Lisha is the Executive director of Geeks without bounds, an accelerator for humanitarian projects. She has found a great way to mix her desire to do humanitarian work along with technology!

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Show Notes:

• Geeks Without Bounds » Support “Canoe Net” in the Ecuadoran Amazon!
• Geeks Without Bounds (@GWOBorg) | Twitter
• Geeks Without Bounds
• Random Hacks (@randomhacks) | Twitter
• Random Hacks of Kindness
• Lisha Sterling (@lishevita) | Twitter
• Worried Monkey (@worriedmonk) | Twitter
• Taarifa – Building the infrastructure of nations :: Home
• LDLN: Off-Grid Communications for Disaster Relief Agencies
• Mailvelope
• Early Tech Obsession | WTR 30 | Jupiter Broadcasting

Full transcription of previous episodes can be found below:

Transcription:

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they are successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE: So, Angela, today we interviewed Lisha Sterling. She is the executive director for Geeks Without Bounds. She has a pretty awesome story where she started out actually doing humanitarian aid work, ended up in programing, and then wound back up in humanitarian aid work with programing. It’s a fascinating story. Geeks Without Bounds is a great program, and I’m super excited to have her on the show.
ANGELA: Me too. But before we get into the show, I want to tell you about DigitalOcean. If you go to digitalocean.com and you use the promo code heywtr, you can save $10.00, which turns out is a two month rental of a server. Right? Because it’s only $5.00 a month. They have datacenter locations in New York, San Francisco, Singapore, AMsterdam, and London. And basically, they’re a cloud hosting provider. You can spin up a cloud server in 55 seconds. That include 512 megabytes of RAM, 20 gigabytes SSDS, i CPU, and i terabyte transfer. And they also pay authors $100 to $200.00 to technical tutorials. So, if you happen to already use DIgitalOcean or want to try it, and then like it so much that you want to write about it, you can get paid for that. After, of course, you save on two months of service.
PAIGE: Yeah, and their tutorials are bar none some of the best on the internet. I even end up there for things not for my DIgitalOcean VPS, which by the way, with those SSDs is disgustingly fast.
ANGELA: So, if you use heywtr, you support Women’s Tech Radio. ANd turns out, if you did not remember to enter a promo code when you started DigitalOcean, just go try to put in in there.
PAIGE: Yeah. I actually did that and it totally worked for mine.
ANGELA: After the fact.
PAIGE: Like a couple years ago when Coder Radio had it. That was sweet.
ANGELA: Yep, so you can still use it. So heywtr. Go to digitalocena.com
PAIGE: Yeah. And we got started with our interview with Lisha by asking her to explain her current position and what she’s up to in technology.
LISHA: I’m the Executive Director at Geeks Without Bounds and we support humanitarian open source projects through a combination of hackathons and an accelerator program. So, my work these days sort of entangles both my early career in international aid work and charity work and my academic side. I studied Latin American studies in college. And the rest of my professional life, which has been software development and systems engineering. And now I get to use technology to do disaster response and humanitarian aid and international development work.
PAIGE: Wow. That’s a pretty awesome way to use technology.
ANGELA: Yeah it is.
PAIGE: So that sounds like a pretty big jump from, you know, international aid work into software development. Can you tell me the story of like how that came to be for you?
LISHA: Yeah. So, first off, being, you know, a privileged white kid, i had my first computer when I was eight years old. Actually, my dad got me two Timex Sinclair 1000s. One for his house and one for my moms’ house. And connected it up to the black and white TV and put rubber bands around it so that the extra 16K of memory wouldn’t disconnect while we programmed. And thus I began my journey as a new programer learning basic and then going there’s a thing called Assembly Language. And I got involved with a computer club and was your basic tomboy geek girl. Then I had my first kid when I was 17 and went off to El Salvador. Did aid work during the war and during the first year of the peace. Came back to the US, did a bunch of work with refugees. Had another kid. Decided that I should probably go to college. And since I’d been working with Central American and in Central America, it was obvious what I was going to study. I was going to study Latin American studies and go do more of the same sort of stuff. But being a mom with two small kids, I, and no real skills or degree, I was able to make $4.25 an hour and my childcare cost like $7.50 an hour. The math doesn’t add up.
ANGELA: No. Now that I have three, daycare just isn’t even an option.
LISHA: Yeah. So one of my friends from my young computing days, a young man that I dated when I was like 11 and 12, and our first date was actually to a tech conference at the Moscone Center.
ANGELA: That’s adorable.
LISHA: So, you know, we’re still friends as adults. And he said to me, why don’t you get a job as a programer? And I was like, you’re crazy. I don’t have a degree in CS. I can’t program. He’s like, don’t be stupid. Nobody cares about your CS degree. Just tell them you can program. Show them some code and they’ll let you do it. But his caveat came. You must charge $25 an hour. I was like, I can’t charge $25 an hour. He’s like, no if you do not charge $25 an hour I will never speak to you again.
ANGELA: Oh my goodness.
PAIGE: So I’m going to pause you there, because this is a really interesting question that I always dig around. Why could you not charge $25 an hour?
LISHA: Well, because I was getting $4.25 an hour. The idea-
ANGELA: Perceived value. Perceived value.
LISHA: Right. The idea that I was going to go to somebody and have balls enough to say, yeah I’m a programer. I don’t have any degrees or any proof that i can actually do this, but you should totally pay me $25 an hour for it.
ANGELA: Inferiority complex. Yep. I’m familiar with all of that.
LISHA: Yeah. Yeah. So, but, you know my friendship was on the line and my need to take care of my children was on the line. So I did it and just about keeled over the first time somebody said, yes we will hire you.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: What did it take to get your foot in the door? Was it really just like you friend said? You just showed up and were like, look I can program. Let’s go.
LISHA: Actually, yeah. It literally was that easy. So I went for low hanging fruit right at the start, since I was at community college at the time. And so at the time I was working as an administrative assistant for Sybase. This probably puts the timing into, into perspective.
PAIGE: Your choice of computerm, your choice of computer at the top made that pretty clear.
LISHA: Right. Right. Right. Yeah, so I was working for Sybase as an administrative assistant and had gotten the opportunity to play with web stuff there on the side. The first browsers were out, but nobody was really using them. So even at Sybase they were like, this is stupid. Why are you wasting your time with this? But of course I was going to college so I went to all of my professors and I said have you seen this thing called the web? You should check this out. You can put your research up and you can put your classwork stuff up.
PAIGE: Which is exactly what the web was originally built for, was to share research.
