The Vent and Rant Thread

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

People fail to realize how important a keyboard can be. Your fingers get trained to a particular layout and feel, and switching to a different one causes all manner of errors.

I just switched to a Logitech USB keyboard from an older Compaq PS2 model, because the Compaq was in bad need of cleaning. The Dell has different placements for things, and I am forever hitting the Caps Lock unintentionally,
and not noticing UNTIL HALF THE LINE IS ALL CAPS. () It also rearranges Home, End, Page Up and Page Down, with equally annoying affects.

Time to switch back again...
______
Dennis

oh, i feel your pain !!!! page back in this very thread to find the saga of my tribulations when i recently switched to a different keyboard layout than the one i am used to. (i had to buy a second new keyboard to switch back a few days later). good luck with that, i hope you get it sorted soon.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i've noticed that usually works too but i have occasionally lost a message i was writing (one of the great things about gmail ; it saves my drafts automatically for just such circumstances).

Yes, that is sweet. Not being concerned about the size of the mesaage store is another win. I found out the hard way a few years ago that Outlook behaves very strangely when the mailbox.pst file that holds your mail store hits 2GB, and recovering was Not Fun.

In GMail, I'm up to 7GB allocated, with about 30% used, and no problems.

I know people unhappy at the idea of their mail on Someone Else's Server, but it doesn't bother me. As a general rule, I don't say stuff in email I'd be all that upset about having public, since I've never seen email as secure.

also sometimes i accidently hit "post" or "send" before i'm ready, which is annoying, and i have also managed to close tabs or windows completely (god knows how, because the chances of hitting alt+F4 by accident seem frankly slim to none).

Hitting Send too early isn't a big problem in forums like this, where I can always Edit my post. It can be annoying in email.

my gmail session is restored too though ; i'm always logged in at home. seems weird that it should shut you out of that, unless you programmed it not to remember you.

<shrug>

I don't lose anything. I just have to log back in again. It may be a matter of forcing an SSL connection to GMail. They are trumpeting the fact that you can now force a secure connection in GMail within GMail's setting, but I've been doing it for a long time with a Greasemonkey script.
______
Dennis

[slayda]

Originally Posted by nekokami

Thanks for the sympathy, everyone.

I was typing a longer note, but due to a bandage on my left pinky, I keep hitting some key or combination on that side that executes a "back" on my browser and loses my messages. Bleah.

(I nicked my finger while chopping veggies the other night. Nothing too serious, it was a sharp knife and should heal quickly.)

You should consider your self lucky ( or maybe just talented) that you can actually use your pinky (when it is healthy) for typing.

My typing is four fingers and thumbs on the space bar. That's using both hands and looking at the keyboard. I'm unfortunate to be old enough to have never learned, what is today being called, keyboarding. It was called typing when I was in high school and only girls took it.

However I do pretty well, at least in the AM. As the day wears on, I often get down to two fingers and thumbs.

[nekokami]

They had a class called "personal typing" in high school, which I took, but I didn't really get good at typing until I started programming.

It's not the ctrl, shift, capslock, or tab key. Must be a combination. And yes, Dennis, I'm on FF3 on XP as well (without some of the add-ons you've got), but when I click the forward button to get back to my page, the contents of my post aren't still there in this case. Usually I get everything back, but not with this.

[Taylor514ce]

I think I mentioned this here before, but when I hired programmers, or potential programmers, I surprised them on the initial "interview" with:

1. Visual Speed and Accuracy test
2. Mechanical Comprehension test
3. Typing test

Then I'd score the results while they waited, and I expected at least 99percentile scores, and a perfect score on the typing test, or I'd thank them for their time.

[BookishDreamer]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

I think I mentioned this here before, but when I hired programmers, or potential programmers, I surprised them on the initial "interview" with:

1. Visual Speed and Accuracy test
2. Mechanical Comprehension test
3. Typing test

Then I'd score the results while they waited, and I expected at least 99percentile scores, and a perfect score on the typing test, or I'd thank them for their time.

