past only your own experience, but I’m interested in everyone’s opinion. You can just comment here on this blog post or make your own blog or podcast rebuttal and just let me know here or on my Twitter.

You can also subscribe to the podcast at any of these places:

Thanks to all the people who listen, and a special thanks to those who have rated me. I really appreciate it.

The episodes have been archived. Click Here to see the archive page.

Mentoring

Podcast Episode 14 – Mentoring

Mentor Episode 14 of the Pete on Software Podcast is out and this week, I’m sharing my thoughts on mentoring. The word mentor has been watered down to just mean people that you want to look up to and emulate. To me, a mentor relationship is a two way street and unless you are having personal interactions with your “mentor” on a regular basis, you’re doing it wrong.

To top it off, when looking to find potential mentors, we may be barking up the wrong tree in terms of finding what we really need. I don’t spend any time talking about why you need a mentor, because I felt that everyone knows why they need to have their own Yoda or Mr. Miyagi.

You can also subscribe to the podcast at any of these places:

Thanks to all the people who listen, and a special thanks to those who have rated me. I really appreciate it.

The episodes have been archived. Click Here to see the archive page.

Podcasts

Podcast Episode 13 – Itzik Ben-Gan on T-SQL

In this week’s episode, I interviewed Itzik Ben-Gan. This was a huge treat for me because Itzik is someone that I’ve learned a lot from and looked up to for almost a decade. This wasn’t even an interview that I would have chased down on my own, but I will say that doing the interview has given me confidence to chase down some others.

If I didn’t land this interview for myself, then who did? Jeff Meyer (another Itzik fan) reached out to Mr. Ben-Gan on my behalf and got him to agree to come on the show and then looped me in to make the necessary appointments. All along the way, I was a little nervous about talking with Itzik. You know what they say about meeting your heroes…

In this case, that fear was totally unfounded. Itzik was amazingly nice and right off the bat, I could tell that he was exactly how I had hoped that he’d be. The guy just KNOWS T-SQL. We had a great conversation about T-SQL features: those that are underused, those that are powerful, and those that aren’t there yet – but should be. We also talked about his teaching and writing style and along the way collected some great resources.

Even if you aren’t a developer, you should listen to this week’s podcast. It is a pleasure to listen to a passionate expert talk about their craft.

You can also subscribe to the podcast at any of these places:

Thanks to all the people who listen, and a special thanks to those who have rated me. I really appreciate it.

The episodes have been archived. Click Here to see the archive page.

Podcasts

Podcast Episode 12 – When to Leave Your Job

Quit It has been 3 weeks since I last published a podcast. I had some interviews fall through and then I let myself get caught up spending every waking minute working on my Stir Trek presentation. And before I knew it, I was just out of the habit of publishing my podcast. I knew I had to put something out so that I didn’t get caught in a serious podfade. I had a few episode ideas set aside in case things fell through, but they weren’t working out.

That leads me to today. I was able to find something that I wanted to talk about, albeit a bit on the short side for the content portion (I make up for it a bit with 3 picks this week). Sometimes the hardest step is just getting back on the horse. This isn’t at all to say that I think that this episode is terrible, I just really wanted to share a bit of what I’ve been going through. The fact that there is a term for it means that it is probably pretty common. Hopefully, maybe at some point in the future this post will stand as a good encouragement to someone to stop procrastinating and just PUBLISH!

You can also subscribe to the podcast at any of these places:

Thanks to all the people who listen, and a special thanks to those who have rated me. I really appreciate it.

The episodes have been archived. Click Here to see the archive page.