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Just Hillarious!

Jon Hermiz — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:54:33 GMT

I cant stop laughing, and neither will you! Play the video below, this reminds me of the 80s!

Asking For A Raise

Jon Hermiz — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:16:49 GMT

Its that time of year when many people have a big decision to make:

Go with the flow and take whatever your corporation gives you.
Ask for a raise
Forget about it..change careers cause you just aren't going anywhere or getting anything

It really is a tough decision to make when it involves more money. We started a post over at sqlteam about this over here: http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=94258. Some very interesting comments so first check those out before you read on.

Dont Blow It

One thing you need to remember is this is probably your one and only chance for the year to get a raise so dont blow it. Here are some do nots to follow:

Do not ask for a raise without being prepared. So many people just want more money but have no documentation or support as to why they deserve the pay raise.
Do not mention that you've purchased a new vehicle and your bills have increased, your car has nothing to do with the company.
Do not tell them you have a new baby on the way / have existing kids at home and that you need the pay to help with costs around the house.
Don't even bother telling them about any bills including mortgage bills that you need to pay off...again no one in the company cares about your problems
Do not argue, if they make you mad be professional and ask questions. Find out why they cant, find how how to improve your current skill set to be reconsidered...always ASK ASK ASK.
Do not force them or tell them that you will look else where. Even if you do look else where keep it to yourself. Dont bother threatning them or it could back fire.
Don't cry and definately do not YELL. Yelling is verbal abuse and you will be repremanded for this. Be careful...

Do Your Homework

This is your chance to finally get a raise, so what's the best way to do it? Well first of all just like anything you have to be well prepared, organized, and review the work you've done in the past, present, and the future. Do not walk into this meeting (when you have your review) with no paper and no pen. Print out emails, bring your portfolio of work you've done or supported. No one that I know is just going to hand you over some extra money just for being you.

Here are some Do's in getting a raise:

Prepare yourself by printing e-mails from end users, or customers who enjoy your work or your personality (business only nothing outside of work).
Have a list of questions ready in case they close the meeting with "Do you have any questions".
Don't just take No for a final answer. Ask questions why, or what you could do better next time.
Be professional, use eye contact, sit up straight. I know review time can get a little boring but its worth the sacrifice if it means an extra 5-10 thousand (not a bad raise).
Listen to your manager's opinions and understand where he / she is coming from.
If you don't agree on something, do NOT get mad simply ask questions and understand that this should be something that you care about.
Be on time (I know people who have not even shown up on their review day).
Show off but DO NOT BE COCKY. Don't try to be arrogant in your approach but definately show them the great things you've done for the company.
Get advice from people who have been in the industry longer than you.
Check out the job market, find out what people are paying for skills which you have.
List out your accomplishments and talk about your future with the company.
Be positive, and sincere, show them that you truly care
Always always ask for a time frame or a date when you think your manager can get back to you if he / she does contemplate a raise. If you don't get a date it probably means you won't get a raise or at least you won't get one any time soon.
Leave your managers office with a good impression. You want your manager to think "Wow...I really need this guy / gal in our functional group"

One thing I got from my previous boss that I'll share with you is something to think about:

"Basically there are 3 roles, support, part of the product, and the product. In the support role your work is not very scaleable, whereas if your work was the product it would be very scaleable. The salary you can command is always going to be proportional to the scaleability of your work. You need to take this into consideration when you compare salaries.So doing the same work is worth more as it becomes more scaleable. You have to decide the role you want your work to be in."

If you have additional tips or pointers definately share them.

What If: The Dream Company

Jon Hermiz — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 16:07:24 GMT

What If : The Dream Company

Ever wonder what if when it comes to your imaginary corporation where you have an unlimited amount of money to spend on talent?

What if...

Tara was my dba yelling at my programmers to ensure their SQL is solid. Backing up the databases and restoring them like no other. Ensuring my databases were running smoothly and fully optimized
- See this http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/archive/2007/11.aspx
- What about this http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/archive/2007/02.aspx

Jeff was smacking the junior developers around discussing how they should organize their code. HANDLE THAT AT THE FRONT END I TOLD YOU!! WHAT…you placed that in the db code…NO NO NO…this formatting should be done on the front end!
- See this http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jeffs/category/238.aspx
- And this… http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jeffs/archive/2007/08.aspx
- And especially this http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/jeffs/archive/2007/07.aspx

Peso (Peter) was taking care of the other SQL developers and ensuring their code was clean, short, and optimized. Boy can that guy come up with great SQL. He’d also be the one to entertain all the new comers with SQL classes and how to truly understand the tools. We’d call him the gate keeper, and he’d be in charge of telling us whose fit for the corporation!
- See here http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/peterl/archive/2007/12/10/Cursor-is-really-faster-than-set-based-solution.aspx
- Here… http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/peterl/archive/2007/09/27/Clever-way-to-get-the-records-you-want-with-certain.aspx

