Pocket Primer & Me

You can find me on:

Hi! I’m Julie. I created the Pocket Primer blog several years ago to write about my experiences using a Pocket PC that ran an early version of the Windows Mobile OS. At the time, I only wanted to create a place where I could organize and document the information I gleaned from the forums, blogs, and websites that I’d visited, so I bought the PocketPrimer.com domain and started writing articles. Later on I shared links to my articles in the forums that I frequented. Over time the collection of articles that I published on the blog expanded into other areas and the reader base for my articles grew.

My blog and the contributions I made on the HP IPAQ and Microsoft user forums lead to my being awarded as a Microsoft MVP (Windows Mobile & Windows Phone) from 2008 to 2017.

Over the years I used many different makes and models of mobile devices. Microsoft’s mobile operating system changed from Windows Mobile 2003 to Windows Mobile 5, 6, 6.1, 6.5, then to Windows Phone 7, 8, 8.1 and finally Windows 10 Mobile. I was there for all of it and I loved every mobile device I owned. By the time Microsoft scrapped the Windows Phone operating system I had switched over to using Android devices and was using my second Android phone.

When I started Pocket Primer I was teaching in the business school at Georgia State University. My educational background trained me to be a data scientist and about nine years ago I left teaching to work as an informatics analyst for a company that develops regenerative and therapeutic products from human placental tissue. I spend most of my time mining large databases, and much of my research has been published in peer reviewed articles.

My passion for mobile devices has faltered and waned over the years, but I still use mobile devices. Nowadays I’m just not so captivated by them. As my working life has changed, so have my technical and professional interests. My focus and much of my attention has turned towards learning about and pursuing these new interests and I haven’t devoted any time to writing articles for the blog.

I’ve thought a lot about what I want from a mobile device, how I want to use cloud services, how much time I want to spend on social media. I’ve taken some action to move my use of these technologies to align better with my technical and professional goals as well as my personal values.

I’ve consolidated my Pocket Primer and FunFoodLife domains here, and I’m ready to start writing articles again. The pocket primer related articles I plan to write will be focused in 4 areas:

1. Analytical Tools: As an data scientist, I use SQL as well as other analytical tools every day. I’m learning new things about these tools all of the time and I’ll use the blog to help me organize and document the techniques I learn when using these tools.
2. Mobility: I use an Android phone and I have a chromebook so I’ll be writing about the apps I use and how I use these devices.
3. Cloud Services: I love how the cloud is device neutral and facilitates device independence by allowing easy access to our data as we move from device to device to device. Not all cloud services are the same, and I’ll write about and critique the several different cloud based services that I use.
4. Microsoft / Windows: I use Windows computers and Windows desktop software every day in both my personal and professional life, so I may publish a few articles about Windows, Microsoft Office and some of the other software I use on my computers.

I’m not a fan of subscription services and prefer to own the software I use so you probably won’t see much about services like Microsoft Office 365.