LISHA: Right. Exactly. And they said, oh wow that’s neat. And yeah could you do that for me. So that was how i got my foot in the door. ANd then, you know, I got a little bit braver and I went to the administrators of the Parelta College District. So I went to the administrators at the Parelta COllege District and said, you know, you guys should really have a better website. And they said, you know what, you’re right. And so I got to do some contracting for them. And then I found out about dice.com and atually the saem friend that told me that I had to charge $25 or neer speak to me again told me about Dice. And at the time, almost nobody knew about it and you had to get your Dice listings off of Gopher. And he told me, don’t tell anyone about this, because when everyone knows about it then it’s going to start getting harder to get jobs. So you’re not allowed to tell anybody about it. So, you know, there I was in the early ‘90s using Dice by Gopher. But I found some jobs and then recruiters started contacting me and I found that I could actually work from home, which by that time was actually the UC Berkeley family housing. I was able to basically pay for my own schooling with scholarships, pay for my kids’ daycare and private school with programming. And everybody kept saying why aren’t you studying computer science, and I would say I’m already working in computer science, why would I get a degree in it? But then eventually I finished my bachelor’s degree and I intended to on with grad school, but I had that moment where it’s like I need some time without poverty and working just enough hours to keep us afloat is, we’ve done that for a while. I need to spend some time working full time. And then work ended up eating my life for oh, 20 years.
PAIGE: So at that point you got a full time job in computer science somewhere?
LISHA: Yeah. At that time I ended up getting full time work. I worked, while in the mid-90s I worked at Wells Fargo Bank doing problem and change tracking during the Y2K reprograming stuff. Anybody who says that the Y2K thing was nothing, was not there to program all the fixes.
PAIGE: Yeah. It only wasn’t a thing because you guys were doing it.
ANGELA: Yeah.
LISHA: Right. Exactly. It wasn’t a thing because there were a lot of people working really hard to make sure it was not a thing. So I was there. I worked, i did random contracts for media companies and whatnot in the San Francisco Bay area. Amazon, I worked at Amazon in the UK. That kind of thing.
PAIGE: And then eventually stumbled back into Geeks Without Bounds?
LISHA: Yeah. So my first sort of hit between the eyes was 2001 and after 911 I said I’m not working on any more Microsoft or any more closed sourced from here on out. I’m only going to do open source, because I’ve already sold my soul and I’m not doing humanitarian work, at least I’m going to do code work that I care about. So from 2001 onward I was working almost exclusively on open source software. And then even that kind of hit me at some point. I’m like, I went to college so that I could do humanitarian work. Why am I still writing code? And so I decided to just quit everything and figure out what I was going to do with my life, when I grow up. And I declared myself an un-graduate student. If you’re familiar with the idea of unschooling, which is like homeschooling without a curriculum.
ANGELA: Yep.
LISHA: There’s also such a thing as un-college. And I don’t know, there might be somebody else in the world who came up the with idea at about the same time I did, or even before I did, but I came up with this sort of independently. Where I had been thinking about going back to grad school and then said why would I get myself into more debt? I’m going to un-grad school. So that’s what I did. And that ended up getting me into an organization called The School Factory, which is the fiscal sponsor for Geeks Without Bounds. And then that, of course, led me into Geeks Without Bounds. I started out as a volunteer. Then i was the developer coordinator. And then last year I became the executive director.
PAIGE: Congratulations.
ANGELA: Yeah.
LISHA: Thank you.
PAIGE: That’s a really awesome journey. It’s all over the map, but it’s very personal . And I love that about tech. It’s not a straight and narrow path.
LISHA: Yeah. Yeah. And there’s lots of ways you can come to tech and there’s lots of things you can do with the tech once you’re in it or playing with it. It’s not just one tool. It’s like all these different tools. It’s kind of like saying, what can you do with wood? Well, you can do all sorts of things with wood.
PAIGE: Right. What do you want to do with wood?
LISHA: RIght.
PAIGE: Yeah. So, I think a lot of people would hear you story and stay, well you kind of had perfect timing. You’re like in the Bill Gates timing era, where if you just caught on to the right thing at the right time you were good to go. How would you respond to somebody saying that in today’s climate? Oh, I couldn’t just show up and say I know how to code, pay me $25 an hour, let’s go, kind of a thing. Because I would argue that in some ways we’re kind of seeing that again, but what’s your thoughts?
LISHA: I think we’re absolutely seeing that again. I think that right now is a really good time to ride the wave of open source into your dream job. ANd so, a little shameless promotion here. At Geeks Without Bounds, one of the programs that we have is an internship program and we take novice developers who have, who have learned some programming skills but have either never gotten any job experience or they don’t know how to use GitHub and work in a team, or go through issue tracking and figure out how to pick a project out of the issues, you know, that kind of thing. We give them mentorship. We have them work on some of the humanitarian projects in our ecosystem and we try to shove them at as many other opportunities to get a real job as possible. Sometimes we also manage to get a grant here or there to get them a stipend, but most of them are sort of slave labor in exchange for lots of mentorship. And they’re code up on GitHub so that they can show it to other people. And we have had some really great success with people coming into that program. Doing some amazing work on one project or another over the course of three months, five months, six months, and then going on to get a real job in programming. We had one guy who had studied aeronautical engineering. Got all the way through his degree and realized that that was not what he wanted to do with his life and what he really wanted to do was be a programer.
PAIGE: That’s a big investment to make that shift.
LISHA: Exactly. And I snagged him and I was like, let me put you to work. And it was fantastic. He got projects that he really enjoyed working on. He learned a whole bunch of stuff very fast. He managed to get a stipend and then he got a paid internship and then, you know, he’s working full time as a developer in Chicago and, you know, you can totally do that. And you don’t have to have to have a bachelor’s degree to begin with either. Anybody really can do that.
PAIGE: So do you take a lot of people who have maybe done either a lot of self-taught stuff on the internet now or boot camp graduates? How do you people kind of end up ready to go into Geeks Without Bounds internships?
