Rampid Byter

I sold a few books through Amazon the last week or so. The first time ever doing so. Amazon bills a credit for about $4 for shipping the books. I made a rookie mistake by taking the first book to be shipped by UPS. The cheapest shipping available from UPS was $14 plus an added tax along with sales tax racking the total cost to over $16 to ship ONE book. Because I was at my second business day I went ahead and ate the costs, which cut my profits in half on the sale. Come to realize I could have just gone to USPS and paid for media mail. With both an padded book-sized envelop, shipping, and a confirmation number included came out to be nearly $4 even. Rookie mistake learned. USPS beats the pants of UPS in costs and quality of service for shipping. Plus they also sell stamps so it can be a two-for-one kind of deal going there.

Offbeat

This past Friday I did something that nobody I have ever known has done intentionally. Against all recommendations of friends and family I put in my two-week notice to my current employer. I did so without a net. I finally had the kick I needed to start giving full attention to making my dream a reality in getting my own company up and running. It’s incredibly risky, and as everyone I know is quick to point out the “economy” is horrible.

I have some neat ideas, two baked products, and one micro service I’m launching this month. I am really hoping to take on a few short-term contracts to make ends meet, and will be living off my savings for a few months. Worse case I will have spent a month or two without employment, improved my development skills, and will have experimented with several neat up-and-coming technologies.

This is possibly the scariest but most exciting stage in my life. I have never been without a full-time job in my working life. I have tried several times to get my business going but always was hindered by long working weeks, clients calling during my work hours, and brain burn-out afterhours having spent a better part of eleven hours programming at work. I can’t wait to see what it’s like having sixty hours a week (drive included) extra to do work compared to the ten hours previously burning the midnight oil.

Offbeat

Doesn’t seem like too much of a difficult question, but when asked to developers some sit with blank stares. I’ve listened to that question be asked in three interviews this past week, and I really didn’t hear any decent answers. One candidate actually asked us what we do to stay current after a long pause without answering the question.

I recall when Katie Couric asked Sarah Palin what magazines she read to stay current. I thought that was a silly question to begin with because who actually reads printed news material anymore? Still seems like a question you either know, because you do, or don’t because you’ve never tried to. Those people who don’t know often pause, mumble, and just in general seem very confused.

Just thought that was an interesting take away from this week’s interviews.

Business, Offbeat

Ok, I built something I am excited about. The one biggest gripe I’ve had with blogs is that it’s often hard to sort and filter the posts to find the posts I’m most interested in. In comes Microsoft Pivot. Microsoft Pivot allows for viewing data in an intuitive filterable manner in a completely visual context. Incredibly cool for filtering images, magazines, or even the magic the gathering card collection. Take that single column blog lists!

My idea last night is to view blogs through Pivot. I set about programming the cXML schema into a series of .Net classes, and then built an input mechanism to build a static cXML file with my blogs postings. It’s still in the early phase of just the roughest information, mainly blog title and descriptions, but given another day of polishing will have additional meta data with appropriate blog links. I also realize how terrible my categories are since the Pivot category filtering is very limited with my junk data input.

Below is a screen shot of the very rough data output I created with cXML for viewing in Microsoft Pivot. Now that I have my framework together I can expand the idea to anything with categories.

I will keep the cXML path displayed in the Pivot screenshot so if you’re interested you can also view the generated blog Pivot output as it goes through the transition to getting cleaned up totally.

Programming, .Net, Third Party Controls

Coming from a C# background I was a little jealous of VB literals (still hate VB.) Recently I was flung into the VB.Net world on a new project, and my only consolation was finally being able to work with VB literals first hand. The first thing I needed to do was iterate a collection of objects to custom build an XML message. I did a little Google, and Bing action to no real results on looping a collection within XML literals. Eventually I found the solution as XML literals do not directly support loops as we know it. Fortunately that is where LINQ steps up to the plate:

   1:  Dim xml = <Processes>

   2:                 <%= From process in Processes 

   3:                       Select <Process><%= process.Name %></Process>

   4:                 %>

   5:            </Processes>

In this example I’ve created an XElement variable called “xml” that contains the literal XML. Using a LINQ query within the “Processes” element the select query will iterate through the items in the processes collection object. Each item will output a process element that will be included within the processes element.

.Net, Programming

Ditched Sprint. I’m saving $70 a month with Cricket’s unlimited text and unlimited talk. My new phone service plus iPad data plan costs exactly $70 per month combined, and still ends up with me saving $40 per month compared to Sprint. If Sprint had the EVO in stock I might be talking about my EVO instead of a new carrier.

Offbeat

For the last year or so I’ve been taking a vested interest in the design and development of some electronics kits. Nothing super fancy just trying to understand how to program and understand electronics. After two degrees I’ve come to understand that I really like the community environment of a classroom to pall around with other people doing like minded things. I’ve bought a few off-the-shelf learning kits here and there, but I really wanted to get serious with learning more about electronics.

That got me started looking into the local community colleges to get into a basic robotics class or even a pre-engineering setup where I’d get exposure to circuit design and analytic with lab focus. Little did I know apparently NO local community college in the area even comes close to offering anything computer or electronics related. The closest I could get would be computer support specialist (glorified tech support), or a few classes in networking or graphics.

My options were between UC Raymond Walters College, Brown Mackie, Wilmington, and Thomas More College. There were a few other ‘online’ only programs, but they’re all repeats of the same lame program offerings of these other colleges. There are tons of criminal justice, office automation, medical billing, and other degrees like ‘websites’. I just don’t even know what to think, but all those stories I see popping up on Hacker News about college being a waste is suddenly making a whole lot of sense.

The problem is I am not close to the major institutions, I am not a day student anymore, and I’d be doing this for fun instead of college kid needs a job sacrificial mindset. I have to admit I was really hoping to find a college program because while I am in it for the passion I also want to make sure I align myself for the paper backing in case it becomes a career calling. Still makes me wonder what the job market can handle with all the influx of these criminal justice and computer support specialists.

College

I was in a Chinese buffet today near my new work, and whenever a worker walked around to refill my drink the expression on the waiter’s faces was one as if they’ve just been to a funeral. It wasn’t just a single waiter. I’ve never seen such an unhappy brood of workers in my life. That struck me in that every single Chinese buffet I’ve been in I don’t think I can ever recall even a single smile on anyone’s faces. I think the only time I’ve even seen a hint of a smile was when cashing out to leave when asked whether everything was alright.

Is it me or is being a waiter in a Chinese restaurant the most depressing job in the world?

Offbeat