Confidence is Key

Confidence is important, almost as important as what you wear. As Tim Freund brought up in his blog, found here, people will judge you based on what you wear. Not only that, people will judge you on you confidence and how you carry yourself through a room. The best suit in the world can't cover up scared and nervous. Also don't tell me that confidence is something that you just can't learn, I used to be scared and nervous all the time. People make great careers teaching people skills in order close deals or pick up women, so the skill can be learned. Like most things, it just takes practice, a lot of practice.

So let's start with why I decided to make this my returning post. I just recently attended a Tech Cocktail at Boulevard Brewery. There are a lot of different people that show up to these events from all different companies. As a bonus when you sign up, it lists your name and your company. I then will go down this list and see if there is a company or person that I have been wanting to meet with, and believe me, people are doing the same about you. You are going to be regarded as a face for your company by saying you are there. If you come in dressed like a slob, I am going to imagine that your company doesn't care about appearance. If you have no confidence to talk to a person up close, even after a few drinks, then I want nothing to do with you, or even worse your company. I must have had two or three people this week who just couldn't talk or carry a conversation about what it is they do or what their company did. And you are trying to sell me your startup? Good luck.

Here are a few things you can do to improve your confidence with others. 

1. Pick your battles: Are you more confident one on one or one on a group? Pick which is easier for you to open up to, and grow from there. Honestly some people thrive when they talk to 4 or more because they can hide behind others if it gets hairy.
2. Become a new person: When you are at one of these events, unless you make them a habit, you will most likely not see these people again. Become a new person. Unless you are planning on bringing them back to your office, just pretend you are some one else. Think of it like acting. You get yourself ready to perform in front of these people. A lot of comedians do this because they are shy or nervous, so they make alter egos that are loquacious. This is the process I took, pretty soon the alter ego spread into my every day and now you all have the Curtis you know and love.
3. And lastly, keep trying! This is the same as dating, or any activity. Failure and not trying are the same thing. And you are going to fail, even I still fail when trying to open up to people, it just happens. But you learn and try again. Over time failing gets easier, only because success comes just as easy. You know that you can just try again and you will succeed.

So there you go. Remember to carry yourself well, dress nice at events(or anywhere you want to look like you are in charge), and have an elevator speech. If you don't know what that is, tune in next week and I will give a run down on that.

Copy that Floppy

So currently I am in the process of migration of data from one database to another. They are mostly the same so it should be just an export here and an import there...right?

Well let's go over step one of anytime you are going to be migrating anything. Practice locally. If you follow the steps below you can create a working copy of a MS SQL database on your local machine.

The first step is to install SQL server management studio. You can do a Google search for that yourself and get the version you need. In this demo we will be using 2008 R2, old, but that is what we use at work.

It is a basic windows install using a wizard. So if you can't figure this part out, you best stop now. We will be working in the command prompt shortly and I don't want to cause a panic attack.

Alright you installed? Good. The next step is to connect to the database that you need to copy. Find the database and right click on it. Then select the Tasks > Generate Scripts. Now depending on your access you have on the database you might can select all or pick what you need from the check boxes below. I personally select the bottom radio button for "Select specific database objects". From there select Table, Stored Procedures, User-Defined Functions, and users. Yes that is all of the database, yes there is a radio button for select all. For some reason I don't have access to use that button, go figure.

Now select next and you see save to file, save to clipboard, save to query window. Chose save to file, this will be a large file, few hundred MB to a GB depending on the number of rows you will be copying. I'll explain in another step why you must use the file. So make sure the file is named something that you can remember and find it in a minute. I named mine ScriptToCopy.sql

Now here comes the part that I miss every time, part of the reason why I am writing this post is so I don't forget. Click the Advanced button. Most of this will stay as is, but there are a few places we need to update. First is Append to File, make that true. Even though we said to on the last screen, we must do it here as well. Then scroll down to Table/View Options. The field directly above this will be Types of data to script, make sure to select Schema and Data. This way you get your tables and rows. Then below that, you can select your indexes and triggers if you need them. Select OK, then select next, next, and wait for your script to copy.

Alright now that you have your script, it is time to create your local database. Step one is connect to your local database, mine is SQLEXPRESS. You will need to create an empty database locally with the same name as the one that you just copied. So this one was named BlobPostDatabase.

Now here comes the fun part. Open up your command prompt, navigate to the directory where you script is located, and type in the following command.

sqlcmd -S localhost\SQLEXPRESS -i ScriptToCopy.sql

So as you can see, we call the sqlcmd command. -S is the server that your database will be on. So mine is localhost(or you can use your PC name, I suggest localhost)\SQLEXPRESS. -i Stands is the input file command. It tells sqlcmd to run this file.

