Speaker

Harold Pulcher

Harold Pulcher

Nothing up my sleeve

Dallas, Texas, United States

Harold Pulcher is a Microsoft MVP, twitch streamer, co-ambassador for Hackster.io, developer, network engineer, magician, woodworker, and part time grease monkey. He has over 25 years of experience working in Information Technology. During that time he has done everything from running network cable, setting up various companies infrastructure from the absolute bare metal, and building line of business software for many of those companies. As passionate as he is about technology, you might happen to see him checking his air reserve while at a depth of 60 feet, cooking up a mean “free-range” fruit cake, doing pre-show table magic at the improv, or making a nice piece of wood into a lot of sawdust so my wife will have potting bench for her plants.

Area of Expertise

  • Information & Communications Technology

Topics

  • .Net
  • C#
  • Azure Iot
  • Electronics
  • 3D Printing

Getting started with GitHub Actions

Do you have a repository on GitHub? If so, have you configured GitHub Actions to help automate all the tasks associated with your project? Do you believe your project is too large or too small for Github actions? You would be wrong on that account. It doesn't matter if the release necessitates the creation of an installer, a push to a web server, the creation of a Docker container, or the updating of a .NET worker service running on a Raspberry Pi. Flexibility is one of the strong suits of GitHub Actions! Come to my talk and I will go over the main features along with demonstrations of setting up workflows in GitHub proper and self-hosted on a remote device.

Github actions make it fun and easy to add a CI/CD pipeline to any project. If you are using GitHub now for any project, you already have access to Github Actions. There is no project too big or too small for actions. Actions can do way more than "compile code."

So, come to my talk and I will show you how!

Your hobby can help advance your profession

Do you have a hobby? Why not? Not enough time, too many other things going on, and not really interested in anything but what you're working on? These are all very common reasons for not having a "hobby". Well, I can't help you decide whether or not to have a "hobby," but we can explore how having a hobby can not only improve your outlook on life, but could also help you in your profession. You are probably thinking, "How could underwater basket weaving" help me in my career? We will explore a number of ways your hobby could help, and, if we are not careful, discover a few more ways that haven't been thought of yet.

Stop checking in those secrets!

The need to consider security both in production and local debugging has complicated the development environment to the point of frustration at the least and to sometimes making it impossible to truly debug situations in any place but production.
It is only a matter of time before some connection string, API key, token, or some other "secret" gets checked into source code.
Having the developer "do gooder" at not accidentally checking in these secrets is a failure waiting to happen. There are few
ways to combat this. Come to my session and let's explore ways to make this process better!

Hardware store doesn't have the part you need? 3D print it! I will show you how.

As overwhelming as 3D printing seems, with a little knowledge, an eye for detail, and some patients, 3D printing is a ton of fun and possibly how most things will be made in the future. There currently is no 3D Printer Geek squad, so understanding the process is your best tool. I know you have seen 3D printers online, in a store display, or maybe a friend just can’t stop talking about them. Are they just a fad, or worth investing your time to understand this technology. Should you build your own, or buy? How do these things really work? Do I really need to know what a hotend is, and why would I ever want to extrude something? These are valid questions, and I have the answers. I will have live demonstrations of two different types of printers, and go over everything you need to know to get going in this fast paced addictive technology.

Electronics for Programmers

Developing programs for IoT devices, embedded computers, and other "smart" devices connecting
the "real" world has become a commonplace activity. Some of the concepts, language,
and tools may seem entirely foreign to even the most skilled programmers/developers.

I will be explaining terms, defining components, and demonstrating principles and
techniques, as well as answering burning questions like:

Do I have enough Amps?

Do I need a Pull-Up/Pull-Down Resistor?

What in the world is an I2C bus and how do I use it?

How do I read a schematic?

What is this "Magic Smoke" that I have heard so much about? Why is it bad for it to escape?!

Why do I need a DMM?

Why can't I just test live voltages with my tongue the way I do 9volt batteries?

Why do LEDs need a current limiting resistor?

Do I still need transistors in this digital age?

If these burning questions do not quite make sense to you, come to my talk! You will gain
knowledge of all of these questions and more.

Be sure to bring any electronics questions (burning or not), and I will get you an answer!

There will be demonstrations of lot of these concepts and demos on how all of this works.

Harold Pulcher

Nothing up my sleeve

Dallas, Texas, United States