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Beer. Lots of it.

Two weeks ago, I was doing a pre-shipment evaluation at one of our vendors. Not only did they have beer in the company vending machines (Carlsburg for seven krone, er, $1US give or take an exchange rate), it was on the cafeteria tables at lunch every day. Not just for customers either. The employee side of the cafeteria was stocked, too.

I'd be willing to overlook all their software bugs if I could work out of their headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark.

InitZero

Beer. Lots of it.

Two weeks ago, I was doing a pre-shipment evaluation at one of our vendors. Not only did they have beer in the company vending machines (Carlsburg for seven krone, er, $1US give or take an exchange rate), it was on the cafeteria tables at lunch every day. Not just for customers either. The employee side of the cafeteria was stocked, too.

I'd be willing to overlook all their software bugs if I could work out of their headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark.

InitZero

Beer. Lots of it.

Two weeks ago, I was doing a pre-shipment evaluation at one of our vendors. Not only did they have beer in the company vending machines (Carlsburg for seven krone, er, $1US give or take an exchange rate), it was on the cafeteria tables at lunch every day. Not just for customers either. The employee side of the cafeteria was stocked, too.

I'd be willing to overlook all their software bugs if I could work out of their headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark.

InitZero

If you want to see a resume that was headed in the right direction but isn't there yet, you can check out my resume from three years ago. Since I've got a job, I haven't spent any time updating it. (Yes, it's in PDF format. That's far better than the MS Word or even Word Perfect formats I often see.)

1. The corner triangles are needless ornamentation. Plus, when printed, they won't go to the edge of the page (unless someone prints on tabloid with crop marks and trims it - what's the chane of that?). Since most printers have different physical margins on the top and bottom vs. sides, they will look uneven.
2. The name/address block is not visually centered because the weight of the section beneath is to the right. Normally the name/address block should be moved slightly to the right to counter that. However, with the triangles, that would look strange. So the page looks unbalanced.
3. The 'M' and 'S' in your name are too bold. Either use a typeface with purpose-built small caps (like one of Adobe's Expert Collections) or use one with a reasonable number of weights, and use a weight one less for the caps than the smaller letters.
4. The tiny indentation of 2nd-and-following lines in the experience area is weird. Get rid of it, or indent enough that it doesn't look like a mistake. Since the indenting serves no particular purpose, getting rid of it is preferable.
5. Your right tabs (employer name) are not aligned with the horizontal rule above. The tab should be out as far as the rule's right edge.
6. Why are "Experience:," etc., in Courier?
7. You failed to italicize publication names such as The Palm Beach Post
8. You used the wrong dashes for time ranges ("March 1997 - Present"). They should be en dashes.
9. "WebMaster" is one word or two words, but correctly presented it does not have an internal cap.
10. What is with this "no fewer than 45," "no more than 70" stuff? It was awkward the first time, downright strange when it showed up again.
11. "Quark" is a company. "QuarkXPress" is the product.
12. "Novell" has two L's.
13. "QuattroPro" is one word. I suspect that there are other similar product name errors as well. It only takes a second to check the box, the "about" screen, or the vendor web site.
14. "References:" is aligned differently from the parallel headers above.
15. "PowerMac" is not the name of any product that I'm aware of. Apple's "Power Macintosh" line ran on the "PowerPC" chip.

Anyway, I'm sure you got hired, but with that many problems leaping out in a 30-second scan, I wonder whether you should be preaching about proofreading!

I don't do much hiring. However, since my boss is fairly new to the company, she had me review the resumes for my new peer. I can't even begin to tell you how poor those resumes were.

Strike one: if you've run your resume off on the office copy machine, it's poorly reproduced, not on heavy paper and is not square, I ain't going to read it.

Strike two: if your resume has spelling errors, grammatical errors or typos, you're toast. I am a lousy speller, make more typos than I care to admit and use the word 'ain't' often but I'm damn sure going to have a few eyes check my resume before I send it out.