Now why do I have to do this in the command prompt? Since this file is large, see above for file size, you will run out of memory trying to use the GUI. I Have a machine with 8GB physical and another 8 virtual, so trust me that you will run out. So there you go, you now have a local copy of your database.

Next up will be steps to prepare for a migration. Don't expect this post next week or the following, I am still figuring this out and will be getting help from our DBA on this process. Hopefully I will have some cool tricks to share.

Karma Drives You To Succeed

Every now and again I find some tool that makes life not only simpler, but just better overall.

I know you have seen a million and one adds for free credit reporting. This is another one of those free credit report tools, only this one is actually free and gives great information. If you haven't heard about it yet, you should give creditkarma.com a try.

When you first sign up it asks for some basic information about yourself; name, address, phone number, DOB, last four of you social. Only the last four seemed odd to me. I figured you would need more than that. But then I got the ID verification quiz and it all made sense why they only needed the last four. They were going through a testing service to verify who I was, and that service probably has the rest. Or there is black magic that is unknown to me.

Anyway, on to the cool parts. So it pulls your credit in and list all open accounts that you have attached to your social security number. It found my credit cards, bank accounts, loans, etc. Anything and everything that might be affecting my credit.

It showed me all my open loans which included student loans. Those annoying things that will never go away, trust me they find you. At first I noticed, hey that value is higher than I remember. The second thing I noticed is was that one of these loans had missed a few payments. Mostly because I was unaware that I even had this loan. I thought I had consolidated all of these. So what was this random loan that was dinging my credit? If I wouldn't have signed up I wouldn't have known about this loan.

The next thing is that it gives you tips on how to make your credit look better. Trust me, if I could just put a bow on my score to make it better, I would. Things like your credit to debt ratio. I thought that as long as I used my credit card and payed it off at the end of the month would be fine, well sorta. As long as you are not using more than 30% of your available credit, you get a higher score. Any more than that, and your score starts going down.

Honestly though, the best part of the application is the dashboard. The dashboard allows me to link all my accounts into one screen. This makes life easier as I only have to log into one place to see all of my bank accounts and credit cards. The next thing I need to figure out it how to link my retirement and stock purchases into this tool and I will be set.

Also side note. If you request information on a loan, Credit Karma does not screw around. I request information on a loan to get a down payment on a car. About a dozen emails and actual pieces of mail later, I'm still getting letters from banks telling me rates and payment schedules if I wanted to get a loan from them. So be prepared to have applications for loans to become automated.

Combine this tool with http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/ and you will be set for awhile. Do yourself a favor and stay ahead of this shit early. 1 year of being stupid is now costing me 5 years of catching up. 

A Taste of Things to Come

So I have been putting more time into my personal site than before. Which is to say, I started to work on it for once. The big reason I haven't worked on it is I had no idea what to do with it, other than link to some open source projects, if I ever worked on any. Then like a bolt of lightning, I had an image pop into my head. The logo for CCockerhamKC.com.

This is just version 1.0 of my logo so far. Something I threw together using paint.NET using only a track pad. Once I get a chance, I will redo this with my mouse and maybe something a little more, ummm, professional than paint.net I figure if my unofficial title at work is "Code Warrior" why not go with it? This will need some tweaking before I go live, but it is a start. As for content on the site, I will start documenting my workouts, races, and hopefully soon some grappling tournaments. I might even start a second blog to focus on those things that will help feed my site. For the time being there isn't much other than a template, some pictures, and a dream. Once it goes live I will do a technical post on the fun stuff making it work. I am thinking that my site will be strictly HTML5, CSS3, and some JS, but you never know what technology will catch my eye to try as I dig in.

Let's start this thing up

So last week we competed in the HackTheMidwest hackathon. It was a lot of fun, and we accomplished a lot. I can't wait for the next event.

After doing the event it got me thinking about how much fun it could be creating my own startup. Coming up with an idea, creating a demo, fleshing it out, testing, polishing, and repeating. This change of pace was very welcomed. As working day in and day out on the same project in two week chunks, while it pays the bills, gets boring from time to time. Hence why you do these things in the first place. Hackathons allow creativity to flow as well dust off parts of your brain that haven't been activated in a while.

Now what does it take to create a startup? I have no idea, but I don't think anybody really does. I figure it is much like running a race; you can prepare and have done them in the past, but they are all different. So let's just assume that I was going to have a startup tomorrow, I think this is how I would begin.

