"interview tip #1:
if you're being interviewed for a computer help desk position, don't relay experiences from your past involving your "annoyance" with people who require step-by-step computer help, thus "wasting your time".
interview tip #2:
do not attempt to read the interviewers' question/notes sheet, especially at the expense of your concentration. taking greater than one minute to answer a question about which email client you prefer is not preferable.
interview tip #3:
if your interviewers send you material to review beforehand, review it beforehand." - (via Chumptastic)
I'd say those are good tips if your interviewing for a help desk job. #1 is certainly a instant good bye from the interview.
I was just checking out the posting for the latest branded blog by Weblog Inc and it really got me thinking about how intrigued I am by this concept. I love the idea of this network of blogs covering a variety of information in a formal fashion. However, there's just something missing for me. I feel like there should be more bang for the buck here than just the Weblogs inc link at the bottom of all the pages.
What about cross blog aggregated postings on different topics? How about "channels" that I can subscribe to on news from across them. I'm just thinking out loud here, but it seems they could be doing alot more with this.
I haven't been keeping up with the daily source code lately, but it looks like Adam has launched his podcasting business: BoKu. Seems the primary public website will be podshow.com.
Dave Johnson has a post replying to a post by Bora Zivkovic on a survey that says most blog readers don't read blogs via RSS/Atom. Bora suggests that's good, Dave thinks it's crazy.
I fall on the side of crazy, but not that the visitors are crazy but the technologists. The reason people don't use RSS outside of the tech community is because they have to think about it. You have to understand it and people don't like thinking about technology. Heck even the term RSS is an acronym and regular people HATE technology acronyms.
The first company that figures out how to effectively explain or make transparent the use of RSS is going to make some big $$$$. I wonder if the only organizations with enough clout to do it are the OS vendors themselves?
"In particular, you don't need a brilliant idea to start a startup around. The way a startup makes money is to offer people better technology than they have now. But what people have now is often so bad that it doesn't take brilliance to do better."
"Another way to say that is, if you try to start the kind of startup that has to be a big consumer brand, the odds against succeeding are steeper. The best odds are in niche markets. Since startups make money by offering people something better than they had before, the best opportunities are where things suck most. And it would be hard to find a place where things suck more than in corporate IT departments. You would not believe the amount of money companies spend on software, and the crap they get in return. This imbalance equals opportunity."
Nice new essay from Paul Graham. He echoes alot of what I talk about here: Starting a MicroISV (glad to see I'm on the right track)
" Companies that outsource customer-service functions to reduce costs may risk reducing their client list as well, Gartner Inc. warned today.
In fact, the Stamford, Conn.-based research company predicted that through 2007, some 80% of organizations that outsource customer-service projects to cut costs will fail. This is because outsourced centers often have high staff-attrition rates of up to 80%, and many companies neglect to manage their outsourced operations, according to Gartner." - via Computerworld
Sorry for the slowdown in posts lately. I've really been busting my butt putting HelpSpot together. Over the past two weeks some dramatic progress has been made. It's to that point where the UI aspects are starting to come together so it actually seems like I'm working on something! In my mental down time I've also been working on my search engine optimization article, so hopefully I'll have that out this week. Stay tuned!
"if you could reasonably guess that something might change, try to encapsulate that change."
- Interesting post for all you programmers out there. (via Michael Mccracken)
I just had dinner for 5 US dollars. One of the most wonderful dinners I've ever had.
I was lucky enough to grow up in metro NYC, my father is from NYC and I've spent alot of time here. This has given me a keen 6th street food sense. Here's the story:
I'm here for the search engine conference, it was about 10:30 and my cab was pulling up to the midtown Hilton. I was starving, having not eaten since lunch.
As we were pulling up I noticed a hot dog cart with a line about 50 people long. Even in NYC this is an unusual sight. The line wasn't full of Hilton guests, but I noticed instead that these were definitely locals on line. I knew right then that this was where I must eat dinner.
I'm not sure how it works in other cities, but in NYC there are hot dog type carts that sell other things beside hot dogs. In this case there were no hot dogs but rather a grill being worked by 4 guys with gyro and chicken. After about 10 minutes on the line I made it to the front. At this point I was already sure this was going to be a very good meal. I ordered the combo (chicken and gyro) with rice (yellow), white sauce and hot sauce (this is basically the only item on the "menu"). It also came with a full size pita, lettuce and tomato in a tray to go for 5 bucks. I was so excited I called my wife before I even got back across the street to my room to eat it.
Well I just finished and let me tell you it was fantastic. I wish I had pictures because it's the type of stand that most people I know would pass in disgust.
That's the wonderful thing about NYC. Last night I had a steak dinner at Ben Bensons with 2 other people for $300 and tonight I had a dinner twice as good for $5!