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- Newsletter 003 - July 2023
Hi everyone! šĀ
Hope you had a great July! For the observant amongst you, you may have noticed that this email is a day earlier than usual! Moving forward, Iām going to publish on the last day of the month, instead of the first day of the next month. It makes it clearer when I say āthis monthā what Iām referring to! š
My month was busy as usual, but unfortunately, looking quite empty from a āpublished contentā point of view (eg. the podcast and YouTube). I say āpublishedā, because I created quite a bit of content for the Docker course - but thatās not yet ready to release. On the plus side - Iām getting more and more efficient at creating videos - so once this is done, the frequency of my YouTube videos should greatly increase! š
If I could ask everyone a huge favour, and help me promote this newsletter (or the podcast or YouTube) on social media - that would be amazing! šš
And feel totally free to reply to this email and reach out. Or you can find me on the following socialsā¦
(Discord is my preferred method for DMs)
A tribute to my Dad ā¤ļøĀ
I wasnāt sure whether to include this or not in this newsletter - but it also felt odd to talk about my month, and not mention it.
As I write this, itās been a year today since I lost my Dad to a very rapid and aggressive cancer. Weāve come up north for the weekend to spend time with my mum and brother, and will later be going on what weāve called āDadās walkā, which is where he used to love to walk and run through the hills, and where we spread his ashes. Weāll then be going to a pub after the walk - he would most certainly approve! šŗ
He was an amazing person, and I couldnāt have asked for a better Dad. Deeply missed by all that knew him, and ALWAYS in our memories x
(my wife and youngest are in that picture with him there)
The Podcast š
Sadly, no episodes this month, as Iāve been taking a podcast break to focus on the Docker course.
I was due to record with Oren Eini to chat about database internals. Heās the CEO and Founder of RavenDB. We had to postpone that to next week instead, so thatāll be the next episode out.
Iāll also be recording an episode with Laila Bougria in September, where weāll be chatting about NServiceBus.
Another episode Iād like to fit in is another one of my solo āDemystifiedā series - this time focusing on Git. The last in the series, was Docker Demystified.
Remember to click subscribe in your favourite podcast app. The links can be found on the podcast website.
Also, remember that we have a Discord community for the podcast!ā¦
š Podcast Discord
MVP Award Renewal!
I was also greatly honoured to have my Microsoft MVP Award renewed for a 5th year! š„³ I was first awarded in 2019 - which I guess is technically 4 years, but itāll be the 5th award due to timings š¤·āāļø
I wrote a blog post about it when I first got awarded. Itās funny thinking back to when I first got that email through when I was on holiday, and the only person with me at the time was my youngest who got excited with me, but didnāt understand why! š (see the first two paragraphs of that blog post).
Audio update
Following on from the audio woes I talked about in the last newsletter - I spent quite a bit of time trying to work out what the issue was - sadly to no avail. Iāve pretty much given up now - for all I know, it could be interference from a neighbourās hardware! I mentioned this to a colleague, and he sent me an article about an old telly that brought down a Welsh village's broadband! Amazing what other peopleās dodgy hardware can do!
So Iām basically going to try to fix the issue during editing. Doing more background removal, and chopping out that 4khz range. A bit of a pain - but Iāve spent too much time on this to waste any more time. If you do hear weird audio artefacts in future episodes, please do let me know - as I canāt hear them. I did take a hearing test last week - which showed thereās a range of frequencies I canāt hear. So Iām dependent on both the Audition spectral frequency display, and also people telling me when there are issues (so please do if you spot them).
Tooth woes! š¦·
Whilst the last issueās ādramaā resolved around my audio woes - this time, weāre talking excruciating teeth pain! š¦·š§ About a week of agonising referred pain in various teeth, to which a full mouth x-ray revealed nothing! The dentist even said he didnāt think it was a tooth issue, and to go and see a doctor. Obviously very worrying. And given what happened to my Dad, itās easy to start worrying about worst-case scenarios! I also wasnāt sleeping because of the pain. Then a couple of Sundays ago, a particular tooth that hadnāt given me any issues before, suddenly got really sore. Went back to the dentist, he took out a filling in that tooth to check, and immediately said āI think weāve found your problem!ā. He removed the filling, and cleaned it up inside - and it was like magic! š„³ All referred pain disappeared! Even sensitivity to cold drinks that Iāve had for ages, vanished! Amazing how one tooth that I hadnāt even known there was an issue with could cause so many referred issues!
Letās hope thereās no āwoesā section next month! š
Dometrain Docker course
The Dometrain Docker course Iām creating is also progressing nicely - with just a few sections left before handing it over to Nick for review (which will be rather nerve wrecking! šØ). Hopefully in the next newsletter issue - Iāll be giving an update saying itās now complete! šĀ
.NET Oxford
This monthās .NET Oxford meetup was another in-person event, where we were joined by Chris Simon from Australia for a talk on the VSCode extension heās been working on called Contextive. It was an interactive session, where with audience participation, he added functionality to the extension. Itās written in F#, which was really fun to see.
Sadly, it wasnāt recorded, due to OBSās failure to record across virtual desktops (even though it worked in our test-run beforehand!). Hereās a link to a virtual recording from where Chris did this talk at another meetup.
Our August meetup will be another in-person meetup, where weāll be joined by Steve Gordon whoāll be talking about Elasticsearch.
š .NET Oxford Discord
YouTube Channel
Iām afraid, no YouTube videos this month! Once Iāve finished the Docker course, Iāll be back on this, and have some ideas for videos I want to create. To be notified as I create them (and also support the channel), please remember to click subscribe and that notification bell icon ššš
News items and dev picks
Here are my dev picks this monthā¦
Dev Comic pick of the month
I saw this comic ages ago, but recently saw it posted again on LinkedIn by Jason Haffey (link)ā¦
I work from home, and have now printed this off and put it on my office door to remind my wife and kids that a quick ā1-minute conversationā costs me a lot more time than that 1 minute! šĀ
Note the podcast sign that my eldest made for me a couple of years ago (without me knowing he was even doing it! š).
Please help me share this newsletter š
If youāve made it this far into the newsletter - Iām hoping that means youāve
both enjoyed it and found it useful. If you can help me out and share with your developer friends at work and on social media, that would be amazing!
Again - feel totally free to reach out to me, and let me know your thoughts on the newsletter. And see you back in your inbox next month for the next edition! š
My socialsā¦
