.NET Information center: Career

Showing posts with label Career. Show all posts

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Man Makes a Living Scraping the Sidewalk for Gold and Diamonds

Believe it or not, the streets of New York really are paved with gold, but you have to get down and dirty to get your hands on it. For urban prospector Raffi Stephanian this isn’t an issue, just a great way to pay the bills.

Using only a Styrofoam cup, a butter knife and tweezers, 43-year-old Raffi scours the streets of New York’s Diamond District searching for gold, diamonds and other precious jewels. You’ve probably walked on 47th Street countless times and didn’t realize the riches that were right there in front of you, but don’t beat yourself up about it, Raffi was probably the only one who ever thought there was something valuable on the sidewalk. And that only because he worked as a stone setter, years ago, when he found gold scraps on the floor of a diamond exchange. He realized if he could find gold inside, then people must have carried it outside, as well.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

7 Important Creative Thinking Skills

We were on a call recently with an extended creative team generating ideas for client videos. During breaks, I found myself jotting down examples of important creative thinking skills the team was exhibiting. These seven creative thinking skills demonstrated during the call are ones which benefit both those who display them and those working with them too:

1. Suspending advocacy of your own idea to push for another person’s concept.

It’s helpful to be able to come into a creative situation and demonstrate your willingness to champion another person’s idea. It can open the way to getting others to support your thinking, as well.

2. Putting your own idea to the same test you apply to an idea from someone else.

When it comes to your own ideas, it’s easy to be a hypocrite and apply all kinds of hurdles to other ideas while letting your own thinking slide by unchallenged in your own mind. Just one thing to remember: don’t become somebody known for doing this!

3. Combining two different ideas and making them better (not muddled) as one idea.

Often (maybe “almost always”) compromising on creative ideas leads to something nobody likes, recognizes, or thinks satisfies the original objective. Being able to dissect ideas to pull out highlights and put them together as something new, however, is entirely different, and a great skill to have.

4. Letting someone else take “ownership” of your idea in order to build support for it.

This skill really tests whether you believe so strongly in an idea you’re willing to let someone else step up and take it on as their own idea to see it prevail. The key to seeing your idea win out can be letting somebody else be the vocal proponent for it.

5 reasons why side projects are good business

Side projects can be businesses or just-for-fun efforts that we do in our nonworking hours, usually out of some passion for the work. There are some risks associated with taking up side projects. For example, I have at least one friend who was fired partly because he spent too much time working on a side project, while I have at times previously picked up way too many side projects and ended up burned out as a result. However, despite the risks, I strongly believe that most of the time, side projects benefit both the individual and the employer.

Here are a few reasons why side projects make good business sense.

New skills. I love to use side projects as a way to stretch myself and learn new things that I wouldn’t normally do as a result of my regular work. In the past, I’ve had side projects where I co-founded a nonprofit to organize community technology events, co-founded a location-based startup, wrote a book about community, wrote a cookbook, started blogs and much more. Out of each of these efforts, I’ve learned many new skills that I’ve applied in my day job. I’ve personally benefited from each of these efforts, but the companies I’ve worked for have also benefited from the skills learned in my off-hours.
Connections and networking. Most of my side projects have given me an excuse to meet new people. I’ve made friends and valuable industry connections that I can talk to about new ideas or trends. Especially for those of us working in technology, many of these connections bleed over from one project or company to the next. Having additional contacts in your industry gives you a broader base of people to talk to about new side projects or interesting things that you are working on in your day job.
Sense of accomplishment. While many of us are lucky enough to have great jobs where we get a sense of accomplishment from our regular work, it isn’t always the case. There is nothing quite like launching a fun project to boost your overall mood and give you a sense of excitement. For me, the accomplishments from my side projects tend to have a positive impact on my regular job, too, since my improved mood makes me even more productive when it comes to other work. Employees with improved self-confidence from a big accomplishment can often become better workers in other areas.

The 20 Essential Habits of Highly Passionate People

I’ve always worked hard at whatever I’ve been doing. My work-ethic comes from doing what I enjoy, and not forcing myself to do something.

Highly passionate people aren’t just lucky, they share common characteristics. They work hard, they trust their intuition and they persevere.

