Category Archives: Business

Podcasting Microphones Review By Marco.org

After recording my new Job Search Program I’m thinking of swapping out my mic setup. A hundred years ago I I recorded my first DVD and courses on JibberJobber with a $30 logitech headset. I know, I know. I honestly had no idea how bad it was… or I should say, I didn’t know how good it could have been if I used a better mic.

jibberjobber-microphones

When I started with Pluralsight to do soft skills courses (I’ve done 33 courses for them and hope to do more!) I got a Rode Podcaster (which is on the review page below, but not a favorite of his). It felt like an expensive investment… somewhere around $200. Before I settled on that I got a freaking awesome Shure mic, but needed more hardware and was no interested in dropping like $600ish for a mic. I was new enough to not know what I was doing, but I did know I didn’t have $600ish in the budget.

I’ll definitely look at his #1 recommendation here… it’s less than $400, and the audio sounds good. I especially love this part of his review:  “It picks up nearly zero room echo and very little background noise…”

So here you go… looking for a new mic? You have to look at this page.

Pluralsight Is Changing Education, And The World

I just spent time at the first ever Pluralsight Live conference… it was AMAZING.

I knew it was going to be amazing, but every year I go to a Pluralsight conference I’m more amazed.  How they’ll top this is a question I’ve asked every time.

This year they opened it up to customers, so it was not just “authors” (or, content producers).  It was so cool to hear from customer who use Pluralsight to keep their teams up to speed on technology.  That was the old value proposition of Pluralsight. Some new announcements showed that the new value proposition includes that but really builds on it.

Iris, or Pluralsight IQ, will help managers and executives really understand what talent and skills they have in their company. This sounds kind of simple, but think about it: how many times would a business strategist say “we want to build XYZ, but we probably don’t have the talent to do it… so let’s go hire it.”  All the while, not knowing that they indeed have the exact talent needed to build XYZ… they have just never recognized that talent.

Pluralsight IQ will solve that problem. We heard from at least CxOs of two companies, one with 250,000 people and one with 100,000 people, and it was clear that this new feature will change how they get stuff done.

When I was in school, learning programming, we learned on VB 3. I think, at the time, companies where programming in VB 5 or 6. Why was our curriculum so outdated?

At Pluralsight, sometimes courses roll out the day a new technology is released. The course wasn’t thrown together… it’s a result of the relationships Pluralsight and the authors have… they get special access early, and can time their training release to the product release. You would be hard pressed to find that kind of current up-to-date training in a university setting.

The way we learn is changing.  Pluralsight is pioneering and creating the education of the future. Want in on it?  Get a trial here.

 

EXCELLENT Article for Entrepreneurs/Founders

This is a super article by Noah Jessop titled 21 Things I Wish Someone Told Me as a Young Founder

I haven’t gotten funding, for better or worse… so some of this stuff didn’t apply to my company, but this post is full of wisdom and been-there-done-that experience.

This should be printed out and highlighted… and regularly revisited and worked on.  Great stuff.

 

UX and UI Fundamentals from Ben Jarris

This is an excellent article that anyone involved in software should understand: What non-technical entrepreneurs need to know about UX and UI

As you know, I’ve been on a journey to understand UX (which wasn’t even a thing, afaik, back when JibberJobber started).  My earliest designers were much more consumed with how corners curved and what colors were where (which is UI) than with how to get more signups, users, and upgrades (which is more UX).

When I hired Udi, who is now full-time with another company in San Fransisco, he said the mockups he would send me would be in black and white (and gray)… that his focus wasn’t on colors, rather on prompting the user to do the next thing.  And more importantly, get them to do the next right thing.

After years of working with “designers” who only knew UI, it was refreshing and awesome to work with someone who was interested in my business goals.

Check out Ben’s great article here.

 

Fixing and Winterizing The Bees

Eric (my cousin) came over and looked at my beehive about three weeks ago. The goal was to clean it out and fix the mess the bees made (they put honeycomb in the empty slots… which shouldn’t have been empty). Turns out, it was impossible, so his advice (which became Plan B) was to:

  1. Put another deep box on top of the bottom deep box, and under the super (the bees need two deep boxes to survive the winter)
  2. Transfer all the frames that had a bunch of honey to the new box, and put new, clean frames in the bottom box (close to the honeycomb)

Unfortunately, I didn’t get around to it because of the gajillion other things I had going on… so I emailed him a couple of days ago asking him if it was too late. “Call me,” was his reply.  That’s about as good as a girl in Jr. High saying “We need to talk.”  Now we are on to Plan C. The problem is that the bees might not have enough time to do what they need to do to get ready for winter… I wasted three weeks of their prep time.  So, we are going dramatic 🙁 (read, we get no honey, it will be for them this winter).  Plan C is everything in Plan B, plus:

  1. Take out the queen excluder (which is basically a filter you put between the brood box (or, the bottom deep box) and the super (where you get the honey… this allows all but the queen to get in there, so the bees fill the comb with honey, but the queen doesn’t lay eggs there).
  2. Add the feeder to the second (middle) deep box, so they have plenty of stuff to make comb out of.