LISHA: All of the above. I’ve had people who were in their junior or senior year of college decide to spend the summer working on projects with us. I’ve had people that were totally and completely self-taught. And there’ve been people who’ve done some sort of boot camp like experience. So they knew a bit more about how to work in teams and things like that, but they just wanted to get some more work experience while they were looking for a job. They already knew how to look for a job, they just wanted to keep their, the code lines on GitHub up while they were looking for that job. So, yes.
PAIGE: And that’s, I mean that’s one of the biggest recommendations I give to anybody who’s going through boot camp is keep committing. Just keep getting it up there.
LISHA: Absolutely.
PAIGE: So that’s kind of the intern side of it. How about in the nonprofit side. How does a nonprofit get involved with you? Are they just finding you online? Are you doing events or something to kind of bring them in? What does that look like?
LISHA: We end up meeting people in all sorts of situations. Sometimes as conferences or at say disaster response drills. Sometime we’ll meet people there. Sometimes it’s literally look for who’s in the area that needs support right now. And sometimes people come to us. And then, basically we just kind of have lots of conversations and develop relationship over time and let people know that if they have challenges that they think that technology could help them with, that we are happy to help them craft that into a challenge that somebody can actually address. And when we’re crafting or curating challenges for hackathons, we try to create a challenge that can actually be addressed in a weekend. So there might be back story and a problem that clearly this is not going to be solved in a weekend, but here’s the backstory and here’s the piece we want to accomplish this weekend.
PAIGE: So you guys kind of handle the project managy end of that prepping it to go into the hackathon?
LISHA: Right. Exactly. And then, so once you get a starting point basically, if you’ve got, say an app that sort of is attempting to deal with the big pictures, um, then you can break that down into lots of different challenges and you can take that from one humanitarian hackathon to next to the next. And the great thing about that is that you start with a couple of people who got interested in the project at the first hackathon and maybe on those, maybe two people will stay on board and keep working on the project over time.
PAIGE: Which is one of the biggest challenges with hackathons is actually getting people to commit, almost.
LISHA: Exactly. So you take the project to the next hackathon. And let’s say four or five people work on it and one of those people decides they want to keep working on the project long term. So now you’ve just snowballed your team. You’ve got two people or three people instead of just the people from the original hackathon. And then you take it to the next one and it gets stickier. And the more work has been done and the larger the core team is, the stickier the ball gets as it goes from one hackathon to the next.
PAIGE: It builds momentum.
LISHA: Yeah. It builds momentum and you get to a certain point where you can actually have a whole hackathon where all the challenges that are being presented are all based around that one piece of software. So, for instance, one of the projects that started at a hackathon, Taarifa, that project has had multiple hackathons that are just about Taarifa. Where all of the challenges are all, either bug fixes or feature request for Taarifa that have ranged from improved the documentation to create a Swahili translation for all of the text, to fix the security bugs, to create new features. And that team is one of, one of the most amazing teams that we’re working with right now, actually. I’m pretty impressed with where that project has ended up. It’s being used by the World’s Bank in many countries in Africa. We at Geeks Without Bounds are part of a consortium that is being supported by HDAF, UK aid to put Taarifa into the water system in Tanzania in order to allow citizens to report to the government when water pumps and spigots and other water points are broken. And allows the government to keep track of what is working and what is broken in the water infrastructure everywhere in the country.
PAIGE: Crowdsourcing water maintenance. That’s awesome.
ANGELA: That is awesome.
LISHA: Exactly. Exactly. And Taarifa was originally developed for water management, actually. But now it’s being used for tracking education systems, healthcare systems, and this summer I’m going down to Ecuador to work with people from the Kofan community in Northern Ecuador in order to use Taarifa to track pollution and encroachment in the Amazon Jungle. So pretty awesome little piece of software there.
PAIGE: Yeah. So you have a formal commitment in your life to only work on open source software. Is that something that’s carried forward that Geeks Without Bounds is also doing when they’re doing these projects with nonprofits?
LISHA: Yes.
PAIGE: Are you largely open source, mostly? What’s the deal?
LISHA: It’s all open source. We specifically work on open source humanitarian projects. So open source projects that for whatever reason we can’t find a way to call it humanitarian, we don’t work on those. We’ve managed to find ways to call lots of ways humanitarian though. Today we were working in PGP email app for Firefox OS phones.
PAIGE: Wow.
LISHA: And I consider that to be a humanitarian issue because Firefox OS phones are marketed to low income people in developed countries. And to people in the least developed countries on the planet. So, in other words, Firefox OS phones are being marketed to vulnerable people. And as a system it doesn’t have the security and privacy pulls that an iPhone or an Android phone has. And at the moment there’s no guardian project for Firefox OS. So we’re trying to kick one off, basically.
PAIGE: Yeah. So I’m going to jump in just for anybody listening who doesn’t know, PGP is an email encryption program called Pretty Good Privacy. It’s kind of the de facto standard right now for email encryption. Usable by anybody. If you’re interested in having encrypted email, there’s tons of stuff online. And one of our former guests, uh Snubs, has some awesome tutorials on Hak5 about how to do that if you want to check it out. But yeah, so privacy and security.
LISHA: And for newbies to PGP who use hotmail or yahoo mail or Gmail, I would recommend looking up a program called Mailvelope. It’s a Firefox and Chrome plugin. So you just plug it into your browser and then it recognizes that you’re on a webmail site and it will allow you to encrypt your email in webmail. Which is pretty cool.
PAIGE: Yeah. That’s pretty awesome. I mean this project you’re involved with, I’m not going to lie, it touches my heart in a very special way. I think that technology can change the world if we let it. And I think getting more people involved at that level is just phenomenal. The way that you’re doing it is great. If people want to find you how do they do that? To find Geeks WIthout Bounds, to get involved either as a nonprofit or as a coder, whatever?
LISHA: Whatever, yeah. So we’re online at gwob.org.
ANGELA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Remember, you can go to jupiterbroadcasting.com for the show notes and a full transcription, as well as the contact form. Drop down the show drop down to Women’s Tech Radio and send us your feedback or suggestions on who you’d like to hear on the show.
PAIGE: You can also check us out on iTunes and our RSS feed is linked at our show page on Jupiter Broadcasting. If you have a moment, please leave us a review on iTunes. Those help out the show and also lets us know what you think. And also, follow us @heywtr on Twitter. We’ll talk to you soon.