I personally don’t see myself having any other options than following my passion. Without doing what I truly want, life would be without color, without joy and without meaning.

We all have the habits necessary, we just need to let them out.

1. Excitement

When I was in my late teens, I wasn’t even remotely familiar with terms like “follow your passion”, “listen to your heart” or “go with your intuition”. As the years have passed, these concepts have grown and I’ve realized that the only thing that matters is what I am excited about in this very moment. It’s far too easy for me to start questioning what I’m doing. Let’s take language learning for example. It’s easy for me to argue that it’s a waste of time. But in the end, what matters is how much I’m enjoying myself. You can never know where you’ll end up, so might as well enjoy the ride, right? We’ve been taught that logic is superior, but is it really? Life isn’t a game where all the variables are known, so there’s no way you can predict the future (unless you have special powers).

2. Courage

Courage is something you build up. When I was younger, I was afraid a lot more than I am now, but I didn’t let it control my life.

.NET Interview Questions 2; Answers

Describe the difference between a Thread and a Process?

--- Both are individual execution paths, but process timeslicing (and memory space) is enforced by the OS, while thread differentiation is enforced by applications.

What is a Windows Service and how does its lifecycle differ from a "standard" EXE?

--- Services are loaded by the operating system and run in contained process spaces detatched from user interaction; users logging on and off the system have no impact on them.

What is the maximum amount of memory any single process on Windows can address? Is this different than the maximum virtual memory for the system? How would this affect a system design?

--- Windows processes are allowed 4GB of virtual address space, regardless of the actual amount of memory on the machine. Windows x64 allows 16TB of address space.

What is the difference between an EXE and a DLL?

--- EXEs can be launched as processes by the operating system. DLL executable code must be invoked by an existing process.

What is strong-typing versus weak-typing? Which is preferred? Why?

--- Strong-typing refers to defining the specific type of a reference at compile time rather than at run time. This results in more efficient execution and memory optimizations at compile time, as well as reduces the chance of a programmer accidentally providing a value of a type another component wasn't expecting.

Corillian's product is a "Component Container." Name at least 3 component containers that ship now with the Windows Server Family.

--- Component containers implement the IContainer interface to wrap components, providing a meta-architecture for organizing, interacting and communicating with the components.

What is a PID? How is it useful when troubleshooting a system?

--- (Ambiguous) This could refer to either a Microsoft Product ID -- the unique key that brands each activatable component installed on a system -- or to a Process ID, which is a means of referring to a specific process in calls to the Windows API.

How many processes can listen on a single TCP/IP port?

--- One.

Posted via email from Jasper-Net

Sunday, June 19, 2011

How to (Fucking) Hire Developers

This is a topic that has really gotten out of hand. There are all sorts weighing in these days — along with far too much jowl waggling by middle managers and idealist super hackers.

So let’s cut the shit and get down to business, shall we? Here’s how to fucking hire a great developer:

1. Use fucking credentials.

I don’t know how the discussion has devolved to the point that this isn’t obvious. You’re not going to somehow probe the extent of a persons’ mental faculties by quizzing them on minutiae that literally nobody commits to memory. You judge a person based on what they’ve done before they land in your office. Why? Because it’s not possible to compress a college education or a product launch into a 30 minute blabberfest.

“Wah! Boo-hoo. College isn’t the real world. I can’t use no book learnin’ to straighten out our VB.NET calculator optimization plant!”

You are what’s wrong with the industry. The whole point of a college education is to demonstrate the ability to learn and excel at a high level. If a candidate distinguished herself in school, pay attention. For computer scientists (unlike, say, English majors) part of that training is legitimately practical: we learn how to engineer software using big-kid tools. Ask us about our projects and then decide if they’re credible.

The notion that the years we spent pounding on books and keyboards doesn’t count as much as writing bullshit browser plugins for $20/hour is flaming garbage. Disregarding students’ investment as mere rigmarole is equivalent to asserting that Gandhi went on hunger strikes because he wasn’t hungry. Many of us sacrificed for our education and you better damn well pay attention to it.

“Hurr-durr, what if a candidate slid by? Or earned bad grades? Or didn’t go to college? What then?”

