My understanding of the article's position: foreign workers work too cheaply; therefore the US should let fewer of them in so that American workers can get those jobs, but at a higher salary.
If you were a company and had a lot of lower-paid foreign workers, and then the government stopped letting you hire such workers, what would you do? Hire more highly paid American workers? Or just farm the entire project/department out to a foreign country?
The latter would save the company money and result in fewer American jobs and less income tax revenue for the US. It would create more jobs for foreign companies and more income tax revenue for those countries. Probably not what the AFL-CIO wants to happen.
It's quite possible that the high speed internet needs of the world will soon be handled by a world-wide mesh network.
So if you want to make money, start selling mesh hardware nodes and maybe support contracts for your customers' nodes.
And maybe in the short term, you can charge for connecting their nodes to your T1. But perhaps soon the mesh will be so pervasive that connections to the internet will be ubiquitous and free, or perhaps the internet will just consist of mesh nodes.
Government at least won't contract with individuals, they only work through a very small list of approved contracting agencies (at least in this state).
As an independent contractor, you can often subcontract through these companies. Of course, they still take a percentage of each hour you work, but it's probably less than what they'd take if you were one of their employees.
Incorporating is a lot of work. If you're the kind of person who can work 8+ hours a day, then come home and do paperwork for your business, then go ahead.
If not, there are some self-service consutling companies out there such as FreeAgent and ZeroChaos. They do the billing, taxes, 401(k), insurance, direct-deposit, etc. You pay a monthly fee (~$300) plus insurance premiums.
But when your contract is over, they don't find you a new one. And they don't pay you until your client pays them, so be prepared to get paid irregularly.
Also, companies don't want to bother with relocating people these days (or so I've heard from a recruiter friend). So make sure you have an address and phone number in the same area as the jobs you're looking at.
I know someone who was having a hard time finding a job because he lived in a different part of the state than the one in which he was applying. Then he got a cell phone in the area and used a friend's mailing address and jot offers out the wazoo (comparitively speaking, anyway).
Personally, I graduate this coming Spring and have been job searching for the past semester with little if any success at finding a prospective future employer.
After you graduate, I'd suggest working at least 8 hours a day looking for a job. It's hard work, but so is a job. There are a lot of books and websites with job-hunting tips. The newspaper and job sites are the very beginning. You need to meet people and to let them know you need a job without sounding desparate.
Some ways to meet people: mentor, teach, volunteer, temp, go to local user groups. Remember, you just got a degree in a field that most people are afraid of and have little experience with. If you had an English degree, it would be hard to teach or help people, since everyone took English in school.
And don't focus on just tech companies. Let's say you are interested in science and computers. Maybe you know someone who knows someone who works for a biotech company. Tell them you want some practical experience writing a database program (in Access or something) and ask them if they could use such a program for free. Work there for a few weeks (don't work at home). Now all of a sudden you know a bunch of scientists who think you are a computer genius (because they have no idea that Access is easy). Maybe they'll hire you, or mention you to their colleagues who actually are looking to hire someone.
And finally, think of it this way: if half of the graduates this year can't find a job, it means that you only have to be better than 50% of the people in your school. You're better than 50% of the people there, right?
The placement office at my university hasn't been too helpful for many students in the CS department.
Don't expect them to do much work for you. Actually, don't expect anyone to do work for you. Do it yourself.
As far as the government is concerned, I'm simply not old enough for any job that gets paid more than minimum wage and has actual job security.
That's false. My first job was with the government, and while I wasn't making a killing, I made good enough money to have an [ugly] apartment and a [cheap] new car. And it wasn't with a defense-related department, so there were no security clearances I needed to have or anything.
Most of my job searching has been conducted through services like Dice and Monster.
I think those sites are a good starting point, but you should spend only a small fraction of your time on them. The rest of the time should out of the house, walking the beat as it were.
I'm a second year CS major and I see questions like this all the time and it makes me wonder if I should change my major. What do those of you who recently graduated with a CS degree reccommend?
