One way IBM adapts to today's computing climate is by morphing into more of a service organization than merely a software vendor. So heterogeneous systems, multiple implementations based on open standards, and interoperability at the enterprise level all add up to more problems for IBM's professional services organization to fix, ergo more revenue.
Not only could this easily be definied as a cover, which requires no payment of royalties
Hmmm. No payment of royalties, eh? These folks seem to think you're wrong. They seem to think that though an artist can't deny you the right to make/sell the cover, you still owe statuatory royalties based on your compulsory licensing of the work.
Think about it. What about all those lyrics sites that got sued and/or shut down? All they did was print the lyrics to songs. Illegally. Why? Because lyrics are the copyrighted property of the publisher (often, the artist). The 10-year-old in the commercial went on TV and recited the lyrics to a song, without permission. What's the difference?
While my on-line application never came up in their searches, my paper based one was their top pick (and it was the exact same application).
I doubt the difference really comes down to electronic vs. paper. Probably "form letter" vs. "personalized application" is closer to the truth. If a job site is sending an employer stacks of applications formatted in some uniform way, whomever is supposed to review the applications will probably glaze over very quickly. You ever join a non-digest Internet mailing list? How long did it take before you stopped eagerly reading each new posting that came through the list?
Just out of curiosity... am I the only one for whom Neuromancer fell flat? The first 50 or 100 pages were impressive, and... then... it... went... nowhere...
Back in the day, somebody came to me and said, "You gotta read this amazing new cyberpunk stuff, it's this new word, it means all these cool new authors, like try this William Gibson guy."
I said, "Cyberpunk? What is that, you mean sorta like Blade Runner?"
And you know what, turns out I was pretty much right. The ideas and stories of the big "cyberpunk explosion" (and those of you who used to haunt SF bookstores back then know what a media hype machine it was, for a while) just didn't strike me as being anything particularly revelatory.
OTOH, I found Count Zero to be a helluva enjoyable book, and it's still my favorite of Gibson's.
Pattern Recognition didn't impress me too much. I found Gibson's non-technical viewpoint was too pervasive in it. His characters, working in the graphic design industry, really probably would have heard of digital watermarking before.
What would have surprised them (and what confused me) was the idea that digital watermarks could somehow be used to trace data as it moves through the Internet. How does that work, exactly? Last I heard, the purpose of digital watermarks is to identify a given image, to prove its origins. If the creator of the images doesn't want to be identified, then why watermark them?
Actually, slander is by definition spoken. When printed or published, it is libel.
That actually depends on the jurisdiction. The state of Illinois, for instance, makes no distinction between the two -- all types of defamation are treated the same under the law. On the other hand, in California the definition of slander is much more specific than that of libel -- meaning you might overhear a spoken statement and quote it in print, and while the original speaker's statement might not be deemed slanderous, your putting it in print could still be considered libel. (Source: The Associated Press Stylebook.)
The problem with PalmOS is, it's built around a Windows 3.x-style event loop with no threading. "Cooperative multiprocessing," if you can call it that.
Actually, Mac OS-style might be more accurate (meaning pre-Mac OS X). When I fiddled around with Palm development a while back, I was surprised by how much Palm had "borrowed" from the Mac OS. I shouldn't have been, I guess, since a lot of the original developers came from Apple.
That's what my initial reaction would be, as well. But more than half the fake bills I've seen posted up at retail stores, movie theaters, etc., with a sign posted underneath them reading "Cashiers! Know Your Counterfeits!" are nothing more than... black and white photocopies. Sometimes the two sides of the bill are taped together. Never underestimate the idiocy of someone making a cashier's wages.
Explain to me exactly how the Bill of Rights, which sets forth limits on the federal gov't (and sometimes the States), applies to HP, a private company?
Because HP put flaws into their products (to quote the article) "at the request of U.S. and international officials to help clamp down on counterfeiting." (Read: It was pressured into it.) If anything, it should be HP that's complaining.
Whereas I am totally confused as to why this distinction is so confusing. You're saying the order of the value and the register seems backwards? Back in the olden days, on the 6502 series, if you wanted to load a register with a given value, you'd pick a register and load the value into it with the appropriate opcode: LDA $A6 to load the accumulator, for instance, where LDA is mnemonic for "LoaD Accumulator." Seems to me Intel just invented a more versatile opcode. Next time you see the opcode "mov," try training your head to pronounce it "load" instead of "move."