Transcribed by Carrie Cotter | Transcription@cotterville.net

The post Humanitarian Tech | WTR 31 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Paige Hubbell, WTR cohost, discusses her theater work with her carpentry degree and all the random jobs she had along her technology journey!

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Show Notes:

• Priyank Sharma WTR 11
• Wakatime: Quantify your coding
• Vim editor
• Vim Adventures
• Geeksquad

Full transcription of previous episodes can be found below or also at heywtr.tumblr.com

Transcription:

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they are successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela. Now, Paige, today I want to ask you about how you stay energized. What is your favorite caffeine source?
PAIGE: That’s a really, kind of a loaded question, because I don’t stay energized with caffeine and it does give me a little bit of the focus kick, but I’m a non-responder for caffeine for the most part. I can drink three or four pots of coffee and go right to bed.
ANGELA: No…
PAIGE: I know. No, I wish that it weren’t the truth.
ANGELA: You’re a freak of nature is what you are.
PAIGE: Yeah, pretty much. I’m a true ADD candidate, but that’s okay. But, I love coffee. I really do. I will always, always pick a good coffee over almost anything else. Right now, I am blessed to live in Portland, which has Stumptown Roasters and they have this amazing cold press coffee that is nitrogen infused, so it comes out of a tap and it looks like a beer. It gets like a foam head and it’s so incredibly smooth, and I just hit it with a little heavy cream to smooth it out a little bit more, and it is like the best thing on almost any day.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Yeah, so Stumptown. And if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, they also sell it in little brown glass bottles in your grocers’ freezer. I think Safeway carries it and stuff.
ANGELA: Cool. Well, I don’t drink coffee. I don’t like coffee.
PAIGE: What? Get out. Get out.
ANGELA: But his is my house! Okay. I also have never done an energy drink, ever.
PAIGE: Ever?
ANGELA: Ever.
PAIGE: Oh man, I can pound those down, no problem.
ANGELA: No, it’s really great. Yeah, I know. Well, so I react to caffeine, even more so. Like, if I have caffeine after 11, I’m going to be up tonight. Like –
PAIGE: 11 in the morning?
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: Oh wow.
ANGELA: 11 in the morning.
PAIGE: You’re a real responder.
ANGELA: I have — so my source of caffeine is Mountain Dew, and I have it typically between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m.
PAIGE: Well, that’s totally normal though, because caffeine actually has a four hour half-life. So, for most people it’s still in your system, even from the morning.
ANGELA: Yeah, so, I have three young kids under the age of five so I really kind of need this energy boost. And I know it’s not the best place to get it, especially not, you know the flame retardant filled chemical yellow dye mountain dew.
PAIGE: You’re just preserving yourself for later.
ANGELA: Right? Yeah, right. I am not going to catch on fire.
PAIGE: Nope.
ANGELA: So, that is what I do.
PAIGE: What is it about the Dew that’s different for you?
ANGELA: I don’t know. I don’t know.
PAIGE: Has it just always been your drink of choice?
ANGELA: Yeah, I’ve liked it for a very long time. Dr. Pepper is right up there with it, but mostly it’s been Mountain Dew. And so, I have a daily Mountain Dew.
PAIGE: I’ll share a little secret today. Angela had both Cheetos and Mountain Dew, and I was like man, this is like nerd heaven right heaven right here.
ANGELA: Okay, it was an emergency snack in my backpack and I just needed something to eat.
PAIGE: You know, sometimes you’ve got to have that. We’ve talked about guilty snacks before.
ANGELA: I didn’t get breakfast this morning, so.
PAIGE: That’s okay. You should see me in the grocery stores right now, because the Cadbury Cream eggs are out.
ANGELA: Oh, yes.
PAIGE: So, today, we are doing something a little different and we’re flipping the mic and Angela is going to interview me. Hopefully this will give you guys a little more insight of my background and what I’m in to. We talk about different things like my journey, getting started, being a self-taught developer, and a couple other things.
ANGELA: And before we get into the actual interview, I want to mention that you can support Women’s Tech Radio by going to patrion.com/today. Now, why is it today? Because, Tech Talk Today is our thank you show that we produce four times a week with daily tech information as a thank you for people that are supporting the Jupiter Broadcasting Network using Patrion.com/today. So, if you go there, you can subscribe. Sometimes there’s bonus content and sometimes there’s announcements, things that you can do. We’re about to adjust the milestones, so if you are interested in supporting the network at a whole, which supports all the shows, you can go there. Patrion.com/today.
Okay, Paige can you tell me how you got into technology?
PAIGE: How I got into tech? So, it was kind of a long winding journey for me. I remember being kind of in like middle school, and I had a lot of friends who were dudes and they were super in to video games. I remember the first time I was like, okay I got the family computer. I talked my dad into letting me have the last one and keep it in my room. I really wanted to play — what was it — it might have been Diablo 1. You had to have a sound card, and I didn’t have a sound card. I was like, oh man I really want to play this game with my buddies. They’re all loving it. I don’t really care that much, but — I went out, I saved up my pizza money, or my paper money from various things and I bought myself a sound card. And then I had to open up the computer. Which is like, a big deal, because we don’t open up computers in my house. Nobody is technical enough I had to bust out the screwdriver and I was so scared. It was back when the whole U shape lifted off the desktop and you could slice your jugular open because they were so sharp.
ANGELA: Oh yes. Oh, yes.
PAIGE: And I totally did that the first time. I cut my hand real good. So, there’s blood involved in my journey right away. And I put the sound card in and I was so proud of myself. I didn’t — I ended up playing Diablo probably for like two hours, because you know, I like video games.
ANGELA: Oh, I was hoping you’d say you turned it on and it didn’t –
PAIGE: No. No, naturally gifted with hardware.
ANGELA: Awesome. Shocking, especially then. You know, put thing in slot, turn back on generally worked. And that just really got me started. My parents were pretty supportive. For major holidays they got kind of creative. A couple years later they got me a DVD drive, and it was before DVDs were — before you had them in your home theater. So, I had one for my computer. And they bought me Top Gun, because it was one of the first movies out of DVD, and oh man, I watched that movie so many times. But, I had to put the drive in the computer myself. I got pretty into hardware really early. And then in high school I was trying to impress some friends and so I started to learn a little bit of HTML. I think little, happy birthday, websites on Geocities and whatnot. That kind of got me started. And then, I spun off for a while. I wasn’t good at math necessarily. I was really good at science, so I went to college hoping to be a biology professor. That was kind of what I wanted to do. I wanted to teach anatomy and –