I don’t know how we’ll get the non-framed comb out next spring, but we are leaving it for now.  Of course, if they all die, or leave, it will be easy :/  With that background, here’s my bee project for this morning… total time in hive was about 20 minutes, prep time was another 20 , and wasted time (I didn’t get everything I needed to the hive on the first go), about 5 minutes.  I really hope this works and I have a healthy, active hive in the spring.

Here’s how I start… getting all the places a bee could crawl up (like pant legs) secured. Goofy? Yes. Peace of mind? Definitely.

bee_socks

I’m still figuring out where to store my stuff… for now it’s all in a beekeeper spot on a workbench… notice the suit still has the price tag on it. That’s either to impress the bees, or because I might just change my mind and take it back (that won’t happen :p):

bee_suit

When you are in the bee suit it’s surreal… you are looking out of a screen, with a really big hat, hoping you didn’t miss a zipper. And wondering why the bee doesn’t just sting through it. Catching your shadow every once in a while reminds you of how goofy you look. But hey, peace of mind!

bee_shadow

I moved a workbench next to the beehive, since I was going to have to swap and move and stuff… here are some tools I use. The brush is very soft, and you can use it to brush bees away from danger (like, when you move the boxes) or from your clothes, the crowbar thing is to loosen the box and frames because the bees put wax on everything and it’s hard to pull off with your bare hands, and the other thing is a neat tool to help you lift the frames out of the box (it’s very useful, allowing you to use only one hand to get a frame out):

bee_table_setup

This should be the whole setup… right? Am I missing anything? (Yes, I was missing a smoker or squirt bottle with sugar water).  You can see I had good intentions with the match, and a gallon of fat/sugar so they can make new comb… the frames in that box are new, and right after this picture I removed them and put them on the ground. They would end up in the bottom box, once I took the full frames from that one and put them in the box on the table.

bee_setup

I just finished moving the frames from the bottom box to what will become the middle box, on the table:

bee_move_from_bottom

The queen excluder is just laying on the side… the bees should make quick work of this over the next day or two.

bee_extractor

And here’s the whole reason we are doing this… the honeycomb on the bottom box should not be there, but I didn’t put frames in that spot, and bees are industrious!! I’m leaving this comb in over the winter. To the right are the new frames that hopefully they’ll build out and the queen will lay eggs.

bee_bottom_box

Once I got the middle deep box full of the frames (that used to be in the bottom box, so they were full, and HEAVY), I moved it to it’s spot… these are the bees that stayed behind. Notice the bottom-middle… there’s a big drop of honey that a few bees are working on.

bee_after_moving_box

Almost done… the new box is on, the feeder is full (I did this before I opened the hive), and the frames that were on the bottom are now in the middle. And, the extractor is on the side (so the queen can go to any box she wants).

bee_second_on

This was my view while I was working… notice the arrow pointing to the extractor. I’m going to leave that there so the bees can clean it up (they take the wax and the honey back to the hive… amazing, isn’t it?):

bee_backshot_done

Here’s a rare shot from the front… I didn’t have the smoker or sugar water I should have to calm the bees, so I didn’t go here to work… just for this shot 🙂

bee_front_shot_done

So that’s it… a relatively quick job. Each time I open the hive (I think this is my third time) I get more confident. It’s not as freaky having the bees swarm around me anymore… well, not totally freaky 🙂  One of these days I need to weedwack around the hive, but I’m not going to agitate them anymore today. I’m also leaving the workbench out there because there’s honeycomb about the size of a small fist that they were working on… I’ll let them clean that and then I’ll put the table away.

#Europe2017: Day 21, The Roman Colosseum and the Roman Forum

Today the plan had been to start the three day city pass, skip the line, and hop-on-hop-off buses. There’s a lot to see here, and we don’t want to waste time (a) walking, and (b) in line (already did that for the Catacombs in Paris).

But when I looked it up I realized that the hop-on bus isn’t that great…. it apparently only goes on the outskirts of town, and compared to seeing them all over London, we haven’t seen them that much here. So it’s not like it’s super easy to get on and off anywhere… to few, bad routes, and too crowded. Furthermore, we weren’t sure we’d make use of the pass and actually see everything on it without rushing too much… So we opted for Plan B: Let’s go see “one thing” but spend a lot of time there.

Of course, one of the epic things to see is the Colosseum. I got skip the line tickets (wasn’t necessary today as the normal line wasn’t big) and we got there by 1ish. Yes, another lazy morning (lazy = sleeping in, blogging, etc.). All the walking and looking we are doing really is exhausting, and getting up at a reasonable hour seems impossible.

What’s been awesome here is the metro… it’s a short jaunt from our B&B, and the Colosseum stop is directly across the street from the Colosseum, so not city walking. The outside of this fantastic building is still pretty awesome, even though we’ve seen it like a dozen times.

roma_4_col_out

We went to the ticket booth and after getting a lecture about William, who is a “child” (and pays a lot less for tickets) not having any documentation of his age, we finally get our tickets and get in line. The couple in front of us just got off a cruise from Atlanta and is spending one night here… so they are trying to see all they can in less than two days. That’s a mad dash, for sure.

We got audio guides (five euros each, which is totally worth it) and went to the second level of this history-rich facility. The first thing we do is split up. We didn’t mean to, but it happened… and we were split up for a LONG time. Again, we didn’t have a meeting place, and no way to contact one another, but hey, how hard is it to get really lost in the Colosseum? (really easily, actually)roma_4_col_insdie

Everyone had their own walking around time (I think William and Ellie were together the whole time)… I went around the entire second level looking into the center of the Colosseum. It’s amazing to think about all of the death and destruction and heartache there.
roma_4_sol_inside_will

I guess not everyone is happy to be here :/

roma_4_col_unhappy

Two things from the audio guide:

1. One time, there was a battle or whatever they called it (event?)… there were 10,000 men fighting, and 11,000 animals. Can you fathom that? 21,000 bodies, fighting against one another? The amount of blood, and gore, and stench, and pain, and screams, and horrid? What an amazing way of life (or death). The Colosseum was open to anyone, and the poor people sat at the top while the rich were nearer the action… it’s really quite disgusting.

2. Someone saw or heard about a beached whale and thought “man, we should make a fake beached whale to put in the Colosseum!” So they did. A huge fake whale, and when the mouth opened, fifty bears came running out to fight to the death. These guys were not short on creativity!

I went inside the covered area of the second floor where there are a lot of exhibits – paintings, relics they have dug up, original pillars, etc. I found it interesting that even hundreds of years ago, I think in the seventeen hundreds, the Colosseum was already ruins, and they regarded them as ancient ruins. It’s crazy how old this place (and all of Rome) is.

I overheard a tour guide saying that in some language “arena” is sand (it is for sure in Spanish), and that is where we get “arena”… the battleground, or competitive field, from. “Let’s go to the arena” was probably “let’s go watch sweaty bleeding guys kill eachother on the sand.” Interesting.

I went down the elevator to the first floor… going down stairs is not fun for my ankle (up is fine), and the stairs here are (a) too high, and (b) all uneven. I was hoping to find any of The Trio, but they were nowhere to be found. Darn… how were we going to get together?? I walked around in the lower level… the most striking thing to me was that there was no “floor” in the middle of the Colosseum… at least, the floor that used to be there, where battles happened. Instead, they had removed it so you could see the tunnels that men and beast would navigate to find the right trap door to go up for the battle. the amount of planning and design in this facility really was amazing. roma_4_col_maze

Finally, I found Sam (or she found me) and William and Ellie weren’t far behind. We had been there for two or three hours by now, heard all the audio, seen all that we could, and it was time for our first meal of the day. But first, just one more picture… with a splash of color, this time!
roma_4_flowers

About a half block from the Colosseum was a restaurant that looked good, so we go in for a pretty great meal. Appallingly, the bill was $90. Ugh. If you are ever in Rome, realize there are hidden fees at restaurants. First, they say in Europe you don’t have to worry about tipping… well, you don’t because they put it in the bill. They don’t call it a tip… one place called it a cover charge, and it was way more than 20%. I don’t know what this place called it, but it was very high. They also charge for water… they bring out these bottles the size of a wine bottle with four very small cups… in my party that goes in about four seconds. We went through four or five of those… and they don’t sell those for cheap. It’s one reason why we are only eating a real meal on average once a day. This is just in Rome… in other places we haven’t found meals to be this ridiculously expensive, or to have the hidden fees that surprise the heck out of you when you get your bill. The restaurant name translates to “A Piece of Brain,”

roma_4_piece_of_brain

I asked the waiter what his name was… “Giovanni,” he replied, “or, Johnny.” No, no, no… I didn’t come to Italy to talk to a Johnny! I want Giovanni! After lunch I asked him where we should go next and he said there was a really, really cool thing to see about twenty minutes away…. you walk up here, then around there, and turn this way and that, and you’ll be on a hill where you are in the ruins of a church. Look through a certain keyhole and you’ll see, across Rome, St. Peter’s Basilica. Huh… a true Roman treasure, in a keyhole. Sounds cool.