Google Job Interview Questions

Google Job Interview Questions | (PM, SE, Testing, EM, AdWord)

Why do you want to join Google?
What do you know about Google's product and technology?
If you are Product Manager for Google's Adwords, how do you plan to market this?
What would you say during an AdWords or AdSense product seminar?
Who are Google competitors, and how does Google compete with them?
Have you ever used Google's products? Gmail?
What's a creative way of marketing Google's brand name and product?
If you are the product marketing manager for Google's Gmail product, how do you plan to market it so as to achieve 100 million customers in 6 months?

Google Interview Questions: Product Manager

How would you boost the GMail subscription base?
What is the most efficient way to sort a million integers?
How would you re-position Google's offerings to counteract competitive threats from Microsoft?
How many golf balls can fit in a school bus?
You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?
How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?
How would you find out if a machines stack grows up or down in memory?
Explain a database in three sentences to your eight-year-old nephew.
How many times a day does a clocks hands overlap?
You have to get from point A to point B. You don't know if you can get there. What would you do?
Imagine you have a closet full of shirts. It's very hard to find a shirt. So what can you do to organize your shirts for easy retrieval?
Every man in a village of 100 married couples has cheated on his wife. Every wife in the village instantly knows when a man other than her husband has cheated, but does not know when her own husband has. The village has a law that does not allow for adultery. Any wife who can prove that her husband is unfaithful must kill him that very day. The women of the village would never disobey this law. One day, the queen of the village visits and announces that at least one husband has been unfaithful. What happens?
In a country in which people only want boys, every family continues to have children until they have a boy. If they have a girl, they have another child. If they have a boy, they stop. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?
If the probability of observing a car in 30 minutes on a highway is 0.95, what is the probability of observing a car in 10 minutes (assuming constant default probability)?
If you look at a clock and the time is 3:15, what is the angle between the hour and the minute hands? (The answer to this is not zero!)
Four people need to cross a rickety rope bridge to get back to their camp at night. Unfortunately, they only have one flashlight and it only has enough light left for seventeen minutes. The bridge is too dangerous to cross without a flashlight, and it's only strong enough to support two people at any given time. Each of the campers walks at a different speed. One can cross the bridge in 1 minute, another in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes, and the slow poke takes 10 minutes to cross. How do the campers make it across in 17 minutes?
You are at a party with a friend and 10 people are present including you and the friend. your friend makes you a wager that for every person you find that has the same birthday as you, you get $1; for every person he finds that does not have the same birthday as you, he gets $2. would you accept the wager?
How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?
You have eight balls all of the same size. 7 of them weigh the same, and one of them weighs slightly more. How can you find the ball that is heavier by using a balance and only two weighings?
You have five pirates, ranked from 5 to 1 in descending order. The top pirate has the right to propose how 100 gold coins should be divided among them. But the others get to vote on his plan, and if fewer than half agree with him, he gets killed. How should he allocate the gold in order to maximize his share but live to enjoy it? (Hint: One pirate ends up with 98 percent of the gold.)
You are given 2 eggs. You have access to a 100-story building. Eggs can be very hard or very fragile means it may break if dropped from the first floor or may not even break if dropped from 100th floor. Both eggs are identical. You need to figure out the highest floor of a 100-story building an egg can be dropped without breaking. The question is how many drops you need to make. You are allowed to break 2 eggs in the process.
Describe a technical problem you had and how you solved it.
How would you design a simple search engine?
Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco.
There's a latency problem in South Africa. Diagnose it.
What are three long term challenges facing google?

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Be Your Own Bitch

Fred Wilson, a prominent figure in the venture capital/investment community was getting interviewed at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in front of a group of developers and entrepreneurs. As they were talking, the idea of applications for platforms (companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter) came up and Fred told a short story about his experiences with platforms:

Fred – My friend Seth Goldstein had a company called Social Media that built one of the first ad networks on Facebook, and one day Facebook decided they didn’t really want Social Media to exist, and they didn’t.
Interviewer: What message does that send out to other developers and start ups that they build on the platform? They build business on the platform and then they get the rug pulled out from under them”
Fred: I have a saying, Don’t be a Google Bitch, don’t be a Facebook Bitch, and Don’t be a Twitter Bitch. Be your own Bitch.