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Yeah, because I had an awesome experience in high school in anatomy class and I was dissecting cats, which is kind of gross.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: But it was just really fascinating. It really clicked with my brain. The biological organism just makes sense to me, so I was really fascinated with that. But, I got to college and it turns out that I’m really bad a chemistry. Like, I’m kind of bad at math. I’m epically bad at chemistry. And so, I flunked chemistry my freshman year, and that didn’t go well. So, I was like well, you know, you have to go through several more tracks of chemistry to stay a biology major, so I switched. I was like what am I going to do? I was a little bit in a rebellious phase so I was like, I’m going to be a theater major, which in my mind was the best way to go to college and become a carpenter. Yeah, because I kind of had a little bit of a back and forth with my dad where I was really interested in a lot of these more masculine things like carpentry or computers or whatever, and he didn’t know what to do with that. He was very supportive, but he just didn’t know what to do. And he’s an architect, so I was like theater is kind of in between that, and I’m going to learn some drafting and he can kind of help me out a little bit with that. It will kind of be an in between, but you also had to work in the shop, so I did learn a lot about how to use power tools, but also how to do design. That I’ve cared for a lot, so there’s definitely a lot of value there. But I got out of college. To have my first theater job I had to have my college education, my full degree, and I got to make $10.00 an hour.
ANGELA: Oh man.
PAIGE: So, you had to have a college degree to have this job, $10.00 an hour.
ANGELA: Yeah, so frustrating.
PAIGE: And it was 2003, so $10.00 an hour, it was livable, but definitely not comfortable, and definitely not college degree material.
ANGELA: Definitely not.
PAIGE: So, I did that for a couple years. And I loved the work, and the work became gradually more and more technical, because I was interested in behind the scenes theater, because I’m not an actor, although I play one on the radio.
ANGELA: Like right now?
PAIGE: Yeah, like right now.
ANGELA: Yeah, like on Women’s Tech Radio, okay.
PAIGE: Yeah, on Women’s Tech Radio, I’m an actor.
ANGELA: She winked.
PAIGE: I did. I did. Hard to tell on radio, which is why I’m not a good radio actor. So, I wasn’t into that. I was into design and tech stuff. And I worked professionally as a sound technician and a lighting technician for several years, and it got me really into things like signal flow and programing sound systems, because most sound systems in theaters at the time were transitioning over got a fully software based system, and you’d go in and you’d write your effects more — almost like a program, where you’d be like if I push this button does these things, and there’s these three speakers.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: So it had kind of some of that same feel.
ANGELA: Instead of a hardware or a mixer board or whatever.
PAIGE: And so I –some things I had as a mixer board and some mixer boards at the time were becoming programmable, which was pretty cool.
ANGELA: Okay.
PAIGE: So that was kind of neat to kind of learn some of that and start to learn programing again, because I had been interested in programing before. And in college, a friend had tried to talk me into learning some programing, but I got started with Perl, which turned out to be a terrible idea for me. It just didn’t make a lot of sense. It was very intimidating. And I can do HTML and CSS, but you guys can do this Perl thing. So, I kept helping my friends with all these HTML and with hardware problems, so I was doing all this, but then I was doing theater. And theater was what really kind of caught my passions, but it was just — it just didn’t pay. I just couldn’t really make a living doing it, and the work would kind of dry up and then go up and down in spurts. So, a couple of years doing that, and finally I got laid off enough times, because you’d go in and out of work depending on when shows were happening, that I took a job at Jiffy Lube.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Yeah, so I went from the prestigious career of theater to the prestigious career of Jiffy Lube. And luckily at that time, I also had a friend who was really involved in Geek Squad at a corporate level with Best Buy, and she was kind of doing a program to bring women into technology through Geek Squad and do all these cool things, and I got pretty — I started actually helping them before and she was like, let me work and let’s try to get you a job in Geek Squad so I can actually bring you on these projects. So, I’m at Jiffy Lube over the summer. It’s like 100 degrees, I’m working on engines. It was not pleasant. And so finally we get it set up and an opening comes up at Best Buy, I’m like oh this is great. Such a step up from Jiffy Lube to go over to Best Buy. I went over, started working there, and they gave me the job offer and they were like, we’re really sorry, we thought this higher paid job offer was going to be open and we were going to hire you for that, but would you be willing to take this other one, because we would really would like to have you and the move you up later. I was like, yeah cool, let’s do it. They were like really? We were surprised, we didn’t think you would take it. I was like, you have air conditioning. I’m good to go. You want to pay me minimum wage, okay. Anything to get out of the heat at that point.
ANGELA: Yeah, no kidding.
PAIGE: So I got out of Jiffy Lube, into Best Buy. And I kept building my hardware skills and my software skills, not programming. But in Geek Squad I started to have a lot more challenges that were really interesting and kind of an environment where — especially at the time it was very much like what can you learn on your own? There wasn’t a lot of support from Best Buy, but my coworkers were very adventurous in technology, and they were constantly like how can we automate things? How can we look at things as a different process? And my brain just really kind of clicked with that. It was like, kind of like it augments my natural laziness.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: You know, I like to tell people that I think programmers are a really neat mix of people, because they are eternally optimistic and severely lazy, because you’re always convinced that you can make the computer do something a better way, but you’re convinced it will work this time, because a lot of programming is like banging your head up against that wall. Why does it not work, and then, and then huzzah, and then why does it not work? It’s just that up and down, because it’s so binary in a lot of ways. So, I did the stint at Best Buy, Geek Squad, and it was a back and forth journey. I got to do a lot of really cool things. I did go work at corporate in Minneapolis, eventually, Geek Squad summer academy.
ANGELA: Oh yeah.
PAIGE: Where we would kind of travel all over the country every summer and bring camps to either girls or under-privileged kids who didn’t have a chance to touch technology, and we’d teach them things from digital music to some basic scripting to how to build the computer. And we’ve have races for desktop building and play DDR. And it was just a really phenomenal experience.
ANGELA: Can you tell me a little bit about what you do today?
PAIGE: Yeah, cool.
ANGELA: At least one of them.
