community - Rion.IO

Reflections on Current 2025: Streaming, AI, Beignets, and The Buffalo Bills?

As the mental (and possibly physical) hangover begins to wear off, I figured I’d take a moment to reflect on my recent trip to Confluent’s 2025 Current conference, conveniently held right here in my home state of Louisiana. It was a week filled with brilliant people, incredible sessions,

productivity random community

No, You Aren't Alone.

This situation sucks. My heart goes out to all of those affected by this terrible pandemic across the globe. With our lives flipped upside-down for the foreseeable future, I thought I'd shed some insight into what's going on in my neck of the woods, how

glyphfriend open-source community

Glyphfriend 2019 Released!

With a new year just beginning, it's always nice to start things out on the right foot and open-source is no exception. Several years ago, I developed a popular extension for Visual Studio called Glyphfriend [https://github.com/rionmonster/Glyphfriend]. It's a handy tool for

community productivity best-practices

Priorities of a Passionate Developer

Anyone that has been around me knows that I'm quite passionate about my craft, and if you are reading this, you probably have a bit of that inside you as well. A huge reason for starting this blog was to try and share some of the pitfalls that

random learning community

I Don't Know

Software development is a huge field, I mean huge. You've got front-end folks, back-end folks, database specialists, architects, the engineers, the folks with the people skills to talk to the engineers, and countless others; it's overwhelming. With technology evolving as fast as it does,

community open-source

Ghosts, Candy, Witches, and Open Source?

With Halloween quickly approaching, it's about that time to figure out what you are going to be dressing up as. You can always rely on the classics (ghosts, stormtroopers, Three Hole Punch Jim [http://www.officetally.com/jim-halpert-halloween-costumes/2] etc.) for costumes and easily wander

community best-practices

Making a (Job) Switch as a Software Developer

It may have seemed a bit quiet here over the last few weeks, but there's certainly been a lot of activity below the surface. After nearly seven years at my previous position, I've decided to finally make a change. When this post goes live, I'

community

Still a Survivor on MVP Island

Over the past few years, April Fool's Day has been quite a bit different than it is for some other folks. It hasn't been filled with paranoia about pranks, but instead it's spent waiting to see if my torch is being extinguished and if

asp.net asp.net mvc asp.net core

Contributing to .NET for Dummies

Over the past few months in the little spare time that I have, I've managed to submit a handful of pull requests to various .NET-related repositories (e.g. coreclr [https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr], corefx [https://github.com/dotnet/corefx], docs [https://github.com/aspnet/doc], etc.

glyphfriend visual-studio tools

Glyphfriend 2.1 Released! Now with Library Filtering

It hasn't been too long since the latest 2.0 release of Glyphfriend [https://github.com/rionmonster/Glyphfriend], but with the release of Visual Studio 2017 coming around the corner, there were a few things that could use some improvement and polishing off before then. What's

community learning random

Why won't you answer my question?

I've spent more time than I would like to admit on various Q&A sites and forums related to development, where I have answered thousands of questions. Generally, the questions stay within the confines of such forums, however after waking up to my personal inbox being flooded

community books learning

My Developer Resolutions for 2017

It's a new year, and with that comes new opportunities for growth, change, and all the other type of things that you read on motivational posters. In the past, I've been pretty good about keeping resolutions, so I thought I would jot down a few and

community coding blocks merge conflict

Great Developer Podcasts For Your Commute

I'm fortunate enough to live in a relatively small city and have a commute that generally never takes longer than 15-20m. Nevertheless, a few years ago I began listening to podcasts to more actively fill in the noise gap while sitting in traffic. I've found

community

Reflection on the Microsoft MVP Summit 2016

Now that I have had the chance to spend a bit of time with my loved ones after the mentally and physically exhausting experience that is the Microsoft MVP Summit, I can share a few of my thoughts on this year's event. Less Code, More Connection. With Microsoft&

community

It's been quiet. Too quiet.

What's been up? You may have noticed that this blog has been rather quiet recently. Don't worry, I've noticed too. This has primarily been due a perfect storm of events, which I'll skim over throughout this post. 1. My one-year old

community

Family++; Quiet Around Here.

As you may have noticed, things have been a bit quite over the past few months on here but I can honestly say that life itself has not been. I’ve been performing a very delicate balancing act between work, community things and most important of all, my personal life.

asp.net community

A Deeper Look Into Open Source .NET Development

In November, Microsoft began an initiative [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/somasegar/archive/2014/11/12/opening-up-visual-studio-and-net-to-every-developer-any-application-net-server-core-open-source-and-cross-platform-visual-studio-community-2013-and-preview-of-visual-studio-2015-and-net-2015.aspx] towards

community

Go Back to School with Pluralsight (for 72 Hours)

Pluralsight [http://www.pluralsight.com/] has long been one of the best resources that you can find if your work deals with anything in the realm of technology. I’ve been an advocate of it for many years now and I can honestly say that its courses are as close

asp.net visual-studio community

.NET Becomes Open Source and Cross-Platform

This morning, the announcements made at Microsoft’s Connect() event in New York [http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Visual-Studio/Connect-event-2014] have been rippling through the web and the effects of these announcements are likely going to be felt for years to come. This post will cover some

asp.net community

ASP.NET vNext Community Stand-up Series

I just thought I would post a quick recommendation to any readers out there with an interest in the upcoming vNext release for ASP.NET. Scott Hanselman [https://twitter.com/shanselman] recently began a weekly web series with various members of the ASP.NET Development team detailing the progression of

community

No April Fooling: Officially a Microsoft MVP.

April 1st is a day that is frequently dedicated to pranks, bogus news and tomfoolery. Generally keeps everyone’s shields of skepticism on high alert and I consider myself to fall into this category. So I have to say that when I received an e-mail from Microsoft with the

community

A Year of Giving Back to the Development Community

Earlier this year I began this blog as part of a News Years resolution to give back [http://rion.io/2013/02/11/a-resolution-to-give-back/] to all of the communities that have helped me become a successful developer and I am proud to say that it was

community

Vacation and Technology Hiatus

You may have noticed that this place has been rather inactive during the month of May and trust me, I have noticed as well. With numerous projects nearing completion and wrapping up, a vacation to the Caribbean and a break from all digital means was much needed. I hope to

community

State of the Union : Blogging, Involvement and Future Goals

Well it has been a bit over two months since I launched this site and began my trek of giving back and I will say that I am still having fun doing it. I thought I would write up a quick summary of how things are going and where I

community

My name is Rion and I have a Problem

Earlier this month, I began this blog and additionally started a mission to contribute [http://rion.io/2013/02/11/a-resolution-to-give-back/] to all of the great communities that have helped make my professional life a bit easier. Everything has been going better than I could have