Practice Your Passwords

Scott Hanselman (who talks a lot of sense) has been telling people on the internets to make sure they have secure passwords, and different passwords for all their various accounts. This is very sensible, and made me think about my passwords. I find that the problem is that when hit with an “enter new password” dialog my brain turns to mush and I can’t think of anything sensible to use. Actually, my brain turns to mush at other times too, such as when number one wife ask me questions like “What do you think?”, but I digress.

Anyhoo, having pondered the matter I reckon the way to solve this one is that whenever you are doing something mildly unexciting (for example mowing the lawn or vacuuming the lounge) you should use the time think about what might make a good password and practice remembering it. That way, when the prompt comes along you will have something to type in.

24 Hours a Day at the World Trade Centre

Yesterday lunchtime I popped down to the World Trade Centre in the middle of Hull. They were having an event to mark the start of their “24 Hours a Day Opening”.  I was there to show off some technology and be the only one present not wearing a suit. When I arrived the whole place was packed with business folk, as you can see above.

This was my setup, where I was showing off what the Kinect can do when you write your own software for it. (and giving a none too subtle plug for the blog…)

I had a brief chat with Alan Johnston MP about game development, which was nice. I managed to get in the fact that Criterion games (who make titles like Burnout) have just hired four of our students, which counts as all their graduate recruitment for the year. I think he was suitably impressed, which was nice.

I also met up with a number of people who, once I’d told them what Kinect can do, instantly started thinking how they could use it in their business. Great fun.

Why the New Guy Can’t Code

There’s an interesting post on Tech Crunch – Why the New Guy Can’t Code.  (Found out about it via Alfred’s blog). The Tech Crunch post is bemoaning the fact that companies which are supposed to have well managed recruitment processes are ending up with programmers who can’t actually write programs. This is becoming quite an issue in a world which is short of good developers at the moment.

In the past some companies (notably Microsoft and Google) became famous for asking interview questions like “How would you move Mount Fuji? or Why are manhole covers round?”. Their argument was that they wanted smart people, and questions like this will allow a smart person to shine. A tip: I think that in these situations they are interested in what you do when confronted with the question, not whether your answer is actually correct. If you say “I dunno” when asked how to move a mountain, this won’t go well. If you start making plans involving earth moving equipment and calculating volumes of rock then this might go down a bit better. Me, I’d suggest just changing the road signs, but perhaps this is because I have difficultly taking these questions seriously.

Google have apparently taken this a bit further, and now ask for answers to programming questions like “Write me a binary search”. This sounds more technical, but nobody writes that kind of search any more, and the fact you can trot out an algorithm like this doesn’t necessarily prove a lot.

Anyhoo, according to the blog post the trend now is moving towards making an applicant show off what they have made. In other words, the best way to see if a person can program is to look at a program they have made. Well, duh. In the old days you had this idea of an “apprentice piece” that was made by an apprentice at the end of their training to prove their worth. A cabinet maker would create a small wooden box, etc etc, and then show this off to potential employers.

I’ve just spent four days in the labs getting our first year students to show us what they have made. This is the second time we’ve done this marathon effort, and it was nice to see the improvements. Lots of students who last time failed to deliver all the components, or added extras that weren’t needed or worth extra marks, had really focused on the specification and made darned sure that all the important bits were present. And they got very good marks as a result. The students also had the experience of someone looking at their code and asking them to explain it.

I’ll tell any student who listens that they need to get some code out there in the form of an application or game, and be prepared to talk about it when you get interviewed. And if they don’t bring it up, make sure that you do:

“Any Questions Mr. Miles?”
”Yes – do you want to see this game I’ve written? It’s called Cheese Lander”
(sound of minor chord playing in the background)

In all seriousness, if you want to get ahead (or perhaps anywhere) in this business I think that you really do need to have an “apprentice piece” of your own, that you can show off. It is good to see that those hiring are starting to take a proper level of interest in such things.

Update on Saturday, May 14, 2011 at 08:20PM by Rob

If you haven't already, you should read the comments on the original blog post. They are reflect a wide range of viewpoints on this issue. I thought it was pretty much an open and shut case, but the individual opinions and the way they are expressed are worth a look. I've not changed my views on the matter, but I must admit the matter seems a bit more complex than I originally thought.

Friday the 13th Update Fun

A great way to start Friday 13th. Both of my laptops stuck doing Windows Updates which seem to lock the machine up when it reboots, and then fail, so that when I do a reboot it happens all over again.

Lovely.

Turns out this is a known issue of sorts. If you go here you will find some discussion and things you can try. I managed to fix the problem by only installing one update at a time, rather than all at once, in the order suggested by a post on this thread. If you have this problem make sure that you install KB2534366 after all the rest.

And have a nice Friday the 13th.

Crunchy Teeth

Yesterday I was eating my breakfast, as you do, when something went “crack” in my mouth. Not a good sound. Turned out that a piece of one of my teeth had broken off. Not good. So I rang my NHS dentist. Fortunately he was able to see me today, and so at around two thirty (which is very appropriate time to do this) I went down to the surgery and opened wide. I was expecting this to be bad in just about every way possible. It was going to be expensive and painful. Perhaps at some point my trousers would fall down too, so that it could also be embarrassing and I would have the full set.

But no. After poking around for a while the dentist, a thoroughly professional chap called Julien, pronounced that the tooth was fundamentally sound, and just needed a filling on top. Which he could do there and then for the sum of just 17 pounds. So I was getting it fixed for less than a price of a Blu-Ray. With no injections. Wonderful.

So I’m now sitting here with a mended tooth and a resolve to be more careful when eating nuts in future.