Nothing motivates me more than a good cup of coffee. If you have something you want and need my help, there's almost no better way to get my attention than with a good cup. I prefer Island or African coffees, light roast to me brings out the rich flavor. I like it black with no sugar or cream to mess it up. -- Randy Hilgers, Founder - Nvsi.com, SofTutor Learning, 321Learn.com, WorldTraining.org, SofTutorKids.com
Finished v3 (12/17/14) of MSDN was 70+ titles next update 6 mths or so.
SofTutor for MSDN - I wanted to learn c# better. Usually I sketch the ideas out and Jack takes the ball and runs with it. Although from time to time I want to tweak something myself so I hack their code to test my ideas. I stumbled upon, Bob Tabor's free training on channel9, downloaded the content and linked it into SofTutor Enterprise to teach me then I thought, why not just link the original content into SofTutor, a few tweaks later we have the proto type for v3.5 sure enough, be cool to have v4 but its too much of a jump.
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When I'm not busy and have a good cup of joe its easy to add more to msdn. Today we'll probably make it and I'm starting the day off with light hawaiian blend (prefer pure kona but its close). Anyways I'm updating and adding 4 more titles to MSDN project.
See something you want let me know, no promises but there is a way to get my attention!
Favorites - Light Roast, Kenya AA, Kona
Like Intelligencia vacuum method but use a standard drip pot, filtered water and fine grinder.
I tend to drink my coffee a little weaker so I can have more cups.
Distractions - kids, girlfriend, outdoor activities, movies, pc video games, youtube (independent film makers), work, ideas
I cut the cable years ago and don't miss it at all, antenna works great when I need to catch a game.
15 Min of Fame: At 5 years old I was chosen and played the Grand Prize Game on Bozo Circus, couldn't get beyond bucket #3, used up about 4 min of my 15 minutes. Was interviewed for Embracing Dyslexia Film another 6 minutes but I was cut out of the movie. Do I get my minutes back?
twitter: @whatsupwthat
321Learn.com (bored one day wrote the website in PERL (cygwin on windows w activestates perl) in a few hours using amazon webservices, generated 800+ pages). My daughter, girlfriend and I made 5.5 hrs of free Windows 8 Training in time for Microsoft's 10/26/12 release. Updated the site while at Panera (not nuts about their coffee, like light roast better) added 1700 more pages.
321Learn was a dream of mine in the late 1990's although family issues ... and it never worked out. Steve Keller did a great logo in 2001 and I always wanted to use it, years ago I got the site authorwear.com to make cool gear for our independent authors.
Like our Windows 8 training buy it for offline use $9.95 proceeds support my daughter Dana who is at U of IL, Champaign
Short History: started nvsi in 1994, raised some money, sold SofTutor v1 in 1995 CAD to the Engineering, Manufacturing and Design Industries, grew the company to 11 employees, until family issues caused me to take a 4 year leave of absense (2003-2007) to care for my kids (then 3 & 7) as a single parent. Convinced two ex employees to work for free and we started again in 2007.
We released SofTutor v3 in Sept 2008, banks collapsed, Oct 2008 thanks Hank!
Any donations are sure appreciated but not required.
If you like my work and buy me a cup of coffee ... via paypal donation (cup of joe, beans ... ) $0.99 (7/11 Coffee), $1.29 (McDonnald's Coffee), $1.79 (Dunkin Donuts), $1.95 (Panera), $2.10 (Starbucks**), Caribou, Peets, Intelligentsia, ... or be my new best friend and get me an lb or 100% Kona light roast! ;-)
What should we make now?
Special thanks to Jenna, Dana, Diane T., Dave & Jan for putting up with my long hours or being motivated to work in the middle of the night because I have an idea. Beginning to feel like "the cats in the cradle" song by Harry Chapin. When I'm on a roll at work I tend to put things off for tomorrow.
In memory of Diane Hilgers, Jenny Martin, Art Rasmussen Sr., Styles Cobb, Dave & Jean Hilgers; Howard Gardiner, Stephen Keating and Bill Dempkowski (our first corporate customer 1996 at Honeywell/UOP who saw the potential to use SofTutor for technical support).
** Not nuts about Starbucks Coffee, in 1996, NVSI sold a personal user license of SofTutor for MicroStation 3D for $110 and shortly after in 1997 we sold MicroStation 2D for $149 to Starbuck Coffee Corporate Headquarters in Seattle, WA. We told the buyer he should really buy a corporate license, so he could train more users he said he just wanted to try one license. We called him back 6 months later to see if he wanted to upgrade to a 23 user license and he said no why would he, he already passed our software around and trained all 23 users for the price of one with no reguard to our software licensing agreement. Furthermore he was quite rude to us on the phone. As a small business at that time (pre web) starting up, you raise hundreds of thousands of dollars, figure out pricing per person or your pricing then hope that people abide by your license agreements. When they don't its really tough for small companies, we saved Starbucks over $3000 per person in training costs with our SofTutor Software ($1500 per person / per class manufacturer training) or $72,000 in costs and all they could pay for was one $110 & $149 license. It's kind of like expecting to be able to get free refils on Starbucks coffee as long as you keep the paper cup which could last for weeks. While Starbucks is not alone, most companies eventually upgraded. I think license misuse cost us 7 full-time jobs in the early days. Please be considerate to license agreements. Although this is a free product there are other SofTutor products that are licensed, hopefully their reasonably priced based on the value you receive.