Attending Dreamforce '14

I had the good fortune of being able to attend Dreamforce '14, the Salesforce conference in San Francisco, and get an up-close look at their products, vendors and training. The size of the conference was so massive, it took over several blocks and was definitely felt throughout the city. Every day had something memorable and important. I can now brag that I attended events with Marc Benioff, Tony Robbins, The Beach Boys, Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, Bruno Mars, Will.i.am, and more. One of the common themes you can observe is commitment to the  platform: there were many big companies (such as Accenture and Deloitte) that had invested heavily to integrate with Salesforce, and this conference was a way to reinforce this momentum and keep it growing.

Experimenting with d3.js

I had a chance to experiment with d3.js, one of many Javascript libraries that can create awesome data visualization diagrams by using  HTML, SVG and CSS. When I saw the gallery of examples in GitHub I wanted to try every single one. Setting up the library locally was very easy, and trying out the first tutorials was addictive and rewarding. Coming from a background of traditional Javascript, I had a to stretch my mind to adjust to a new way of thinking, and I was able to produce some interesting results. However, to be really good at using this library you need to be willing to invest a lot of your time, and also be a ninja with JavaScript arrays. If you have the time and the inclination, it's an interesting library that I found easy to learn but hard to master.

Book: Against The Gods by Peter Bernstein

I read this book in Kindle form in January of 2014.

Why did I choose to read this book? Normally I choose business topics simply to learn about certain area. In this case I saw an ad for this book, about probability analysis and risk, which to the unfamiliar it might sound boring. I decided to try it because I might learn something interesting, and the book was much better than I expected.