Quantitive Easing

Relationships like the financial system, there are bubbles which burst and toxic instruments which promise higher returns then don't.

A spot of quantitive easing and even some bailouts may be required to stem the backwardation. However, you need to ask yourself, is it worth it? Should you invest all your time into putting things right and creating an AIG or do you let it fall like Lehman Brothers did?

Interview Preparation

After a recent interview, I thought it would be worth noting down some of my experiences so I will be even more prepared next time and hopefully give some people a few tips at the same time.

What I thought went well:

• Suit, tie combination on point. Plain dark coloured suit, with a white shirt and a dark tie.
• Simple watch (to let the interviewer know I'm punctual) - Also arrive about 10 minutes before each interview.
• Polished shoes.
• Prepared to talk about previous experiences with the objective of highlighting particular technical and competency skills.
• Send a thank you e-mail later in the day to convey my appreciation for the time taken for the interview and include my contact details in case they had any questions. If you can't work out their e-mail address by knowing the company e-mail format (i.e. firstname.surname@company.com) then you should ask for a business card at the end of the interview.

Things I should do better:

• Arriving half an hour in advance of an interview is a bit too early. You don't want to be hanging around for too long before you start.
• It would be useful to note down technical / analysis skills along with examples as a way to prepare for the interview better.
• Better knowledge of very simple and generic examples of your analytical skills you can talk about.
• Identify the main challenges you have faced in your experience and be able to talk about how you did or didn't get around these.
• Prepare to talk through successes in your career.

Life Without Buttons - Transition to the iPhone

With so many articles focussing on the obvious and sometimes less than obvious superior functions of the new iPhone 4. This article will focus on some of the flaws discovered by a user who has only recently joined the touch screen phenomenon that took off with the iPhone range.

Typing
As a touch typist at 100 wpm, I am very well aquatinted with the Qwerty keyboard. Even, on the bold, I could boast about typing long e-mails or text messages within a matter of seconds. On the iPhone however, I keep finding myself turning to the landscape keyboard just to help build up some speed when completing longer e-mails and texts. This is not always convenient when on the move, particularly when you are trying to drive (not that I ever would do that)!

iPod
The lack of exterior control to switch between tracks is staggering. My routine includes a 10 minute walk to the station, where I would change tracks a good 6 or 7 times. It was easy to with the iPod in my pocket and as it was practically an extension of my thigh, I could change tracks, adjust volume, without even taking the MP3 player out of my pocket. Very handy, especially when in the rain. I am getting very tired of taking the phone out every 2 minutes to change tracks.

Ring Tones

Since Motorola v600, we have been able to customise ring tones. Why would this function be overlooked? Although, I may be a bit too old to have big pimipin pumping out of my phone every time it rings, I still want the option to be there.

Profile
The exterior switch to go from loud to vibrate is a nice touch. However, being so used to switching between silent, vibrate (no sounds) and loud (no vibrate) as customised profiles I already have setup on my Bold, I find it extremely annoying having to customise why profile every time. Surely, a phone with 32 GB of memory can remember 3 profiles!

Contract
Finally, who came up with 18 and 24 month contracts and how has the office of fair trading not got involved here. Most people I know can’t hold a job down for more than 12 months, let alone a girlfriend or a phone contract!

Excellent Blackberry Apps

Bought some new applications for the Bold 9700...

BerryBuzz
BerryBuzz extends your default Blackberry alert system. BerryBuzz allows you to customze the LED color for many alert types, it keeps the LED flashing for longer than the default 15 minutes and it will repeat alerts until acknowledged so you will never miss an alert again.

Aces Traffic pack - Great game!

MiPhone - iPhone theme

The application revolution

Finally, the application revolution is in full swing with Nokia and Mircosoft following apple's tremendously successful AppStore.

Application marketplaces offer handset owners the platform to browse and download useful applications. These applications can range from well constructed information offerings (i.e. train times, airport departures and arrivals) to more entertaining applications (i.e. Musical, social networking etc).

Microsoft have tied in the announcement of their "Windows Phones" marketplace with their new mobile operating system Windows 6.5. The Windows mobile OS is already widely used as it seemingly integrates with Microsoft Server; now in conjunction with Microsoft's new application store, the software giant is ready to go head to head with Apple.

Alongside the most successful software house, is the most successful handset manufacturer Nokia, who has launched their "Ovi Store" which combines its multimedia service MOSH with the application market place.

There are reports of other official stores to be released namely Blackberry and Samsung.

In the last year, touch screen handsets are making computer interaction more seamless and attracting a new breadth of users.

The mobile revolution continues with more major players now coming to the forefront, which will only improve this marketplace with increased competition. As more and more developer kits are made available; better quality and more useful applications will be become available across a multitude of platforms. Let's hope one day, open source will take over and I can buy an Apple application on my blackberry.

What I'm Listening to...

Kanye West - 808's and Heartbreaks
Amazing ft. Young Jeezy
Paranoid ft. Mr Hudson
See you in my knightmare ft. Lil Wayne
Pinocchio Story (live in Singapore)

Ludacris - Theatre of The Mind
One more drink ft. T-pain
MVP produced by DJ Premier
I do it for hip hop ft. Nas & Jay-Z

Jamie Foxx - Intuition
Digital Girl ft. The Dream & Kanye West
She got her own ft. Ne-yo & Fabolous

Joe - Last sip ft. Mario

Ruby on Rails

I was considering doing a short Ruby on Rails tutorial, however I've decided to just share my findings from various internet searches.

RubyonRails
A great place to start! This particular link summarizes all the software requirements required to run and develop ruby on rails.

Restful Authentication Plug-in
A great plug-in to automatically generate a User authentication system and session manager.

Rolling with Ruby on Rails
Curtis Hibbs of ONLamp.com offers an excellent intro to RoR.

Rails API
Rails Documentation.

Rails Forum
This a great site to post topics on coding issues. I've found it very helpful as you can post up your own code and get some useful advice from Rails experts.

Wiki Ruby on Rails
The community driven Rails documentation. This contains a great intro to Rails, countless tutorials, HowTos and a lot of other useful articles.

Railscasts
This great site contains lots of useful screencasts for all sorts of Rails tutorials.


Recommended Books

Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson. (2006). Agile Web Development with Rails.
Written by the founder of RubyonRails and widely considered to be the first book to pick up when starting rails.

Barry Bud. (2007). Ruby on Rails for Dummies
Exactly what it says, a complete walk through starting right at the beginning.

Patrick Lenz. (2007). Build Your Own Ruby On Rails Applicatoins.
A great book that goes into a lot of details about the Rails framework and the Ruby language. Great read!

Chad Fowler. (2006). Rails Recipes.
After you get a strong grasp of what Rails is about, this book will turn you into an expert with some great recipes.