ken - Dr. Blip's PC-Doctor Blog

(-: Just Between You and Me ;-) - Emoticons becoming more common

nospam@example.com (ken) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 13:31:15 -0500

This topic seem to come up from time to time at work with strong feelings on both sides. This article in the New York Times discuses the increased prevalence of emoticons. I think judicious use of emoticons make a lot of sense when using low bandwidth, hastily written, prone to miscommunication medium of e-mail. A or can say a lot. What are your feelings on this subject?

Interns, Where are You?

nospam@example.com (ken) — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:31:36 -0400

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When the PC-Doctor engineering office was in Davis, CA, between 2000 and 2003, we had a steady flow of top-notch software development interns. When we posted for them we could pick from numerous great candidates. The interns worked 15 to 20 hours per week during the year - tough as a CS student, but if you need to work or want great experience, internships are great. Several of our interns became full-time employees. This arrangement was great for everyone. The interns were paid very well ($15+ /hr) to do professional software development. The benefit to students is amazing, as the top differentiator between recent grads in an interview is experience as a professional software development intern. Although the interns had a lot to learn, they were productive and helpful on key projects. We got to Ã¢Â?Â?test driveÃ¢Â?Â? them and had a pool to draw from when we needed full-time employees.

In 2003 PC-Doctor moved to Reno, NV and getting interns has been much harder. A lot has changed since 2000-2003. The job market is much tighter. We are drawing from UNR instead of from UCD. UCD has a bigger and better CS program and, since Davis is a small town, internships are sought-after. On the other hand, PC-Doctor is a bigger fish at UNR and some of my top engineers are UNR alum, so I know top-notch talent comes form UNR. I am puzzled as to why more interns have not applied for our internships and made it through our hiring process. The benefits to all are amazing. We have posted on www.pc-doctor.com and the UNR web site, and we have participated in every career fair since we moved to Reno. Our hiring process is tough but realistic. We understand what students know.

Any ideas on how to get more interns. OR, if you are looking for an internship or know someone who is, let me know.

Wobbly polarity is key to preventing magnetic avalanches on disk drives

nospam@example.com (ken) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 07:40:26 -0400

This article Magnetic Wobbles Cause Disk Failure may be a good way to improve our hard drive diagnostics, especially as drives get larger. It did get me to thinking that the conventional wisdom that hard drive defects will tend to cluster radially under the head as seen in a head crash may not be the whole picture. Perhaps spiraling outward from a defect is another good approach.

UCSC Press Release on Wobbly Polarity

Typical Crash: