Category Archives: Run Geek Radio

Episode 007 – Don’t be a jerk

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Adam Culp, the host of Run Geek Radio, relays his conference speaking plans for the next couple months. Following that he announces his plans to start training for the Keys100 in May. It has been more than 3 years since he has registered for a race, so really looking forward to this one. As long as he is able to continue training effectively through January he will register for it.

The topic for this episode is how developers treat other developers and consultants, and how we should strive to stick to the facts, stay professional, and not get personal. He shares a story of a friend and the trials they went through because another developer, in their haste to convince the client of their value, went on the attack of the consultant.

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Episode 006 – Importance Of Vacations And Being Replaceable

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Adam Culp, the host of Run Geek Radio, shares a little about his vacation to South America where he went to Quito in Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands, as well as Lima and Cusco in Peru. During his vacation with his family they hiked, climbed a volcano, went scuba diving with sharks and turtles, and toured much of the cities they travelled to.

He then highlights how vacations are so vital and important to the productivity and stress levels of employees, and shares how long weekends are great times for getaways but also how important it is to get away for one longer vacation each year.

Employers are also encouraged to help employees take this much needed time off to boost their productivity in order to take advantage of the time employees are actually working.

Adam also speaks a bit about how employees should make themselves replaceable to ensure they are promotable, and so they can truly get away when they are on vacation.

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Episode 005 – Time Estimation, Conference Talk Rating, Contest Winner

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This episode Adam Culp announces the winner, David Stockton (Colorado), of the contest launched in Run Geek Radio episode 004. HUGE congrats to David who will be receiving a VariDesk Full Standing Desk. I look forward to hearing how he likes it.

Adam also talks briefly to clarify his views on “soft talks” versus “soft skills talks”, and how he was misrepresented as disliking soft skills talks though the opposite is true. However, as discussed, he highlights why he is against soft talks and what that really means. Hint: A soft talk is actually a tech talk given poorly, where a soft skills talk carries value in non-technical (or people skills) areas of development.

Then this episode is rounded out with a detailed coverage of time estimation in relation to projects, and why it is so vitally important to be accurate. Adam also speaks about how important proper requirements gathering is to the process.

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Episode 004 – Standing desk, headphones, and firing bad customers

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Adam Culp speaks about his new Varidesk standing desk and launches a giveaway of a Varidesk. Also covers some of the reasons a developer may want to stand while working, and the benefits of standing while working. He also gives some hints and tips related to introducing the use of a standing desk into your daily habits.

He also mentions a new set of headphones he purchased to replace a broken set, and the various reasons why Plantronics Backbeat Pro was his choice.

The main topic of firing a bad customer is then discussed by sharing possible reasons why a customer may be considered bad, how to communicate your intent, and some possible pitfalls that result from this potentially emotional event.

Then the podcast is closed by launching a giveaway of a Varidesk Full Desk Pro.

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Episode 003 – OpenWest Namebadges, Overtraining, Developer Salary and Freelance Rates, Saving Money

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Adam Culp talks about the awesome namebadges at the OpenWest conference, and how assembly was required using a soldering iron. Then shares symptoms, causes, and treatment for over-training while running. (mentions Tension Tamer tea, but intended to speak about Sleepy Time tea instead) Following this the subject of developers and money was covered. What should developers charge per hour, what should a freelance developer pay themselves, and what should developers do to save money for a rainy day.

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Episode 002 – Approaching speakers, new running shoes, feeling stupid, S3 log side project, consultant travel, and technical debt

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In this episode we speak about PHP community and approachability of conference speakers, new running shoes and typical miles that can be run on a pair of shoes before replacing them as well as wear patterns, feeling stupid in skills if they aren’t used often enough, new s3-logs-analyzer side project created to monitor podcast downloads (but can be used for any files on S3), typical travel as a consultant, and what is technical debt and how to tackle it as well as when an application rewrite is OK.

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Episode 001 – Conferences, User Group Talks, and Performance Audit Tools

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First episode of Run Geek Radio. With SunshinePHP 2015 behind him Adam Culp talks about upcoming conferences Lone Star PHP, Open West, and Bulgaria PHP. Then speaks about organizing ZendCon and how finding speakers for conferences and user groups are similarly tough, but there can be some “wins” through email blasts.

In running related content he continues to ramp up his miles each week in his training to get back to ultra distances. Other training related topics such as Udo’s 3-6-9 Blended Oil and Probilic SR protein are awesome additions to help optimize physical performance in healthy ways.

Then he finishes up with more tech talk with introductions to various tools that help when conducting performance audits on web applications.

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