Older blog entries for rufius (starting at number 27)

Beaujolais Nouveau - Recipe for Connections

Last night I went to my boss’s party titled “Beaujolais Nouveau.” Apparently this is in reference to some French wine, but I’m not a wine drinker and thus I had none and was not interested in it. Overall an interesting night, lots of professors, business people and tech enthusiasts. My boss’s wife is “big on the tech scene” or at least was before taking her current job.

The main highlight of the night was actually meeting Alex de Carvahlo, organizer of BarCamp Miami and RefreshMiami. I’ve been hunting for some tech groups to get involved in in South Florida but it seems its only a budding area. Despite that I’ve now got something else to get involved in outside of IEEE and ACM. I also met a guy by the name of Nathaniel, though his last name escapes me. Nathaniel organizes NextMiami which is another tech enthusiast & venture capital group. These should both be good contacts for the future.

Any one that even gives this blog a passing glance a developer in South Florida that knows of other interest groups?

Syndicated 2007-11-19 06:28:56 from blog.zacbrown.org - just run away, now.

Google interview, Microsoft survey, enterprise java, and more...

Well today is the big day. At 16:00 EST I'll have my first of two phone interviews with Google for a software engineer intern position at Google SMo (Santa Monica for those that don't speak Googlese). A friend of mine that works at Google SMo was the one that helped me get an interview, and it will be his boss that I interview with for my position. Immediately following the first interview, I'll have a 15 minute break for a second Google employee calls me to interview me.

I spent some time reviewing some basic algorithms stuff (ie: different sorts, dynamic programming, greedy solutions) but I figure at this point that I'll just play it safe and be myself. If they aren't able to accept that not everyone has all the answers then its probably not a good fit for me. Most everyone I've talked to that's either worked for Google or has experience in the field seem to unanimously agree that there's no use freaking out, just solve the problems :).

On a different note, I received a survey from Microsoft that they send to all potential employees regarding "race and gender equality efforts." It was basically a 3x5 index card that asked for my gender (or "prefer not to share") and my race with a "check all that apply" instruction. I filled it out for kicks and we'll see whether they're interested enough to fly me to Redmond. I would like to get involved there just because F# is coming out and I specifically asked to work on the F# team. Anyway, here's to internships *raises beer*.

My new fun adventure is figuring the ever complex and baffling practice that is Java enterprise development. I have pretty much no knowledge of the process of developing a web app in java, other than a faint idea that I need something like Tomcat or Jetty or JBoss or one of the other million frameworks. We're working with a GWT frontend and its my job to develop a java back end of sorts or some other suitable backend that will talk dirty (or nicely if you like) to the GWT frontend to provide some data.

Anyone got any hints on how to do all that? Just a basic guide is needed, I just need something to jump start me.

Stay tuned, later this evening or early tomorrow I will post two blog entries (one for each interview) about my experiences and the questions I was asked in my Google interview. Thats all folks :)

Syndicated 2007-11-06 16:25:00 (Updated 2007-11-06 17:46:49) from zbrown

response to ncm

ncm: Well the main problem with me interning with Aspera is I'm not a third year student, I'm in my second year, granted I'm taking classes that a third year student would be taking. I'm also not comfortable with my skills in TCP/IP protocols yet, network programming is a weak area for me that I'm working on currently. If you see a way around this and know of an in on getting an internship with Aspera, you have my full & undivided attention.

On a side note, the feedback I've heard from friends here that have done internships with Microsoft have enjoyed it quite a bit. I've heard goods and bads all around really. People already in the industry have given negative feedback for the most part about MS, while people younger in the field have given fairly positive responses. Apparently they treat them pretty well.

One of my good friends on the other works at Google and pulled a couple strings to get me an interview with them though that one makes me more anxious for obvious reasons. We'll see how that goes.

Syndicated 2007-10-20 01:40:00 (Updated 2007-10-20 01:48:39) from zbrown

Internships and more...

So I've been hard at work getting myself an internship with a company, preferrably Microsoft or Google. I'm somewhat anxious about the technical interviews that I've heard others speak of. I feel confident in my skills and knowledge as a programmer, I just get a little anxious over these things.

For Google I don't quite know yet what I'd be doing but I suspect if I'm asked I would say ask for something in the data-mining or search optimization areas. I've always been interested in such problems and this would be a good opportunity to learn more about this.

In the case of Microsoft, I've asked to be put to work in the Compilers & Language Design department. I'm very interested in F#, their OCaml + C# + Haskell hash up that should be interesting. I've been picking up OCaml on the side now for a little bit and this would be another interesting opportunity.

Anyone have any suggestions or tips on getting through the technical interviews?

Syndicated 2007-10-17 22:26:00 (Updated 2007-10-17 22:31:40) from zbrown

Everyone is out to get me....

