My Group Introduction

I’ve been going to a meeting of “High Tech Job Seekers,” which is attended by 50+ people twice a week. At each meeting, every member introdu

Getting on a Schedule

Ever since my first days in college, I have sporadically made daily and weekly schedules for myself. (I make no claim to have followed them

Being Laid Off Part VII: Better Networking

I have talked to several people about the job hunt, and they all recommend networking as one (if not the only) approach that really works. M

Being Laid Off Part VI: Dress for Success

I recently got on a mailing list where people are discussing the pros and cons of a corporate dress code. The discussion was prompted by <a

Being Laid Off Part V: Valuing Your Assets

When businesses run into challenges, they take a hard look at their assets: They update their inventory. They look for things they could sel

Being Laid Off Part IV: Recruiting the Family

One idea I have been toying with is recruiting my family to help me find a new job. I got an amazing lead just Friday from my brother. From

Being Laid Off Part III: Personal Marketing Collateral

After getting laid off, one of the first pieces of professional advice I received was, “Get business cards with your contact information on

Being Laid Off Part II: Tracking Progress

As I suggested in my last post, updating my list of contacts seemed even more important to me than updating my resume. Furthermore, as word

Being Laid Off Part I: What to Update?

I found out on December 10 that my last day would be December 19. I thought I took it pretty well. The company had had one round of layoffs

Ruby on Rails: How to allow upload and download of files

This example shows how to attach a file to an item in the database.

Preparation

No special preparation is required.

Database</h

Ruby on Rails: How to provide a list of items that can be dragged and dropped on each other

In this example, the drag-and-drop action results in submission of a form followed by rendering of a new page.

Preparation

No speci

Ruby on Rails: How to provide a list of elements that can be sorted

Preparation

No special preparation is required.

Database

It is assumed only that your database has a table of items with

Ruby on Rails: How to require login for some or all actions

Although much of your site may be public, you may want to keep parts of it only for users who have logged in. Specifically, you may want to

Ruby on Rails: How to provide search with auto-completion

Preparation

For Rails 2.0 or higher, you will have to install a plug-in with the following command:

ruby script/plugin insta

Ruby on Rails: How to store and retrieve a MRU item in a cookie

It is convenient to display items that the user has visited recently, MRU (Most Recently Used) items.

Preparation

No special prepar

Recession is Taboo

In his conversation with Kai Ryssdal, Robert Samu

Expectations

Liz commented as follows to my pre

More Homeowners Rescued by FDIC

An earlier post mentioned the benefits of letting banks fail. <a href=”http://www.npr

Interaction Efficiency

Anushka wrote,<blockquote>you put energy, in the form of risk, love, et c

Bankruptcy Explained

This showed up in my inbox…

Once there was a little island country. The land of this country was the tiny island itself. The total money

Tell a Story About Science

Robert Krulwich, TV and radio science rep

Transcending Conflict

An NPR story described how an otherwise unsuperstitious man advi

Asking Why

While at our outsourcing partner in India, I learned that one of the engineers was synchronizing the tip of one revision control system (CVS

Knowledge Extolled

One Reality

एकं सत विप्रा: बहुदा वदन्ति The Rig Veda (Book I, Chapter CLXIV, Verse 46)