Even though it sounds like your neighbours are computer oriented, I guarantee you will be swamped with more problems than you bargained for.
Yeah... for example, watch how fast your landlord starts raising the rents in the building once he catches wind of the "free Internet access" his tenants are enjoying. He'll start with the new vacancies (without mentioning to any of the current tenants what he plans to ask for, of course). Once he gets a few happy customers, he'll work on raising rents for you and all your gaming/net buddies as well.
Maybe you'll be shrewd enough to figure out that he's started advertising the wireless, and that's why he's charging more for rents. So you'll threaten to dismantle the whole system. At that point, BOOM! He'll slap you with a lawsuit, seeking both:
An injunction preventing you from gaining access to the building for purposes of making unauthorized modifications, including but not limited to removing the network hardware
Damages, for your having installed it against his wishes in the first place.
Mind you, I come from San Francisco, so maybe my view of landlords is a little too pessimistic for where you live. YMMV.
Probably the best thing to do then is print out a barcode at the top with a breakdown of voting:
President: John Adams
Vice-President: Thomas Jefferson
Treasurer: Etc
You're basically talking about eliminating the idea of a secret ballot. No effin' way.
Think about how you vote already. At my polling place, I fill out what amounts to a Scantron form and feed it into a machine. The machine goes beep, a counter increments, and I'm left with a little torn-off strip of paper that says "you voted." And that's it. There's no paper record of who I voted for. There never has been, and that's on purpose.
Imagine how your vote might be influenced if you knew you had to walk home from your polling place past a bunch of thugs who would demand to see your voting receipt -- "correct" choices implied -- and weren't going to take no for an answer. That's why there's no visual confirmation.
I understand some of the hubbub over "electronic voting," and some of it I don't understand. I mean, in my district we have electronic voting right now. Would it be significantly harder to rig a Scantron machine than to rig a computerized voting machine? I don't know. I guess that's the point of these studies. But I can't believe there's no way to implement a new ballot-taking UI without compromising the entire voting process that's gone on for 200 years.
How about this: You show up at your polling place. You're given a two-part card, perforated; one with the voting receipt on it (same as with the Scantron) and the other with a barcode on it. You go to your computer terminal. You feed it your barcode. You punch in your votes. It beeps. You get up, and you go to another machine at the same polling place. You feed it your barcode. At this point, it pulls up the choices you just voted for from whatever database, and re-presents them to you. This is to confirm that your choices were stored in whatever database properly. You can't change them at this point. You can only confirm or deny the whole ballot. If you abort it, you'll need to talk to your polling place staff about getting a new ballot. If you confirm, you're done and off you go. If you do neither, the ballot is invalid. Once you confirm or deny, the barcode is invalid, and nobody can see your choice again.
Why do you accept this? A free market means you should be able to get any phone of hundred of models and just use it with the network service provider's supplied SIM card.
There is a long story behind this. Partly it has to do with legacy cellular infrastructure. U.S. carriers first introduced "digital cellular," which used the same frequencies that Europe later used to deploy GSM phones. Later they rolled out what we know as "PCS" phones, but these used the CDMA standard instead of GSM, owing to the lobbying of Qualcomm (the inventor). Nowadays we are getting more GSM-based networks, but as I understand it, these still must use different frequencies than European GSM, therefore requiring different hardware than what's widely available in Europe. So basically what we have is a variety of providers based on a variety of networks, not all of which are interoperable. It's more than just some kind of corporate collusion, as you seem to suggest. Logistically it is not possible to sell a single handset that can work on every network, SIM card or otherwise.
No-one I know has joined yet and I've not heard much on the net so are there really any members or is it just another conspiracy theory - ie you think it's good therefore you want to join?!?
Who knows? It's not like they've given anybody any impression of what to expect when they sign up. The Web site says next to nothing, and neither does the actual invite when you get one. Here's the text of the one I received:
[person] <name@address> invites you to join her network of personal friends at orkut.com.
orkut is a community of friends and trusted acquaintances that connects individuals through a social network that grows person by person.
With orkut, you can catch up with old friends, make new acquaintances through people you trust, and maybe even find that certain someone you've been looking for everywhere.
orkut helps you organize and attend events, join communities that share your interests, and find partners to participate in the activities you most enjoy.
To find out why [person] thought you'd enjoy orkut and to discover who else you know is already a member, click on the link below:
[link]
* * *
If you're already an orkut member, make sure that the email address at which you received this note is entered into your orkut profile. That way, you'll automatically be connected to all of your friends.
