This is a brief sale for Thanksgiving and Black Friday, so now is the time to pounce.

If you haven’t read this edition, I would recommend you grab a copy at this discounted price. The sale applies to the DRM-free ebook, the printed version, and the combo.

It’s the kind of book I wish every developer would read. The amount of knowledge that could be shared, if everyone did, would be astounding. I’d also be a millionaire, but that would just be a nice side benefit. 😛

Jokes aside, I really wrote this book for programmers and other technical folks. The ideal reader is a person who is interested in one or more of the following benefits:

• Break into the tech industry
• Advance your existing tech career
• Earn extra income by sharing what you already know via blogging and social media
• Promote an Open Source project or side hustle
• Promote a startup
• Blog at your job to advance yourself and your team’s mission

If any of these apply to you, consider giving my book a shot. People tend to really like it and find it useful. Oh, and if you buy a copy and have any questions about your own blog, I’m your guy. 🙂

The post Get Technical Blogging for 40% off appeared first on Programming Zen.

Seven years is a long time, however, especially on the internet. So last year I set out to create a new edition. One that would incorporate major Internet shifts as well as everything I have personally learned since the first edition.

Announcing Technical Blogging (2nd Edition)

I’m happy to announce that Technical Blogging (2nd Edition) is finally in print. You can buy it today from the publisher or from Amazon.

If you’re looking to get greater recognition and amplify your influence online, get this book. It will teach you all you realistically need to know to succeed and benefit from sharing the skills you already have.

A pleasant side effect of having wrapped up the book is that I’ll finally be able to go back to blogging more regularly, so expect a lot more content on this blog soon.

Launching Tony on Tech

Speaking of content, I believe that video is going to continue to grow in popularity and I advocate leveraging it within Technical Blogging. So I’m taking a page out of my own book and have started experimenting with video content on YouTube.

I launched a channel called Tony on Tech, where I plan to discuss programming and technical topics, as well as content marketing. If this interests you, subscribe and hit that bell to get notifications from YouTube.

I’m actually running an experiment, in which I’m launching three channels concurrently. The others two being a personal channel (that I revamped to focus on self-improvement) and an outdoors channel. I’m sharing them here, just in case these topics interest you.

Stay tuned and talk to you soon. 🙂

The post New Book and YouTube Channel appeared first on Programming Zen.

On the evening of Thursday, October 13, 2016, an 18 year old girl having a domestic dispute with her mother allegedly set her own house on fire. The fire spread quickly to the whole fourplex, which included our townhome. (The girl has since been arrested by the police.)

My wife and I managed to rescue our dog, Annie, in the process. She came close to dying, but she is doing okay and is expected to recover.

Despite trying for several minutes in black acrid smoke, we simply couldn’t find our beloved cat of 8 years, Stella, anywhere in the house and she is sadly presumed dead in the fire at this point.

We lost everything we owned as the flames fully engulfed and gutted our house. It took firefighters the whole night to subdue the flames and smoke. In a twist of irony, this went down on our 12th wedding anniversary. Not how we expected to celebrate it.

My large collection of programming, computer science, and math books went up in flames. Including copies of my own two books.

As well as high-end electronics, laptops, passports, and everything else. I made it out with my wallet, phone, and car keys only. My wife lost everything too, including countless irreplaceable items as well as her business, in the process.

Unfortunately, due to the extreme circumstances I’m forced to put this blog and others on a temporary, potentially long hiatus, as I focus on slowly rebuilding our lives.

The only silver lining is that we’ve received an incredible amount of support from family, friends, colleagues, and readers during this difficult time.

If you’d like to contribute to the campaign setup by friends to help us get back on our feet, please consider a donation here:

https://www.youcaring.com/jessica-cangiano-antonio-cangiano-672285

No amount is too small. Anything helps, even just your thoughts and sympathy. It’s amazing how helpful this has been.

Thank you so much for your support and understanding in this incredibly challenging time.

