WRITING & EDITING
This section takes a look at some examples of my written work. From my first published article in The Big Issue to blog articles, newsletters, and creative stories, I have enjoyed my written work as much as my radio and video work.
OfferZen Articles: Edited
As the Community Content Editor at the international tech marketplace, OfferZen, I collaborated with software developers to publish 35+ articles about their experiences, advice and knowledge around various tech topics. Below are the top three performing blog posts that I helped shape and edit along with the author.
Jethro Muller
Automating the pain away: Solving common issues to improve team workflow
"As development teams grow, so does the number of new joiners encountering the same local development issues. Solving these issues manually can be time-consuming and expensive. That is why we at Stitch took the top 10 most common issues from new joiners and automated their detection and solutions - saving us time and money. Here is how we did it."
Koen Verburg
Navigating canary deployment in Kubernetes: a cookie vs header approach
"Sometimes, new features need to be tested in production and can’t be simulated on staging environments. Luckily, a canary deployment allows us to have a new version in production which is separate from the customer’s version, so we are able to test new features without the worry of customers seeing it. Here are two of the ways I use to set up a canary deployment."
Guilherme Pinheiro
4 DevOps best practices to speed up feature delivery
"In software development, we are always releasing new features as quickly as possible. But a feature is only complete once it is operating as intended without requiring excessive escalations or unanticipated work. DevOps helps to optimise the speed of delivering a feature while making sure that it remains of good quality and does not require significant rework."
OfferZen Articles: Written
While my main role at OfferZen was to help guide software developers through the writing process from conception to publication, I would also occasionally publish articles of the OfferZen platform that I authored myself. Here are my top three performing blog posts.
Chris Booth
Essential well-being benefits to offer your employees
"Investing in employee well-being is a great way to keep your employees engaged and happy - and ultimately retain your best workers. Here we will look at the types of well-being benefits you can offer your developers and why it’s worth implementing them."
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Chris Booth
Prompts to practice your developer interview using ChatGPT
"Interviews are a chance to show an employer why they should hire you. This can make them feel intimidating and scary. To feel prepared for an interview, it’s always best to practice, and ChatGPT is a readily available tool that can help us effectively prep for every stage of the interview process."
Chris Booth
4 developer-tested ways to get started with project-based learning
Learning new skills and upskilling your talents is critical in boosting your developer career. Project-based learning (PBL) is one of the methods we can use to learn new skills, level up and improve our developer portfolios. Here, we’ll look at articles on how developers have utilised PBL to ‘learn by doing’."
RX Radio Newsletter
December 2019
Editor's Note
"2019 has been an incredible year for RX Radio. Not only have we reached the 100 mark in the number of reporters we have trained, but we have also interviewed many special guests, attended fantastic events (including a conference in London) and even hosted our first-ever RX Radio Youth Music Festival. There are so many highlights from such a jam-packed year that it’ll be difficult to mention them all, but I would like to chat about two very special events for the station.
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The biggest interview of RX Radio’s history took place earlier this year on Mandela Day when the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, visited the station and was interviewed by our talented reporters. For us, this visit was a momentous one in RX Radio’s history, with the Child and Young Reporters being allowed to ask questions of the most powerful man in the country. While I was not there on the day personally, it was amazing to hear the excitement in the Reporters’ voices as they recounted meeting President Ramaphosa. If you want to find out more on the President’s visit, then check out the September Newsletter where Talitha and Saadiq wrote about their experiences of the interview..."
RX Radio Blog
25 November 2019
Day of Rememberance
"The Day of Remembrance is an event that is hosted every year at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital. This day honours the World War II South African veterans who donated two days’ worth of their pay towards what was to become the hospital. The idea was triggered by the plight of children affected by the horrors of war and the veterans’ vision was to create a children’s hospital as a living memorial in honour of their fallen comrades.
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The event took place on Friday the 8th of November in front of the hospital near the Peter Pan statue that overlooks the entrance. There were a number of speeches, prayers, and musical numbers that celebrated the sacrifice of those soldiers to make the dream of Red Cross Children’s Hospital a reality. To end off the ceremony, wreaths of flowers were laid by veterans, staff and attendees at the base of the Peter Pan statue..."
Booth In Japan
05 March 2017
7 Crazy Japanese Superstitions (that might offend)
"I’m sure we’ve all been guilty of some cultural faux pas or other. Whether it’s not saying ‘God bless you’ after someone sneezing, opening an umbrella indoors, or unknowingly using bad table manners, we’ve all done something to make others uncomfortable. And in Japan, there are many cultural faux pas that you have to be careful of. Now, while some of them come from standard etiquette (like eating on the train is a no-no), there are those that are based in superstition. So, after learning about some of these the hard way, I’ve decided to make a list of superstitions that you should be careful of when coming to Japan.Of course, there are plenty of other strange beliefs (such as covering up your bellybutton during a storm), but the ones below generally cover superstitions that you have to remember not to break..."
The Big Issue
October 2009
Beyond the School Walls
"Extra-murals are an important part to any well-rounded education. They allow for the development of certain skills and life lessons which impact student’s lives and create a sense of community. Unfortunately this aspect of school life often goes undeveloped and unstaffed. This is where the Extra-Mural Education Project (EMEP) steps in: they help with the development of extra-mural programmes at schools by training teachers to create holistic and sustainable extra-mural activities.EMEP is a non-profit organisation that is able to see the potential that South African schools have in being transformed into community hubs which allows for “lifelong learning, recreation and support” for both students and adults alike. EMEP is trying to aid in the creation of these communities by using extra-mural programmes as a source of support and recreation for students..."
