CRL Blog

22/01/2021 developerDiary

Developer Diary: 2021 week 3

Welcome to Developer Diary, a weekly chat to share what a week as a developer is like, for me at least 😊 It was my birthday this week so I had a few days off work. Not much to do in lockdown birthdays but walks in the park and watching movies!
15/01/2021 developerDiary

Developer Diary: 2021 week 2

First full week back to work routine and I managed to continue on with the blog and also some other positive routines, I will take that as a win!
10/01/2021

.Net 5: WebAPI with OpenAPI docs

When building APIs in .Net apps, I have been using Swagger UI auto generated API docs for a few years now, so I was happy to hear they were now "out of the box" with .Net 5 WebAPI.
08/01/2021 developerDiary

Developer Diary: 2021 week 1

Happy New Year! What a year 2020 was, eh? I found weeks would pass and it was hard to differentiate one from the next. So for 2020, I have decided to keep a diary, to keep track of things I have done and learned week to week. I find it easy, particularly in these "stay at home" times, to feel like I am not achieving much but I thought I'd write down and share what a week as a developer is like, for me at least 😊
23/12/2020 c# dotnet

Init only properties in C# 9

A useful new feature in C# 9, init only setters for properties, allows us to have truly immutable objects or variables.
12/12/2020 c# dotnet

Top Level Programs in C# 9

Top Level Programs are a newly available feature in C#. In this post we will have a look at how it is different in C# 9 and what we can do in top level programs.
16/11/2020 dotnet conference speaking blazor

Developer Diary: DotNetConf 2020

DotNetConf was a 3 day worldwide conference over 3 days (November 10th-12th) where we could learn about all things .Net from the teams at Microsoft and community experts.
16/10/2020

Umbraco on Publish Event Posting to a Webhook

This article will discuss Umbraco publish events and give a look at how to use components and composers. We'll build an on publish event to send a message to a discord server.
27/09/2020 msignite techCommunity

Developer Diary: Microsoft Ignite

It’s been a wee while since I wrote a “Developer Diary” blog post and what better to return with than Microsoft Ignite! This year was fully virtual and I was not just attending but part of the speakers list as a host of a “Table Talk”!
01/09/2020 dotnet blazor c#

Getting Started with Blazor

Blazor is a framework within .Net that lets developers build rich, dynamic applications built in C#, HTML and CSS. Let's have a look at how to get started...
31/10/2019 umbraco meetups

Developer Diary: October 2019

Well, what a busy month October was. The fact I am only just writing up this blog post a week in to November shows how much recovery was needed! Infact, I can't even find many words, so this month will be mostly photos!
30/09/2019

Developer Diary: September 2019

I have often written blogs in a “developer diary” format for conferences or meetups, but I thought I’d try just writing what I have been up to month to month for an accurate description of dev life… it’s not all conference talks & side projects! I love getting recommendations for podcasts, blog posts or books to read. I thought it would be cool to share this stuff & keep a diary.
31/08/2019

Developer Diary: August 2019

I have often written blogs in a “developer diary” format for conferences or meetups, but I thought I’d try just writing what I have been up to month to month for an accurate description of dev life… it’s not all conference talks & side projects! I love getting recommendations for podcasts, blog posts or books to read. I thought it would be cool to share this stuff & keep a diary.
30/06/2019

Developer Diary: June 2019

I have often written blogs in a “developer diary” format for conferences or meetups, but I thought I’d try just writing what I have been up to month to month for an accurate description of dev life… it’s not all conference talks & side projects! Sometimes it's being tired and watching a lot of TV.
25/04/2019 umbraco

Developer Diary: Umbraco Roadshow Barcelona

Just a few days after returning from my trip to UFD19 in Frankfurt, I packed my bags and headed off on another Umbraco adventure. This time, Barcelona. I was joining the Spanish visit by the Umbraco roadshow an awesome new series of meetups organised by Callum Whyte.
11/04/2019

Developer Diary: Umbraco Festival Deutschland 2019

Well, it's been a while since I blogged! What better excuse to start back than a conference trip!
07/01/2019

Umbraco APIs with Swagger

Usually, my Umbraco projects involve extending Umbraco to contain custom APIs. As with any API we write, developers want to document it, for other devs, or maybe just ourselves!
03/11/2018