If you're a CS major because you think it will make you good money, then change your major to something you like or go to a techincal school, because a university education is intentionally not designed to train you for a job.
Choose the major you think most interests you. If it's CS, then stay with CS.
I am not a particularly good writer, so I hesitate to critique the improved version (but this is/. so what the hell).
I don't like the reformatted version because a two-column format is very difficult to read on-screen. When I was involved with hiring as part of a previous job, I would read all the resumes on the computer, and then print out the good ones so I'd have them in my hand during the phone interview .
However I have issues with people who are not American citizens potentially taking jobs away from people who are
What is it about being American that makes you a better choice for a job? What if I required you to buy an American car because you are an American citizen and the car was made by American citizens? What about an American TV? And what if those American cars and TVs were all twice as expensive because the manufacturers knew that people would be forced to buy them? Even if you wanted an American car or TV, do you think it would be fair?
If someone with the same skills as you is willing to work for less money than you are, why shouldn't they be hired? Maybe you should ask for less money.
I'm always surprised at how many people think they can get a job by just browsing monster.com or whatever. I haven't met anyone who got a job through monster.com, but I've met a lot of people who've tried.
I got my last job through Monster or Dice (I can't remember which). It can work, though I wouldn't suggest relying on it. Since they are free, you might as well spend some of your job-seeking time using them.
Re:For those of you on the West Coast...
on
Step 2, Groceries
·
· Score: 2
I used to use WebVan for all my shopping. After they died, I tried both Safeway.com and Albertsons.com.
Both have horrible websites. I can't even use Safeway's, because they don't offer any information about the product other than name, size and price. No nutritional information, ingredients, description or picture.
Albertson's is pretty bad too, but I used it for a while. Every order was screwed up in some way. Sometimes they'd leave items out (and still charge me), other times they'd deliver the wrong number of items or make stupid substitutions. Plus the Albertson's delivery people were not at all friendly. They were usually on-time though.
WebVan screwed up from time to time, too (especially near the end of its life), but at least I wasn't paying a delivery charge. And if they forgot to deliver an item, they would sometimes drive back to my house and deliver it.
It's obvious that neither Safeway and Albertson's are trying. I think they'll lose money, close their online shopping divisions and say that it just isn't possible for anyone to make any money doing it.
I use two browsers: Mozilla for everyday browsing, and I fire up IE if I go to a site that requires Flash, Java, or JavaScript (and only if I trust the site and feel that viewing the site is worth the trouble).
1. Because flash "artists" don't understand animation. They make you waste your time waiting for text to zoom across the screen and for images to slowly scale and for slow fades. That might work for TV viewers sitting on a couch, but someone sitting at a computer doesn't want to wait around.
2. Because I don't want to see animated ads, and I don't want to hear ads either. Flash doesn't provide pause and mute controls, so I don't use Flash.
You can buy plastic "keyboard skins" that protect keyboards from spills and dirt. If your keyboard had blank keys, you could write the letters on the underside of the skin (backwards, I suppose) with a magic marker.
Or, make the front sides (not the top) magnetic, and then have a lot of little metal rectangles with letters on them. You re-arrange the keys in software, then you move the rectangles to the right keys. The rectangles won't get in the way because you'll be touching the tops of the keys when you type, not the sides. (I remember using keyboards long ago that had things printed on the fronts of the keys.)
Or better yet, find out what material is used for those static-stick stickers that attach to things without glue. Then print up a bunch of those and you can stick them on the sides of the keys instead.
Or, have a small strip of plastic between each row (like the strip between the F keys and the number keys, but thinner). Your software can print out thin strips of paper which you can then attach to the strips of plastic.
Or, have a bunch of non-attached strips of plastic that can fit between the rows of keys and which sit at a 45 degree angle or so. They can attach at either side of the keyboard. Then your software can print out thin strips of paper with the keys on them, you can attach the paper to the plastic strips, and insert the strips.
Of course, none of this is as cool as having it done electronically, but one of these ways actually might work.
You owe the Oracle a Mutating Mouse, a beer, and $1000 if you use his brilliant ideas.