First off before you begin, you need an idea. Something that will either make money, or get a lot of people to invest in you. Look at things like instagram, vine, and facebook. These things were built before they had a way to generate revenue. But somebody saw potential and bankrolls or just buys your idea.

Secondly, you need a team. I would start with your developers first. You want to get something out the door as quickly as possible. The longer it takes to get your idea into something that investors can see, the longer you might go without a paycheck. Which you might be ok with, but your team certainly might not be. As your idea gets backers, you might start looking into some sort of management role, unless you feel that someone is already stepping up into that role.

Your last step, you need someone with a sales/marketing background. This will be key when you idea is up and running. You need people to buy into your product and drink your kool-aide. That is the idea right? I mean, some ideas sell themselves. Others need a little push. I mean if you told me years ago that an app that allowed you to put sepia filters over pictures would get $1 Billion, that is with a B, for their idea I would have called you nuts. But these things happen. You need somebody who can explain to people with a lot of money why some their money should become yours.

Well that would be enough to get started. I hope that sometime in the future I can do a follow up of how close I was to being right.

Ain't Nobody Got Time For That!

Time Zones. To most they are a cause of confusion as to why TV shows are on at different times. To some they are the cause of much pain and torment trying to build an application for people across the country and world. Fear not those of you that are of the .NET world. I have the solution for you. That solution is the following, timezoneinfo. This simple class can convert datetime objects to any timezone that you want. You simply just need the following code.

TimeZoneInfo tzi = TimeZoneInfo.FindSystemTimeZoneById("Pacific Standard Time");DateTime PstDateTime = TimeZoneInfo.ConvertTime(DateTime.Now, tzi);

Now you can take your server time and turn it into any time that you want. And it doesn't have to be just now either, it can be any time that you give it. Just pass the zone id and you are good to go. 



Need a quick list of timezones? 



@Html.DropDownListFor(x => x.TimeZoneId, new SelectList(TimeZoneInfo.GetSystemTimeZones(), "Id", "DisplayName"))



There you go. Just slap that into your cshtml and you have a dropdown with all the timezones in the world. Did I mention that this also handles Daylight Savings Time? Because it does. It knows when to fall back, and spring forward. It also handles places like Arizona that have no DST at all. It really is an awesome class.

How to be a ninja!

So over the weekend I went to another conference. The most important lesson I learned was on how to be a social media ninja. The presentation was done by Michael O'Neal, @itsaboutsocial. He was focusing on how to network market through social media. Yes, this was to market an item, but marketing yourself is no different. Let's look at a couple of the key points.


Have a story. Everybody has a story about their life or what they do. Some people call it an elevator speech. Something that you can tell in a few minutes or less that shows your passion. Oh yeah, you need that too, have some passion about your thing. If you are trying to sell yourself, you damn well better have some passion about yourself.

Make sure you have a way to tell your story. Look at your business card. What is on it? The example story was a guy that Michael had met at a bar in Denver, lets call him Dan. Dan had a passion about the city and became a realtor  He knew everything there was to know about the city. Great guy who could find you a great place. You would remember this guy, but if you were just going by his business card you wouldn't remember him. It was just your basic card for a realtor. His photo and tons and tons of information. You aren't going to remember that or even talk to the guy after that if you aren't looking for a house. So what did Michael do? Made a card with a name and phone number. Then the other side said "Location Ninja" What is a location ninja? I don't know either but I bet Dan has a story for you when you ask. That is the key, grabbing the person's attention and then making them remember you.

Don't show your hand too early. Like the business card, you don't want to show all your hand up front. Make people want to come to you. You can meet them at 80 or 90 percent of the way there, make them come to you for the remaining 10 to 20 percent. The same is on social media as it is face to face. If you are telling people to go look at your resume and that is it, why would they do that? Or if you are selling a product, or yourself, don't just give people the link and expect the best to happen. If a person has no reason to click your link or view your product, they won't.

Lastly, this is the most important, do not ever post something that is simply stating "Ask me about" or "Email me if you..." Nobody wants to do that. I am guilty of doing that myself. I have since learned from that and have slapped my own wrist. If you start a post with that, you look like a salesman, and strangely  nobody wants to buy from a salesman. Look you can be a salesman, but try to remember this ratio, 10 posts from you to 1 post about what you are selling. And if you can somehow make that post seem like it is about you, even better. Trust me, if done correctly, people will come to you.

Also check out itsaboutsocial.com Michael knows his shit.


Also as an update to my last post about the company you keep. Michael had everybody walk up to a random stranger that you didn't know and put people out of their comfort zone. Well I chose the CEO of the sponsoring company. I figured go big or go home right?