Strike three: keep it to a single page no matter what. If you want to add some color, slap a short cover letter on the front. I don't care about your hobbies or where you went to high school.

Of the 43 or so resumes I saw, 29 were taken out of the running based on the above criteria.

Here are a few additional resume tips...

* Bullet items are good. Paragraphs are bad.

* Don't put jobs on your resume that lasted fewer than six months. This is especially true if you've got a string of them. A few people (had they not gotten the above three strikes) would have been taken out of the running because the had a string of jobs that lasted three to eight months each. (And the person wasn't a contractor.) It takes longer than three months to get an employee up to speed even in the best of shops. Why would an employer even consider such a short-timer? I know I wouldn't.

* Don't mention salary on your resume. It won't help you and stands a good chance of hurting you. If you set it too high, you won't even be considered for the position. If you set it too low, you're may not get what you're worth or even what they are willing to pay. The chances of your request being what they have in mind is slim at best. (In fact, don't discuss salary till an offer is on the table.)

* References are a double-edge sword. I tend to suggest folks leave them off the basic resume but make them available on request. Not only does this shorten the length of the resume, it gives you another opportunity to interact with the interviewer. When you get the call asking for references, make sure you ask the person what type of reference they would like (peer, supervisor, character, subordinate, etc.). Also, When I call a reference, it is to confirm what I already know for the most part. If I have a bad feeling about someone, I'll call. If I have a great feeling about a candidate, I'll call. If I have no feelings one way or another, a reference isn't going to do me much good.

* While important to grab one's attention, do it in a classy fashion. High quality paper with water marks is good. Glitter glued to the printed bullets is bad. Construction paper, if done right, is good. Fluorescent green paper is bad.

* I don't care that you were employee of the month in August 1998. If you got a Creativity and Innovation award because you saved the company $27,000, list it.

If you want to see a resume that was headed in the right direction but isn't there yet, you can check out my resume from three years ago. Since I've got a job, I haven't spent any time updating it. (Yes, it's in PDF format. That's far better than the MS Word or even Word Perfect formats I often see.)

InitZero

Cheaper than a PlayStation2 on Ebay: A maid, or at least a helper to come once a week and help me get my house in order,

One of the best things I ever did was get a cleaning lady to come in every two weeks and do the basic cleaning. I'm generally an orderly person but that doesn't stop the dust from building up, grease from sticking to the oven and the toilet from getting the way toilets get.

I don't know where you're living but a housekeeper in Orlando, FL costs $40 to $50 a visit for a two bed/two bath apartment. That's well below a PS/2 on eBay. I get visited every two weeks for $80 a month.

A clean living space can help geeks to get chicks, too! A clean house really impresses the grrls. Nothing can ruin The Mood quicker than a hottie heading to the bathroom to 'freashen up' only to find skid marks that have been there since the Bush administration.

By the way, my ultimate geek Christmas gift would be a 10 node, fully-functioning PDP11-based Atex publishing system. Call now! Supplies are limited.

InitZero

At my last job, I had an office. It was nice. I had loud music after hours and a non-windowed door so I could freaky with the secretary.

At my current job, I'm in a cubicle. Of course, I'd like an office but I'm really learning to like the cubicle. It allows me more interaction with my coworkers. I've found that I'm much more likely to ask for help or offer help living in such a communial environment than I every was in my office.

Overall, I'd say the best working environment is one you can customize. No matter if it's a desk, cubicle or office, the key is customization. One size doens't fit all and a comfortable employee is a productive employee.

The best office environment tip I can supply, however, is this one... Have a guest chair but always have something on it. That way, people can't just enter your work area and sit down. If you want someone to spend some time with you, take the laptop case (or whatever) off the chair. If you want piece and quiet, not offering the person a place to sit is pretty effective.

InitZero

do you think this ten node cluster would fit into my Residence room?

I doubt it.

Per a handful of email requests, I've put some snapshots online. Enjoy.

