Most of us have seen the new car commercials that promise “lose your job, we’ll make your payments”. Saturn, Chrysler and a few others have made these claims to keep making payments for a few months. Another step forward in the right direction. Now, I honestly haven’t read the fine print, and I would say that if you are in for losing your job, buying a new car might not be the best investment unless you have no other choice.

The point here is not if these companies are doing this for the right reasons or not, the marketing tactic is genius, and fixates on helping people which is what we need today. I am hoping that companies follow this example and we see more of this activity in the near future.

This could also be some good information for those who do interviews as I am also relying on them to help with guiding the candidates.

Clear and Concise
Resume: A resume is a representation of yourself in short form. It is there to capture the reader in a short amount of time and easily achieve your message without a lot of time and decoding of the message within. I rifled through a half dozen resumes that were novels. Some of those folks made the cut, but trying to then do the interview with 10 pages to flip through can be quite cumbersome.

Interview: When you are asked a question in an interview, do your best to stay on topic. Too often I hear people try to over explain a simple question and that begins to trail off into the distance. This muddies the water on what you understand and what you are trying to fluff.

Be Honest
Resume: Seriously… do you know every single language that is out there? If you put it down on your resume, expect that you will be quizzed on it. If you are the interviewer, you had better be sure your candidate didn’t just read a book or hear about the technology in passing. Have questions and dig into detail.

Interview: It is OK to say “I don’t know” in an interview. Not all interview questions are must have questions. If you try and be the all knowing interview candidate, you will sound fake and will most likely miss out on the opportunity. It doesn’t benefit you or the company you are interviewing for to lie and force an awkward termination soon thereafter.

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The short of this all is don’t be a dog coming too hungry. Pick and choose your battles in your resume and your interview. I will agree that you are trying to sell yourself in a resume, just don’t be the greasy car sales person.

Well, thanks Google… I am officially a beaten nerd. I finally read into it a little more and I was caught by the April fools joke. How great!! Happy April 1st everyone.

Gmail Paper

Matt

“There is a problem with this website’s security certificate. This organization’s certificate has been revoked. Security certificate problems may indicate an attempt to fool you or intercept any data you send to the server. We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website.”

The last line “We recommend that you close this webpage and do not continue to this website.” is something I don’t like my customers seeing, and neither do my clients. =) After doing some research and coming up completely empty handed I decided to trial and error the issue myself.

My certificate is a High Assurance type from GoDaddy.com. This is there middle version of their SSL Certificates which is plenty for our needs. I had my host reinstall my cert with the old information that I had from a while back. This was from the originally generated CSR for IIS. This didn’t fix the problem. I decided to re-key the cert which required getting a new CSR from the host. Once I had this GoDaddy’s admin made it very easy to get my new key.

I was given three files. cross_intermediate.crt, intermediate.crt and site.crt. The files had to be installed in this order. Once I handed these over to the host and they re-installed… BOOM… worked great.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Word,
Matt

Maybe someday I can fine the image and post it here.Z Found it! I am sure I am already in trouble for using the word “Superbowl” in the title. Oh well… it was still funny. At least something was. Commercials weren’t all there. I did like the rock paper scissors.

Word,
Matt

I need my music to run because it really does take my mind off the fact that I am running which makes it 20 times easier. When the damn Zune locks up I have mess with it which causes me to get burnt out much more quickly. I have tried reloading the software, the Zune, and nothing makes it work for me.

My next step is simple. I am taking it back to Costco and waiting for the next gen to come out. They have some major bugs to work out of this thing and I don’t want to wait for that to happen.

My theory as to what is causing the issue? Since the Zune only locks up in the gym I am wondering if the wireless (even though turned off) is getting some interferance from the Polar heart rate monitors that are built into the machine? Either that or it just doesn’t like exercise.

Looks like I will have to eat crow and stick with my iPod for a little while longer. Damn you Microsoft for allowing me to back you up and then crushing me like this!!! DAMN YOU!!!! I’m fine now.

Word,
Matt

click to biggerize

Notice how the text that would be caught by the spam filters is wiggled. This is so the actual image attachment can’t be read by OCR. This technique was employed to stop spamming. Pretty ironic really.

I am getting about 10-15 of these a day. I really don’t need the penny stock updates. =) Thanks though.

