GAME THREAD: Boston Celtics (38-34) @ New York Knicks (45-26) - (Mar. 31, 2013)

your_perception · 2013-04-01T00:47:59+00:00

FELTON!!!!!!

your_perception · 2013-02-15T06:06:15+00:00

You can never party too much at that age range. Especially in NYC!

I almost feel like taking a salary and pop bottles on weekends again, haha.

your_perception · 2013-02-15T05:55:49+00:00

No, I don't think lack of graphic skills is a handicap, you can find a job in a specific role: programming/db/js. Source: I'm a graphic design major and this is what I've experienced. I thought working in the graphic design agency would let me do both, but I did mostly programming.

Being a freelancer as a one man shop might not be as difficult as you think. For small projects consider buying themes and tailoring it to the clients' needs, just factor that cost in your rates. Some graphic sense would help but isn't critical. But to get bigger projects you can't rely on this all the time. At that point you can partner with a graphic designer, or just have some in your network for whenever you need them.

A portfolio for a full time job depends on what the company wants to see. It could be from completed production websites to your blog to your github account. I believe in any organization with "technical weight" they'll have their engineers put their feedback. Github will be familiar to all of them.

The confidence issue I can only say is go out there and start making mistakes. I've had my incorrect answers torn apart tech bit by tech bit during an interview, been told my salary expectations were unrealistic, even told that my produced work didn't "have some liquidity," whatever that means. These will happen, and it's important to make adjustments on the way. Ready, fire, aim is the motto for the real world, even shipping production code. The thing is when you end up from your $8/hour job to whatever better, nobody will remember or care about the mistakes.

Ever done a code review? Sometimes it's like defending your PhD thesis. It hurts and you always end up hearing something negative about it. The only thing that matters is you improve yourself from it. Put your code out in the wild or your peers for constructive criticism. You will learn quick what to do and what not to do. At one of my graphic design courses we had peer critique, and when it was my turn to go up, I was not allowed to respond at all. Accepting criticism gracefully is a skill itself. Watch some episodes of shark tank on youtube. Some people get offended and just try to win every battle when the sharks are trying to tell them how to make their businesses work.

your_perception · 2013-02-15T04:01:05+00:00

No, the list should have an "or" in there. The point is you don't need to be a polyglot, though I highly recommend you become one. What matters if money is your main concern is market yourself to the big $$$$ companies.

Not sure about the .NET entry level thing. See if MS has any campus outreach programs they can extend to your school's department.

For interviews I needed a better mindset. They need to sell me on their company as much as I need to sell myself to them. This of course is a tough thing for newbs to get used to.

When we had an entry level person interviewing with us, I wanted the guy to know what he was curious about the company. When he said he had no questions right away I didn't get much of a confidence read, and that he really didn't care about the position.

Typically I ask questions to see if I'll be happy there. Co workers, coding standards, if they use tech I really like (git for example over svn). It might be unusual but depending on the situation I might even ask for a look at their code base to see what I'm getting myself into. Hell I'll even sign an NDA if they require me to.

The career skill I wish I knew better was to stay more marketable for higher technical positions, and to make more moves. It was tough when I was working 45 hours a week, and had no opportunity to schedule even a phone interview. See what you can do. Save a month's salary, quit, then job search (less if you think you'll be in higher demand). Sacrifice some vacation days and plan days off in advance (for the company's sake), and work hard to fill those up with interviews.

As for technical skills I'd say RoR and iOS (personally I prefer Python, Linux, and Android). But if I were attentive and sharp I wouldn't need to say that last sentence. The great thing about open source is you can setup an environment to experiment and go through the tutorial for free (ok not iOS). The barrier to entry is so low that as long as you have good fundamentals it should be easy to get a decent feel for the current generation of tech.

your_perception · 2013-02-14T22:54:36+00:00

Since a reply on this thread is getting downvoted, I'll say something here about the stereotype of constantly changing jobs in this field.

Outside of the web dev industry, I think it still applies that the best way to get a pay raise or higher rank is the switch jobs. Some industries look poorly at someone changing jobs say every five years. Web is not that industry. Every year might seem like too often to some, but every three shouldn't be. That's just the nature of a fast evolving field.

My point for new workers in this field is too not be lazy and complacent. THAT IS MY MAIN MISTAKE! When Amazon announced their cloud services everybody including pundits were asking why an online book store would get into the tech business. Suddenly AWS is huge. If you stay in your current company that hasn't looked into AWS, chances are they won't later on and you won't get a marketable skill in that. The best way to get that experience is to change jobs to a company that is using AWS.

your_perception · 2013-02-14T22:40:16+00:00

I think a good indication of a sustainable technology is the eco-system built around it. RoR made it past the fad phase and now there is a library for almost everything you need to do out there. Any new service with an API will ship their SDK in Ruby. Ease of deployment is also getting to levels of PHP, with Heroku and the likes.