InitZero

For a week in July, a pissed-off spammer returned
my email address as every gnutella response...

gnut> find anything
CURRENT RESPONSES
-----------------
1) email matt@steinhoff.net for kiddie porn and anything
216.10.33.21:6345 size:80.854M ref:84279680 speed:10000

I got thousands of email messages looking for

child porn and else
before I nailed the guy.

When the search is distributed, the abuse is
distributed as well.

InitZero

It would NOT be fun.

Since June 5, I've been the person of which you speak.

If you have done a gnutella (or clone) search in the past few days, you probably have seen my name...

It all started when I noticed that every query I submitted returned an html file. In that html file was a link to http://www.cybergirlsex.com/raw cash/click.cgi?tella...

I figured that an ambitious person had hacked gnutella in order to promote the web site so that he'd get some extra cash. I sent email to the the owner of 216.100.51.42 and they promptly shut off the user's connection. I also sent email to cybergirlsex.com in hopes that they wouldn't pay the user 'tella' for the referrals. Spam shouldn't pay no matter how it is done, right?

Ever since I sent the email message to the domain admin for the porn site, my name and server address has been showing up in each and every gnutella response. Cause and effect (and a bit more) leads me to believe that the porn site was 'tella' and they are not happy that I've cut into their revenue stream.

With a bit of investigative work I was able to tie the user who is spamming gnutella with the user who admins the porn site and more than two dozen other domains.

I've got the guy booted off a number of services in the past few days but that isn't much help (though it does make me feel a bit better). It's like playing wack the mole; hit him in one place and he pops up again elsewhere. I'm getting hundreds of email messages from people either looking for child porn or wanting me dead for supplying child porn. (Of note, of course, I don't have any child porn so stop asking.)

I've contacted the FBI's computer crimes division and they are far more interested in the folks emailing me looking for kiddie porn than they are in getting rid of the slime ball spamming my email address. At least the kiddie porn angle got their attention or I imagine this wouldn't have even made their radar.

So, what can I do? I'm already filtering my email so that I don't have to read through hoards of email. (Did I mention that he has also signed me up to dozens of mailing lists?) What's next? While tracking and smacking the first day was exciting, today it's a bit of a drag.

Any good ideas will return my eternal gratitude. (Any especially nasty ideas and I'll give you the guy's email address. {grin})

Matt Steinhoff

(I had posted this as an 'Ask Slashdot' a few days ago and, of course, Slashdot would rather post Anime Moves on DVD.)

Why don't you give me one feature of 950 that will beat similarly priced configuration of a SLR and film scanner.

I can shoot a picture with the 950 and have it on the web two minutes later. Show me a chrome-shooting SLR that can do that.

You're missing the point that being able to shoot and then turn around and upload it to the net is a real benefit.

I'm not anti-SLR by any means. I've got an FM-2, 8008, F2 and Nikonus 5. I've shot a ton of film. I've been published in magazines and in newspapers (the latter as a real photojournalist). I really like film.

At the same time, there is a real benfit to being able to quickly get film from point A to point B. A month and a half ago, I had my wedding shot on silver by the professional, but my father was shooting with the CoolPix. Less than two hours after the reception, my father had the CoolPix pictures online for the out-of-town friends and relatives to check out. It took two weeks to get the proofs and negatives from the professional.

Same thing with the honeymoon pictures. There was no way in hell my wife was going to let me take along a negative scanner and C-41 kit with us. But she had no problems with shooting digital and uploading the pictures every few days from the hotel room.

The professional pictures are better quality, of course, but the digital images served a purpose.

Certainly you see some value in digital cameras, right?

InitZero

Why don't you give me one feature of 950 that will beat similarly priced configuration of a SLR and film scanner.

I can shoot a picture with the 950 and have it on the web two minutes later. Show me a chrome-shooting SLR that can do that.

You're missing the point that being able to shoot and then turn around and upload it to the net is a real benefit.

I'm not anti-SLR by any means. I've got an FM-2, 8008, F2 and Nikonus 5. I've shot a ton of film. I've been published in magazines and in newspapers (the latter as a real photojournalist). I really like film.