We started out to do that, however, we realized what time it was and that we had a dinner appointment with my publisher again… so instead of making that trek (and then another 20+ minutes back to the metro, which would put is there about an hour late), we decided to see the Roman Forum… this is across the street from the Colosseum, and our ticket for that included the Forum. Here’s a picture from Wikipedia:roma_4_foru

This is the place next to the movie set we saw yesterday… I didn’t know we’d be here today, wandering around! The cool thing about the Forum is that you can walk all around this place… to almost every corner of it. The history of this place is simply unfathomable. Also, it’s a good 10ish meters below the main Roman streets… why was this place so low, and how and when did the earth get higher? Too many questions.roma_4_forum_old

Here’s a repurposed pillar… now a bench for wary travelers:

roma_4_forum_pillar_bench

Sam asked “Can you imagine finding this… like digging around, and discovering part of this?”

Lots of headless statues and picture opps here… notice some of the ruins are surrounded by even older ruins:roma_4_forum_statue_headlessroma_4_forum_williamroma_4_forum_statuesroma_4_forumroma_4_forum_statue_headless_2

I really wanted to see what was behind these doors… probably some old stuff….roma_4_forum_doors

The Forum is actually quite large… you can easily spend a few hours walking around. It was basically like the village where people lived and did business… and there is a super old road where traders traveled to different areas.roma_4_forum_old

Here’s a bit of tourist or roman culture… the fashionable ones of the group (everyone but me) have noticed that having “popped collars” is pretty popular here… like this: roma_4_forum_popped

After exhausting the Forum we set out to the metro to get to our dinner (“come over for cheese?”). It was dinner time and the line at the ticket kiosk for the metro tickets was long and slow (normally there is no line). We pieced together money (they don’t take credit card or anything over 10 euros), got our tickets, and were off! We’re getting the hang of the metro system and really like it… it’s a lot cheaper than anything else, and very efficient.

We walk a few blocks to Mitchell’s “flat,” which is a three bedroom, spacious apartment on the fifth floor of a building, and relax and get hydrated. As with the night before, the conversation was fun… Alex had prepared a great spread of cheese, fruits (pears, cherries, apples) and vegetables (some eggplant with cheese thing, really good), beets, I don’t remember what else, chocolates, and sliced meats. Very European….! It was a great meal to end the day.

After nine we left for their favorite gelato place (you can’t really go wrong with any gelato place around here). I ordered chocolate for one scoop and pistaccio for another scoop, but I said it in Italian. What I learned is that my Italian stinks… because I didn’t get either chocolate or pistaccio…. I got some white thing with another white thing… ugh. Oh well, I either get better, or I switch to English tourist language :p

Here’s the underground view that has become so familiar to us: roma_3_metroroma_3_metro2

Around eleven Mitchell, Alex, and Duncan walked us to our metro stop where we hugged and said our goodbyes, and then we were off. The metro was pretty empty so we got to sit down. I sat by a college-aged kid who, I was sure, would speak some English. I leaned over, “do you speak English?” “Yes.” “What does ‘bushy tomato mean??”

You see, on the metro, the announcer says “blah blah blah bushy tomato [stop name].” We think she’s saying “the next top is [stop name].” But sometimes it sounds like “bushy tomato” and other times it sounds like “bushy gelato.” I was sure this young chap could help me!

Instead, he was like “I don’t know what you are saying. Bushy tomato??” We did this about three times, and then he got up and left. Was his stop coming up? NO! He went down about 20 seats, where a dumb tourist wasn’t going to bother him, and sat there in peace!

And that was the night I compelled an Italian student to let me have my whole row of seats, all to myself. This is me after my new almost-friend left :/roma_4_subway

I need to learn this language if I’m going to spend much time here!

We got off the metro, and popped out in a different place than the other two places we came out before. We are kind of disoriented at our own metro stop… but we quickly figured out which way to go and made it to our B&B. I called the family because Kaisie said Kim was missing me terribly… and got to talk to each kid and Kaisie. I had to talk quietly, though, because two nights earlier when I was talking the neigbors banged on the wall to tell us to quiet down. So much for being loud and expressive in Italy :p

And that was it… a long, busy day, seeing a lot, taking a lot in, enjoying friends, and getting to bed exhausted. We’ve officially been out for three weeks now, and we’ve been running hard this entire trip. It’s amazing to think about where we’ve been, and try to remember what happened where. Just a few more days in Rome, then almost a week in Barcelona, and then we’ll go back to Utah to try and figure out what “normal” is. We miss our families back home, and are grateful for the cool technology we have to do voice and video calls.

Tomorrow is a loose-ends kind of day… we have three things we want to do. We’ll see how it goes!