It's time to move on....

Things constantly change. Go outside, open your eyes. Open your mind and try to capture that every single instant, every single moment that passes is unique and will never return or repeat as is.

Instead of embracing it, and live in the present, we live and cling to the illusion of the permanent. Often, we put all our imagination and our personal power into this clinging. We find the perfect argumentation for it and when somebody comes along to state otherwise, we know how to unmake their arguments, because being expressed they are always automatically subjective (and need to be proven otherwise first to become objective).

The real freedom of our life is to make choices. These decisions are like the branching points of our way through life. As hard as it sometimes may be, we need to make these choices and go along from the point where we branched, until the next. It's a one way trip on a one way road. If we realize we took a wrong turn, there is no point in returning, there is only a point in making a new decision, taking a new direction and to carry on.

The reward is experience. It's about learning new things, about us and what we are and what we could be.

This is what we should take from it, instead of loading it with doubts and culprit. Nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes and it's up to us to learn and not repeat them.

Following the way of the heart, becoming more conscious about ourselves and what we are, and why we are, is not about being selfish, it's about trying one's best to make an individual contribution to a higher consciousness, within the boundaries of the free will, the principle that gives us all our freedom of choice.

Today is one of these days, when a choice needs to be made. And flail I do not.

I hope that you may all find your way, learn and experience what you need.
I'll try to do my best as well on the way I'll take and I thank you very much for all the things we have shared along the piece of the way we happily shared.

Farewell :)

Aperture 3 First Impressions

I have been checking out Aperture 3, to see what's new. With Flickr support, I thought I set out, take some experimental shots and then try to publish them (not a pro use maybe, but anyway).

The shot part worked out nicely. However, the first thing to get used to is the new import. No more direct indication of where a photo will be imported to, rather you have to select a project from the panel at the right side. Picking just a few photos to import is possible, now through marking checkboxes instead of selections.

Hint: if you make a selection, and check a picture, all pictures in the selection will be marked.

Images imported, I tried some standard processing. While there are some new things, I found that one of the features I often used in AP2 is now more difficult to access : auto-levels. Otherwise things seem to work better, even with RAW shots and some more fiddling Aperture 3 seems to stay responsive (which wasn't always the case with v2).

After a small selection (no surprises here), I decided to test drive the built-in Flickr Export feature. Maybe Apple thought of making it rather simple - this Flickr Album feature may be interesting for simple use - , but somehow it just falls very short of any expectation people that have been using the Flickr Export (even the free lite version to that end) may have.

I am not the only one that seems to think this, there are people looking for a replacement plugin already.

Aside from the Keywords and Album woes described, I certainly found something else that is disturbing:

Can you spot it? (Hint: What is wrong with this Photo Size pull-down?)

While Actual Size Images makes sense, could somebody tell me what Optimized Images and Web Images means? The help/manual certainly cannot. They are also no Presets (what I would expect, or am I the only one that thinks that makes more sense?!). I am still digging to figure out this one.

Thus, I finally decided to export using a corresponding Preset and uploading the pictures manually through the web page.

Here they are:

Snow Leopard Note: Java 6 with 32-bit data model

After switching to Snow Leopard, many people realized that suddenly everything was Java 6.

Generally it is not a big deal, but for developers, when tinkering with native libraries, there may be some issues if these are compiled for 32-bit platforms.

There is a simple work around for this problem, in the form of a command-line switch:

    -d32          use a 32-bit data model if available
    -d64          use a 64-bit data model if available (implies -server, only for x86_64)

Thus, invoking the jvm with the -d32 switch (i.e. java -d32 [...]) may as well help you to move forward if no 64-bit version of a native library is available.

Cat Close-ups

Some pictures of a small visitor :)

Welcome to the age of CHR, Computerized Human Resources

I have recently been a lot into searching for jobs and contract work.

After a while just searching for actual offers (which in today’s world sometimes suddenly seem to be offers to do work for you, rather than offers of work to be done. On many Internet sites people simply found a way around and hide these in the masses), I started also to look for other people’s thoughts on this problem.

There is one that stand’s out and that I immediately identified with in many places: the_codist().

