Salt Lake Comic Con 2013

Comic Con in Salt Lake City was certainly a success for sponsors and more or less for fans. The mother of Comic Cons in San Diego California had approximately 130,000 attendees, and Salt Lake, a first year con, had nearly 80,000 attendees on the final day. By noon on Saturday, the fire marshal threatened to shut the Salt Palace down because of potential safety risks. Some ticket holders were turned away, what a disappointment.

Generally I was pretty impressed with the organization and the quality of artists and panel speakers. There were several instances of confusion, especially the registration system meltdown on Saturday, and lack of attendees willing to pay additional money to high-profile celebs speak (William Shatner being one).

Now on to the positive. The art displayed was amazing. The image above is a life-size replica of the White Orc from The Hobbit, created by Weta Workshop. The New Zealand company had a great showing. There were also a number of well-known artists and just as many indie guys showing off their wares.

Overall I would say as a con goer this was an impressive first showing. There are obviously kinks to work out, and the group has a year to make it happen. I purchased some books and comics which I'll link to below.

The Runelords by David Farland. David is a great writer and has several books on the market. Checkout his Amazon page here. (Affiliate link)

Met an author named Michaelbrent Collins, yes, spelt correctly. A lady working at his booth sold me on a unique zombie story called The Colony: Genesis. On the back of the jacket it reads "In under 10 minutes, 99.9% of the world's population will be dead... Or changed. Conversion is instant. Headshots just make them angry. And they're getting smarter." Wow what a great hook. Had me, so I bought. Hope the story lives up to the great description.

Then I ran into a graphic novelist named Dixon Mullins, who has created a series called M.I.S//ing, a take on he IT world. Seemed pretty cool, and she had a great deal so I bought. Looking forward to reading the three volumes I purchased.

One final note, I've been to dozens of cons and I'm a little more strategic than most. I plan and plan my schedule for efficiency, giving me time to see everything, eat, drink, pee, and learn. I wish more people did this, I think the overall experience would be better.

See ya next year. (Get the VIP pass for sure).

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Google+ Blogging For The Past Month

This past month I took a challenge from +Mike Elgen to blog exclusively on. Turns out I was about as hit and miss with long form posts as I am here on thomallen.com. I always post short form images, links and likes several times a day, that didn't change. Bottom line, I didn't blog any more or less.

On the subject of blogging and this site, a friend has gone through my blog and given me some pointers on SEO. I suck at SEO and he doesn't, so I'm listening to him. His suggestions included blogging more often, longer, and on topics that are consistent. I've always looked at my blog as a personal space, no ads, no real focus that you could count on day in and day out. As it turns out, that's what I'll use Google+ for, the stuff that is more off topic than what I write here.

What did I learn from this experiment besides my posting habits? I made a lot of new connections. One of the things I miss here on my blog are social connections. Sure, someone can comment, but it ends there. Unless I actively seek them out on other sites, like their blog or Twitter or Google+, I'm less likely to engage with them. That has always been a problem for me. Social sites at least let me say in contact with the people I want to interact with.

I've also learned that successful posts, posts that have value to the reader and the search engines aren't the quick and dirty posts. There has to be meat and substance, both of which I have neglected the more I involve myself with social networks like Twitter and Google+.

For what it's worth, thank you for reading, and I hope you come back often. If you still subscribe via RSS, the link is here. Check out the right sidebar for more places to follow me which I leave links to new posts on this site.

Image link: glenn-

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Exclusively Blogging On Google+ For One Month

Follow me here. See ya in a month.

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Review: Learning Java

This is a pretty decent book. I'm new to Java but have an extensive development background.

I appreciated the exercises and examples. The only thing I really struggled with was Eclipse. I haven't used Eclipse in the past and so there was a steep learning curve for me.

I think this is a great book to get a decent understanding of the basics of Java. I will need a different book as a guide as I dive deeper into Java.

* Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of this book to review.

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Review: Bootstrap

As more and more opensource frameworks hit the market, few if any contain documentation on their use. The Bootstrap framework has a great website dedicated to the features and simple use. Most throw code in github and call it a day. For some people, a little instructional help or code example and they will be off and running.

I recently completed Bootstrap written by Jake Spurlock. Full disclosure, I know Jake, but he didn't ask me to review this book. I'm interested in Bootstrap and was hoping to find a great reference. While I like web based reference material, the difficulty lies in needing to refer to the online documentation while you are learning or need help. Having a copy of this book in hand is worth the price of admission.

There's nothing earth shattering or mind altering here, but that is a strength I think. Jake walks you through the framework and gives some great examples and potential uses. I rate this book a 4 out of 5, mainly because 5's mean there is no room for improvement, and everyone should have to stretch. This book should be in your library for sure.

 



* Disclaimer: I was provided a free copy of this book to review.

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