At the same time, there is a real benfit to being able to quickly get film from point A to point B. A month and a half ago, I had my wedding shot on silver by the professional, but my father was shooting with the CoolPix. Less than two hours after the reception, my father had the CoolPix pictures online for the out-of-town friends and relatives to check out. It took two weeks to get the proofs and negatives from the professional.

Same thing with the honeymoon pictures. There was no way in hell my wife was going to let me take along a negative scanner and C-41 kit with us. But she had no problems with shooting digital and uploading the pictures every few days from the hotel room.

The professional pictures are better quality, of course, but the digital images served a purpose.

Certainly you see some value in digital cameras, right?

InitZero

Why don't you give me one feature of 950 that will beat similarly priced configuration of a SLR and film scanner.

I can shoot a picture with the 950 and have it on the web two minutes later. Show me a chrome-shooting SLR that can do that.

You're missing the point that being able to shoot and then turn around and upload it to the net is a real benefit.

I'm not anti-SLR by any means. I've got an FM-2, 8008, F2 and Nikonus 5. I've shot a ton of film. I've been published in magazines and in newspapers (the latter as a real photojournalist). I really like film.

At the same time, there is a real benfit to being able to quickly get film from point A to point B. A month and a half ago, I had my wedding shot on silver by the professional, but my father was shooting with the CoolPix. Less than two hours after the reception, my father had the CoolPix pictures online for the out-of-town friends and relatives to check out. It took two weeks to get the proofs and negatives from the professional.

Same thing with the honeymoon pictures. There was no way in hell my wife was going to let me take along a negative scanner and C-41 kit with us. But she had no problems with shooting digital and uploading the pictures every few days from the hotel room.

The professional pictures are better quality, of course, but the digital images served a purpose.

Certainly you see some value in digital cameras, right?

InitZero

It's been said for the last 3 years that digital cameras are replacing "film" cameras. I don't think that's happening.

Think again.

I work for a large newspaper (which won a Pulitzer this year, by the way). Five years ago, digital was a joke. We wanted to move that direction (digital allows us to extend deadlines) but the quality and ease of use was simply not there.

This year, we've replaced our analog cameras in almost a dozen bureaus with digital cameras. No longer are there dark rooms in the field offices. We'd like to get rid of the analog cameras in the main office as well and, in fact, are moving that direction. As often as possible, we're shooting assignments digitally.

Costs are down. Deadlines have been extended. Photographers no longer have to leave a sporting event at 10pm to get back to the office and have the film processed by 11:30 pm. Now the photographer waits till 11 pm to stop shooting and them simply emails the photo to the main office.

Real estate agents who used to shoot analog film are shooting digital almost exclusively.

In high school and college, I did a lot of shooting myself. Since I got my Nikon CoolPix 950, I haven't shot an analog picture. While I certainly see analog film sticking around for the foreseeable future (my recent wedding was shot on silver (yes, B&W)), publication work will be almost entirely digital in two years. Futher, I predict, more than half the snapshots in the next ten years will be digital.

Which brings me to the only on-topic part of this message... Get the Nikon CoolPix 950 (or whatever might have replaced it since I bought it). The picture quality is great. The camera is ultra-flexiable. It can go fully-manual or be used as a point and shoot. I own own. My father who was a professional photographer for 35 years got one. I've talk two friends into them. I can't speak highly enough about the camera. (And I don't even have Nikon stock.)

InitZero

It's been said for the last 3 years that digital cameras are replacing "film" cameras. I don't think that's happening.

Think again.

I work for a large newspaper (which won a Pulitzer this year, by the way). Five years ago, digital was a joke. We wanted to move that direction (digital allows us to extend deadlines) but the quality and ease of use was simply not there.

This year, we've replaced our analog cameras in almost a dozen bureaus with digital cameras. No longer are there dark rooms in the field offices. We'd like to get rid of the analog cameras in the main office as well and, in fact, are moving that direction. As often as possible, we're shooting assignments digitally.