SWiT Awards 2018

On 24th October this wee developer stepped out of her converse and in to some heels and to attend the Scotland Women in Tech awards. A chance to wear a nice dress and meet other women in tech? I’m in!
20/10/2018 umbraco codecabin

Developer Diary: CodeCabin 2018

3 nights, 23 techies, lots of food and an amazing view... what else could you want from an (un)conference?! In October 2018, I packed my bag and headed over the border to the north of England. I was off to CodeCabin 2018, hosted in Grindleford in the peak district to join a group of fellow Umbraco developers for a weekend of learning and coding.
15/10/2018 umbraco alexa headless

Umbraco Headless Alexa Skill

If we are already friends, you will now I like to make API driven (headless) systems! Particularly connecting different systems, for example CMS content beyond just the website. Therefore when Umbraco announced their Headless service, I was intrigued to what could be done with it.
15/10/2018 podcasts recommendations

Developer Podcasts

A few months ago, I asked for some podcast recommendations. Much to my surprise, I received so many recommendations! I have managed to listen to many of these since then, so thought I would share some of my favourites for developers.
12/10/2018 developerDiary meetups speaking

Developer Diary: Ada Lovelace Day 2018

Ada Lovelace Day is a day of celebration of women in STEM, their contributions and encouraging young women to join us in STEM jobs.
23/07/2018 developerBookClub books

Developer Book Club : A Uterus Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Next up on the developer book club is: A Uterus Is a Feature, Not a Bug by Sarah Lacy. Or to give it's full name "A Uterus Is a Feature, Not a Bug: The Working Woman's Guide to Overthrowing the Patriarchy".
31/05/2018

Developer Diary: CodeGarden 2018

It’s that time of year again, when I try and describe the indescribable that is Umbraco’s developer conference, Codegarden. Every CG experience has been different for me: 2016 I was totally new and didn’t know anyone at all. 2017 I was giving a talk and was awarded MVP (still trying to believe it) and then now at CG18 I was lucky enough to be in Odense a few days early for the codegarden retreat. Here's a wee overview of another awesome CodeGarden.
28/05/2018 umbraco codegarden cg18

CodeGarden Retreat 2018

About this time of year for the last few years I write a blog post about going to Umbraco Codegarden. But this year it’s a bit different… I arrived in Odense a few days earlier as I was invited to the pre conference retreat.
02/05/2018 developerDiary conference speaking umbraco

Developer Diary: Umbraco Festival Deutschland 2018

A 5am alarm is never fun, but as much as I was tired I was excited to be travelling to Frankfurt. I was on my way to Umbraco Festival Deutschland (UFD18) where I was attending the conference aswell as giving a talk. I travelled with my husband as we were extending the trip and using it is a chance to visit Germany for the first time!
25/03/2018 developerBookClub books

Developer Book Club: Rework

Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson is next up on my reading list. Recommended by another dev, it’s a collection of short one or two page chapters explaining a piece of advice. The main theme is changing the way you work with advice from the authors, the founders of basecamp.
18/03/2018 meetups speaking empathy

Empathy in Tech

Recently I have been getting more interested in the people side of work, how we work together to get the best results. Getting this right is way harder than the coding side, right?!
11/02/2018 ddd dddScotland conference techCommunity scottishDevelopers

Developer Diary: DDD Scotland

I have written a few of these “developer diary” blogs when I go to conferences or meetups, but this one is a bit different as I was on the other side as I was on the organising team do the event: DDD Scotland.
31/01/2018 developerBookClub techLead leadership books

Developer Book club: Talking with Tech Leads

Talking with Tech Leads by Patrick Kua is next up on my developer book club list. It is a series of interviews with tech leads at varying experience levels.
28/01/2018 ladiesofcode meetups

Ladies of Code Glasgow: Lean Coffee

On Tuesday 23rd January we had our first Ladies of Code Glasgow meetup of the year. This month session was something we hadn’t done before: Lean Coffee. I have attended other local meetups in this format and I think it’s a great way to let everyone have their voice heard… and as a meetup organiser it takes the pressure off finding a speaker!