I could not agree more, that Independent IT people should have an agent and I also enjoyed reading WTF Stories #5 : The Weasely Recruiter, Looking For Work Is More Work Than Working, Matching Smart Programmers With Great Jobs: There Has To Be A Better Way, Having a Broad Resume Is Bad News for Finding a Contract Position, So What Is A Good Programmer Employee Anyway?,Resumes Are Mostly Useless, More Thoughts On Resumes and a New Idea, Take This Career And Shove It and others.

There is one thing that’s additionally becoming a disturbing experience, namely, what I call CHR: Computerized Human Resources.

Today HR seems to have simplified a lot: just put up a website (often outsourced), post job offers, and wait for incoming applications. Must be a nice experience, except for the one that tries to apply for a job:

.) Internet Explorer Only

Standardization anyone? If you are not up for it, don’t try to search for a career at Siemens. Or maybe it’s me and I just can’t figure out why it works perfectly when I fire up Windows and IE, but never with Safari or Firefox (maybe I should try Chrome).

.) Forms, forms, forms....

I would summarize it: “try to deal with disorientation, re-type your CV and figure a way around input validation that just ignores that we are all individuals”.

.) Fully automated computer generated responses

Try Google, they even seem to reject you automatically. And that’s a plus, because from many many others all you will ever receive is a computer generated acknowledgement email that somewhere states:

Please note that candidates will only be contacted at a later date if they are under serious consideration.

.) Globalization anyone?

I thought it was a well known fact that there are two options that usually make it easier finding a job:

1) being very specialized so you can do local
2) being less specialized but mobile and flexible, so you do a job where they need you to do it

Is it just me, or why there are still so many guided searches that insist on you to first identify where you want to work?
I mean, maybe it’s just me, probably a country would do, or a language I speak, but usually I would just like to match to a position, before wrapping my head around where it’s going to take place.

And talking about forms, ever had the fun task of bypassing validation for your non-local education?


Honestly, it’s kind of frustrating sometimes. Human Resources should be about dealing with humans.
Not that I haven’t had my share of The Stupidity Of Interviews and maybe there is also just a too large volume to handle, but there has to be a better way (Matching Smart Programmers With Great Jobs: There Has To Be A Better Way, So What Is A Good Programmer Employee Anyway?):.

We need to be more aware on both ends.

It's important to evaluate the job as well as the job evaluating you.

Evaluate if a job is for you, before, at and after the interview. True, you may need to solve economic needs, but also consider that if you are unhappy at the job, you will just make the situation worse, because the stress and the missing satisfaction will bring along a bunch of problems you may need to throw money at (despite feeling bad because it actually can make you physically sick).
There are examples that seem to work; I am very grateful to the The ABB Group - Automation and Power Technologies, where I had a complete interview day and both sides had the chance to get most out of it in terms of evaluation. Too bad it didn’t work out, but I hope that it was worth for them to spend money on.

The problem with this process is that each potential employer or recruiter evaluates you as if you just popped into being, and even worse, may assume you are lying about everything in your past and in your resume. There is a good reason for this assumption, having been involved in the hiring process, most people lie on their resume to keep up with those who really know their stuff and don't need to lie. That's why everyone is forced to take screening tests. It also explains why unusual resumes are often overlooked; they look too much like someone is cramming lies into their resume in order to get noticed. These folks then hope someone clueless will be interviewing them, and get a job they aren't qualified for. I've worked with many people I assume followed this route, there is no other explanation how they got a programming job without the ability to program. So companies looking for good programmers are forced to be defensive, and potentially let great employees get away in order to avoid the embarrassing potential of hiring a janitor.

Try to build your professional network. Maybe there is no brilliant idea that solves everything, but be honest, and try to demonstrate the consistency of information between your curriculum and your network at sites like LinkedIn (yes, their plans are too high cost, use the free and see where it takes you) and XING (more affordable plans). Connect consciously, unlike many do on Facebook. Try to get your former bosses recommend you, not just your peers.

Even with all the psychometrics applied nowadays, how do you measure creativity? the ability to learn? Not just the potential, but the “put into practice” level of the potential?

Companies scream for people that can adapt to change, yet they frown if you show up with a patchwork curriculum that screams change.

Maybe the “industry” should re-consider the CHR and make it more human again. Why not integrate people with experience into the process of hiring; and don’t just stop at that: I am quite sure that some of these experienced people could be excellent mentors that could boost motivation and performance along the way once people are in.