This invitation was sent to [me] <my@address> on behalf of [person] <name@address>. If you do not wish to receive invitations from orkut, click on the link below:
[link]
And that's about it! Now you tell me -- do I really want to join this thing? What does it get me? Since it's Google, I guess we're all assuming it won't land us on anybody's spam lists, but how can we be sure? Is there any way to back our information out of the system if we decide it's all a pointless waste of time (or worse -- a scam)?
And, to get philosophical -- is it really possible to meet people online? Can you really have "met" somebody... whom you've never met before???! I just don't get the point of these "friend networks," at all.
It's entirely possible that the authors of this virus targeted SCO, simply to make it appear that Linux zealots were responsible...to throw off the law enforcement officials who might look for the culprit in the Linux community.
Are you really implying that law enforcement might think Eric S. Raymond or Miguel De Icaza wrote this virus? Because, if not, who is this "Linux community" you think your average FBI agent is aware of? And is it really throwing them off the scent if, failing to view the Linux community as a scapegoat, they would be forced to search amongst the "hacker community"?
Just last year, there were 3 million smartphones sold
Yup, clocking in at just about 0.7 percent of all handsets sold. Not really indicative of a burgeoning trend, if you ask me.
Just this morning I read an Associated Press article in the local paper talking about consumer backlash against overly complicated personal technology devices. A 180-page manual for a point-and-shoot digital camera. A DVD remote with so many buttons on it that there was no room for a decent-sized Pause button. Etc.
Among the research facts cited in that article, a Yankee Group study shows that 50 percent of consumers postpone purchases on new gadgets because they think the new ones will be too hard to use. Also, 25 percent of consumers thought they had a high-definition television when they didn't. (I can personally count my own mother among these; more accurately, the store sold her an HDTV-ready digital TV, but without any hardware to receive HDTV signals. She thinks the picture looks great.)
Personally, I have absolutely no use for a digital camera built into my cell phone. I have little, if any, use for a color screen on same. I don't play games. Custom ring tones have limited utility. I think, like most people, I find PDA features useful mostly insofar as I can keep all my phone numbers -- where? Why, in my phone, so I can dial them. And then back them up to my computer. That's about it. That's about all most people want.
To switch to Devil's Advocate mode: to be perfectly honest, I do actually own a Smartphone. It's a Kyocera QCP-6035. Among other things, I keep the BART (light rail) schedule on it, and an application that has the addresses and phone numbers of local businesses, and movie listings. I check my email on it occasionally. It's very handy, and I'll probably replace it with another Smartphone when it dies.
But most people who see it think it's a goof. Even when I can pull up the movie schedules so we can catch a show that same afternoon, right on time, the thought never ever crosses their minds to get a similar gadget. They'll just pick up the local free weekly to get their movie listings, like always.
Can I blame them? This thing's a big, honkin' piece of plastic! They see it, they think it's an embarrassment, and they ain't wrong. There's plenty of times when I've wished I just had a plain old regular phone that dialed numbers and had a little screen for caller ID, and that's it. Especially if it was the size of a stubby fountain pen.
In sum: I'm not one of these people who thinks Linux is going to dominate Smartphones. I do not think it will. But even if it did -- is dominating yet another niche geek market really that big of an achievement?
A resume never gets you a job, only an interview. If you get a job based on a resume alone, I would be very wary of the business.
It's a nice truism, and good advice I guess, but I've been on the other side of the desk as well. I've had to hire people before, and to be perfectly honest, nine times out of ten I can tell which candidate I'm probably going to hire just based on the resume/cover letter alone. Of course I'm going to interview more than one candidate, and I'm going to keep an open mind throughout, but typically it works out that way.
Why? Because from reading the application I can tell:
Their communication skills -- often times more important than anything else. (When people ask me how their teenage kids can get into the computer field, what classes they should take, I tell them public speaking and debate.)
Their attitude. This ties in with the point above. The way a candidate phrases things tells a lot about his/her overall level of maturity, as well as how they view their job. As other people have mentioned, a bland, textbook-style resume and cover letter isn't telling me that the candidate really has any particular interest in the job he's applying for -- only that he wants a job.
Which skills they think are important. If you're applying for an IT job at a Mac-based design shop, and your past history shows a lot of work with Windows NT servers, you're probably a very technically competent person. That wouldn't disqualify you. However, if you mention how good you are running MS SQL Server not only on your resume but in the cover letter, what you're telling me is that you really don't understand the needs and parameters of the position.
