Talentopoly Podcast

Episode 45 - How and Why to Start a Meetup                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Miles Sterrett joined us to discuss how he got roped into hosting a Ruby meetup and why he does it. If you’ve been considering starting a meetup or wonder what’s involved give this a listen. Show notes Why?:  You’re selfish. You want to lean on others to get better at your craft. You’re unselfish. You want to help others, maybe the whole community, get better at your craft. Both! Ideally, you want to get better, and you want others to get better. How? Get the Word Out (Meetup.com, IndyHackers, Twitter) Make it fun Find a Business Looking to Hire Meeting Attendees (if you need sponsorship) Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks The Golden Ratio: a designer’s guide Responsive Carousel Project: Now Open Source draper - Decorators/View-Models for Rails Applications Raspberry Pi Gets Own App Store: … Make It Even Easier For Kids To Get Codin

Episode 44 - How to Roll Your Own Cloud Services For Maximum Privacy                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Edward Rudd calls in and Jacob West stops by our studios to discuss alternatives to popular cloud-based services like Dropbox. Listen to us discuss the pros and cons to doing it yourself. We list some of the software that’s out there that will allow you to setup your very own service for personal use. Show notes Why roll your own? Privacy Storage Total control http://zenhabits.net/google-free/ Pros/cons of “Rolling your own {INSERT SERVICE HERE}”? Good option for young kids Cons 1. A dedicated server just for Zimbra with Domain Keys installed 2. A block of 24-32 ip numbers. (49 ip numbers would be ideal, but it’s harder to buy odd blocks like that.) Put your mail server as close to the middle of that range as possible. It sounds like a lot, but most collocation facilities can hook you up with this for 300-500 usd a month. 3. Proactive attention to gett

Episode 43 - Creating a Repeatable Sales Process                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Alex Lopes swung by our virtual recording studio to tell us about why marketing and sales gets him out of the bed in the morning. We focus on the science of creating a repeatable sales process in our discussion. Listen to how Alex suggests you approach adapting to the dynamics of your industry and customers. Show notes If it’s not predictable, it’s not repeatable. Lacking traction: You’re not solving the right problem You’re do not have the right solution You’re not being found and evaluated correctly Customer’s buy pain killers, not vitamins “The pressure point of the opportunity changes over time” ~ Brad Feld Focus on metrics that matter Books to read: Nail It Then Scale It ~ Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom Mastering the Complex Sale ~ Jeff Thull Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks SpriteMe - a service to make image sprites Respo

Episode 42 - Hosting Your Own Developer Conference                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Tony Dewan stopped by the studio to talk to us about what it’s like to organize a conference. His re:build conference has had some of the top designers and developers in the industry come speak. He shares his tips, opinions and experience so that anyone interested in organizing their own conference can understand what is involved. re:build - A conference for developers & designers rebuildconf.com 2011.rebuildconf.com tagboard.com/rebuild2012 Show notes You live and die by your speakers! Choosing/finding/signing speakers Have an opinion and stick to it Picking/working with venues Clever ideas to limit costs sweat the details - badges, speakers needs, etc sponsorships are hard don’t do it alone understand your target audience - speakers, ticket price, sponsors it’s a labor of love - you won’t make much money Other awesome, inspirational events: Brooklyn Beta Talentopoly lin

Episode 41 - Creating Your First Typeface                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Abelardo Gonzalez joins us to discuss how he created his first typeface, open-dyslexic. His font is already getting strong traction among apps like Instapaper and large institutions. He talks about which apps he used along the way, how much he spent and what issues he ran into. Apps used started with app demos and fontforge fontforge requires more time than I had.  fontcreator was cool, cheap, but a little buggy. Messed up font smoothing. FontLab is expensive, buggy, slow iteration, didn’t look like they offered any help. switched to Glyphsapp better workflow. Nicer. Learning materials great source of info was Google’s submission requirements for web fonts exploring FontLab and reading the help file showed me things I should have been doing to maintain compatibility.  Playing with other fonts as examples Just doing it and figuring it out later. Glyphsapp probably has the best tuto

Episode 40 - Lessons Learned Building RailsThemes.com                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Anthony Panozzo sits in on this episode to discuss what he’s learned building RailsThemes.com. He shares his insights into why you should have a co-founder, what it’s like to build a startup as a part-time job and why you should start charging from day one. He also gets into some of the technical challenges of building gems and how he used Sprint.ly to do their project management. We finish the discussion by tackling the ever-important topic of how to stay motivated and maintain momentum. Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks How Vimeo Saves 50% on EC2 by Playing a Smarter Game Web Design is 95% Typography Tape - A collection of queue-related classes for Android and Java by Square VersionEye - Search Engine for Software Libraries prefixfree - Break free from CSS prefix hell

