State of the nation
Back in March, I gave an update on what I was up to and where I planned to be going (this article).
That fell in line with my contract renewal - so as I've renewed my contract again, it feels like a good time to state my intended direction for the next three months (length of the renewal).
So, what would I like to accomplish over the next three months ...
Microsoft Certification: 70-534 - Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions
I've be interesting in Azure for many years now (something that is probably self-evident from my weekly updates). So I felt it was time to take a deeper dive and get myself certified for it.
So I'm choosing to take 70-534 - Architecting Microsoft Azure Solutions. This is probably a bit more "IT Professional" focused than my previous "Development" focused exams - but I believe it will complement well and put me in a good place for DevOps.
There does seems to be a fair amount to learn, so no specific target for taking the exam at the moment.
There are two primary resources I plan to start with - PluralSight and Microsoft OpenEdX learning course.
PluralSight offer a Learning Path (I've blogged about using these in the past for Angular and Security) - so I'm going to start with that.
There are 6 courses - all aimed at perparing for the 70-534 exam. They are a little dated - so may not be entired accurate to the exam. I've completed the Architecting Azure Solutions (70-534): Infrastructure and Networking course with a good test result:
Once I've completed the PluralSight Learning Path, I'll move onto a free training provided by Micorosoft. This looks to be more up to date than the PluralSight content - thus why I want to do second. This course is powered by OpenEdX which seems provide more of a classroom feel than PluralSight with various lab tasks to complete. I'm looking forward to making a start on this in the coming weeks. They offer a good number of Azure focused courses.
While not directly related this training, Azure have released an app to maintain your systems on the run. It seems to be early days, but gives you the basics such as an ability to restarted servers. Likely to be useful to me regardless of the Certification.
Blog redesign
Ok, this one is still floating around. I've been working on this on-and-off for quite a while.
The idea is to move my blog content out from the website code (which I did earlier this year in staged approach to move my blog under the website rather than Blogger) to be a separate Github repo. The idea being that to add a blog, I updated the repo - automatic processes run (Azure Functions) and the blog is posted to website - rather than having to currently go through a whole website release.
Largely it is just finding the time to get some development done on it. I do see this as second fiddle to the Certification - but I'd dearly like to get this completed by the end of September.
JavaScript frontend for Blog
Building on the Blog (once its done), it is the intention to use as a showcase for JavaScript frontend frameworks (AngularJs, Angular, React, etc). I'd use the frameworks to create a fairly basic app to provide a frontend to the blog in each - to allow me an excuse to learn them and provide a demonstration that I at least knew the basics.
Obviously this isn't going anywhere until I've completed the Blog Redesign.
LinkedIn Sponsored Advertising
So I've been playing with LinkedIn Advertising for the last couple of weeks. The idea being that I'd using to generate follows to the Red Folder Consultancy Ltd page through sponsoring my ROI articles.
So ... nothing exciting to report so far.
It is likely to be a slow job - one in which I sponsor every ROI post - slowly building up followers. At some point that hopefully starts to generate organic traffic. But like normal SEO tactics, that isn't going to be an overnight thing.
As such, I think I will sponsor each posting with a small amount (I'm thinking £20) for the next three months - then see where I am. I very much doubt I'll have much of a following by that point - but let’s see what happens.
Cordova Android Background Service Plugin
Ok, so I've had a Cordova plugin that has been languishing for sometime - I've simply not had the time to look at it (for a long time, I didn't have a laptop capable of developing it).
Even though I don't particularly agree with Cordova as a development environment, I know people are using the plugin - so I'd like to provide support where possible.
I've recently managed to make a few changes. Hopefully I can get some time provide a better level of support that I have for the last few months.
Shameless self-promotion
Last week I released ROI of Shadow IT. In this article, I take a look at what Shadow IT is, why it occurs and the impact on ROI.