Riding the Rails
Hello, it's been a while since I last posted!
Exams, results and a complete site rewrite!
Microplop.com is now riding Rails 2.1, and I'm never looking back. Rails is to Web apps what a knife is to bread.
This site is a very early version of the site - not a nice style, only http authentication and no commenting yet - but this will change.
Expect some big changes soon.
Sun Jun 29 04:03:16 -0600 2008
Computer Science wiki for Revision now up!
Yes revision has begun, and I had a novel and possibly unique idea in regards to a wiki - I could use it to formalise my revision work, by slowly adding my work up as a wiki.Okay. Maybe it's not too unique then, but it sure as hell is helping me revise.
Anyway, the link is here and at the top left of the layout on this page.
Mon Apr 28 15:34:11 -0600 2008
A while has passed
Here's the thing... I've been busy of late, very busy.ÂUnfortunately, this blog has suffered because of it! Anyway, rant over!
Another thing... I didn't get past the second interview with Google (yeah, I may as well use names now!). They didn't attribute this decision to my phone interviews - I had performed well at this stage I was told, but instead it was my work experience that brought me down.Â
The second phone interview was much harder than the first. The first was really just to make sure that I was breathing and not a complete idiot. However the second interviewer asked a question every minute, and were all like as such:
 - Why did Google buy Google Earth?
 - What would you do with 5,000 computers and 5 paid engineers?
Personally, I'm not that this is the actual reason. I have plenty of experience in the IT workplace, and definitely more than than most of the peers on my course. SO! I think it was more down to my lack of age, rather than experience.
Despite all of this, Eli Lilly have very nicely kept my pending job for my as a Technical Analyst at Erl Wood. Today I had a familiarisation day which went well, and have given me a lot more confidence in what I'll actually be doing there!
My exams start next week, but I will hopefully post a bit more frequently that once every two months!
Mon Mar 24 01:53:33 -0600 2008
In the matter of only 2 hours...
I have been looking frantically for 'internships' for my next University year. I spend a year in the computing industry working for a real company on a real project, earning real money and hopefully setting me up for my career after I leave Uni.I originally applied to (a very large non-Microsoft company) - as you do. Being my super-duper numero-uno choice for a placement, I applied for their Software Engineer intern in London on their first day that they started accepting applications - 1st November '07. Look at me trying to be organised!Â
After a good month of no response from them, I was forced to begin looking elsewhere for placements.
I picked a local company to Reading that specialise in financial institution web design (banks basically) which I'd prefer not to name in case i get sued for libel or something. When they gave a set of guest lectures, they appeared to be a young but relatively experienced web company which was uber-local to the University - perfect!
After applying to their intern scheme, and a few emails between me and a big cog in the company, I'd secured an initial interview. After this first interview I believed I performed reasonably, and when they offered a second 'more formal' interview, I thought it could only mean good things.
The second interview then passed, and they told me that they would get back to me with a decision by the end of the month (January).Â
29... 30... and the 31st of Jan passed and no response - I feared the worst.Â
These fears were confirmed in the worst possible way by me discovering that one of my course
acquaintances showed me his acceptance email from them. Not the best way to find out you don't have a job...
acquaintances showed me his acceptance email from them. Not the best way to find out you don't have a job...
Shortly after I got feedback from the internship officer at Reading. She said that the company could not fault my interview, but only said I 'had asked for too much money during the interview'. Bullplop! They asked me what the average internship wage was, in which I responded with £14k minimum (which is coincidentally what the Big M offer...), and the offer that came through as acceptance was for £13k. Rudeness!
Anyway, I digress... After this setback, I was forced yet again to rethink my options, and after a meeting with my internship officer, she secured me an interview with a large pharmaceutical company based in the States, but with offices near Reading.
After the painless interview, I believed that I had performed well (but I thought the same before). My placement officer told me that the decision would be relayed to me later in the evening of the interview (last Wed).
At 9pm I checked my inbox, and not only found a 'Congrats' email about the previous pharmaceutical company, but also a response from (a very large non-Microsoft company) !! WOOP WOOP! I saw it and literally leapt into the air in celebration.
The email explained that I wasn't suitable for the Software Engineer internship, but the Associate Product Manager job was! This intense job allows an intern to direct the shape a handful of their products: released, unreleased, free, or multi-billion dollar a year - It's all the same!
I am understandably ecstatic at the prospect of this, and I can't wait until I have a chance to show off what I can achieve for the company.
Updates will follow, I guarantee.
Tue Feb 12 23:08:08 -0700 2008
Microsoft and Yahoo? 2 + 2 ≠4!
All this Microsoft and Yahoo stuff has got me thinking -- how desperate are the CEOs of Microsoft to narrow the gap between them and Google?At the current time Google have a 55% market share, up 20% in 2 years. Pretty good growth for any business. Microsoft and Yahoo (including all their subsidiary companies) only make up 45% and their market share is slipping year on year because of Google. Microsoft and Yahoo are desperate for more share in the market, and I can't blame them.
But hang on. Even if the $44.6 billion Microhoo! deal does happen, do they really expect their market share to improve, profits to increase and Google to die as quickly as it rose in the sidelines?
The most likely thing that will happen is that competition will increase against Google, which will all but fuel Google to further improve their already superior search. Come on! If you're two biggest competitors have to merge just catch up with you, you have to be doing something right!
For me, and other internet developers, the merger would be good news however you look at it. Better tools and APIs from Google, a comparable alternative to Google and maybe a Yahoo page written in ASP!Â
Steve Ballmer said:
“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,”
What he meant to say was:
“We are so desperate to kill Google that we're willing to acquire Yahoo, once the only company to compete with us. To make sure they can't say no we're going to be throwing an inordinate amount of money at it, and hope that this whole Google business can just go away! *throws chair at reporter* ”
I believe that Microsoft were better than to think that "2 + 2 = 4" on the web, and that just bolting different companies together will solve all their problems. It's like shoving two cars together, and thinking it'll go quicker, or putting two stupid people together and making a genius. It just doesn't work!
Sat Feb 02 23:33:04 -0700 2008