Episode 39 - How to Approach Front-end Development                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Melanie Archer joined us on this episode to enlighten us about how to approach front-end development. She breaks it down into easier steps and principles that anybody can follow to get a good front-end built in little time. She packs years worth of experience into her recommendations. This is a must listen! Note: There is some background white noise from Melanie’s mic, which we tried to minizmize. Show notes You’re an experienced backend developer suddenly given front-end tasks–where to start? Understand basic user interface principles;  "common concepts" of how user perceive the interface subconsciously. Consistency over “pretty.” Keep to standards users are accustomed to–familiar labels and placement of elements. Find help at the Yahoo! design pattern library: https://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/ or PatternTap: http://patterntap.com Learn the basics of information arc

Episode 38 - How to Work in a Team                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Stephen Williams joins us to discuss his trials and tribulations working in software teams. We delve into what tools the team can utilize to communicate and coordinate efficiently. We talk about why you should be using tools like HipChat and Campfire if you’re not already. The episode also touches on important subjects like how to deal with technical disputes, if project managers are necessary, lazy team members and ways that you can put the team first. Show notes Dividing work within the team Tools you use to coordinate or communicate with the team (HipChat, Flowdock, Campfire, IRC, IM, Email) How to deal with a lazy or slacker team member How to handle a technical disagreement Personal philosophy for promoting team over self Know when you are overwhelmed Talentopoly links - Noteworthy links posted on Talentopoly in the last two weeks Under the hood: Rebuilding Facebook for iOS Bariol -

Episode 37 - Scalable Marketing Techniques and Tactics                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 David Nevogt joins us to talk about his strategies as an Internet marketer. We discuss the importance of content and links in the eyes of search engines, building out a network of secondary sites and how to send “warm” traffic to your primary site. But most importantly David shares tips and techniques for scaling your content creation and link building strategies so that you don’t have to spend 10 hours a day working on this. Show notes Goals of what you are trying to do important to realize that with all of this stuff you are not trying to create content for your own site that is really going to convert user to your brand from a competitor or whatever. You ARE trying to get leads and send them to your converting site… you can do this through exact match domains (search traffic) a youtube channel an automated twitter account etc… The idea is to introduce people to you

Episode 36 - How to Get Traction for Your Projects                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 We have a chat with James Paden from Compendium Blogware and Emailium to discuss how to drive traffic to new projects. Every developer at one point or another has fallen prey to the “if you build they will come” myth. What is it that we failed to do for our projects that didn’t get any traffic? That’s what we try to find out in this episode of the podcast. Learn about how to use conferences, Twitter, email, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and more to help your software businesses get traction. Profanity disclaimer: Brandon attempts to clean up his language, unsuccessfully. It’s a work in progress. So for the time being don’t listen to this podcast around sensitive ears. During this topic I want to better understand what it takes to get traction for a project. What are some of the common mistakes you made early on? Why is it not as simple as if you build they will come? What funn

Episode 35 - How Developers Can Learn to Design                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Justin Belcher drank a beer with us on the podcast and talked about how developers can learn to design. Design can be intimidating and many developers feel like they aren’t capable of creating good looking sites or graphics. But in this episode we talk about how designers approach their field and how they go about their craft. We also shed some light on ways to get started and use some techniques and tools that designers use so you can get better. What constitutes design? (i.e. How are we defining design?) Design and its parallels with development Honing taste and a detailed eye Improving your output Is design an art or can I learn it scientifically? Can I develop an aesthetic sense? What’s the best way to start learning design? What programs should I learn first? How can I get better at choosing good color palettes? What tips do you have for first time designers to help imp

Episode 34 - How Not to Hire a Developer                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Mikel Berger from Delmar Information Technologies joins us on the podcast to discuss how not to approach a developer. We discuss the various types of clients and how to handle them. You’ll be laughing out loud when you hear what we have to say becuase you have no doubt run into a few of these clients. The “I have an idea and if you write all the code and do everything I’ll split 50% of the revenue with you” guy The “do you know a good student” guy The “I’m sure this is simple for someone like you” guy The “we must use X technology” guy (where X is the totally wrong technology but his distant relative suggested it) The “the first version must every possible feature and scale for a million users” guy The “let’s not discuss my budget” guy The “you must sign my NDA before we talk” guy The “I need this 6 month project done in 2 months” guy The “you need to make my crappy software less c

Episode 33 - Managing Yourself as a Freelancer                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Edward Rudd on the podcast to discuss how he manages himself as a freelancer. He goes over his experiences with time management, the pros and cons of being a freelancer and which tools are key. Tools such as Billings and OmniFocus are mentioned. Interestingly Ed and Brandon offer different strategies for getting your initial clients and how to track your tasks. Some great Talentopoly posts from the past 2 weeks Google Chrome Speeds Up Fancy CSS Filter Effects Pocket’s Tips for Aspiring Android Developers: It’s Not Really Terrifying… BetaBait - Find Beta Users and Testers Why Do Some Programming Languages Live and Others Die? The Antivirus Era Is Over Benchmark.js Pictos 4 Released