Besides providing a great little soundbite for tech blogs everywhere and momentarily stunning his interviewer, I think there’s a lot to learn from Fred’s point [you can watch the full interview here - good stuff at the 23 minute mark].

Whether you’re a developer or entrepreneur or not, I think it’s important to pay attention to this because the one thing I learned about business and life is that lessons can come from anywhere and truth always has applications beyond the field in which you initially encounter it. For instance, I can’t write a lick of code, but Fred’s statement is still incredibly relevant to me because it really comes down to five simple words.

Do what you really want to do.

In everything you do, you have a choice. Every time you delegate that freedom of choice to someone else, you’re voluntarily becoming dependent on them. In Fred’s words, you become someone’s bitch (for lack of a better term).

How to Bootstrap

In my 10+ years of running Internet companies, I've never raised a single dime, yet I've still gone on to sell three profitable companies and am currently on my fourth, Carbonmade. Bootstrapping is something I'm very familiar with, so I've gathered together some thoughts that should provide you a step-by-step process of going from idea to product to profitability. I have nothing against raising money — angel or venture capital — it's just not the process I'm most familiar with. How to bootstrap goes hand-in-hand with how to run a lean startup, so expect some crossover below.

Idea Generating

Idea generating is only slightly different when you're bootstrapping than when you're looking to raise money. The only important difference is: if you're planning to bootstrap your idea must have built-in revenue generating functionality from the get go. Building Twitter is off the table. You can't wait to hit scale before turning on the revenue features. That's why ideas around Software as a Service (SaaS) are so effective for bootstrapped companies, because you only need one customer to reach revenue — and, with inexpensive hosting costs, probably only a dozen or two to reach profitability.

Bootstrapped companies can't afford to wait around to reach a network effect. You need to start generating dollars as early as possible so that you can quit your day job or put a stop to the draining of your bank account as soon as possible. Bootstrapping startups don't have the luxury to wait around. So when generating an idea for your startup, toss out everything that doesn't involve charging a fee for at least some of your clients. Leave the ad revenue and crazy business model revenue streams to the startups with venture funding. That's just not your game to play.

Team Building

You can either come up with the idea first or the team first. I think it's fine to do it in either order, but it's probably best to come up with the idea before the team. Then you can build a team around the idea. When bootstrapping, you need to find a team that's willing to work for nothing and spend their off hours with you, so finding these types of people can take some searching. You're far more limited in your choices.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Why Great Ideas Fail

I ran a session at FOO camp ’11 on Why Great Ideas Fail. It was a chaotic session, but my goal of leaving with a list of reasons was a success, and here it is.

The crowd was tech and start-up heavy, so the list is shifted towards those pursuits. But this could be the start of a book project that more broadly explores the history of great ideas. Starting with fleshing out these categories better, and then finding good stories that illustrate ideas that failed for these reasons, as well as ideas that successfully overcame these challenges.

Meta-comment: Fascinating how many of these are opposite pairs of each other (e.g. gave up too soon, stayed with same idea for too long).

Follow up: If you were there, or not, and want to be updated if this project gets off the ground, leave a comment.

Why Great Ideas Fail:

Killed idea too soon

Stayed with idea for too long

Death (of person with the idea)

Not knowing target audience

Not Willing to experiment to find audience

Unwilling to change direction

Willful ignorance of economics

Overcoming organizational inertia

Not understanding the ecosystem the idea lives in

Inability to learn from microfailure

Fighting the last war

Giving up

Chindogu – solution causes more problems than it solves.

Randomness

Blamed marketing

Failed to pitch or communicate well

Not taking the idea far enough

Underestimating cultural limits

Underestimating dependencies

Balancing how world is vs. how world can be

Balancing Wants vs needs

Thanks to Val Aurora, I also got a list from attendees of personal reasons great ideas failed. Wide range of levels of specificity, but still interesting,

Specific failures people listed as their own:

Forcing something on people they don’t want

(more...)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

מרכז הפתרונות של SQL Server

שלום רב,

לטובת מנהלי בסיסי הנתונים מייקרוסופט העלתה את מרכז הפתרונות של SQL Server.