PAIGE: So, I do a ton of things. I’m kind of an overachieving in my spare time. Mostly, I work as a sort of mid-level developer. I do a lot of automation on the server. Right now I write mostly in node.js, which is a JavaScript framework on the server. I also do automation in Ruby and I’m currently transitioning to a full-time developer position working with Angular, the new agency out of PDX Code Guild. So, we just started a PDX Code Guild agency.
ANGELA: Cool.
PAIGE: I’m pretty excited about that. It’s kind of a project I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’m very excited. I get to be both the project lead and one of the developers, and kind of really stretch myself. So, it’s very intimidating, but I’m very excited.
ANGELA: And PDX Code Guild, that’s in Portland?
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: And you do something else in Portland.
PAIGE: I also am the director for Women Who Code in Portland. I believe very strongly that meeting up in meet space is really important for us as developers. It’s too easy to hide behind the monitor and feel like you’re alone and not connect with the community. And of all the communities I’ve ever been in, the geek community is hands down the most welcoming.
ANGELA: Seriously.
PAIGE: The most understand. Because, we all have social issues. I know Angela well, so it’s easy for me to talk to her, but I have my shyness too.
ANGELA: Now. Yeah, she was concerned about starting the show, but we play really well together.
PAIGE: Yeah, the first time I met with you especially, because I had a little bit of start struckness meeting Chris and you, because, I’m like, I’ve been watching them on the YouTubes for forever and they’re like, stars.
ANGELA: Yeah, I know. We do get that.
PAIGE: This is crazy.
ANGELA: There is a small level of celebrity, but.
PAIGE: Well, in my eyes you were celebrities. It took a lot of guts. Actually, meeting Chris at OSCON that first time, I almost didn’t talk to him.
ANGELA: I am so glad you did.
PAIGE: It took, like a seriously — I felt really — I felt a little weird, because I definitely followed him around the floor, like sort of slightly trying to see if he wasn’t busy for like probably an hour.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Yep. So, and then finally they were sitting at little table instead of interviewing somebody, I was like, could you give me — I’ve been watching the show for a long time. Could you give me some podcasting advice? He was like — and we got talking and he was like, well we want to do that show. And the rest is history.
ANGELA: Yep, and then he said email my wife.
PAIGE: He did. He did, in fact.
ANGELA: And you did.
PAIGE: He was like, Angela is interested in this, because — I’m so glad that you were. It’s been fantastic.
ANGELA: Definitely. All right Paige, what tools do you use on a daily basis or that you recommend?
PAIGE: Sure, I’m a little out on the geek edge. I’m a VIM’er. I use VIM, which stands for Vi Improved. It’s an editor, a text editor that’s based in the terminal. It’s available on all of the operating systems, but it’s included with any Linux distro, pretty much, but a lot of other ones too. It’s all terminal based. There’s no mouse movement. You move with the keyboard, and it’s called a modal editor. It’s really a lot to get your head around, but I had some really bad repetitive stress issues. It started in college. In college I kind of got one of those crazy, funky keyboards.
ANGELA: Oh, yeah. Chris had one of those for a while.
PAIGE: Yeah, it helped, but it never really solved the problem. I started traveling a ton, and so I was working on my laptop all the time. You can’t bring a gigantic keyboard with you for the laptop.
ANGELA: Yeah, no.
PAIGE: It just doesn’t work. And so, my RSI got kind of bad again probably two years ago. And so, I was like what if I just suck it up and learn VIM, because I had heard a lot that it would help to not be going back and forth to the mouse, and have a lot more movement with the keyboard and just kind of keep your hands on that home row, and it totally does. It was a huge investment. I was slow. Like really slow the first week, the first couple weeks. It took –
ANGELA: Oh yeah, I can imagine.
PAIGE: – probably a month to get back up to speed. And so it was a huge time investment, and I definitely worked extra hours at work to try to make up for that. Two years later, I have no RSI unless I’m playing too many video games.
ANGELA: Yeah, right?
PAIGE: And that’s from the mouse. And I’m fast. I’m faster now in VIM than I am on any other text editor. I just fly. It feels like –
ANGELA: Great.
PAIGE: It makes me feel cool. It’s like that super nerdy thing. I’m like, I do this super nerdy thing. And I can log into any server on SSH and know that I’ve got a great text editor that I know how to use right there. I really encourage everybody to at least learn either nano or VIM, because if you’re going to be a developer, at some point you’re going to – hopefully at some point you’re going to touch the server and the server — if you learn that, it’s always available to you. And it is a huge learning curve, and as you like to ask, an awesome tool –
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: – to get started with this is a website called VIM Adventures. It gives you kind of this little due and you have to walk him along on this little adventure using only the VIM keyboard commands.
ANGELA: Okay.
PAIGE: And it builds them up for you as you go.
ANGELA: That’s great.
PAIGE: Yeah, it’s a great way to get kind of the basics down.
ANGELA: Did you see, by chance, the most recent — not the most recent, but one of the recent Faux Shows where I talked about learning Markdown?
PAIGE: Yes.
ANGELA: Yeah, that was — it had a really good tool as well for learning Markdown. And you couldn’t move forward unless you did it right.
PAIGE: I should check that out. I forgot about that one, because Markdown has been a struggle I’ve been having lately.
ANGELA: Oh really?
PAIGE: Because GIT encourages you to write your read me files in Markdown or GIT Hub at least.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: And I don’t know Markdown. And every time I’m like why does this paragraph not work. I can’t remember.
ANGELA: Oh, do Huroo Pad –
PAIGE: Oh right, Chris talked about that on Coder Radio a while ago.
ANGELA: Yeah, well and we talked about it on that Faux Show. All you have to do is — it’s super easy. It’s just a GUI, I guess, a graphical user interface, and it automatically puts it into Markdown.
PAIGE: Oh, okay. That’d be a good cheaty way to learn it.
ANGELA: It is. It is. Yeah, you just select it. You say, this is a link and then it –
PAIGE: And that was like a — it’s an HTML 5 or a node kit app, right, so that it works on anything, I think?
ANGELA: Yeah, it does work across platform, yes.
PAIGE: Across platform. The wholly grail of cross-platform development.
ANGELA: Yeah. Now, I happen to know that you use Wakatime.
PAIGE: I do. And they have a VIM plugin, which is fantastic.
ANGELA: Oh really?
PAIGE: Yep.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: Very exciting. And they also have an X-Code plugin. I’ve been doing a little bit of X-Code lately, trying to learn Swift. That’s a lot to get your head around. I love it. It actually really upped my game a little bit and made me more conscious of trying to — because one of the things that will happen at my job is I do a bunch of stuff outside of coding and if I go too many days not touching my JavaScript or my Ruby, I definitely notice the lag when I get back.
ANGELA: Uh-huh, yeah.
PAIGE: Like I don’t have the snappiness of the recall and I have to look up more functions and stuff.