Not to mention experience -- if you've only just made the leap from plumbing to IT, I'm not going to feel as confident hiring you as I would hiring somebody who's had a couple of professional positions under his/her belt.
Ultimately what I'm saying is, in these times when any position advertised for is going to get a couple hundred resumes, the resumes that truly stand out are probably going to stand out far enough that those candidates have a good chance of getting hired, and the second-tier candidates have zero chance of getting hired. So writing a resume with a mind to "only get an interview" might not be the smartest plan.
Ultimately, though, my advice is pretty much the same as what most other people are saying: Be honest. Don't be generic. Show something that will differentiate yourself from other people, in a good way.
But perhaps most importantly of all, realize and accept that, even if you need a job really bad, there are some jobs out there that just aren't for you. If you're tailoring your resume so that it "looks" a certain way, but that isn't really you, you're actually doing yourself a disservice.
You shouldn't be trying to swindle your way into getting a job. For one thing, you're probably not fooling anybody. If your slick cover letter gets you into an interview for a job where you could never have really delivered the goods, you're wasting the interviewer's time, but more importantly, yours.
Second, take a word of advice from somebody who's learned enough lessons to know: You don't want a bad job. Especially if you're an eager kid who's ready to pour yourself into your work. If that's the case, a bad job can do you some real damage in ways you maybe don't expect; trust me.
So don't go looking for one. If you don't want to have to dress up to go to work, don't go to the interview in a borrowed suit and brand-new shoes. If you'd rather not work with Windows, and never have before, don't go into the interview thinking you know Linux, so Windows should be easy. You know the saying: Be careful what you wish for. I know too many people who made this mistake when looking for a job.
Yeah, it sucks to be unemployed. I'm unemployed right now, so I know. But do yourself a favor, and hold out for the right job. The guy in the article pretty much gives the same advice. Rather than worrying about what your resume says or the best way to write it, if the job probably isn't for you, don't apply. I know it's all about getting ahead, but everything in its time.
When Yoda is commanding troops in battle, making split second decisions, and drawing his saber, you know that things are coming quickly to a head.
Well if that's all it took to make you feel like "things are coming to a head" after watching the rest of that dull-ass movie, I'm wondering why Lucas didn't just put "things are quickly coming to a head" in the opening scroll. He could have cut a half hour of production.
There were no lines that are worthy of geeks repeating.
Sure there are!
Next time you wonder whether George will return to the former glory of the Star Wars series, or whether Episode III will be just another shabby, poorly-conceived commercial cash cow like Episodes I and II, just purse your lips a little bit and in as deep a voice as you can, repeat:
"I think we're going to have to accept Federation control, for the time being."
Let the stuffed shirts and corporate bigwigs make money from the Free code. Let the pundits question what it will take for Linux to succeed on the Desktop. There is massive innovation in Linux userspace, driven by the same geeky joy that, in another era and in other fields is called "intellectual curiosity." That's what I see as the main force behind the Open Source movement; not corporate possibilities, as the LinuxWorld convention pretends, but brutal candor, mischievous smartness, self-mocking over-eagerness. The corporate successes of Linux are just the results of an overflow of energy, the excesses being mopped up. The hacker ethic is driving the corporations. We don't need them, but they need us.
Umm... OK.
This guy's conclusion seems to be that LinuxWorld was overrun by corporations (read: evil) but that secretly the geeks were powering everything and they, in the long run, would "win out." Um -- huh?
I mean, that might be a nice way to think about things, but how really is the open source world any different than any other scientific endeavor? You've got gigantic automobile manufacturers, aerospace companies, drug companies... Boeing, Ford, Glaxo, Archer Daniels-Midland, whatever. Yes, these are "evil" corporations doing "evil" things, but a large proportion of what constitutes the products they sell came out of academic research. Weird guys with beards, in laboratories, doing things for the sake of "intellectual curiosity." People squirting things into petri dishes, people pointing lasers at things to see what happens. And then the corporations buy it all up and make money off of it.
Does this surprise anyone?
Researchers research.
Tinkerers tinker.
Businesses make money.
Aren't these pretty much the dictionary definitions, and hasn't that always been the case?
Sorry, but it just kills me when Linux geeks seem to think they're creating some kind of cultural/scientific revolution that somehow dwarfs past endeavors like, oh, the Saturn 5 rocket. And that, because of their personal ethics, they're going to somehow escape The Way the World Is, unlike Einstein, or Stephen Hawking, or John Nash, or whomever.
