Month: November 2007

Google has an experimental search page where you can test drive new search result layouts. My favorite is the Keyboard Shortcuts option. This lets you navigate and view search results using only the keyboard – no mouse required! It’s a huge benefit for Quicksilver fans. Now that Yahoo! is my default search engine, I desperately didn’t want to give up the keyboard shortcuts feature. Thanks to jQuery and Greasemonkey I don’t have to. Make sure you’re using Firefox and have the Greasemonkey plugin loaded. Then, click here to install. I’ve chosen the same shortcut keys as Google. J and K …

Read more

Earlier today I was asked what I look for in a job. Specifically, what it would take to retain me past the typical “three year burnout” period tech workers often find themselves up against. The usual answers came to mind: a fun corporate environment, challenging assignments, working with people smarter than myself. Those are all important factors, but they’re also very vanilla. Who wouldn’t want to work in a fun workplace? Unless you have a serious ego, why wouldn’t you want to be around smart people? The person I was talking to pressed on looking for a more concrete answer. …

Read more

Anders Pearson posted an interesting programming puzzle today on Thraxil.org: Take the names of two U.S. States, mix them all together, then rearrange the letters to form the names of two other U.S. States. What states are these? He found out about it from Mark Nelson who, in turn, heard it on NPR. It’s not a terribly difficult riddle if you take a moment to think about it. But from a programmer’s perspective it smells like one of the many brain teasers we face in early Computer Science exams or job interviews. The puzzle isn’t so much about being the …

Read more