מטרת המרכז לרכז במקום אחד את כל הקישורים הדרושים לנו ביום יום.

המרכז מחולק למספר קטגוריות:

1. משאבים חדשים

2. שדרוג והעברה

3.כלים

4. בינה עסקית

5. קהילה

6. אפשרויות תמיכה

7. מחזור חיי תמיכה

מרכז הפתרונות רלוונטי לגירסאות הבאות של SQL Server ‏:2008 R2, 2008, 2005, 2000, 7.0

http://support.microsoft.com/ph/2855#tab0

Posted via email from Jasper-Net

SQL CASE statement examples

It is quite difficult to write a stored procedure or a function if you do not know or understand the SQL conditional processing statements. From an interview perspective, you should familiarize yourself with the conditional processing as well as the flow control statements.

The CASE expression is used to evaluate several conditions and return a single value for each condition. For example, it allows an alternative value to be displayed depending on the value of a column. A common use of the CASE expression is to replace codes or abbreviations with more readable values. This is also known as a Simple CASE expression.

Question: For a given product and category abbreviation, show the full category name using a CASE expression.

SELECT ProductNumber, Category =

CASE ProductLine

WHEN 'R' THEN 'Road'

WHEN 'M' THEN 'Mountain'

WHEN 'T' THEN 'Touring'

WHEN 'S' THEN 'Other sale items'

ELSE 'Not for sale'

END,

Name

FROM Product

ORDER BY ProductNumber;

Another use of CASE is to categorize data.

Question: Based on an item list price, show the price range for the item. The example below shows a searched CASE expression which evaluates a set of Boolean expressions to determine the result.

SELECT ProductNumber, Name, 'Price Range' =

CASE

WHEN ListPrice = 0 THEN 'Mfg item - not for resale'

WHEN ListPrice < 50 THEN 'Under $50'

WHEN ListPrice >= 50 and ListPrice < 250 THEN 'Under $250'

WHEN ListPrice >= 250 and ListPrice < 1000 THEN 'Under $1000'

ELSE 'Over $1000'

END

FROM Production.Product

ORDER BY ProductNumber ;

Posted via email from Jasper-Net

How I doubled the price of my software product – and sold ten times as many copies.

Decreasing the price of your software product doesn’t necessarily mean you will sell more copies, and increasing the price certainly doesn’t mean you will sell less: today we are sharing the story of a Windows software developer who, by increasing the price of his software, managed to significantly increase the number of licenses he sold.

The software developer who’s story we are telling wishes to remain anonymous – however to provide some context: the application is a consumer-focused productivity application (he does sell to a limited number of enterprise customers), it is b
eautifully designed and of very high quality. For the purposes of this tale, let’s call the developer ‘Gary’ and the software ‘XProductivity’.

Gary launched XProductivity in January 2011 after six months of development, he is an independent, bootstrapped developer and this is the first product he has launched himself (being a full time software engineer for a larger company). The product was originally available for $9.99. Upon launching the software, Gary emailed every technology blog and journalist he knew to find some media attention for his product, and it worked: a number of major technology blogs covered the launch, and web traffic peaked at 50,000 daily hits over the launch period. Unfortunately, while traffic to the website was great, sales figures were very low: a huge volume of customers were viewing the website and deciding not to purchase the product. In an attempt to resolve this, Gary spent weeks tweaking and then fully re-designing the website, but it had no effect: people simply weren’t buying the product.

By March 2011, Gary became desperate, and out of a desire to begin making some kind of real revenue from the product, he decided to double the price of the software to $19.99, hoping to sell to the same niche of particularly interested customers who were currently purchasing the product, but at this higher price. To his shock, sales of XProductivity immediately spiked, increasing to ten times the number of daily sales he was previously processing. Gary scanned his web analytics, trying to figure out where all these additional sales were coming from, or what kind of targeted media coverage the product had received. However, nothing was different: daily traffic figures were unchanged, and major sources of traffic were identical: the only change was the price, and that had causes sales to increase tenfold. These sales figures have remained constant for the past four months – it certainly isn’t a short term spike.