Nice world you must live in, buddy, but I'm not buying it.
In fact, it is perfectly legal to download music off the internet.
Patently false. When you download an MP3, what are you doing? Are you removing that MP3 from the server, so now you have it and the server doesn't? No -- you are making a copy of it on your own machine. Hence, you are violating copyright law.
For a while now, I've been wanting what amounts to a laptop-size keyboard for a desktop computer. I'm not an accountant; I've got no real use for this big numeric keypad stuck off to the side of the keyboard. I'd even prefer it if the cursor keys were smaller, or hidden somehow.
With a standard keyboard, when you do what's natural and position it in front of the monitor, the alpha keys (the ones I use most) are positioned slightly to the left of the screen, meaning I tend to swivel to the left to use them. Meanwhile, the mouse is pushed far to the right by all these extraneous keys, causing me to overextend my arm to use it, leading to fatigue.
A nice, small keyboard with none of the bloat would be perfect. If it somehow stuff Mac keys on there (volume control, eject) that would be magical.
We seem to be crossing the barrier from capturing and prosecuting criminals to restraining the general populace in order to protect the status quo institution...
Given that the institution in question is finance, which is basically the foundation of all of American society, I don't know why you seem so surprised.
If it was really 1982 vintage, it was probably 4.77MHz. IBM didn't release a machine with the Intel 80286 chip until 1984, and those came in 6MHz and 8MHz flavors.
Slashdot Mirror
One way IBM adapts to today's computing climate is by morphing into more of a service organization than merely a software vendor. So heterogeneous systems, multiple implementations based on open standards, and interoperability at the enterprise level all add up to more problems for IBM's professional services organization to fix, ergo more revenue.
Think about it. What about all those lyrics sites that got sued and/or shut down? All they did was print the lyrics to songs. Illegally. Why? Because lyrics are the copyrighted property of the publisher (often, the artist). The 10-year-old in the commercial went on TV and recited the lyrics to a song, without permission. What's the difference?
I said, "Cyberpunk? What is that, you mean sorta like Blade Runner?"
And you know what, turns out I was pretty much right. The ideas and stories of the big "cyberpunk explosion" (and those of you who used to haunt SF bookstores back then know what a media hype machine it was, for a while) just didn't strike me as being anything particularly revelatory.
OTOH, I found Count Zero to be a helluva enjoyable book, and it's still my favorite of Gibson's.
Pattern Recognition didn't impress me too much. I found Gibson's non-technical viewpoint was too pervasive in it. His characters, working in the graphic design industry, really probably would have heard of digital watermarking before.
What would have surprised them (and what confused me) was the idea that digital watermarks could somehow be used to trace data as it moves through the Internet. How does that work, exactly? Last I heard, the purpose of digital watermarks is to identify a given image, to prove its origins. If the creator of the images doesn't want to be identified, then why watermark them?
That's what my initial reaction would be, as well. But more than half the fake bills I've seen posted up at retail stores, movie theaters, etc., with a sign posted underneath them reading "Cashiers! Know Your Counterfeits!" are nothing more than ... black and white photocopies. Sometimes the two sides of the bill are taped together. Never underestimate the idiocy of someone making a cashier's wages.
Whereas I am totally confused as to why this distinction is so confusing. You're saying the order of the value and the register seems backwards? Back in the olden days, on the 6502 series, if you wanted to load a register with a given value, you'd pick a register and load the value into it with the appropriate opcode: LDA $A6 to load the accumulator, for instance, where LDA is mnemonic for "LoaD Accumulator." Seems to me Intel just invented a more versatile opcode. Next time you see the opcode "mov," try training your head to pronounce it "load" instead of "move."
Maybe you'll be shrewd enough to figure out that he's started advertising the wireless, and that's why he's charging more for rents. So you'll threaten to dismantle the whole system. At that point, BOOM! He'll slap you with a lawsuit, seeking both:
- An injunction preventing you from gaining access to the building for purposes of making unauthorized modifications, including but not limited to removing the network hardware
- Damages, for your having installed it against his wishes in the first place.
Mind you, I come from San Francisco, so maybe my view of landlords is a little too pessimistic for where you live. YMMV.Think about how you vote already. At my polling place, I fill out what amounts to a Scantron form and feed it into a machine. The machine goes beep, a counter increments, and I'm left with a little torn-off strip of paper that says "you voted." And that's it. There's no paper record of who I voted for. There never has been, and that's on purpose.