OUCH! That's tough, but it sounds very effective.

Dreamer

[zelda_pinwheel]

yeesh, perfect score on the typing test ?? crikey. i type like the wind, but i do make the occasional () mistake. it's only human.

what do you mean by the other two tests ?

[Taylor514ce]

The Visual Speed and Accuracy test has two columns of figures, side-by-side, about 150 of them. Are they the same, or different? The testee has 5 minutes, and checks "same" or "different". Some are very tricky, 1 vs. l in the middle of a long string.

The Mechanical Comprehension test has a 30-minute limit. It's a standard test, the "Bennet" test. Pictures. If Gear A spins clockwise, in which direction does Gear B spin? That kind of thing.

99 percentile means you scored higher than 99 % of the people who take the test.

I had about 3 or 4 people score perfectly on all three tests.

I hired them, and taught them programming, and now all are either in senior management or own their own companies. All they needed was a break, some training, and a little coaching.

[zelda_pinwheel]

ah ok. thanks for the explanation. i've never heard of the bennet test but i understand how gears work so i could probably figure it out if it wasn't *too* complex. the visual speed and accuracy test sounds like proofreading, although i bet it's harder with figures than with words.

those are definitely skills that are important in programming so i can understand why they would be a basic part of your recruiting process. but i'm also not surprised there were only 3 or 4 who got *perfect* scores on all 3, although then again i don't know how many people you interviewed... 3 or 4 out of 10 would actually be pretty high.

[Taylor514ce]

I didn't mind testing 50+ people to find 1 who scored 98/99. The times when I made exceptions based on my own subjectivity were all mistakes. The guy who knew all about a programming language, all the tricks, because he studied, read, and took classes, but who couldn't touch type, and so was non-productive. The gal who scored low on mechanical comprehension, so couldn't visualize a process that required nested loops, with conditional branches, etc. Drawing it out for her didn't help, so she was stuck doing maintenance programming instead of new code, which made her disgruntled.

By adhering strictly to a testing/interviewing protocol, I was able to eliminate irrelevant, subjective judgments to a high degree. My best hires were people who didn't go to college, loved computers, were self-taught, scored great on the tests, and were working some lousy job. Giving them a "real" programming job, paying them well, and treating them well, was all they needed to flourish.

[nekokami]

I'd have some trouble with the Visual Speed and Accuracy test (at least, I think so based on similar tests I've taken in the past)... which is part of why I'm not a professional programmer. It seems like quite a reasonable test to me.

Another friend asks interviewees to describe a robot to wash dishes. He gives them extra points if they use existing dishwashers in their design.

[Taylor514ce]

Ah, "Microsoft" style interview questions. I don't use them. Your friend should read William Poundstone's "How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?", which is very entertaining and also exposes some of the pitfalls of interviewing, and the flaws in "puzzle interviews".

[zelda_pinwheel]

none of the interviews i've been on have asked me about robots. i wish they did, i'm sure that would be more interesting than the standard questions. although i did once get a job because i had a love of the circus in common with the interviewer (and because of my mad and relevant skillz, of course).

[RWood]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

Ah, "Microsoft" style interview questions. I don't use them. Your friend should read William Poundstone's "How Would You Move Mt. Fuji?", which is very entertaining and also exposes some of the pitfalls of interviewing, and the flaws in "puzzle interviews".

Great book!

[slayda]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

I think I mentioned this here before, but when I hired programmers, or potential programmers, I surprised them on the initial "interview" with:

1. Visual Speed and Accuracy test
2. Mechanical Comprehension test
3. Typing test

Then I'd score the results while they waited, and I expected at least 99percentile scores, and a perfect score on the typing test, or I'd thank them for their time.

With those three tests, you could hire a robot and miss hiring a genius. But to each his own.