I guess you can say that I’m finally returning to my old self. The better part of myself when it comes to maintaining a low profile. Over the past 8 years or so, I have been making a lot of effort when it comes to stepping outside of my comfort zone. I’ve learned that with the right amount of self-promotion (i.e. marketing my professional services, and the value that I offer), it can attract the right kind of attention, and eventually, the right opportunities. But I have also experienced the downsides of what happens when I start to overdo it. Like the saying goes, too much of anything is never healthy. The key I suppose, is all about finding the right balance.
For me personally, I think a little self-promotion when done at the right timing can be a great thing. And yes, the keyword here is “timing”. Speaking only for myself, I’ve found that self-promotion only works well after a period of doing the work. Once I have produced enough results, it is much easier then to promote what I have done and what I can do. On that very note, I’m officially returning to a phase of quietly working on my skills and talents. How long will this period take? Well, I honestly can’t give you a straight answer. It could take months, it could take years. All I know is that for every few years of hard work, I would then get to enjoy a few more years of fruitful self-promotion. And the cycle then repeats again.
Being a GitKraken Ambassador and Progress Champion (Telerik)
After being away for almost a year, I’ve officially made a return as a GitKraken Ambassador. I have been a loyal supporter and user of their git tool for many years. Since then, I have also been their brand ambassador for about 5 years (the first year was unofficial because they didn’t have an active ambassadorship program yet). So, this would officially be my 5th year of representing them.
GitKraken to me, is like one of those essential daily tools for developers. It might not be something that takes center stage, but it is still essential, and might I add, indispensable. For example, I’ve been having this thought about starting a new live stream series called, “Dev to Design”. It’s basically a way for me to chronicle my entire journey going from development to design. While I probably would not be featuring GitKraken directly in any of my live streams, it will still be a part of those live streams because of how reliant I am on that tool.
The next thing that I want to talk about is something truly exciting for me. For anybody that isn’t aware, I have been using and supporting Telerik products since Jan 2006. Since then, I have become a recognized developer & products expert. I even landed my dream job working for Progress (the company behind Telerik now) as a Telerik Evangelist for a brief period of time. Many of my former colleagues would call me “The Telerik Guy”. It’s a title/nickname that I’ve earned because of my knowledge and expertise in all things Telerik.
So, you can see why I am so excited about becoming a part of the new “Progress Champions” program. This is one of those official recognitions that I’m really proud of. But before I get too carried away with my own self-promotion, I do want to share about my current efforts to deepen my skills and knowledge in the different areas.
Strengthening My Core Skillsets
This is officially where all my work will be for the next few years. I want to dedicate my time to deepening my strengths in front-end development. For weeks and months, I’ve been facing a decision, “where do I begin?”
Looking at all of the different skillsets that I have as a specialist, I didn’t really know where to begin my work. But after procrastinating for weeks, I’ve finally decided that it doesn’t really matter where I begin my work, as long as I start somewhere, anywhere.
C#, ASP.NET, Angular, React, and Vue
So, from the front-end development perspective, there are a few core skills that I want to spend the next few years focusing on. I could start anywhere, but I’ve decided to just go with C# and ASP.NET.
After all, my roots as a software developer began in .NET development. From there, I will branch out into other areas like Angular, React and Vue. Fact is, I am already quite proficient with many of these core skillsets and the secondary skills that surround those core areas. But I am also fully aware that there is still so much to learn.
Because I have been away from ASP.NET and C# development for quite some time, my skills in that area are clearly outdated. So it would make sense for me to start by refreshing what I know, while at the same time learning all the new features of the programming language and the surrounding framework(s).
This central effort to build on my strengths will also provide me with the opportunity to bring the various Telerik products into what I do. It’ll give me a chance to talk about those products, share my love for them.
PC Gaming & Mobile Gaming
Okay, when I wrote “mobile gaming”, you know I’m only referring to one game. It’s the only game I play on my tablet device. That game is “SimCity BuildIt”. And after many months of playing with it, I’m happy to share that I’ve managed to build my very first nuclear powerplant.
Firstly, if this is your first time visiting my blog, then you should know that I wasn’t always attracted to the idea of mobile games. It’s the idea that mobile games can’t really look as good as PC games (duh!!). But I must admit that devices have become more and more powerful in recent years. And while most game publishers/developers haven’t managed to deliver the kind of top quality mobile games I’m hoping to find, I think it is only fair for me to say that SimCity BuildIt looks quite good for a mobile game.
Personally, one of the reasons why mobile games don’t really attract my attention, is also because of the in-game contents and the mechanics behind getting gamers to pay for stuff. And yes, in a city-building game like SimCity BuildIt, to produce certain goods can take hours, and that is a lot of time, so I suppose the game progress would be slow as well. Sure, I could spend those preciously earned SimCash to get the production items instantly, but it is a very costly thing to do. In my opinion, not worth it.
Yes, I do occasionally spend those SimCash, but I am also spending 80% of my time and effort saving up SimCash. Currently, my next goal is to set aside 3000 in SimCash value, and to reach 2 million in Simoleons.
My Backlog of PC Games
If you are a PC gamer like myself, then you’d already know this – early during the beginning months of the pandemic, many game publishing companies were offering insane discounts on many games. Seeing that I haven’t had the chance to play with many different “AAA” titles for a few years prior, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to catch up on those gaming titles. Since then, over the last couple of years, I have managed to purchase a pretty big collection of PC games that have been sitting in my gaming libraries. I’ve played some of them, but if I’m being totally honest, I’ve barely played some of the games that I’ve bought.
So, yeah, I think using the word “backlog” in my heading seems appropriate. I have this whole backlog of PC games that are barely touched, some less than half-way through, and others are not yet completed (if it has a campaign/story mode).
A few gaming titles immediately comes to mind – Dirt 5, GRID Legends, NFS Unbound, Witcher 3, Dying Light 2, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, AC Origins, and a few others. Just yesterday, I’ve reinstalled Dirt 5, and I’m hoping to take the time to get through the game. Like finish it, and get all the achievements. I know, that’s going to take a while.
Let’s just say that I’m finally determined to get through that backlog before I decide to pay for anymore games. Oh yeah, I’ve also recently decided to revisit Cities: Skylines. The first installment. I had access to many of the paid DLC contents and I haven’t really had a chance to explore/use them within the game. So again, paid stuff that I haven’t used.
Are you also a PC gamer? Do you have a backlog of games that you’ve been wanting to get through for a long time? Share with me in the comments section.
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