Imagine how your vote might be influenced if you knew you had to walk home from your polling place past a bunch of thugs who would demand to see your voting receipt -- "correct" choices implied -- and weren't going to take no for an answer. That's why there's no visual confirmation.
I understand some of the hubbub over "electronic voting," and some of it I don't understand. I mean, in my district we have electronic voting right now. Would it be significantly harder to rig a Scantron machine than to rig a computerized voting machine? I don't know. I guess that's the point of these studies. But I can't believe there's no way to implement a new ballot-taking UI without compromising the entire voting process that's gone on for 200 years.
How about this: You show up at your polling place. You're given a two-part card, perforated; one with the voting receipt on it (same as with the Scantron) and the other with a barcode on it. You go to your computer terminal. You feed it your barcode. You punch in your votes. It beeps. You get up, and you go to another machine at the same polling place. You feed it your barcode. At this point, it pulls up the choices you just voted for from whatever database, and re-presents them to you. This is to confirm that your choices were stored in whatever database properly. You can't change them at this point. You can only confirm or deny the whole ballot. If you abort it, you'll need to talk to your polling place staff about getting a new ballot. If you confirm, you're done and off you go. If you do neither, the ballot is invalid. Once you confirm or deny, the barcode is invalid, and nobody can see your choice again.
And, to get philosophical -- is it really possible to meet people online? Can you really have "met" somebody ... whom you've never met before???! I just don't get the point of these "friend networks," at all.
Just this morning I read an Associated Press article in the local paper talking about consumer backlash against overly complicated personal technology devices. A 180-page manual for a point-and-shoot digital camera. A DVD remote with so many buttons on it that there was no room for a decent-sized Pause button. Etc.
Among the research facts cited in that article, a Yankee Group study shows that 50 percent of consumers postpone purchases on new gadgets because they think the new ones will be too hard to use. Also, 25 percent of consumers thought they had a high-definition television when they didn't. (I can personally count my own mother among these; more accurately, the store sold her an HDTV-ready digital TV, but without any hardware to receive HDTV signals. She thinks the picture looks great.)
Personally, I have absolutely no use for a digital camera built into my cell phone. I have little, if any, use for a color screen on same. I don't play games. Custom ring tones have limited utility. I think, like most people, I find PDA features useful mostly insofar as I can keep all my phone numbers -- where? Why, in my phone, so I can dial them. And then back them up to my computer. That's about it. That's about all most people want.
To switch to Devil's Advocate mode: to be perfectly honest, I do actually own a Smartphone. It's a Kyocera QCP-6035. Among other things, I keep the BART (light rail) schedule on it, and an application that has the addresses and phone numbers of local businesses, and movie listings. I check my email on it occasionally. It's very handy, and I'll probably replace it with another Smartphone when it dies.
But most people who see it think it's a goof. Even when I can pull up the movie schedules so we can catch a show that same afternoon, right on time, the thought never ever crosses their minds to get a similar gadget. They'll just pick up the local free weekly to get their movie listings, like always.
Can I blame them? This thing's a big, honkin' piece of plastic! They see it, they think it's an embarrassment, and they ain't wrong. There's plenty of times when I've wished I just had a plain old regular phone that dialed numbers and had a little screen for caller ID, and that's it. Especially if it was the size of a stubby fountain pen.
In sum: I'm not one of these people who thinks Linux is going to dominate Smartphones. I do not think it will. But even if it did -- is dominating yet another niche geek market really that big of an achievement?
Why? Because from reading the application I can tell:
- Their communication skills -- often times more important than anything else. (When people ask me how their teenage kids can get into the computer field, what classes they should take, I tell them public speaking and debate.)
- Their attitude. This ties in with the point above. The way a candidate phrases things tells a lot about his/her overall level of maturity, as well as how they view their job. As other people have mentioned, a bland, textbook-style resume and cover letter isn't telling me that the candidate really has any particular interest in the job he's applying for -- only that he wants a job.
- Which skills they think are important. If you're applying for an IT job at a Mac-based design shop, and your past history shows a lot of work with Windows NT servers, you're probably a very technically competent person. That wouldn't disqualify you. However, if you mention how good you are running MS SQL Server not only on your resume but in the cover letter, what you're telling me is that you really don't understand the needs and parameters of the position.