Rather than decreasing sales figures, doubling the price of his software product actually increased sales by a huge amount, and there is a very important explanation for this amazing tale:

For customers, cost still equals quality:

Monday, June 13, 2011

SELECT 101 FAQ's FROM SQL Server Community INSERT INTO Free eBook (185 pages, PDF)

Our SQL Server Forum Support Team authored, collected and consolidated those common asked questions in SQL Server MSDN and TechNet forums into this ebook so as to provide an offline reading and learning experience for IT professionals and people who are interested in SQL Server. In this ebook, there are totally about 101 items covering database administration, SSAS, SSIS and SSRS which are good references for you to handle common SQL Server problems.

...

Part I Database Administration

1. Why did a T-SQL script fail to run a job when it could successfully run in SQL Server Management Studio ? 6

2. How can I degrade a SQL Server database from a higher version to a lower one? 8

3. How can I create a linked server to the Access or Excel data source from the 64-bit version of SQL Server 2005/2008? 9

4. Why is all of the memory allocated for SQL Server not shown in Windows Task Manager? 11

5. How do I configure SQL Server to use larger memory space over 2GB on a 32-bit server? 13

6. How do I rename my SQL Server instance? 15

7. How do I store data in multiple languages within one database? 16

8. How do I calculate the space a nullable column takes in SQL Server 2008? 17

9. Why can't I view the list of databases, tables, views and etc. in the SQL ServerManagement Studio Object Explorer? 18

10. Why can't I by pass the "Restart computer" rule when installing SQL Server 2008? 19

11. Can SQL Server Enterprise Edition be installed on client operating systems? 20

12. How do I troubleshoot SQL Server connectivity issues? 21

13. Why can’t I track data changes even though I already enabled the database audit on my database? 22

14. How do I use Powershell script to read the information of any database on a server? 23

15. Why can't I log on to SQL Server using Windows Authentication in SQL Server Management Studio? 24

16. What permission(s) do I need to execute a stored procedure (sp)? 25

17. How do I troubleshoot SQL Server 2008 installation issues? 27

18. How do I configure SQL Server to enable distributed transactions via Linked Server? 28

19. How do I find the correct "server" or "data source" value for an SQL Server instance in a connection string? 29

20. How do I configure Windows Firewall to allow remote connections using TCP/IP protocol for SQL Server? 30

21. Could SQL Server 2008 Express edition and SQL Server 2008 R2 Express edition be installed side by side with SQL Server 2005 Express? 32

22. How do I apply a service pack for an instance of SQL Server 2005 Express Edition or SQL Server 2008 Express Edition? 33

23. How do I resolve ‘SQL Server Setup cannot valid the service accounts’ error message during the setup? 34

24. Why do I get ‘Rule “Existing clustered or clustered-prepared instance” failed’ error while adding new features to an existing instance of SQL Server Failover Cluster? 35

Part II Analysis Services

25. How do I clear the warm cache of a cube? 38

26. How do I exclude data members or create non-aggregatable values in parent-child dimensions? 39

27. How do I specify a calculated member as the default member of an attribute? 41

28. How do I create AVG measure in my cube? 42

29. How do I implement dynamic security for the users? 43

Posted via email from Jasper-Net

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

10 טיפים שיהפכו אותך ממהנדס תוכנה למותג

אתה מהנדס התוכנה הכי טוב בחברה. את מרוויחה מצויין ואת המשבר האחרון עברת בקלילות, אפילו יותר משאר התעשייה. אני לא הולך ללמד אותך איך לתכנת. יותר מכך נראה שאתה יכול להעביר הרצאה לא רעה בכלל על ניהול צוות, פיתוח ב – Java או .Net או על Design Patterns. אבל מה הלאה?

הנתונים שבידינו מראים כי לא לעולם חוסן. מחר אולי תחפשו עבודה חדשה, תרצו קידום או העלאה יפה. מי ערב שזה יסתדר? איך תוכל להפוך ממנהל טוב ומפתח מצויין לאדם שציידי ראשים מחפשים אותו בג'ונגל? איך תוכלו לעבור בקלות את משבר גיל ה – 40? ומי יודע, אולי תגייסו סכום יפה לסטארט אפ חדש…

התשובה נשמעת מסובכת לכאורה, למה שיחפשו אותי? למה שירצו דווקא אותי? אבל בפועל אם נתסכל ימינה ושמאלה נגלה שיש לא מעטים שעברו את המכשול הזה ונחשבים למומחים. אם תעקבו אחרי הטיפים הבאים, סיכוי טוב שתוכלו להצטרף לאותם מומחים שעולים בראשכם עכשיו.

