I don't think I'll be buying this

Does this program ("Hibernate while saving space v1.0") really do what I think it does?

I'm not going to even link to it since I don't want to raise its PageRank by even the tiniest bit. If you must, you can use this link to find it. I'm afraid to even download the software to see what it really does for fear it will infect my system with spyware.

If I understand the (nonexistent) documentation correctly, this application merely toggles off the "Enable Hibernation" check box on the "Hibernate" tab of the "Power Options Properties" in the Windows "Control Panel":


If someone knows what this program really does (rather than just what it appears to do), please drop me a comment, below.

Job Search Over (or How Not to Attract a Candidate)

After a couple of intensive weeks of phone interviews and on-site interviews, the job hunt is over. As expected, most phone and on-site interviews included a technical component. Questions ranged from simple by-the-book questions (i.e., "what's a virtual destructor for") to more challenging questions (i.e. "implement a function that does such-and-such").

Generally, most of my interview experiences were good. There was one exception however. I had an interviewer who didn't bother to read my resume and spent a good deal of the interview trashing technical decisions that had been made by the development team.

Interviewing is a two-way street. The company is deciding if I'll bring a skill set that will benefit the company and I'm looking at the company to determine if it's a good place to work. That particular interviewer's technique provided me with useful information, but probably not in the way the company intended.

Mapquest Confused and Google Maps "Gee Whiz" Feature

The job hunt has had me using Google Maps or Mapquest more than usual to get driving directions and times to potential employers or interview.

Most of my use of these driving direction web sites is for the "terminal phase" of the trip. That is, I generally know how to get from my house to the town in question so I just use these tools to figure out the last few turns. In the past Mapquest has been pretty good (picking the major roads I would have), but lately I've noticed that it picked rather odd routes. In any case, this prompted me to begin using Google Maps.

I've used Google Maps in the past, but recently I noticed a new feature with the driving directions (I have no idea when this feature first appeared). If you hover your mouse over a portion of your route, you'll get a "drag to change route" box. Dragging the box easily lets you make small tweaks to your route (for example, around construction or a closed road). The drag behavior is fast -- a testimony to the efficiency of the underlying route-finding algorithm.

Rainy day activity

Rainy day and nothing for the kids to do?

Head on over to The ToyMaker. Click on the "Free Toys" link, download one of the many PDF files and print them out. Get out your scissors, tape and glue and start building. These are easy paper craft projects, many of which even younger kids can do. (Hint: Buy some cardstock weight paper for the printer first. Some of the projects turn out better with heavy paper).

Too much time on my hands?

Not really and I agree with Ian.

Searching for a job is way more work than an actual job. However, when I reflect back to what is was like to search for my first job (or even my last job, just about 9 years ago), I am truly thankful for today's technology. M first job hunt consisted of looking in newspapers, taking resumes to be copied, typing cover letters and mailing with a stamp. Then there were weeks of waiting for the responses.

With web-sites (such as LinkedIn, see my profile here), email and cell phones the feedback loop is much quicker. I was out of town for the first two weeks of my job hunt but still managed to conduct a number of phone interviews as well as keep up on email so that I had interviews in-the-pipeline when I got back.