Categories
Deals

Get 14 Python books for as little as $15 for a limited time only with the Humble Bundle!

If you’re looking to learn Python or boost your Python skills — either as planning for the future or dealing with a laid-off present — you’ll want to capitalize on Humble Bundle’s “Learn you some Python” book bundle, which gives you 14 Python books from No Starch Press for as little as $15!

Need some convincing to learn Python? Check out these recent articles:

What’s in the bundle

If you pay a mere one dollar, you get these first four ebooks: Teach Your Kids to Code, Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, Black Hat Python, and Gray Hat Python:

Pay at least 8 dollars, and you get these in addition to the previous four ebooks: Mission Python, Python for Kids, Cracking Codes with Python, Python Playground, and Math Adventures with Python

And finally, for you high rollers willing to part with at least 15 dollars, you get the previous 9 ebooks plus: Python Crash Course, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, Python Flash Cards, Serious Python, and Impractical Python Projects:

A limited time offer

As I write this (Wedensday, May 20th at 3:00 p.m. EDT), the offer is good for another 11 days and 23 hours. Once this deal expires, you’ll have to pay almost $400 for all these books. If you want these books on the cheap, get them now!

All these books are DRM-free, and you can get them in PDF, ePub, and mobi format. Better still, some of the money goes to charity. This is your chance to do good for yourself and for others!

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

LinkedIn Local Tampa Bay — online tonight at 5:30!

Don’t forget that LinkedIn Local Tampa Bay is on later today — between 5:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m., online! Under normal circumstances, this is a monthly get-together where Tampa professionals can get to know each other, make friends and connections, and even have a drink. They’re still happening, but for the next little while, it’s online — register here.

Categories
Career Tampa Bay

Why Connections Matter More Than Your Resume: This afternoon on Synapse’s “Libate and Learn”

This afternoon from 4:30 to 5:30, Synapse is hosting a “Libate and Learn” session titled Why Connections Matter More Than Your Resume.

Here’s the abstract:

When looking for employment, we all know how to build a resume. But what else can we do? How important is your network and utilizing your connections? How can we build these connections in a virtual world? Are you wondering how to get in with the right company? Grab a drink, relax, and join us remotely for a FREE virtual event with Synapse’s next episode of Libate and Learn with Rich Heruska, Leigh-Ann Buchanan, and Jill St. Thomas, moderated by Synapse’s CEO Brian Kornfeld. They’ll share best practices for building your network and maintaining connections with the right stakeholder. We will then open up the discussion for Q&A.

Participating in this session will be:

  • Rich Heruska, serial entrepreneur, former accelerator director at Tampa Bay Wave, and Synapse Board Member, who’ll talk about…
    • What small and medium sized businesses are looking for
    • Why building a network during a downtime or recession is important
    • How a network can take you to the next steps of your career
    • What can someone building a network expect out of an entrepreneurial support organization and how can they maximize their benefits
  • Leigh-Ann Buchanan, Founding Executive Director of Venture Cafe Miami, who will cover:
    • Connections matter, particularly to build an ecosystem and with the right stakeholders
    • Ecosystems are built entirely on connections
    • Multiple ways people can get value from connections
    • Who are the important people and stakeholders to network with
    • How networking at in-person events or online can differ, and be similar
  • Jill St. Thomas, Executive Director of Tampa Bay Tech. She will cover:
    • Radical connectivity is the key to a thriving ecosystem
    • How connectivity can lead to jobs and opportunities
    • Connectivity between organizations can benefit everybody, it is not a zero-sum game
    • Continually getting and staying connected can be the difference between success and failure
  • Brian Kornfeld, CEO and Co-Founder of Synapse. He’ll moderate and will also cover
    • How to effectively build a network and promote yourself
    • What to look for when networking
    • How to continually add value to the community, and how that brings value to yourself
    • Things to be prepared for when building a network
    • When is the right time to make an ask

This session is online and free to attend, but you have to pre-register! Pre-register here.

