using word and floating images to add my new book to my resume

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Every year I update my resume. This year, I got to add “Real-World Java: Helping You Navigate the Java Ecosystem!” It’s for

  • Those who know the syntax/language, but not the whole ecosystem
  • Students
  • People transferring from another language.
  • People who haven’t worked with Java in many years
  • People on legacy projects

For many years I’ve had the cover of my book and some certification badges on my resume. I had them as individual images up until now. This time I wanted to do better because I wanted the covers to be aligned.

Making the image

I used PowerPoint to align the images. (I also have Keynote on my computer, but PowerPoint was open as Victor and I are using it for our upcoming presentation at the NY/Garden State Java User Groups and DevNexus. Both tools make it easy to align images. I then did a copy and paste special to get a PNG of this is as one big image.

Note: We do not make images for the cert book this ways. Scott made all those images using a proper image editing tool.

Getting it in Word

When you paste into Word, it automatically inserts it into the text. I didn’t want that. I wanted more control.

Instead i right clicked the image and choose Wrap text > In front of text. Then I dragged it to where i wanted.

How it looks

Here’s how the section of my resume for the stuff I don’t do for my employer.

Free Copilot.. Which IDEs shall I use

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Earlier this month, Microsoft announced free GitLab Copilot. You get 2000 autocompletes a month and 50 chat messages. The idea is clearly that you’ll start relying on it and then pay.

I installed and configured in both VS Code and IntelliJ. Setup was easy. I had to authorize the IDE by entering a code on github.com that the IDE gave me. It also gave me the link to enter it so pretty easy.

I also installed it on PyCharm and quickly uninstalled it. Copilot was being too helpful and I need to practice more typing the idioms as I get better at Python. (This is my fifth time learning Python. Every time I get decent at it, I don’t use it for a long time and forget. Maybe this time it’ll take!)

I do use AI periodically to ask how to improve the Python code I write (at home on personal stuff). But I can do that outside my IDE.

I like that Microsoft is doing this. They’ve had a free trial of CoPilot for a long time, but that is time limited. I like that this one is usage limited. So if you don’t use it much, you have it when you need it and still free.

todoist and deadlines at long last

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I switched from Toodledo to Todoist as my to do list maybe a year or two ago. I found Todoist better for entering data quickly and also for my actually getting tasks done. Which is the number one attribute I care about in a to do list. There was one feature that was missing from Todoist that I really wanted – having a separate date for when I want something to appear on my list vs when it is actually due.

As a workaround, I would put the actual due date in the first line of the description and use “due date” as when I wanted to start work. Less than ideal.

Todoist recently added deadlines an an experimental feature. Kind of like a beta. I’ve been using it since and am happy with it. How it works

  • The original date field is the date you want to start/have it appear in the to do list.
  • There is a new deadline field.
  • Once you hit the start date, you see the number of days until the deadline right below it. Also, tasks with due date appear near the top of the list, just like prioritized items.
  • If the deadline passes, you see how many days overdue it is.

The only thing I still want is the ability to add filters to search based on date. Todoist has this on their “to do” list.