Episode 32 - Bootstrapping a Business                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Aaron Lerch comes on to the podcast to discuss what he’s learned from bootstrapping businesses in his spare time. We talk about the legal factors you need to consider, how to file your business, keeping costs low and a lot more. Read about Aaron’s latest endeavor on his blog. Some great Talentopoly posts from the past 2 weeks GitHub for Windows Released Kern and Burn | A Publication About Design Entrepreneurship The commuting coder - How to stay sharp on the go Building an iOS Photo-sharing and Geolocation Mobile Client and API Mobile Apps Must Die The Verdict Is In: Google Did Not Infringe On Oracle’s Patents

Episode 31 - How to Start Programming                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Brandon and I discuss learning how to program with Zach Silveira. Zach is 17 and started programming when he was 14. He has worked on about half a dozen projects and uses PHP primarily. He talks with us about why he started programming and what resources he uses to learn. Noteworthy links Grape - An opinionated micro-framework for building RESTful API apps on Ruby HTML9 Responsive Boilerstrap JS Linus Torvalds Invented Git, But He Pulls No Patches With GitHub Fixie: filler content for HTML documents Goodbye, CouchDB On why I am not buying RubyMotion Between a rock and a hard place – our decision to abandon the Mac App Store

Episode 30 - Managing a software project                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Intro Welcome to Episode 30 of the Talentopoly Podcast. Managing a software project hosts Jared Brown Brandon Corbin guest David Christiansen Beverage Introductions Warm-up Discussion Podcast network Topic Pivotal Tracker UserVoice, ZenDesk, GetExceptional, Airbrake.io, Intercom, Mister Smith HipChat, Campfire, Basecamp, Grove.io (IRC) Google Docs Github Harvest, Billings Noteworthy links Delight.io - Record and replay your iOS app’s user sessions Mailchimp Email Blueprints Bootbox.js - alert, confirm and flexible dialogs for Twitter’s bootstrap framework Android Ported to C# by Xamarin Sketch - A vector graphics app with a beautiful interface Filepicker.io - A better file uploader crud-bones - Boilerplate template for Node.js projects The design of a signage typeface AWS Marketplace: Server Software for Amazon Web Services Firefox no longer displays favicons in address bar

Episode 29 - Bootstrapping Your Front-end                    Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Talentopoly Podcast - Ep 29 April 11th Intro Welcome to Episode 29 of the Talentopoly podcast. Bootstrapping Your Front-end hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin Beverage Introductions Warm-up Discussion New look for post listings Discussion Twitter bootstrap Overview CDNs hosting it Zurb jQuery Icon fonts - Pictos http://designshack.net/articles/freebies/freeiconfonts/ Pattern sites http://subtlepatterns.com/ ThemeForest CloudFlare RailsThemes Wrapping Up Tease next episode Honestly don’t know yet Thanks for listening

Episode 28 - Scaling Your Backend                                      Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Show notes hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin joined by Chris Z Questions: What were the challenges scaling Words with Friends? What makes working at scale fun? What makes InstrumentalApp scale? Is load testing worthwhile? Why avoid novel solutions? What is scaling by attrition? What are some good tools for forming evidence based decisions?

Episode 27 - Designing with the iPad                    Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Show notes Talentopoly Podcast - Ep 27 March 14th Intro Welcome to Episode 27 of the Talentopoly podcast. Designing with your iPad hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin joined by Patrick Dow Beverage Introductions Warm-up Discussion Talk with Patrick Discussion New iPad just came out Lots of discussion around how to design for the iPad Let’s talk about designing with the iPad Review Photoshop Touch - $10 Layer editing is not up to par with desktop version Using your iPad as a secondary display with AirDisplay - $20 + $10 Preview mobile artwork easily Illustrate with a stylus Wacom tabletss support pressure sensitivity Turning this on in the iPad Discuss iPhoto for iPad - $5 Illustration / sketching Autodesk SketchBook Pro Adobe Ideas Styli Wacom Bamboo stylus - $30 Sketch Plus - $15 Cosmonaut - $25 iPen - $89 Great for precision hand writing Requires apps to use SDK Con - Drawing lag on iPad 5 Collaborativ

Episode 26 - JavaScript UI Widget Libraries                    Subscribe on iTunes Subscribe to RSS Download MP3 Show notes hosted by Jared Brown Brandon Corbin joined by Edward Rudd JS Widget Libs for Desktop and then Mobile Questions: What do people look for in each lib? How do you choose one over another? Desktop: Great for Intranet software, enterprise, engineering and scientific web apps Mobile: Progressive (mobile site) vs native-feeling app (typically wrapped in something like PhoneGap)? Actively developed or stale? JS Widget LibrariesLarge screenjQuery UIGrid coming to v2.1 Movement to clean up the API Lots of dev momentum lately Kendo UI by TelerikUses jQuery Recently out of beta Free for GPL Compatible open source projects $399 per developer (sounds like M$ style licensing.. inherited from the “.NET” background) Mention DataViz and Mobile Has custom theme builder for it’s widgets (not jquery UI’s builder) Doesn’t support IE6 Native UI on each device wijmoBased on jQuery UI (in fact, some of the te