אם הם יכולים, אז אתם בוודאי יכולים!

10 טיפים שיהפכו אתכם מסתם מהנדסי תוכנה למותג

מיקוד

לפני שאתם רצים לפרסם, לכתוב ולהרצות, שבו מספר דקות עם עצמכם ו/או אנשים שאתם סומכים עליהם והחליטומה אתם רוצים לעשות בחיים? או יותר נכון, במה אתם באמת טובים? השאלה הזאת לכאורה נראית קשה, אבל בפועל היא די פשוטה: חשבו רגע מתי אמרו לכם שעשיתם עבודה מדהימה ואתם הפטרתם אותם באמירה שזה באמת משהו קטנטן. אם יש משהו כזה (ואני מבטיח לכם שיש) זהו הדבר שמבדיל אתכם מהשאר! זה הדבר שבו יש לכם את הערך המוסף הגדול ביותר, כיוון שאתם עושים בקלילות דברים שנראים מסובכים לאנשים אחרים. הבנתם מהו הדבר הזה? זה באמת מעניין אתכם? הייתם רוצים לעשות אותו גם בעוד חמש שנים? אם כן, אפשר לעבור לטיפים הבאים!

לינקדאין

מי שמחפש אותך בענייני עבודה יחפש אותך קודם כל שם, לכן רצוי לשמור על פרופיל נקי, שם תקין באנגלית (moshe kaplan לדוגמה היא צורה לא טובה, רצוי מאוד להתחיל שמות עם Capital Letters), חברות בקבוצות רלוונטיות שיציגו את תחומי העניין שלך (איך אתה עדיין לא חבר בקבוצת Agile או SCRUM?).

רשתות חברתיות אחרות

אמנם אנחנו חושבים על Twitter ו – Facebook כמקום שבו אנחנו מנהלים את החיים הפרטיים שלנו. אבל בפועל אם נסתכל על רשימת החברים שלנו, נגלה שרבים מהם מלווים אותנו משלבים שונים בחיים שלנו, חלקם מהחיים המקצועיים וחלקם ממעגלים עסקיים רחבים יותר. קראת מאמר טוב? יש לך טיפ מצויין? שתף את החברים שלך, ויתכן שאחד מכם יזכור את זה.

שיפור תוצאות החיפוש עליכם ב – Google

מתברר ש – Linkedin הוא לא אתר הפרופילים היחיד באינטרנט. יש אתרים נוספים כדוגמת CrunchBase, VisualCV ו – ZoomInfo שמומלץ להשקיע כמה דקות כדי למלא בהם את קורות החיים שלכם. הסיבה המרכזית לעשות את זה, היא שהאתרים הללו מאפשרים לכם לעצב את תוצאות החיפוש על השם שלכם, כך שהתוצאות הראשונות יהיו התוצאות שאתם רוצים שיראו.

הרצאות

Greylock Partners launches new $160 million tech fund for Europe and Israel

Well known US VC house Greylock Partners is launching a brand new $160 million fund aimed at internet technology companies, with the fund being deployed between Europe and Israel. Greylock is best known for its stakes in Facebook, Groupon and LinkedIn and European investments including Wonga. Greylock’s move will be a shot in the arm for European tech companies looking for more options when raising financing.

We’ve confirmed that the fund will be represented in London by Laurel Bowden, a Partner, and will cover investments from early stage and beyond.

[Correction: The fund was raised by Greylock Partners' affiliate fund, Greylock Israel Partners. The fund is managed by five Greylock general partners, Moshe Mor, Erez Ofer, Yoram Snir, Laurel Bowden and Arnon Dinur. Laurel Bowden is operating from the recently opened office in London. Greylock Partners began operating in Israel in 2002, when Moshe Mor started investing there and launched Greylock Israel with its first fund in 2006].