Costs are down. Deadlines have been extended. Photographers no longer have to leave a sporting event at 10pm to get back to the office and have the film processed by 11:30 pm. Now the photographer waits till 11 pm to stop shooting and them simply emails the photo to the main office.

Real estate agents who used to shoot analog film are shooting digital almost exclusively.

In high school and college, I did a lot of shooting myself. Since I got my Nikon CoolPix 950, I haven't shot an analog picture. While I certainly see analog film sticking around for the foreseeable future (my recent wedding was shot on silver (yes, B&W)), publication work will be almost entirely digital in two years. Futher, I predict, more than half the snapshots in the next ten years will be digital.

Which brings me to the only on-topic part of this message... Get the Nikon CoolPix 950 (or whatever might have replaced it since I bought it). The picture quality is great. The camera is ultra-flexiable. It can go fully-manual or be used as a point and shoot. I own own. My father who was a professional photographer for 35 years got one. I've talk two friends into them. I can't speak highly enough about the camera. (And I don't even have Nikon stock.)

InitZero

"Due to recent events with my live-in girlfriend,

<Dr. Laura>Shack-up honey.<Dr. Laura>

she is very unhappy and untrustful of me. Why?

Probably because you spend more time online than interacting with her. Probably because you are both immature. Probably because you have given her reason not to trust you. Probably because you get email from sexxxy69@aol.com on a regular basis.

She snooped through my computer and broke into my email 'cause

...you're a lousy sys admin and don't feel that strong passwords and encryption are necessary. Let's just hope that you get better at such 'trivial' tasks before you get a job protecting my online credit card transactions.

Well you can imagine that if you start looking for evidence, you're bound to come up with something.

I believe that both Bill Clinton and Bill Gates used that same logic in their recent court battles. We can't help you unless you first admit that you have a problem.

As much as I love her, I don't, won't, and refuse to share email, passwords, websites I read, and whatever's on my computer. Am I paranoid or overboard?

Yes.

Love -- real love -- is stronger than root.

Am I the only one here who thinks this guy's problem has nothing to do with technology, passwords or even nerds? The guy obviously is trying to hid something. (And doing it poorly, I might add.) The girl obviously has reasons to suspect that the guy is doing something behind her back. And she's a psychotic bitch for breaking into his stuff. But, once again, this has nothing to do with anything technology-related.

This tale of woe could just have easily been 'My shack-up honey used a hair pin to break into my foot locker where she found letters from old girlfriends and a stack of crusty Playboys. She has violated my privacy and I'm going to dump her. Yeah, I knew that she had asked me to throw away the letters and Playboys (and I agreed) but that's beside the point. The point is that I got caught red-handed. No! Er, I mean the point is that my privacy was violated.

I don't have anything to hide,

You ever notice how those with something to hide are always the ones with something to hide? ('I am not a crook.'; 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'; 'IE is just a browser.'; etc.)

Has anything similar happened to you?

No. I wouldn't get involved with a snoop nor would I give anyone I love the boot over root.

Do you think there's something wrong with NOT sharing email and passwords?"

I think there's something wrong with any personal relationship that requires trust through verification. However, your situation has nothing to do with email or passwords and until you come to understand that, you will never be able to have a happy, healthy interpersonal relationship.

Init 'soon-to-be-married' Zero

This is off topic but I'm ticked-off and will post this anyway.

I read the story and then took the link to Kurtz's rant. From there I saw a link that made my blood run cold.

You see, Mr. Kurtz didn't write 'Brent's Thirteen Facts of Email you Should Know' though he does take credit for doing so . Not only does he take credit for the thirteen facts he has applied his copyright to it lest someone steal it from him.

The real author is my friend Erynn. She sent the message on August 31, 1998 in an effort to save Bernard's life. Since then, the message has turned into a rather popular forward.

And, yet, folks who know they didn't write it continue to take credit for the content. How do they think they can get away with that?

The bigger question to come out of this Slashdot article is not whether or not technical support comics are funny but is Kurtz going to come clean about where he got the email facts.

InitZero