You'll undoubtedly want to make certain measurements so you know how good a job you are doing. Be careful to measure the right thing.
I read an interesting story about a tech support department that tracked the number of open tickets. The number was low and everyone was feeling good about themselves, but the users weren't too happy.
It turns out that the really hard problems were being left alone and the easy ones were being solved first. So there were only a few open tickets, but they had been open for a long time.
So the moral of the story is to track the right thing. In this case, the department started tracking the average length of time a ticket was open, resulting in an increase in customer satisfaction.
6) Hire people who know how to spell and write. If you're going to be communicating with customers via email or your own documentation, and it looks anything like the above message, they won't take you seriously.
I'd like to submit a proposal to our IT and Process groups recommending a "trial run" on some small project, but am having a difficult time finding enough empirical evidence to crack the budget-clench.
Do the budget people respond to empirical evidence? My experience has always been that they make emotional rather than logical decisions (like most people do).
Perhaps you can come up with some emotional argument, like, as a previous poster mentioned, letting your boss use a dual-monitor setup for a little while. Even if he doesn't need it, he'll hopefully think it's cool and not be so opposed to it for you.
Me neither. Some of my favorite songs are the "deep tracks" that never make it to the radio, which is why I never buy "best of" CDs, and why I wouldn't pay per track.
And one of my favorite albums makes a lot more sense if you listen to all the songs, in order.
Stealth technology is designed to counter the resources of an enemy army that is sophisticated and technologically advanced enough to be able to shoot down aircraft with missiles. These enemies are in short supply, these days.
I wonder if the defendant's jail cell is next to a garbage chute that has an exit near his ship?
And after he's found guilty, I wonder if he'll be thrown in some sort of pit containing some sort of
monster and from which he couldn't possibly escape.
I would suggest
cvs
and
index cards
for now, and get something else in the future if you end up needing it.
It will save you time and money because you won't end up buying/writing something you don't need. And you might be surprised how useful index cards can be...
1. Think of the most important feature that you can describe in one sentence and that you estimate will take a small amount of time (say, 4 hours). 2. Write a test for it. 3. Write the code to make the test pass. 4. Refactor.
You have to be able to react in disgust when someone says they use { vi | emacs } and give a long list of why { emacs | vi } is far superior and anyone who uses { vi | emacs } is an idiot.
You must cleverly write "fsck" when you mean "fuck".
You need to be able to roll your eyes when someone says they use a Microsoft or Apple operating system, unless they are talking about a part of the OS that was originally implemented on a Unix OS, in which case you need to be able to smugly slip something into the conversation about how it was first invented in 1902 by RMS or ESR or TMBG.
Slashdot Mirror
If you were a company and had a lot of lower-paid foreign workers, and then the government stopped letting you hire such workers, what would you do? Hire more highly paid American workers? Or just farm the entire project/department out to a foreign country?
The latter would save the company money and result in fewer American jobs and less income tax revenue for the US. It would create more jobs for foreign companies and more income tax revenue for those countries. Probably not what the AFL-CIO wants to happen.
So if you want to make money, start selling mesh hardware nodes and maybe support contracts for your customers' nodes.
And maybe in the short term, you can charge for connecting their nodes to your T1. But perhaps soon the mesh will be so pervasive that connections to the internet will be ubiquitous and free, or perhaps the internet will just consist of mesh nodes.
As an independent contractor, you can often subcontract through these companies. Of course, they still take a percentage of each hour you work, but it's probably less than what they'd take if you were one of their employees.
If not, there are some self-service consutling companies out there such as FreeAgent and ZeroChaos. They do the billing, taxes, 401(k), insurance, direct-deposit, etc. You pay a monthly fee (~$300) plus insurance premiums.
But when your contract is over, they don't find you a new one. And they don't pay you until your client pays them, so be prepared to get paid irregularly.
I know someone who was having a hard time finding a job because he lived in a different part of the state than the one in which he was applying. Then he got a cell phone in the area and used a friend's mailing address and jot offers out the wazoo (comparitively speaking, anyway).