The post Programming Zen Will Be on a Hiatus Due to Tragic Circumstances appeared first on Programming Zen.

Q: How would you rate Programmingzen.com’s content in terms of usefulness?

Most of you found the blog to be quite useful. Thank you.

Q: How interesting would you say the content is?

It’s more interesting than useful apparently. I’m sure this post won’t help changing that ratio. 🙂

Q: Do you find ProgrammingZen.com’s posting frequency of one post per week to be…

No surprises here.

Q: Of the five categories we have on the site, which do you find MOST interesting?

I expected a little more diversity here, so I’m glad I asked the question.

Q: Of the five categories we have on the site, which do you find the LEAST interesting?

It looks like there isn’t too much interest for IBM-related posts. Duly noted.

Q: Do you find my “Tips for young programmers” series to be…

The answer to this question did not surprise me at all. The majority of my readers are professional programmers.

Let’s see how experienced…

Q: How many years of programming experience do you have?

Quite a few experts, indeed.

Q: What kind of programmer are you?

Mostly back-end developers. The purple there is for “other”, not for Android. (Pie charts are provided by Google’s report, but objectively they are an awful way to visualize data in most cases.)

Q: What’s your primary programming language?

Again, the pie chart sucks, but the gist of it is that the most popular languages among my readers are:

1. Ruby
2. Python
3. Java
4. JavaScript | C#/VB.NET

Q: Which OS do you prefer?

Mac first, Linux second, and Windows a distant third.

Q: Which smartphone do you predominantly use?

55.9% use Android devices, 44.1% iPhones.

Q: Which of these online courses that we may develop would you be most likely to buy?

Over half the respondents said that they wouldn’t be interested in any course. About a quarter would buy a course on becoming a professional programmer, and 14.3% a course on making extra income with technical blogging. I’ll take that into consideration, for sure.

Thank you everyone for participating in the survey. Though there weren’t too many surprises and the sample was somewhat small, it allowed me to understand a bit more the type of readers that my blog tends to attract.

The post Survey Results appeared first on Programming Zen.

TAKE THE SURVEY

The post Please Take My Programming Survey appeared first on Programming Zen.

The intent of this article[2] is to clarify a few myths and common misconceptions about your geeky family member or friend.

1. I have a problem, I must immediately call my geek.

Often technical problems can be solved by simply reading the instructions. If you just bought a new media player and you’re trying to connect it to your TV, you’ll simply have to find the page in the manual that talks about which port the cable connects to.

Likewise, error messages are often written in plain English and it may be possible to resolve a problem yourself by carefully reading and giving thought to what the message is telling you. For example, if you see a message that says “Your startup disk is almost full”, more often than not, it means just what it says and in order to appease your computer, you’ll just need to delete some files and folders that you no longer need (or move them to an external hard drive).

2. He/she knows everything about computers.

Your son or daughter might be “very good with computers” but they aren’t omniscient. Often they’ll approach your computer not knowing at all how to use the particular program you are having problems with and will simply use some logic and a few Google searches to find a solution for you.

In fact, googling for an answer is often sufficient, as it may lead you to find forums and/or blog posts where people have discussed the subject before you encountered it and already shared a possible solution. Often, you could do this without having to inconvenience your free technical support agent (ehm, I mean your geek).

If you tried and failed, then by all means give him or her a call.

3. It doesn’t cost him/her anything. He/she’ll fix it in two minutes.

Your friendly geek might be available to provide free technical support to you, but it’s not true that it doesn’t cost him or her anything. Often solving the problem requires more than just two minutes, plus a car trip to your location. In my experience, in an average case, he/she will be lucky to deal with the issue within an hour from the time of first contact to when he/she’s back home (unless they live in the same household).

If he/she doesn’t accept money from you for their time and help, because he/she’s family or an old friend, consider the possibility of still compensating them for their time. A gift and thank you card once in a while or a generous gesture might really help make them feel more appreciated for all their hard efforts.