ANGELA: Sure.
PAIGE: I really have to go to the documentation a lot more. So Wakatime kind of keeps me a little more honest about that.
ANGELA: So you want to — for people that haven’t listened to episode 11 of Women’s Tech Radio with Priyanka Sharma, do you want to briefly explain what Wakatime is?
PAIGE: Yeah, totally. I’ve been getting a lot of people into it lately.
ANGELA: Me too.
PAIGE: It’s a tool — statistics for you as a developer. So, we all are — especially developers are usually obsessed with statistics for our site, or people who do social media, you’re like what’s my bounce rate? What’s my load time? And you have all these awesome statistics for your site. What Wakatime is trying to do is give you those sort of feedback statistics for your coding. It’s not super finite yet, but it tells me, I’ve spent this much time in this language today. I’ve spent this much time in this project folder today. It also helped me with client work. I’ve bene able to track my client work easier, because I know I’ve actually spent three and a half hours today on this project for this client, and I can bill really easily because of that.
ANGELA: Nice. Yeah, because sometimes — well, I think with most people these days, we are all multitasking.
PAIGE: Mm-hmm.
ANGELA: Not only are we multitasking, but we typically don’t finish one thing before moving on to another, and then we go back to it. If it can — if you only worked in a certain programing language for that client and you just keep going back to it or whatever, it still — the total time you spent in that language was just for that client. It’s really easy to pull that out.
PAIGE: And they have plugins for everything. And they’re even getting programs — I’m super excited, I think they might be done, I know it’s on the list, they have a Photoshop one. So, I’ve been trying to talk some of my graphic designers that I’m working with into too. Be like, how much time are you actually spending in the browser and Photoshop, all that stuff. It’s really cool.
ANGELA: Wow, great.
PAIGE: Yeah, I got my buddy at PDX Code Guild Agency to install, and he was super excited because they had Pitron (ph.sp), I guess is the Python one, and so yeah, like everything.
ANGELA: Well, I want to ask you, what are you excited about? What really gets you going in technology?
PAIGE: What gets me?
ANGELA: What keeps you up at night?
PAIGE: I think it’s all the ways that everybody touches technology these days. There’s nobody who’s not interacting with technology on some basis. We’re at this point where because of that we can now use technology to change almost anyone’s life. And I’m really excited that I can look at somebody who is a mom and be like, well I know they’ve got a smart phone in their pocket, because everybody does. What itch can I scratch for them? What things — and I love — because of that I love talking to non-technical people. What are these problems they have? I was talking to my sister the other day and she was like, you should totally write an app for this. I need something where I can do home management. I can give my husband a chore and set a due date and he knows what it is and it shows up on him, and it shows up on him, and it pops up for his notification. I was like, I don’t’ need to write an app for that, there’s totally one out there. But knowing that these are problems that people are seeing, and I constantly have way more ideas than I can execute on.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: Which, I think anybody does really, who’s at all into this sort of stuff.
ANGELA: Well, and sometimes people just need the push too, like you just need to tell you sister go look for that app, you know?
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: I’ve been meaning to get an app for taking pills. Right? Because I take a thyroid synthetic hormone every night, and sometimes I forget. I’d like an app where I can tell it — like I can clear it and say yes I took I today. That way, at the end of the month I could be like, okay how many days did I forget, or did I forget it, or did I just take it? Like sometimes I forget, because I take it a night, and I lay down and I’m like, did I take it or not? Well, I’m going to take two tonight, or whatever.
PAIGE: I’m sure there’s an app for that.
ANGELA: I am sure there is. I haven’t had a chance to sit down and look for it.
PAIGE: Right. Also, that sort of thing would be a great project — first project for you.
ANGELA: You’re right. Yes. Stay tuned.
PAIGE: And I love teaching. The exciting thing about that, it’s the same thing. Because technology is touching so many lives, you know, I run Women Who Code Events. I teach an intro to JavaScript course. I teach it kind of weird, because a lot of people are like, oh I’m going to come and learn some JavaScript and I really don’t care if you know any JavaScript when you finish with my course, but if you can start to ask questions about programming, that’s so important. Because, for me, I’m a self-taught developer and it took years — many, many years, and a lot of hours, and a lot of blood sweat and tears. As we talked, literally blood sweat and tears.
ANGELA: Yes. Yes.
PAIGE: I think the biggest hurdle that I see, and I think the biggest hurdle that I have is that people don’t know how to ask questions, because you just don’t know what’s possible. You just don’t know what things mean.
ANGELA: You don’t know what you don’t know.
PAIGE: I mean, can you, as someone who is just getting into this stuff, tell me the difference between a programming language, a library, and a framework?
ANGELA: No.
PAIGE: Exactly.
ANGELA: They don’t even sound familiar — or I mean similar.
PAIGE: Yeah, and — and people — that’s a vital piece of learning programming, is, you know, a programming language is how you talk directly to the computer.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: Libraries are sets of tools that fit into that programming language, and then frameworks are a way of thinking and a way of organizing work in that framework. Each of those pieces adds functionality to the original language, but they’re all in the same language. Teaching people that and how to ask those questions, because if I have someone who is coming up and is like, you know, I have this question about rails, and it turns out what they actually have is a question about Ruby, and trying to explain the difference there. It’s really difficult.
ANGELA: Right. Right.
PAIGE: It’s so vital. And I like to explain things with cats. All my lectures have cat videos.
ANGELA: Okay. Well, Page is followable, her handle is Paigetech.
PAIGE: That’s true. P-A-I-G-E-T-E-C-H. And I’m pretty much just on twitter. That’s pretty much me. Mostly, if you want to follow me, check me out on Women’s Tech Radio, or come by if you’re in Portland. Women Who Code events, especially the JavaScript one, come by, take a class. They’re all free.
ANGELA: Good. Well, thank you for telling us more about you Paige. This is well overdo.
PAIGE: No problem. I look forward to flipping the tables.
ANGELA: Stay tuned for that.
PAIGE: Awesome.
ANGELA: All right, thanks.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Be sure to check us out at www.jupiterbroadcasting.com. You can check for the show notes, and you can also use the drop down for contacting us. Just select Women’s Tech Radio in that contact for. Or, you can email us, WTR@Jupiterbroadcasting.com
PAIGE: You can also follow us on Twitter @heywtr or on Tumblr at www.heywtr.tumblr.com. You can also find us on iTunes and if you have a moment please leave a review. We’d love to hear back from you.