After you graduate, I'd suggest working at least 8 hours a day looking for a job. It's hard work, but so is a job. There are a lot of books and websites with job-hunting tips. The newspaper and job sites are the very beginning. You need to meet people and to let them know you need a job without sounding desparate.
Some ways to meet people: mentor, teach, volunteer, temp, go to local user groups. Remember, you just got a degree in a field that most people are afraid of and have little experience with. If you had an English degree, it would be hard to teach or help people, since everyone took English in school.
And don't focus on just tech companies. Let's say you are interested in science and computers. Maybe you know someone who knows someone who works for a biotech company. Tell them you want some practical experience writing a database program (in Access or something) and ask them if they could use such a program for free. Work there for a few weeks (don't work at home). Now all of a sudden you know a bunch of scientists who think you are a computer genius (because they have no idea that Access is easy). Maybe they'll hire you, or mention you to their colleagues who actually are looking to hire someone.
And finally, think of it this way: if half of the graduates this year can't find a job, it means that you only have to be better than 50% of the people in your school. You're better than 50% of the people there, right?
The placement office at my university hasn't been too helpful for many students in the CS department.
Don't expect them to do much work for you. Actually, don't expect anyone to do work for you. Do it yourself.
As far as the government is concerned, I'm simply not old enough for any job that gets paid more than minimum wage and has actual job security.
That's false. My first job was with the government, and while I wasn't making a killing, I made good enough money to have an [ugly] apartment and a [cheap] new car. And it wasn't with a defense-related department, so there were no security clearances I needed to have or anything.
Most of my job searching has been conducted through services like Dice and Monster.
I think those sites are a good starting point, but you should spend only a small fraction of your time on them. The rest of the time should out of the house, walking the beat as it were.
If you're a CS major because you think it will make you good money, then change your major to something you like or go to a techincal school, because a university education is intentionally not designed to train you for a job.
Choose the major you think most interests you. If it's CS, then stay with CS.
I am not a particularly good writer, so I hesitate to critique the improved version (but this is /. so what the hell).
I don't like the reformatted version because a two-column format is very difficult to read on-screen. When I was involved with hiring as part of a previous job, I would read all the resumes on the computer, and then print out the good ones so I'd have them in my hand during the phone interview .
What is it about being American that makes you a better choice for a job? What if I required you to buy an American car because you are an American citizen and the car was made by American citizens? What about an American TV? And what if those American cars and TVs were all twice as expensive because the manufacturers knew that people would be forced to buy them? Even if you wanted an American car or TV, do you think it would be fair?
If someone with the same skills as you is willing to work for less money than you are, why shouldn't they be hired? Maybe you should ask for less money.
I got my last job through Monster or Dice (I can't remember which). It can work, though I wouldn't suggest relying on it. Since they are free, you might as well spend some of your job-seeking time using them.
I used to use WebVan for all my shopping. After they died, I tried both Safeway.com and Albertsons.com.
Both have horrible websites. I can't even use Safeway's, because they don't offer any information about the product other than name, size and price. No nutritional information, ingredients, description or picture.
Albertson's is pretty bad too, but I used it for a while. Every order was screwed up in some way. Sometimes they'd leave items out (and still charge me), other times they'd deliver the wrong number of items or make stupid substitutions. Plus the Albertson's delivery people were not at all friendly. They were usually on-time though.
WebVan screwed up from time to time, too (especially near the end of its life), but at least I wasn't paying a delivery charge. And if they forgot to deliver an item, they would sometimes drive back to my house and deliver it.
It's obvious that neither Safeway and Albertson's are trying. I think they'll lose money, close their online shopping divisions and say that it just isn't possible for anyone to make any money doing it.
I use two browsers: Mozilla for everyday browsing, and I fire up IE if I go to a site that requires Flash, Java, or JavaScript (and only if I trust the site and feel that viewing the site is worth the trouble).
1. Because flash "artists" don't understand animation. They make you waste your time waiting for text to zoom across the screen and for images to slowly scale and for slow fades. That might work for TV viewers sitting on a couch, but someone sitting at a computer doesn't want to wait around.