4. Don’t worry. He/she’ll help you for free.

It’s not uncommon for proud parents or family members to pass along their geek’s contact information to family friends. If these friends are ready to pay the geek, then it’s not a problem. What’s not cool however, is to offer the use, so to speak, of your geek for free to friends.

Your geek is kind enough to help you out, but their doing so does not entitle you to pawn him or her off to other people.

5. My computer doesn’t work anymore since you touched it.

There is nothing worse than providing free technical support to people who asked you for it and then being accused of having caused new problems with their computer. No, if your geek is even remotely competent, they are not the cause of your computer’s slowness or that Windows is crashing.

Are you sure you haven’t installed something new after they left? Deleted some files you shouldn’t have? Picked up a computer virus? The culprit is rarely the expert.

6. He/she said not to, but I installed it anyway.

If your trusted geek discourages you from installing toolbars, smileys, dubious registry cleaning software, and adware, don’t go ahead and install them anyway. These programs will cripple your computer and you’ll end up calling him/her back to fix your computer once again. Listen to your wise geek. 🙂

7. I’ll forward this email. What’s the big deal?

Don’t forward chain emails to your geek (or at all). Your geek has seen countless chains and knows that in most cases they are obvious hoaxes. And even when it’s not a hoax, many requests for help are tragically expired already by the time you see and forward them. For example, that child looking for a bone marrow donor might, sadly, have already been dead for a few years, and your forwarding will only cause more people to contact the grieving family.

If the geek replies to your message with a link to Snopes, don’t be offended. It’s nothing personal. Learn from the episode and refrain from forwarding such emails (or sharing stories, before fact checking, on Facebook for that matter).

8. He/She is too distrusting. This is a great deal.

If your trusted geek tells you that something on the Internet is a scam or fishy, trust them. Whether it’s a foreign prince, a gorgeous lover you never met in person, the opportunity to work as a secret shopper, or someone posing as your bank asking you to verify your login credentials, you are dealing with fraudulent emails that have been designed to prey on your trusting human nature.

Trust your geek on all things pertaining to technology and the Internet. In fact, feel free to ask him/her about the most common types of online traps, so as to hopefully avoid ever getting caught in one yourself.

9. I have this great idea. Can you make it for me? We’ll go 50–50.

Implementing a startup idea is not an easy task. In most cases, your brilliant iPhone idea or service cannot be created without serious effort, time, and often money. We are talking weeks or months of full-time work.

Would you ask your cousin who is a construction worker to build you a house for free, aside from the cost of materials?

Even if your idea has merit, asking your geek to implement it doesn’t entitle you to 50% of the profits in the unlikely scenario that you they pull it off.

Ideas on their own are not worth much. If you are an equal partner in the enterprise who spends as much time taking care of business and marketing as the programmer does on technical aspects, then and only then, will you be able to command a fifty-fifty arrangement.

10. Zuckerberg made billions. Why can’t you?

“Hey John, I saw on the news that Zuckerbursomething made billions with Facebook. Why don’t you do something like that as well? We’d all be set for generations to come”. Do you know how many Zuckerberg and Facebooks are out there? They are statistical outliers of the highest degree. Essentially your geek has the same chance of winning the lottery as they do of ever becoming the next Zuckerberg.

Don’t get us geeks wrong. It’s possible to create fortunes online with applications and sites, but very few manage such an unlikely feat. If your geek is really good at what they do, ambitious, and works hard at their startup night and day, they might see their business become viable. Perhaps with a good dose of luck, they might even manage to become a millionaire. But don’t count on or expect your family geek to pull it off, or let alone make billions. And by the same token, do not look at your geek as a failure because they’re not off buying their own private island yet. They may be excelling at their job and doing wonderful, helpful, and/or innovative things day and in and day out, which is something to be proud of in the tech field just as much as it applies to any other career path.

