Almost done. Repelling down one of the Navy Pier towers. (Taken with Instagram)
[video]
Millennium Web (Taken with Instagram at Millennium Park)
[video]
Snapclass Blog: Office Hours vs Classes -
In the coming days we will be releasing an update the current Snapclass platform. The current version of our site only allows instant 1 on 1 connections via web cam or phone. However, after listening to our users this falls short in terms of user experience. As we grow there are times when few or…
(Source: snapclass)
Snapclass Blog: I Didn't Feel Like Reading -
Thursday June 28th, 2012, after 20 years (Prodigy baby!) of using the internert I’m writing my first blog. Here we gooooo!
In October 2011, I had an idea. It was a Saturday afternoon and I was struggling to figure out how to use a few elements in Photoshop. Actually I had no damn clue what I was…
(Source: snapclass)
I’ve been writing in a semi-professional manner for few years now. Not a long time, but I written my share of words. I’ve had some stretches where I stepped away from writing for one reason or another, but always found myself back and actively writing soon after, even if it was just for myself. This time has been different. It seems I got a little lost.
I’ve had a few fairly major life changes hit all within the course of the last few months and what started as a “planned” few weeks away has turned into months. I’m not entirely sure what happened. I just finished up a post that had been in draft form for a month and other than that this is the first bit of writing of any kind I’ve done in a couple months at least. In fact, I can’t even remember the last piece that I wrote or where it was published. I used to write every single day.
It’s easy to get off track while cruising down the various courses of life. Sometimes we stray for good reasons and other times for seemingly no reason at all. I hope that my reasons were sound. They were at least in my mind. That said, I’ve realized the desire to get back to writing again and now I’m tasked with the difficult part. Making it happen. Getting an idea is one thing. Following through is an entirely different thing.
I’ve grown busier during my hiatus. The good kind of busing, working on things that I truly enjoy and spending time enjoying a new place with the people I love. I know it won’t be easy, but I’m committed to making time. I know that writing does my mind good and once I get in the trenches I quickly remember that I truly love putting pen to paper. It’s time to start again.
I’ve been writing in a semi-professional manner for few years now. Not a long time, but I written my share of words. I’ve had some stretches where I stepped away from writing for one reason or another, but always found myself back and actively writing soon after, even if it was just for myself. This time has been different. It seems I got a little lost.
I’ve had a few fairly major life changes hit all within the course of the last few months and what started as a “planned” few weeks away has turned into months. I’m not entirely sure what happened. I just finished up a post that had been in draft form for a month and other than that this is the first bit of writing of any kind I’ve done in a couple months at least. In fact, I can’t even remember the last piece that I wrote or where it was published. I used to write every single day.
It’s easy to get off track while cruising down the various courses of life. Sometimes we stray for good reasons and other times for seemingly no reason at all. I hope that my reasons were sound. They were at least in my mind. That said, I’ve realized the desire to get back to writing again and now I’m tasked with the difficult part. Making it happen. Getting an idea is one thing. Following through is an entirely different thing.
I’ve grown busier during my hiatus. The good kind of busing, working on things that I truly enjoy and spending time enjoying a new place with the people I love. I know it won’t be easy, but I’m committed to making time. I know that writing does my mind good and once I get in the trenches I quickly remember that I truly love putting pen to paper. It’s time to start again.
My idea of writing about my experience at Code Academy didn’t completely pan out. Turns out it was busy enough working on projects as part of Code Academy that I just didn’t have the time or was to burned out to spend any more time staring at my computer screen. But now I’ve had more than enough time to reflect upon the experience I thought I’d write about it for anyone who cared.
I attended the UX and HTML/CSS courses which was, probably obviously, the front-end direction. Another group of students were part of an even more intensive Ruby on Rails path. Things started out fairly slow as we were all getting acquainted, but soon enough things picked up. For me the best things of the quarter began with my first hackathon where I met my Demo Day team.
We came up with our main app idea there, Current Crowd, and had the opportunity to give it a rough run at the hackathon. We built something during that weekend, and then subsequently tore it down and rebuilt it (multiple times) for Demo Day. More importantly I met some awesome students from the development class and we easily formed a pretty fantastic team.
The process of building our app the final month or so was an incredible learning experience. We built a web app which as you would expect ran on Rails. I was on a team with four students from the developer side, me being the sole front-end student. So, I handled the front-end and they handled the back-end and, quite amazingly we were all able to work together on the same project to build something pretty cool. Our app was used by Code Academy as the Demo Day app and helped showcase the students and teams. We’re actually working with the CA staff to continue the service for their upcoming classes so it looks like it will live on at least in that capacity. We may even continue to build it and release a commercial product in the near-ish future.
One other thing I’d like to point out is that we were the first class to present in teams and build something in teams. To me this process, though rocky at times, was incredibly eye opening and valuable. We learned how a software development team works. We had regular meetings discussing features and other elements of our app. We uses version control (Git) and actually became half-way comfortable using it. And for those of you that have never used Git, it is completely fantastic once you get the hang of it. It’s tricky, but learning it will prove very valuable down the road as a developer. Trust me.
The direction of the post seems to be flailing around a bit and as it has been sitting in draft form for better than a month let me wrap it up quickly so I can just hit the publish button.
Code Academy was a wonderful experience, plain and simple. The classroom work was great and I learned a lot from the great instructors, but where the real, serious value was was in the community surrounding us. That community of other students, mentors and just folks generally interested in what CA is doing were and continue to be so helpful. There are so many people that are willing and ready to help out, you just have to reach out to them. Students want to help other students. Mentors want to help students and even other mentors. It’s such an open, giving community and I’m proud to say I’m a part of it and I wouldn’t have gotten half of what I did from my time at Code Academy had I not cannon balled right into the deep end.
Also, more on what I’m currently doing is coming up soon. I’ve gotten off the writing train a bit lately, but I’m committed to hopping back on very soon. Stay tuned.
Concert at Millennium Park (Taken with Instagram at Jay Pritzker Pavilion)