In the US Greylock invests in seed stage companies through its Greylock Discovery Fund, early stage companies through Greylock XIII and late stage companies through Greylock Growth. But this new fund will specifically target Europe and Israel.

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

The New York Times has a great piece this week about how top colleges (many of which are heavily subsidized by the government) are, in their words, largely for the elite. It’s well worth reading. In it, Anthony Marx, the president of Amherst College, is quoted as saying the following:

“We claim to be part of the American dream and of a system based on merit and opportunity and talent,” Mr. Marx says. “Yet if at the top places, two-thirds of the students come from the top quartile and only 5 percent come from the bottom quartile, then we are actually part of the problem of the growing economic divide rather than part of the solution.”

There’s a lot of evidence that suggests that the admissions policies of the top universities tend to perpetuate the notion of rich getting richer. This post isn’t meant to argue for or against that point. Rather it’s to argue another point which is that when you look at this issue the larger concern here shouldn’t be that people from lower-income families aren’t able to receive as good of an education as people from higher-income families. That’s of course very important but the critical factor is that people from lower-income families aren’t able to gain access to the same networks that higher-income families have access to.

REST Web Service Interview Questions

Here I am putting 20 REST questions. Please read some tutorial on REST before taking up these questions. Simply mugging up the answers will not give you the confidence for interview.

Some questions may not be applicable to eveyone. For example if you have used anything else than CXF or RESTLET for building REST web services then the question number 15 may not hold good for you

If you are unable to get answer to any of the question, do drop a comment, I will be more than happy to get back with the answer...

1) What is a web service?

2) Can I use GET request instead of PUT to create resources?

3) What is the difference between a RESTful web service (on HTTP) and a HTTP Servlet both of which perform the same function?

4) How will you migrate from SOAP web service to RESTfull web service?

5) What is the difference between HTTP POST and PUT requests?

6) What all kind of output formats can one generate using RESTful web service?

7) What all tools have you used to write RESTful web service?

8) Can my web browser be a client to RESTful web service? If yes then how will you generate DELETE request from web browser?

9) What is meant by JAX-WS and JAX-RS?

10) How is JAXB related to RESTful web services?

11) How will you handle synchronization issues when multiple clients try to consume web service simultaneously?

12) Can you describe any one RESTful web service you have written?

(more...)

לא רק ברמזור מחפשים DBA

למי שלא ראה את חפר ה-DBA, קבלו:

Ramzor - DBA from SQLServer on Vimeo.

גם בואלינור מחפשים DBA!

אם אתם יותר טובים מחפר (או עדיף: יותר טובים אפילו משרגא), אנא שלחו את קורות החיים שלכם למייל jobs [at] valinor.co.il

Posted via email from Jasper-Net

Monday, June 06, 2011

60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to make drastic changes in order to notice an improvement in the quality of your life. At the same time, you don’t need to wait a long time in order to see the measurable results that come from taking positive action. All you have to do is take small steps, and take them consistently, for a period of 100 days.

Below you’ll find 60 small ways to improve all areas of your life in the next 100 days.

Home

1. Create a “100 Days to Conquer Clutter Calendar” by penciling in one group of items you plan to declutter every day, for the next 100 days. Here’s an example:

Day 1: Declutter Magazines

Day 2: Declutter DVD’s

Day 3: Declutter books

Day 4: Declutter kitchen appliances

2. Live by the mantra: a place for everything and everything in its place. For the next 100 days follow these four rules to keep your house in order:

If you take it out, put it back.

If you open it, close it.

If you throw it down, pick it up.

If you take it off, hang it up.

3. Walk around your home and identify 100 things you’ve been tolerating; fix one each day. Here are some examples:

A burnt light bulb that needs to be changed.

A button that’s missing on your favorite shirt.

The fact that every time you open your top kitchen cabinet all of the plastic food containers fall out.

Happiness

4. Follow the advice proffered by positive psychologists and write down 5 to 10 things that you’re grateful for, every day.

5. Make a list of 20 small things that you enjoy doing, and make sure that you do at least one of these things every day for the next 100 days. Your list can include things such as the following:

Eating your lunch outside.

Calling your best friend to chat.

Taking the time to sit down and read a novel by your favorite author for a few minutes.