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.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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By the time I got my college first radio show, the band The Clash were just breaking up. That fact had no bearing on their half-dozen albums being mainstays on many shows under the alternative/progressive/modern rock category throughout my 4 years at the station.

It was the memories of their songs and the iconic cover of their third album, London Calling, that drew my attention to the book Stealing All Transmissions: A Secret History of the Clash by Randal Doane. I saw it at a book vendor at last year’s Riot Fest in Chicago, and I had to buy it. Despite the role music has in my life, I admit I haven’t read a lot of books or stories on bands or musicians, and thus this purchase.

The book isn’t as much a story of just the band as it is the radio stations and disc jockeys in New York City that introduced their music to their audiences. It takes place in the late 1970’s, where clubs like CBGB were hosting rock and punk bands from around the city as well as the world, and The Clash was part of that culture.

As this book took me down a road that I was only vaguely familiar with, I have a few takeaways from this journey.

The role of DJs in breaking bands – The style of radio show on college radio in those days, where the DJs picked the artists and songs to play, was about finalized as the only place to hear music in this fashion. Commercial radio stations were increasingly owned by conglomerates that owned many stations across the country and even in the same market. What was played on the air was centrally controlled, and automation in the DJ booth made this easier.

Stealing All Transmissions talks of the DJs and stations that played bands like The Clash, Blondie and The Ramones and their influence to their rise in popularity. DJs got to know the musicians and vice versa back then, and the story tells the tale of the ending of this influencing.

The decline of the DJ – For as much as you would listen to a radio station for the music, the DJ was also integral to your listening pleasure. This did not end in the 80’s but has continued to wane even to the present day. The previously mentioned automation made their disappearance easier as well. Radio personalities today are known more for talk shows rather than music shows.

The romanticism of radio and music – There was something special about playing music in the 70’s and 80’s. A simple needle dragged around a vinyl platter presenting the talent and nuances of the musicians in the home and DJ studio; there was a warmth to it that has no comparison to digital music today. Listening to music in the car comes a little closer to the experience from those days, but is quickly drowned out when the kids want me to change it from 1st Wave on SiriusXM to Radio Disney.

Though I grew up several hundred miles from New York City and wasn’t listening to the featured radio stations in the book back in the day, I can relate to their stories from my own experiences with both college and commercial radio. Stealing All Transmissions, where the title comes from The Clash song This is Radio Clash, is a great story where Doane uses quotes from the band, other musicians and the DJs of that time to tell a tale of the overall feeling from those days. If you love The Clash (and I hope you do!) or love or are curious about the “glory” days of radio, I recommend this book to you. As for my copy, it is going to a friend who was the general manager of my college radio station the year before I was, and a man who has many great stories about bands as well.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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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.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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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!

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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With all of the focus and attention these days on teaching kids about STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), it has triggered me in a positive way to recall when I myself learned how to write computer code back in the early 1980’s.

Now before you rush to judgement and say there is no comparison of the world today in 2020 to nearly 40 years ago, I’ll somewhat agree. The technology itself today is vastly different now than from then, however there are similarities in how I got started with computers and how my interest progressed.

Where It Began

This flashback is truly a journey, back in time and over many miles from where I am now. My junior high school in Massachusetts was the scene. One day in my math class, instead of getting to use basic-function calculators that were locked in a wooden case, 3 carts were wheeled in to the classroom with a Commodore PET computer on each of them. Little did I know how this would be the catalyst of my passion for technology.

Be aware the mobile smartphone you may be reading this post on has orders of magnitudes more power, memory and storage that all 3 of those PET computers combined. Let alone the fact the screens were monochrome (aka black and white) as compared to the rich colors in the palm of your hand. That being said, those computers with their cassette tape drives (we had no floppy disk drives then) had much more power than the calculators we usually got to use and we didn’t even realize the powerful tool that was put in front of us.

Tool, or should I say toy? All we usually did in math class with the computers was play games. Sure, the intent of these computers in the classroom was to expose us to the early-stages of the concept of personal computers, from typing commands to loading software from the cassette tape drive and running said software. Despite these “skills” we were learning, it wasn’t enough for me. I didn’t want to just play games as my classmates were content with, I wanted to write games!

Geek Quest

If I only had a picture of the face my teacher made when I asked her how to write software to program the PET computer. After her initial shock, she admitted she didn’t know, but there was another math teacher, Mr. Palmer, who she thought could help me. I didn’t have him for a teacher before and didn’t know him at all, and back then it was unusual to get such guidance or training from another teacher. But I wanted to learn how to write code, so I was connected with him by my teacher.

This unassuming introduction was a pivotal point in my life. And in middle school no less! Mr. Palmer proceeded to tell me the games and programs I was using on the PET were written in the BASIC programming language. He lent me a book on learning BASIC that he had, gave me some pointers and suggested I start reading this, and he would help me with any questions I had. He also said there were other books on BASIC and that other computers ran programs written in BASIC too, so I could look into those as well. Armed with this knowledge and direction, I was off and was writing my first BASIC programs by literally writing them with a pencil and paper. I did this at home or in study halls, and then when I got time in front of the computer, I would type them into the computer and save them to a cassette. The photo above in this post is of one of the cassettes I recently rediscovered from those days.

This geek quest was a solo one, however, as I was the only kid in class who wanted to write code. When it came time to use the computers in math class, of the 3 computers I would always get one to myself. Some kids complained, but overall they didn’t seem to care as long as they got a chance to play games in class.

What’s Your Sign?

My first programs were short ones that didn’t do a whole lot – clear the screen, scroll text, basic math – and I wanted to do more. The idea came from somewhere (sorry, I don’t recall all of the details of this time!) to write a program that would tell your horoscope. So I came up with a simple premise, you type in your astrological sign, spelling it exactly (even Sagittarius), and a preset silly horoscope for you would be displayed on the screen. If you know anything about programming languages, it was a giant If-Then-Else statement. But it was my If-Then-Else statement.

After some toil and testing, the program was done. I showed it to Mr. Palmer and he liked it, so I then let my math classmates give it a try. For as simple as it was, some of them were actually impressed that I was able to create such a program. And with this, I wrote the first of many, many computer programs I would over the next decades.

To Infinite Loop And Beyond

From this humble beginning, I learned more “advanced” features of the BASIC language. As I moved into high school I had access to the school’s mainframe, a Digital PDP-11, as well as eventually my own computer at home, a TRS-80 Model III. With these 2 platforms my learning took off, exploring more complex aspects of programming, the hardware of the computers and my first foray into going “online” with dial-up computer bulletin boards. Along the way I also had my first computer consulting gig in high school. Next came college and a degree in Computer Information Systems, and the career I have talked about much here in this blog.

Deconstructing Learning to Code

In the beginning of working with computers I had a mentor who guided and encouraged me – thank you Mr. Palmer, wherever you are! Over the years and many miles from the junior high school, it’s nice to reminisce about those exciting early days of computing and the enthusiasm I have had for technology. This guidance was important for me then, just as it is critical for young people today to also be inspired in a career in high technology.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Build • Strategize • Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink