What I Learned This Week For June 19 2020
The more some things change the more they stay the same, but I divagate.
- Surveys from companies are starting to jam my email inbox again. Or is it that they didn't go away but are arriving now that I am shopping more? In any case, there is little incentive about filling out a 5-minute survey on how my kids order from Noodles was.
- The 16th annual Riot fest festival concert to be held in Chicago this September has been “postponed” to next year. If you bought tickets and keep them or buy tickets before mid-July, you get to go to an extra fourth night of the amazing weekend. I am still thinking about this one.
- Speaking of canceled things, I was supposed to have been in Boston this past week for the ProgressNEXT conference for the software I use at work. In addition to several days of intense learning and networking, I would have been within a short walk to the Harpoon Brewery and Legal Test Kitchen, and the Red Sox were to have been in town hosting the Yankees. Damn.
- There is something called the Awesome Foundation where people form groups in a city, raise or donate money, and give it regularly to people who apply for it. I learned about the one in Chicago from John Morrison from his photo blog (my term, not his). If I had money that would be something great to start in Appleton.
- Network Solutions calls themselves "The World's First Domain Provider" and yes, they are the successor to the first one. I saw this when I had to log into a domain name account with them this week. Interestingly, their user interface hasn’t changed in at least the last 15 years, which is not good nostalgia. I am sticking with Name.com for their great service and great Web experience. And yes, that's link is a referral link.
- Though I have heard of Heckrodt Wetland Reserve before, I had never been to it nor realized it was so close to me. It is a 70+ acre beautiful area that doesn’t seem like it is so close to me. The above photo was taken there along one of the walking trails.
- Today marks one year since my aunt, whom we called Auntie, passed away. Where I never really liked the term “passed away” it fits – I was there, and she did pass away. Where I haven’t really written about her here, I am always thinking about her and my Mom. I remember a quote from a wise person, also an Italian, who said when we lose someone you don’t get over it, rather it just gets different. She told me that years ago after my Mom died, now almost 2 decades ago a few weeks ago. She was right.
Sorry to end this on a somber note. Usually I end with a quote, shout-out or some insider comment, but it’s what’s been in mind this week. So I will close this –I hope you are well, and if not, I hope you find peace.
This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.
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What I Learned • (0) Comments • PermalinkWhat I Learned This Week For June 12 2020
It was sunny. It was rainy. It was warm. It was cool. It was this past week.
- A healthy, fine-tuned database server will go far in the performance of a Web site or Web application. Never assume your database server is in that positive state.
- I went to Door County, Wisconsin for the first time last weekend. Door County is a peninsula that is about a couple of hours north of me in the northeast part of the state – I often say if Wisconsin is the right hand, Door County is the thumb. As we traveled though, it reminded me a lot of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and ironically there is a motel named Cape Cod off the main road! We had a simple day trip to do some biking in a state park, but we will definitely be back to this beautiful area.
- This past week my favorite news and information radio show, Fresh Take with Josh Dukelow, went on a furlough schedule, going down to 3 days a week from 5. Alas it is another victim of the pandemic as advertising revenue is likely down. Where it’s unfortunate to all, from Josh to us listeners, hopefully the station will bounce back stronger after the reduced episodes are planned to resume a normal schedule in July.
- On recent episodes of Fresh Take I learned about TheDispatch.com, a news Web site that launched last year. Though the staff largely came from the former conservative publication The Weekly Standard, I have found their coverage to be very objective. It’s primarily a paid service but has no annoying ads for the free content they offer.
- I posted an item on eBay for the first time in a while, and found some additionally robust features, yet still as familiar as used to be. In case you’re looking for a lift rocking chair, the auction is open through this Sunday night.
- When going thru some old links while in my recently-reopened co-working space World HeadQuarters this past week, I found this article about my past co-working space in Chicago, OfficePort. I had clearly saved the article as a picture of me is in it.
- I got an email to say I passed the ExO Foundations certification exam I took last week. Fueled by my friend Eric’s passion behind exponential organizations and the start of his consulting firm BostonExO, I decided to take this free base-level exam. It was comprised of watching videos, taking a multiple-choice exam and writing short essays. Where I got a score for the exam right away, it took a few days before they reviewed my essays.
- Continuing in the vein of learning, I completed the first course as part of the Microsoft Cloud Skills Challenge for the month of June. The training is on their Azure cloud hosting service, and is relevant as at work we are planning to move our programs to this platform. These courses are free, and by taking them you can earn a free Azure certification exam.
- As I have been venturing back out to restaurants, I have found many are adopting contactless, online menus that people can access by scanning a QR code with their smartphone. The fact that Apple now has QR code scanning built-in to its iOS operating system has allowed this to be a viable option. Had QR code scanning been built-in years ago, who knows how pervasive QR codes would be today?
Peace, Duane.
This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.
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What I Learned • (0) Comments • PermalinkWhat I Learned This Week For June 5 2020
Better late than never. However there may be a reason why that is.
- Twice this past week I heard the term “COVID slump” and I can relate to it. In each case it was described similarly: we all started this sheltering-at-home period with a lot of energy and positivity that we would get through this. And for most of us it has gone okay, but over time that overexertion of energy has drained us. Where in the beginning we were all about Zooming, now whenever we see another invite to one we cringe and crave for in-person meetings! It has taken me a couple of starts to simply write-out these learnings from the week, where in past weeks they flowed much better. Even my last post – another “lost” one I wrote back in 2017 – took more time than I had hoped to finally type up, edit and post.