Not to mention experience -- if you've only just made the leap from plumbing to IT, I'm not going to feel as confident hiring you as I would hiring somebody who's had a couple of professional positions under his/her belt.Ultimately what I'm saying is, in these times when any position advertised for is going to get a couple hundred resumes, the resumes that truly stand out are probably going to stand out far enough that those candidates have a good chance of getting hired, and the second-tier candidates have zero chance of getting hired. So writing a resume with a mind to "only get an interview" might not be the smartest plan.
Ultimately, though, my advice is pretty much the same as what most other people are saying: Be honest. Don't be generic. Show something that will differentiate yourself from other people, in a good way.
But perhaps most importantly of all, realize and accept that, even if you need a job really bad, there are some jobs out there that just aren't for you. If you're tailoring your resume so that it "looks" a certain way, but that isn't really you, you're actually doing yourself a disservice.
You shouldn't be trying to swindle your way into getting a job. For one thing, you're probably not fooling anybody. If your slick cover letter gets you into an interview for a job where you could never have really delivered the goods, you're wasting the interviewer's time, but more importantly, yours.
Second, take a word of advice from somebody who's learned enough lessons to know: You don't want a bad job. Especially if you're an eager kid who's ready to pour yourself into your work. If that's the case, a bad job can do you some real damage in ways you maybe don't expect; trust me.
So don't go looking for one. If you don't want to have to dress up to go to work, don't go to the interview in a borrowed suit and brand-new shoes. If you'd rather not work with Windows, and never have before, don't go into the interview thinking you know Linux, so Windows should be easy. You know the saying: Be careful what you wish for. I know too many people who made this mistake when looking for a job.
Yeah, it sucks to be unemployed. I'm unemployed right now, so I know. But do yourself a favor, and hold out for the right job. The guy in the article pretty much gives the same advice. Rather than worrying about what your resume says or the best way to write it, if the job probably isn't for you, don't apply. I know it's all about getting ahead, but everything in its time.
Next time you wonder whether George will return to the former glory of the Star Wars series, or whether Episode III will be just another shabby, poorly-conceived commercial cash cow like Episodes I and II, just purse your lips a little bit and in as deep a voice as you can, repeat:
"I think we're going to have to accept Federation control, for the time being."
This guy's conclusion seems to be that LinuxWorld was overrun by corporations (read: evil) but that secretly the geeks were powering everything and they, in the long run, would "win out." Um -- huh?
I mean, that might be a nice way to think about things, but how really is the open source world any different than any other scientific endeavor? You've got gigantic automobile manufacturers, aerospace companies, drug companies ... Boeing, Ford, Glaxo, Archer Daniels-Midland, whatever. Yes, these are "evil" corporations doing "evil" things, but a large proportion of what constitutes the products they sell came out of academic research. Weird guys with beards, in laboratories, doing things for the sake of "intellectual curiosity." People squirting things into petri dishes, people pointing lasers at things to see what happens. And then the corporations buy it all up and make money off of it.
Does this surprise anyone?
- Researchers research.
- Tinkerers tinker.
- Businesses make money.
Aren't these pretty much the dictionary definitions, and hasn't that always been the case?Sorry, but it just kills me when Linux geeks seem to think they're creating some kind of cultural/scientific revolution that somehow dwarfs past endeavors like, oh, the Saturn 5 rocket. And that, because of their personal ethics, they're going to somehow escape The Way the World Is, unlike Einstein, or Stephen Hawking, or John Nash, or whomever.
Nice world you must live in, buddy, but I'm not buying it.
For a while now, I've been wanting what amounts to a laptop-size keyboard for a desktop computer. I'm not an accountant; I've got no real use for this big numeric keypad stuck off to the side of the keyboard. I'd even prefer it if the cursor keys were smaller, or hidden somehow.
With a standard keyboard, when you do what's natural and position it in front of the monitor, the alpha keys (the ones I use most) are positioned slightly to the left of the screen, meaning I tend to swivel to the left to use them. Meanwhile, the mouse is pushed far to the right by all these extraneous keys, causing me to overextend my arm to use it, leading to fatigue.
A nice, small keyboard with none of the bloat would be perfect. If it somehow stuff Mac keys on there (volume control, eject) that would be magical.
If it was really 1982 vintage, it was probably 4.77MHz. IBM didn't release a machine with the Intel 80286 chip until 1984, and those came in 6MHz and 8MHz flavors.