It would seem this week that everyone is out to get me... Guess thats life. Who wants to take my marine science exam? Any takers? Shouldn't be hard... guess thats a good reason for me to take it.

===============

On a different note, Algorithms & Data Structs was interesting, lots of probabilities. Hurrah!

Syndicated 2007-09-21 16:00:00 (Updated 2007-09-21 16:02:58) from zbrown

response to bcully

bcully: It was a few months ago and I can't recall exactly what it was that went wrong. I remember using it with Debian Etch 4.0 and having a couple issues. I have since upgraded that server to Testing/Lenny. I haven't bothered to try it lately since I've been moving along with bzr fine. I would be willing to try it again, and will look into it later this week sometime and give some feed back.

I by no means was condemning the other DVCS's I listed, but rather just noting my experiences. I know several people who use mercurial, darcs and git without issue. Sorry if my post seemed to allude to that.

bcully: I would be interested in possibly helping to fix any issues I might encounter. I'll let you know what happened later in the week.

Syndicated 2007-09-20 04:32:00 (Updated 2007-09-20 04:37:36) from zbrown

VCS/SCM for the Student or Mobile Hacker

If you're a student (like me), and you work a lot on your computer (like me) then you probably have a lot of files (like me). I'm a Computer Science, Mathematics & Marine Science triple major so I spend a lot of my time programming, doing problem sets, and writing lab reports. Now the core of this issue arises in that I have a workstation in the research lab I work in, my laptop, and a desktop that I use in my dorm room. I like to be able to access all my important assignment files from anywhere that I might be (my room, on the go, in the lab). The problem is, I hate flash drives, I always lose them, and I find them in general an annoyance. What do I do?

I have been using an SCM/VCS for my code for a while now; at least for a couple years since I have started coding a lot. Now I play no favorites on a specific SCM/VCS but my preferences are SVN for server/client models and bzr for DVCS. I recently picked up LaTeX over the summer since I've been writing reports and papers that have a lot of mathematical formulae in them. Now you may wonder why I need access to these documents/files on anywhere besides my laptop. Well the issue is I don't particularly like working from a laptop because its terribly uncomfortable to me. Its an inconvenience I suffer during my day-to-day travels, but when I have the opportunity I like to use a desktop at work or in my dorm. Note: There's been plenty of coverage on this topic over at CodingHorror I believe but basically laptops are not designed in a manner that is good for ones' posture.

Since I'm using plain text files for everything now that I don't need to use a proprietary format of sorts, it makes sense to use an SCM/VCS. Not only does this allow me to share the files between the three computers, it also provides me with a history of changes to files that I can go back to if I've realized that I've made a mistake in some document or code file.

For sharing between my computers, I chose to use bzr. Bzr is the pet project of Canonical Ltd., the same company backing Ubuntu. Its not a perfect system, but it was actually one I ended up using by accident. I originally was looking for a DVCS to use for a project I am working on with a friend. We decided on Git initially but seemed to have a lot of problems with it on the server we were using. We then scrapped Git for Mercurial because it was the next one I could remember hearing about. This again was a failed trial, and we came upon bzr. Now there are a lot of benchmarks claiming a lot of bad things about all of these different DVCS's. Honestly speaking, I use bazaar because well, it *Just Works(tm)*. It worked the first time I used it, and it has worked since.

So back to my files, I just make the directory, give it a little "bzr add action and go on my way. When I create a new file, I "bzr add " it and go on my merry way. When I'm done with that session on the specific computer, I do some action, say what I changed, and then go on my merry way to the next computer after my class. When I get to that new computer I just do "bzr update" in the repo, and *poof* the files are there for me to play with.I think this is a great system for anyone who has a lot of places they need to use a set of files but don't want to keep up with a flash drive.

Syndicated 2007-09-19 15:15:00 (Updated 2007-09-19 18:16:23) from zbrown

response to ncm

ncm: Ah, your point is noted then. Well at this point I'm not especially dead set on anything except that I know I'd like to work in mathematics or computer science, preferably in an area bridging somewhere between biological sciences and math/CS or specifically in distributed systems. As to where I'll end up, who knows right now, I've got a couple years before I'll be doing grad school. Out of curiosity, what is it exactly that I'd need to pick up in order to (usefully) participate in the Making? I guess I've yet to understand what it is exactly I'll be missing.

As for voting, I vote, and support candidates I feel are the right choice at a local, regional, state, and national level. My beef was merely more of a rant about a system I feel is flawed but you are correct, its quite simple to sway a body at the lower level though sometimes I'm not sure it matters as much when the electoral college comes into play.

Syndicated 2007-09-11 10:53:00 (Updated 2007-09-11 11:01:59) from zbrown