Categories
Humor

Is work not challenging enough? Maybe you need a “Vertical QWERTY” keyboard!

Tap the image to see the original Tweet.

Take the U.S. “QWERTY” keyboard layout, turn it on side and you get this monstrosity.

Tap the image to see the original Tweet.

This keyboard is the creation of one “Foone Turing” (@Foone on Twitter), who swapped the key covers on a keyboard and used Microsoft’s Keyboard Layout Creator utility to define the new layout for Windows.

Tap the image to see the Ukulele page.

Mac users who want to self-flagellate with Vertical QWERTY can use Ukulele to define the new keyboard layout.

Foone took the keyboard on a test run with a classic game: Police Quest 2 by good ol’ Sierra On-Line

Categories
Current Events Tampa Bay

What’s happening in the Tampa Bay tech/entrepreneur/nerd scene (Week of Monday, May 18, 2020)

Greetings, Tampa Bay techies, entrepreneurs, and nerds! Welcome to week 8 of the Florida general stay-at-home order! I hope you’re managing and even thriving. While it appears that event organizers are adjusting to our new, temporary version of “normal” with online events, Saturday and Sunday are looking a little quiet. Keep an eye on this post; I update it when I hear about new events, it’s always changing. Stay safe, stay connected, and #MakeItTampaBay!

Monday, May 18

Tuesday, May 19

Wednesday, May 20

Thursday, May 21

Friday, May 22

Saturday, May 23

No Tampa Bay area tech events have been announced for this date…yet!

Sunday, May 24

No Tampa Bay area tech events have been announced for this date…yet!

Do you have any events or announcements that you’d like to see on this list?

Let me know at joey@joeydevilla.com!

Join the mailing list!

If you’d like to get this list in your email inbox every week, enter your email address below. You’ll only be emailed once a week, and the email will contain this list, plus links to any interesting news, upcoming events, and tech articles.

Join the Tampa Bay Tech Events list and always be informed of what’s coming up in Tampa Bay!


Categories
Users

UI developer hint: Test your apps in both light mode and dark mode!

Tap the image to see it at full size.

I recently made the mistake of not double-checking my UIs in light mode and dark mode, which left the checklist app in the book I co-wrote unusable in dark mode:

I’d set the text color to the system default text color, which becomes white in dark mode. I also set the background color for rows to white, but forgot to account for dark mode, resulting in this white-text-on-white-background mess. The fix was simple: set the background color of the rows to the system default background color, which adjusts automatically for the current mode.

My mistake didn’t produce results as demonically hilarious as the “We missed you!” message from a web hosting service. In light mode, you were greeted by this fluffy llama…

…but dark mode turned the llamas into something completely different (but oh so very METAL):

This observation was made by Rémi Parmentier:

It translates as: “Trust Gmail’s dark mode of Gmail to transform an ‘Oh, such cute little llamas’ into ‘OH MY GOD WE ARE IN HELL WHAT THEY WANT FROM ME’”.

Categories
Career

How to get a job offer and how to succeed (or: How to get a job, part 2)

Justin Davis: How to get a job offer

Here’s some wisdom from Madera Labs’ Justin Davis:

If you’ve ever said to yourself “I wish I could find a job”, you need to read this.

If you’ve ever said to yourself “I wish I could find a better job”, you need to read this.

Frankly, if you’ve ever had a job, or ever will, you probably need to read this.

This is your secret to how to get a job offer. And it’s stupid simple.

(You’ll have to read the rest in his article. It’ll take only a couple of minutes.)

Dr. Julie Gurner on the key ingredients of success

Here’s more wisdom from Dr. Julie Gurner, an executive performance coach:

So much of success is just “Sit down, focus on one thing, execute regularly, and make it work.”

Being a doer, disciplined, taking risks, making no excuses, and not giving up. Such basic principles – but the foundation to everything else.

Also in this series