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Handhelds

Comparing the Freedoms Offered By Maemo and Android 244

An anonymous reader writes "Maemo 5 and Android have received a lot of publicity lately, despite the former not even shipping yet. Both have become famous partly for using the Linux kernel, but now that we have a choice, how do we pick one? Is the issue as mundane as choosing your favorite desktop distribution, or is there a more significant difference? This article compares the two from an end user and developer perspective, emphasizing root access and ease of sharing code."

Comment Re:Megabitz! (Score 1) 345

I'm just seconding the recommendation for http://www.megabitz.net/ I'm primarily a non-binary user, and I've found them to have great retention, the servers are fast, and the price is right. I buy blocks of bandwidth at a time instead of subscribing, and it doesn't get any cheaper unless you go "free". I've been a happy customer now for over a year.
Portables (Apple)

Publishing a Commercial iPhone Game, Start To Finish 38

Niklas Wahrman writes with this "motivational story on how a student and part-time developer was able to take an idea and turn it into an Android project and then port to iPhone for commercial release in less than a year. In the article, he focuses on how to get a game done — a problem many independent developers face. During the development of the game, Asterope, he took a lot of screenshots from many of the development stages that show how the game gradually came to life."

Comment The right attitude. (Score 5, Insightful) 540

I hire programmers.

I hire entry-level programmers. For what it's worth, the last couple I've hired have been from India.

I look for a couple of things when I'm hiring entry-level. The first is experience. I'm not talking about professional experience, you won't have any of that yet. But what have you done? Have you done an internship? What have you done in your spare time? What have you done on your own? Can you demonstrate useful skills? Can you debug a program?

The first thing I'm going to throw you into if I do hire you is maintenance. Find a bug, fix a bug.

It's about attitude. Technical competency will be low at your level... but do you know how to find out what you don't know? Do you know how to research a problem? Do you know how to find an answer off the internet? Do you know how long to work on a problem on your own, and when to ask for help? When I show you how a certain thing is done, can you watch me once, and then pick it up?

Most programmers are bad at interviews. Most stink at writing resumes. So it's mostly going to be about other things. If you can make friends in the right circles. If you can get a recommendation from someone I've heard of. If you can show me that you have hunger and drive to get ahead... then I'll hire you in a heartbeat.

I'll keep you on if you don't mess around, but dig deep into the problems you're given. I'll be delighted if you bug me for answers when you need them. I will gladly explain concepts if you'll gladly listen and run with what you've been taught.

I only get so many openings per year. I've turned down folks for the wrong attitude most of all. I've turned down folks with professional experience if they kept a narrow focus and never ventured out of their comfort zones. I've passed on people who believe that programming is something like FrontPage, and that they shouldn't have to work hard, or understand much, to make a cool application.

I guess, mostly, I look for people who would be programming something even if they weren't getting paid.

Is that you?
Image

XKCD 327 — Exploits of a Mom 52

Looks like xkcd's Little Bobby Tables isn't getting the appreciation he deserves at school. CT: Sorry, this wasn't supposed to be on the main page. But damn it's a funny one.
Security

MS Office Zero-Day Under Attack 172

paulBarbs writes "Microsoft is warning users to be on the lookout for suspicious Excel files that arrive unexpectedly — even if they come from a co-worker's e-mail address. In an advisory, Microsoft confirmed a new wave of limited "zero-day" attacks was underway, using a code execution flaw in its Microsoft Office desktop productivity suite. Although .xls files are currently being used to launch the spear phishing attacks, Microsoft said users of other Office applications (Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, etc.) are potentially at risk."

Mother of Internet Speaks Out 114

Anonymous Coward writes to tell us that Radia Perlman, sometimes called the "Mother of the Internet" for her invention of the spanning tree algorithm used by bridges and switches, recently gave a very candid interview with NetworkWorld. From the interview: "The taste of whoever is in the funding agencies tends to cause everyone to look at the same stuff at the same time. Often technologies get hot then go away. There was active networking for a while, which always mystified me and has now died. In security the money is behind digital rights management, which I think ultimately is a bad thing -- not that we need to preserve the right to pirate music, but because the solutions are things that don't solve the real problems in terms of security."

Microsoft's IE7 Search Box Bugs Google 803

tessaiga writes "The New York Times reports that Google is crying foul over a new IE7 search box feature that defaults to MSN Search. Although the feature can be modified to use Google or other search engines, Google asserts that "The best way to handle the search box [...] would be to give users a choice when they first start up Internet Explorer 7." Google goes on to assert that the move "limits consumer choice and is reminiscent of the tactics that got Microsoft into antitrust trouble in the late 1990s". I notice that in my version of Firefox the search box defaults to Google, and that the pulldown menu of pre-entered options doesn't even include MSN Search, but Google seems to have been oddly quiet on that front for the many years prior to IE7 that Firefox has made this feature available."

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