2. Because I don't want to see animated ads, and I don't want to hear ads either. Flash doesn't provide pause and mute controls, so I don't use Flash.
Or, make the front sides (not the top) magnetic, and then have a lot of little metal rectangles with letters on them. You re-arrange the keys in software, then you move the rectangles to the right keys. The rectangles won't get in the way because you'll be touching the tops of the keys when you type, not the sides. (I remember using keyboards long ago that had things printed on the fronts of the keys.)
Or better yet, find out what material is used for those static-stick stickers that attach to things without glue. Then print up a bunch of those and you can stick them on the sides of the keys instead.
Or, have a small strip of plastic between each row (like the strip between the F keys and the number keys, but thinner). Your software can print out thin strips of paper which you can then attach to the strips of plastic.
Or, have a bunch of non-attached strips of plastic that can fit between the rows of keys and which sit at a 45 degree angle or so. They can attach at either side of the keyboard. Then your software can print out thin strips of paper with the keys on them, you can attach the paper to the plastic strips, and insert the strips.
Of course, none of this is as cool as having it done electronically, but one of these ways actually might work.
You owe the Oracle a Mutating Mouse, a beer, and $1000 if you use his brilliant ideas.
You'll undoubtedly want to make certain measurements so you know how good a job you are doing. Be careful to measure the right thing.
I read an interesting story about a tech support department that tracked the number of open tickets. The number was low and everyone was feeling good about themselves, but the users weren't too happy.
It turns out that the really hard problems were being left alone and the easy ones were being solved first. So there were only a few open tickets, but they had been open for a long time.
So the moral of the story is to track the right thing. In this case, the department started tracking the average length of time a ticket was open, resulting in an increase in customer satisfaction.
6) Hire people who know how to spell and write. If you're going to be communicating with customers via email or your own documentation, and it looks anything like the above message, they won't take you seriously.
Do the budget people respond to empirical evidence? My experience has always been that they make emotional rather than logical decisions (like most people do).
Perhaps you can come up with some emotional argument, like, as a previous poster mentioned, letting your boss use a dual-monitor setup for a little while. Even if he doesn't need it, he'll hopefully think it's cool and not be so opposed to it for you.
Me neither. Some of my favorite songs are the "deep tracks" that never make it to the radio, which is why I never buy "best of" CDs, and why I wouldn't pay per track.
And one of my favorite albums makes a lot more sense if you listen to all the songs, in order.
There's North Korea.
And Texas.
And after he's found guilty, I wonder if he'll be thrown in some sort of pit containing some sort of monster and from which he couldn't possibly escape.
It looks like Eclipse doesn't support Objective C, though it apparently supports Mac OS X now.
Are there any other good tools for developing Objective C apps on Mac OS X (other than Project Builder and CodeWarrior)?
nbHF48FKJH4F;kjh4LKJHhNB498CN4I
SKLJ4H9sdflkjh48B3498HW4IFN4IN8
OKDNJ48458DI4.SL4993;W5497GKH48
2HCB4KBHS843,JNS,JH43872B34JYB4
ZMNB48lkjh48BB4JHG8cbhbj8675309
It will save you time and money because you won't end up buying/writing something you don't need. And you might be surprised how useful index cards can be...
1. Think of the most important feature that you can describe in one sentence and that you estimate will take a small amount of time (say, 4 hours).
2. Write a test for it.
3. Write the code to make the test pass.
4. Refactor.
Repeat steps 1-4 until finished.
You have to be able to react in disgust when someone says they use { vi | emacs } and give a long list of why { emacs | vi } is far superior and anyone who uses { vi | emacs } is an idiot.
You must cleverly write "fsck" when you mean "fuck".
You need to be able to roll your eyes when someone says they use a Microsoft or Apple operating system, unless they are talking about a part of the OS that was originally implemented on a Unix OS, in which case you need to be able to smugly slip something into the conversation about how it was first invented in 1902 by RMS or ESR or TMBG.