#bitmakerlabs

[toplessfive]

Top five schools to become a digital nerd

Nowadays it’s essential to know the basics of technology, design and marketing. Fortunately, Toronto is a place to be as there are plenty of schools that will help you to become a tech savvy. Learn from the industry professionals and never miss that perfect job opportunity again. FYI, all schools on the list below have free workshops.

Brainstation – is located on King Street West with a cozy café on the ground floor where you can enjoy delicious drip coffee. Brainstation always invites the best professionals for the workshops. I’ve been to couple of them myself. One of my favourites was a workshop on SEO. It was very helpful with a lot of real life examples. So, if you are into marketing like me, you should check out Brainstaion.

Lighthouse Labs – is a co-working space. It is known for the amazing bootcamps for non-tech people who want to become developers. So, if you aim for Google or at least Pivotal Labs this is the right place to start with.

Bitmaker Labs – is similar to Brainstation but more tech oriented. I went to their intro to Web development and UX/UI workshops. Even though I had no experience in this field I was able to keep up with the assignments and got very good results at the end.  

Ladies learning code – is another pace where you can become a tech savvy. This school organises a lot of free workshops for ladies who want to code.

Lynda – last but not least is this online school. This is definitely my favourite on.  First of all, it’s an online course, and so you can chose the time that works the best for you. Second of all, Toronto Library card gives you free access to Lynda.com. I’ve already completed the entire Photography course, some Illustrator and Digital Marketing courses. So far, I’m 100 % satisfied with these online courses.

[tobeaprogrammer]

End of Week 3

So today ends the week 3 of the 9 week bootcamp at Bitmaker Labs. I'd have to say it has been quite a journey so far. We started week 1 with Ruby then week 2 with more Ruby and HTML/CSS and this week was the start of Ruby on Rails. I've been trying to absorb as many information as possible and I'd have to admit, my brain hurts by the end of the day.  I've been very fortunate to have very AWESOME and helpful classmates. SHOUT OUT to cohort 5!! Everyone is willing to help and when you're put in an environment where everyone is motivated and knows what they want out of it, it just makes you work even harder. 

I was featured as the Bitmaker Spotlight on blog.bitmakerlabs.com!! Check it out at http://blog.bitmakerlabs.com/2014/01/28/bitmaker-spotlight-celia-dang/ Although it was a pretty bad picture of myself because I was super tired that day....but I am very grateful to be featured on our blog! YAY!

I'd like to end this by throwing this out there: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/19-startling-photos-of-the-snow-in-florida -- this is literally how I felt moving out here to Toronto from Los Angeles!! Snow and freezing temperatures is quite foreign to me.

But, nonetheless, as my classmate would put it, Keep Calm and Code On!!

[bolobits]

Pre-work

I still haven't received my pre-work from @bitmakerlabs, in the mean time im working on @flatironschool pre-work check it out http://prework.flatironschool.com/ . So far i got the hang of html and css, but still having a bit of trouble with the rest ( terminal, ruby, javascript etc....)  

  ONe day at a time

[bolobits]

New journey

Hello everyone, 

My name is Ralph, I am 19 and will be skipping a semester of university to learn how to code. I just got accepted into the Fall '13 cohort at BItmakerlabs. This is going to be very exciting and also a unique experience. I will be updating this blog weekly till the program starts and everyday once the program starts. I am currently waiting for the pre-work from the people at bitmakerlabs. I have been learning about html, css, how to use the terminal and some javascript. I have been using flatiron school as my, sort of syllabus.

After the program i really do not know what to do, wether to get a job or finish my degree. I am leaning on working as developer and finishing my degree part-time. My long shot goal is to get a job in the San francisco and Palo Alto area, I would like to experience the culture and eventually bring that vibe to Canada. TIll then I still have to learn to code and have to put in a lot of work. 

If this sounded interesting, please join me in my journey to learning code,

see yaa

"carpe diem, sieze the day boys, make your life extraordinary" 

[ikatha]

LifeIsGood #bitmakerlabs

[ikatha]

Blurry Visualizations

Currently at the Bitmaker Labs space. It's late. I've changed the timestamp to protect the innocent.

Last one standing, although most sane individuals have gone home and worked out their applications. Muahahahaha! The sane ones left Ashley and I to hatch our evil plans.  Thankfully Shane "accidentally" hit the light switch.  Otherwise we'd be working in backlight. Like they did in the "good ol' days!" 

Ashley and I worked on an amazing project which we made immense progress on the first day. We put our research to full force and discovered a few ways to visualize SVG (scalable vector graphics) to take on form, respond to basic mouse events.  It was some cool stuff and we moved past that quickly because we had a lot to accomplish with our modelling system which I've code named "NodeTok".  Nodetok is supposed to do two things.  It's supposed to create nodes within your Rails app, and then show you how they Tok--talk to each other. Pardon my jQuery-gon (sorry about that one). That was TERRIBLE.

In any case, we worked on the problem until about 1 tonight 10 pm, when we decided to break away and get some sleep.  

Saner minds prevailed, but I'm still at the space, listening to the honking of cabs in the entertainment district, late on a Saturday night thinking of a quote from one of my favourite Pixar movies, "The Bubbles!!! The Bubbles!!!"  I'm determined.  If nothing else, I'll have a great story to tell about the time I was in #bithack, and I coded all night long.  

I hope I can stand up tomorrow, but right now, I feel pumped as I jump into D3 Visualizations knowing full well that we're working on something pretty effing amazing. And it's really pretty fun!

- hvt  aka "Nerdlinger"

PS: Hilariously I got an email as I was writing this from Ashley saying, "Dude! I'm still thinking about that thing! FUCK!"  

I laughed my ass off! If he only knew!