- Over the last week there has been an increasing amount of releases from companies and organizations about the senseless murder of George Floyd. Where most of them I take at face-value, one in particular I took with much deeper meaning. YouthBuild Boston is an organization that provides underserved kids building trade skills, along with education and support to thrive. I have been following them for close to 2 decades, and am proud to have supported them with their Web site and technology over the years. They sent out a message to “Our Students and All Who Care About Them” and you can read it here. Though the message did not have a link to donate to YouthBuild Boston, click here and know your donation will go to an amazing organization.
- If you ever Google yourself – something I do all the time and recommend you do as well – you may see your name appear on Web sites that look like they are simply aggregating personal information on you. This from on the LibertyID blog tells of how you can remove yourself from some of those “services.”. This blog is also a good source of information about identify theft.
- I had never heard about Progressive Web Apps until I read about them in the morning in this article by Matt Wilber. Shortly after that a colleague asked me about them – talk about timing.
- Where we hear about COVID-19 from doctors and medical scientists with a lot of numbers, I hadn’t heard anything directly from people who work exclusively with numbers. That is until I heard this podcast interview with Maurice de Hond, a Dutch data scientist, by Adam Curry. It’s a great interview and tied together for me some disporate information I have been hearing.
- You know those backdrop banners you see at awards shows or events that have company and brand logos repeating? The concept is called “Step and Repeat,” and thanks to Mark Boeder for educating me on this.
- This past week my kids got to swim with one of their friends from the swim team. Open lap swim started a week ago, but it has just my kids swimming. Yes, they all kept in their lanes, which were close to six feet apart, but it was nice for them to have some semblance of swim team practice which they haven’t had in months.
Yo Vinnie!
This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.
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What I Learned • (0) Comments • PermalinkWhat I Learned This Week For May 29 2020
It was a short and somewhat quiet week, at least on the work front.
- Among all the bills passed and rules changed in Washington DC regarding the pandemic, a change to Flexible Spending Account (FSA) allocations was made. If you’re unfamiliar, an FSA allows you to pay for medical and related expenses with pre-tax deductions from your paycheck. You can reduce the amount you originally signed up for, and if you haven’t heard from your employer’s HR department then you should contact them. That, or spend your larger-than-expected balance at the end of the year on Band-Aids.
- Two of the greatest summer swim meets are now canceled. With the City of Appleton, Wisconsin FINALLY (emphasis intentional) announcing if it’s going to open or close its 2 great municipal pools – yep, they will be closed – the 8th Annual Summer Classic in June and the 22nd Annual Bird Bath Invitational in July, a meet which attracts over 1,000 athletes from around the state and region are now canceled. Where the fact that they wouldn’t happened was inevitable, the reasons why decisions were prolonged baffle me. And others.
- Not to dwell on agitation on what is preoccupying most of the world right now, but this post on the Brand New blog has the tone of something I have written in my head many times in the last few months.
- I get daily Google Alerts on my last name, which likely everyone reading this does too, right? A hit on this unique product on Amazon came up and made me wonder if it’s an automated product customization feature of the retail giant?
- You need to be 18 to buy Super Glue in Wisconsin, and not a malfunction with the self-checkout register that was prompting a store clerk to come over to approve the purchase. I didn’t inquire further why the rule or law was in place, but now I have something to look into if I am really bored.
- This article brought the inner-child geek in me – it is about how you can access the software and data on an old computer cassette using a vintage computer emulator on a modern computer. Apologies if I lost anyone there, but as I have several old tapes from decades ago – if they haven’t demagnetized, they’ll be fun to explore!
- This is my 900th post here on The Hot Iron. It shows as post 901 as the first post I made to this blog 13+ years ago was likely a test and deleted. It’s a nice milestone, and now I can’t wait to get into quadruple digits.
Happy Anniversary Sweetheart!
This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.
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What I Learned • (2) Comments • PermalinkWhat I Learned This Week for May 22 2020
In addition to learning that when someone says they have done all they can to solve a problem, and yet when pressed they come up with other things…
- Based on a recommendation, I watched the first 2 episodes of Upload on Amazon Prime and am stopping there. I am not sure if it was that I don’t think we’d have that kind of technology in 13 years or that I just didn’t like the characters. I now return to binge-watching Star Trek: Voyager.
- I am having a hard time with LinkedIn Messaging, where you can send messages to people thru the business social media platform. In some cases I get alerts when someone sends me a message, and other times I don’t. As a result, I have missed messages completely and have replied too late. As people tend to send more messages that way instead of email, something will have to give.
- Congrats to my friend and everyone involved with the launch of BostonExO, a consultancy centered around the ExO framework, which is short for exponential organizations.
- Apple has a trade-in program that has apparently been around for a while. Remember, this post is about what I learned.
- World HeadQuarters, a co-working space in Appleton, Wisconsin, is reopening on June 1. In the meantime, members with 24/7 access like myself can go back now. I have already taken a couple of meetings from there, and it’s good to be back.
- Western Tropic, an artisan card/board game, arrived in the mail this week. It was created by my friend Len Kendall who launched it with a sell-out Kickstarter campaign. The game is in a limited-edition mahogany box, and I can’t wait to open it all up and play it with the family. It looks – and smells – great!
Bye Felicia!
This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.
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