Transcribed by Carrie Cotter – transcription@cotterville.net

The post College Degree in Carpentry | WTR 22 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Our best ideas for the geek in your life, or your self! With everything from digital goods, to a few favorites this episode has something for everyone.

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— Show Notes: —

Star Trek Uniform Polos: https://www.thinkgeek.com/product/1135/

Custom Star Trek Figures: https://cubify.com/Startrek

Metro: Last Light: https://store.steampowered.com/app/43160/

• Poo-Pourri:
  [asa]B0014DPC2S[/asa]

• Dead Sky: https://store.steampowered.com/app/259700/

• Stress Ball:
  [asa]B005HSTC5E[/asa]

• Star Trek Bathrobes: https://www.thinkgeek.com/product/e73b/

• 30 pin to Lightning adapter: https://store.apple.com/us/product/MD823ZM/A/lightning-to-30-pin-adapter?fnode=45

• Kerbal Space Program: https://store.steampowered.com/app/220200/?snr=1_230_linux__104

• iPad Case for kids:
  [asa]B008J7WRIO[/asa]

• PowerTrekk Fuel Cell Charger:
  [asa]B00CNB3OUW[/asa]

• Star Trek Uniform Onsie:
  [asa]B002XE7IRE[/asa]

TV Shows/Movies:

• Battlestar Galactica:
  [asa]B005QSZDJE[/asa]

• Big Bang Theory:
  [asa]B00A6GM1U0[/asa]

• Game of Thrones:
  [asa]B0091HQVWY[/asa]

• Star Trek:
  Star Trek Uniform Baby/Toddler Onesie: $9.99-22.90
  [asa]B002XE7ISI[/asa]

• Stargate:
  [asa]B007QUBI8K[/asa]

• Star Wars:
  [asa]B0013J5QQ0[/asa]

• Ghostbusters:
  [asa]B0063I7NG2[/asa]

• Doctor Who:
  [asa]B0040I7J6G[/asa]

• Indiana Jones:
  [asa]B001AERQKM[/asa]

Games:

[asa]1616592079[/asa]

[asa]B007PVHMCG[/asa]

[asa]B0079PWFJS[/asa]

[asa]B0079PC0EI[/asa]

[asa]B00911UQAS[/asa]

Mail SACK:

• Marylynn writes:

Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your summary of various issues both in Europe and USA. I am also grateful to you for all the additional material you supply to us, the sponsors. Why is this, because I teach at University and one of my up and coming lectures is on terrorism and I will be dipping in to your material for the lecture – really good, thoughtful and critical stuff (technical word). I will, of course, be referencing you as a good academic should!

• Mohan writes:

Long time Linux Action Show listener, and first time writer! I would like to suggest a feature, an embedded audio player on the web page.

Thanks.

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The post Gift Ideas | FauxShow 154 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

What self-respecting modern geek would pass up the chance to see the sequel to the most awesome virtual reality epic of our young lives? NOT THESE GUYS. The J@N crew was there with bells on (much to the chagrin of the other patrons, jingle-jingle), and boy do we have junk to tell you.

We’ll try to avoid spoilers, but be warned that a couple may slip out.

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The post TRON Legacy Review | J@N | 12.21.10 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.