This week I found out that Couer D’Alene, ID (45 miles away) and every surrounding area here has the new BroadbandAccess. I called Verizon to only get useless information from mostly useless people. I don’t mean to be rude, but what is so difficult about upgrading the entire area vs. just the area around us? Sandpoint is COMPLETELY dependent upon Verizon. They are the only phone company in town and the only reliable cell phone provider. Our company is the largest here and almost every person has a cell phone. We also have a very rural community with lots of people that don’t have access to DSL & cable high speed. It just makes sense.

Most would say to go with Sat service, but honestly I would rather have dialup with the latency issues and the fact that I have to remote into work all of the time.

I hate you Verizon because you let our town down by keeping the big guys ahead of us. We need BroadbandAccess now!

Because of my freedoms, I use them. I don’t spend my every waking hours stressing over work and the environment. Honestly I think in any surrounding it can be easy to fall prey to. When I am outside work I use that time to clear my mind to be fresh for the next day. I find it makes me much more productive the next day and keeps me in tune with actually liking my job vs. hating the thought of going back to it.

Today I took the day off and hit the slopes. We have had over 100 inches of snow this year. That is INSANE for this early in the season. I decided to take advantage of it. While I was on the slopes work was the last thing on my mind. It was very clearing for me and I was able to get a nice bit of boarding in. The day flew by, but now with the rest of the weekend ahead of me… I don’t mind coming back on Monday.

We all need time away from what we do at work no matter how much we love it. Some get consumed by it, but I have never found a good example of where that would be considered healthy. The best developers I know have season passes and get out with their significant others, friends, etc. What could be better? Keep the flame alive in your personal life. You work will benefit from it too. Simple, easy… word!

Needless to say we needed a new camera since the water logged one wouldn’t do anymore. I pulled my resources together and started looking at the SD900 Elph. I found some great reviews and then started to price shop. The retail is $499 on the cam which is a little steep for me so I searched the price sites and found it at $360 shipped. I thought I found the deal of the lifetime. I also made sure to check the reviews of the site to insure there wasn’t anything strange about the company. I guess I should have checked the review site out first vs. trusting they were good reviews.

Here are the links that I found about the retailer and the pricing for the camera:
ShopCartUSA.com
When you look at this you will notice that the site has USAPhotoNation.com listed with 1000+ 5 star reviews. Click and read them! They seem real enough??? Notice that NONE of the reviews have dates listed next to them.
» Link

USAPhotoNation.com (name seems like ShopCartUSA.com doesn’t it?)
Take some time to read the description of the camera… notice it doesn’t have anything out of the ordinary.
» Link

So… based off of this information I purchased the camera. I feel that I was justified in the purchase. I felt like I did my footwork on the company. I didn’t realize how wrong I was. After making the purchase I decided to check out Pricegrabber and see what they had to say about the company. I didn’t find them listed. I then checked Reseller Ratings and my stomach dropped. I have never seen a company rating so low before. Customers were all complaining about the same thing… bait and switch. This is actually pretty common with a lot of the NY camera companies. They will sell you the non-usa version of something which just includes the camera and NOTHING else. I am really not so sure how it is legal in the first place.

After doing some more research here are is what I found:

Better Business Bureau
Needless to say, these guys are around for a reason. I am making it a habit to use them on any retailer I have never purchased from. Check out what USAPhotoNation.com standing is with them. OVER 62 COMPLAINTS IN THE LAST 12 MONTHS!!!
» Link

ResellerRatings.com
These guys are actually pretty good with there reviews and allowing customers to provide it. USAPhotoNation.com didn’t even score a 1 out of 10. Wow.
» Link

After learning this I decided to get on the phone with the company. The phone system is horrible. Just some jackass coming on the line and not even identifying the company and telling me to pick option 1 for all of the possible options. After sitting on hold for a bit someone picks up the phone and that is where my fun began. I found out the camera isn’t the full retail version and that I need to purchase the USA version they have on their website. When I said I didn’t see that he told me how to search for it. You need to type in SD900 USA in the search window vs just SD900. What a bunch of bullshit. I know how search works and adding search terms should narrow, not expand.

I told the moron to cancel my order about 10 times with him trying to upsel and COLLECT MY CID CODE FROM MY CREDIT CARD!!! Finally he did and the last thing I heard was “Fine, Bye!” and then silence. I was disconnected from their call center. I called my credit card company to report it and found a better retailer with a $30 increase. I’ll take it. Just another case of buyer beware!