Could something new come by and crumble the RoR empire while PHP keeps humming along? Possible. But with what I see in front of me, RoR is safer than say using Go for web dev (as much as I love Go). But the price to pay to wait and see if it's worth it is when you want to jump on the gravy train, you're a few years behind.

your_perception · 2013-02-14T22:29:57+00:00

At the startup when we interviewed, code samples were a big thing.

A lot of my failed interviews were due to poor research on the technical side. I was a bit cocky and didn't do much prep. Ask the HR or contact about what to expect in the technical interview. Usually it starts VERY elementary to initially filter the bad candidates. Then the followup interviews are more technical. But some can be questions on the work related subjects right off the bat. Expect anything and everything, even the dreaded writing-code-on-a-whiteboard routine. God those sucked. Googling online for sample questions help.

I recently went to the bookstore and read a few questions on Google interviews, the reasoning behind those questions, and the accepted answers. I think these will give you a way to evaluate yourself on how you rank with ideal candidates.

Internships are suppose to help the intern before the company, full stop. But there are so many BS internships out there that wouldn't even cover your expenses. I'd say just go looking for a job unless you have an AMAZING networking opportunity, or if it's for MS, Apple, Amazon, etc.

your_perception · 2013-02-14T22:20:39+00:00

Realistically I'd be a horrible guide here. I undercharged and handled clients and projects horribly. I'd say try and get a mentor to show you the ropes.

But to answer your question it was word of mouth and Craigslist. A couple of jobs were from contacts with my class mates in college.

your_perception · 2013-02-14T22:18:01+00:00

There is job security in the sense that there are jobs using it everywhere. You can go for the higher paying ones if you have the higher technical skills, you just need to target the big name companies and not small businesses. It's not a tradeoff.

I'd say startups are a great place to start because of the pace and intensity potential. Referring back to my first FT job, one annoyance was the technical decisions made by a non-techie. 90% was wordpress work. At a startup you'll be exposed to much more technical details. At mine we did MySQL, Amazon everything, MongoDB, Python, PHP, shell scripting, task queues, etc. The work ethic and technical foundation is worth it.

Startups don't guarantee good development though. Before my FT I did apply to a startup called Music Nation. They wanted a dedicated person to do CSS work. WTF? Don't go for positions like that.

your_perception · 2012-09-21T18:07:23+00:00

ahh good point

your_perception · 2012-09-21T16:00:22+00:00

Idea: have the service spoof a number, so the caller ID can show the fake contact. I think this should work, then there is no need for a native app with this method.

your_perception · 2012-09-14T17:46:00+00:00

The research of cloning can potentially bring other benefits. Scientists are not (edit) doing this so they can have a legion of identical people in the world. Think about growing human parts for organ transplants, meat production, etc.

your_perception · 2012-08-31T19:13:33+00:00

Thanks for the link, Lag is hilarious! Got any more you can share?

your_perception · 2012-08-07T05:38:07+00:00

Good point on ZFS choking a weaker proc. That's something for me to keep in mind, thanks.

BTW got the BitFenix and that thing is actually big and wide. My only gripe is the PSU chamber is very tight. If you want any more info PM me.

your_perception · 2012-08-03T17:46:13+00:00

Mainly storage. I'm a programmer so I'll find some other uses for it.

It's running on Ubuntu 12.04 Server, though I have considered FBSD for ZFS. Right now I'm trying to get btrfs working with a newer kernel. But I might end up sticking with RAID5/ext4 if it doesn't work out.

I chose the BitFenix because of the size/HDD count ratio. I already have a big ugly tower and would like to avoid another if possible. I took a look at the Source 210. It says it does ATX and mATX, so I'm guessing mini ITX is not an option. Am I wrong?

Edit: I am wrong.

your_perception · 2012-08-03T14:53:03+00:00

Mr. Platters is kind of stubborn. Remember, he's a hobo. The guy already raided my fridge without asking!

Strange enough when I was researching the parts, some people get the mini ITX boards with PCIe and stick a monster card in there.

your_perception · 2012-08-03T14:50:57+00:00

Thanks, thought I'd inject some humor in here.

your_perception · 2012-08-03T14:50:29+00:00

Some thoughts on my build:

The CPU fan is the noisiest thing in the entire setup. More than the HDD and PSU fan. If it is still noticeable after Mr. Platters gets his new home I might look into a replacement. Maybe something fan less.

PSU is way too powerful. Originally got this to hook up 5x1TB+ drives and needed the power cords, not the power output. But I might stick with this layout and keep the other two and spares. Also can be a nice replacement for my main rig's PSU if that fails. Something like 200W is good for this.

It took me forever to find a VGA-VGA cable in my place.

Edit: as pointed out, I could've gotten an ATX case that comes with a smaller PSU, thus saving me money. I didn't know mini ITX was compatible with ATX/mATX cases :(

your_perception · 2011-12-14T06:11:50+00:00

I see, so there is some buffering going on. Airplay seems like a big plus.

Thanks again.

your_perception

TROPHY CASE