There you have it. Treat your geek with respect and you’ll be able to enjoy their free technical support and the service of an expert who is ready to help you out at the drop of a hat for years to come.

The post 10 Tips for Interacting with the Geek in Your Family appeared first on Programming Zen.

However, before committing to investing a large amount of my time and energy in such a project, I thought it would be best to gauge the interest level in this idea amongst my readers first. I would also like to understand what areas interest you the most, and what you’d like to get out of such a book.

For example, would you like to learn how to blog so as to earn extra income? Or maybe how to further your career? Perhaps you’re interested in promoting your own products (such as desktop software or a web application) online.

If the interest is there, I want to get feedback as early as possible so as to create a useful step by step roadmap that truly answers your questions and serves your needs well.

If you are intrigued, please consider filling out the following brief survey. Thank you very much in advance for your valuable input.

Ebook Survey

The post I’m thinking of writing an ebook and would love your feedback appeared first on Programming Zen.

As I look towards the steps that are required to bring my blog to the next level, I decided it was time to make the switch to a new domain. I’d like to transform Zen and the Art of Programming into a blog that every programmer could potentially be interested in subscribing to, not just people who are into Ruby or following me.

The good news for you is that you don’t need to do a thing. Every internal link has been permanently redirected to a corresponding programmingzen.com link, with the exception of the homepage. I’m now using antoniocangiano.com as a sort of minimalist virtual business card, from which I link to my email, Twitter, Linkedin, my three blogs (this, my personal blog, and my math blog), as well as my book and ThinkCode.TV.

Stay tuned for lots of interesting new content, which I plan to post more frequently. Meanwhile please feel free to let me know what you think about this new change; I’d really welcome your thoughts.

The post A new domain name for Zen and the Art of Programming appeared first on Programming Zen.

With Feedburner’s email service for example, I have no control over the emails that are sent out. With AWeber I’ll be able to create a newsletter service that not only sends out the posts I publish on this blog, but it will also allow me to send out custom written emails. I want to cultivate my newsletter and doing so starts with a service that allows me to do just that.

If you currently subscribe to my email newsletter via Feedburner you’re subscription will automatically be imported to AWeber and you will receive an email asking you to confirm the subscription. Unless you click on the activation link in that email, you will not be added to the new newsletter service. This is because the new newsletter has a double opt-in confirmation feature enabled. Starting tomorrow Feedburner’s email service will be disabled, as AWeber steps in to take over.

I invite you to join my newsletter by providing your first name and email address in the email sign-up on the left hand side bar, or by clicking here.

Thank you to all those who sign up; I look forward to bringing my posts to your inbox via AWeber.

The post Switching from Feedburner Email to AWeber for my newsletter appeared first on Programming Zen.

If Bell were to be successful with their application, ISPs would be forced to change their current offerings, cap internet usage and substantially increase the price of extra Gigabytes per month. In practice, we’d be paying more to get much less, and most people would not go through the hassle of dealing with this, thus opting for Bell – despite their absurds usage limits (60GB per month, are you kidding me?).

If this scenario doesn’t float your boat or down right outrages you, please send your polite comments and concerns to the CRTC, by clicking this link. For the subject select Tariff, and as a subject, use File Number # 8740-B2-200904989 – Bell Canada – TN 7181.

I personally sent them the following message:

Please do not accommodate Bell’s monopolistic tendencies by letting them introduce Usage Based Billing (UBB) to its wholesale customer accounts. Canada is behind many other first world countries in the Telco sector. Don’t let our country fall even further behind. For Canadians to be innovative in the high tech field, unlimited, high speed access to the Internet is a must. Thank you for your attention.

The deadline for sending comments regarding this matter is today at midnight, so please, if you want write to them, do so ASAP!

(Via Teksavvy‘s email to its customers)

The post Canadians, fight Internet Usage Based Billing (UBB) appeared first on Programming Zen.