Spirit (Mladen) was in charge of discovering new tools, testing, and preaching to the developers. HOW CAN YOU BE DOING THIS WITHOUT A DATABASE TIER!!! Who told you object orientated programming was that difficult? What do you mean you haven’t used the newly designed data extractor object that I invented!
- See here http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/archive/2007/10/18/SQL-Server-Filtering-Numeric-data-from-a-character-based-column.aspx
- http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/archive/2007/09/24/.Net-Passing-user-data-with-Exception-back-to-the-caller.aspx
- And many more interesting articles here http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp/

Brett was handling all of the dirty work including conversions from one system to another. Porting code over to different database vendors, writing T-SQL, and bumping heads with the front end folks for not listening to him in the first place!
- http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/brettk/archive/2007/03/01/60124.aspx
- How about this http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/brettk/archive/2007/07/26/60272.aspx
- Plenty more here… http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/brettk/

MVJ (Michal Valentine Jones…not sure if that is really his name) he’d be in charge of the final base code. Would be willing to give him a duplicate gate keeper key much like that of Peso’s. He’s the go to guy, the man with an answer to much anything when it comes to SQL. He’d come up with weird functions that handle dates…reusable code…ya the weird stuff that just seems to work!
- Definitely see here: http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=61519 (it helped me a LOT)

Kristen (http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=10539) the Director of the company. Ahh he makes the big bucks..but he’s well worth it. He steers the company in the direction of success…well most of the time. He’s been known for making programmers happy (which just doesn’t sound right). He actually made a couple of Mladen’s group laugh! He writes clean code…but he’s too good for that now. Sometimes MVJ gets frustrated with code he’s inventing, but putting him in the same office with Kristen and Peso he always comes out with a monster that works. But don’t piss Kristen off or you might become a twit: http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=69568

Jezemine (http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=24731) he would be the central brain of the entire company. The guy is brilliant IMHO. He’s like the Einstein of today (ok not that much but still he knows his stuff). He’s written some nice database documentation tool called SQLSpec http://www.elsasoft.org/. Of course the company would take ownership of it ;) (just kidding). Along with his brain he’d be in charge of the documentation support of the company. His role is essential to our customer base. Without him our customers are lost and frustrated. Him and Peso seem to find speed as a good topic to discuss when it comes to SQL: http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=93911

Graz…good ol graz…the one that put everyone together in one room. He insisted that it would work out…success comes with patience and hard work he would always say. He’s the heart of the corporation and when the heart stops we’re in for some trouble. Graz also runs many of the presentations and brings in special guests to help our developers and our customers as well!
- See this behemoth: http://www.sqlteam.com
- http://www.sqlteam.com/contactus.aspx
- And of course this http://www.sqlteam.com/about.aspx

We’d hire some major players as well guys / gals like:

Madhivanan http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=14266

Dinakar http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=27687

Khtan http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=19400

Rockmoose http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=11815

TG (whose been awfully quiet lately) http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=14720

Eyechart http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=8399

Elwoos http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=7478

We’d be a lot like google minus those colors and the lava lamps. Work environment would include jeans, tshirts, pajamas, and even shorts. Roller blading / biking to work would be an option. We’d all have lunch together … maybe Emerald would cook! We’d all become rich too…our stock options would supersede our pay rates just some day.

Maybe just maybe…Of course affording all of you would probably be impossible…but then again it’s just a dream.

Forgetting the little things in life...

Jon Hermiz — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 03:37:29 GMT

Remember the good old hello world program? Ahh the first program any teacher in any type of programming course would assign was good old Hello World. But as students / new developers we were excited! Wow my first program and I got it to say Hello World and it displayed it right on my screen. "Just take a look" you'd say to the student next to you, I even included the header iostream.h.

How did our young minds go from writing programs like Hello World to robust database applications in the .net framework? Do you ever wonder how your mind has actually created the beasts that people are using today? Admit it, you are smart, better yet we are smart. Computer Science guys are engineers, we're doctors, we are artists, and we're even lawyer's. We have to take large business processes and convert it into a useable tool (engineers). We have to debug, optimize, and fix bugs (doctors). We have to design nice interfaces, whether web based or win form, and make them useable to end users (artists). We have to fight for what we believe, pointing blame on our clueless end users (lawyers).

How did we ever go from writing hello world, and a mini calculator to these fairly large applications? We've worked hard...that's how. So programmers / dba's / and even you system admins take a moment smile and pat yourself on the back because you've busted your butt doing this stuff and you're damn good at it.

Since we've gone to writing complex applications I sometimes look back at some basic programs and say wow this is so simple that its difficult. I've forgotten how to think in a simple manner. We sit day to day writing use cases, designing forms, and working on large databases that we forget how to do the simple things in life.

So its time for some old school CS 101 programming assignments. Here's 4 homework assignments you can do in any language:

1) In a pretty slick way output the maximum value of a unsigned integer. Try to not use a library which allows you to display the maximum of this value (in addition such as max.h in C++).

2) Write a cash register program which displays the amount of change given back to the customer in dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. For instance:

Your total is 18.20

You give: 20 dollars

Output should be:

1 dollar

3 quarters

1 nickel

The program should try to use exact change using 1 nickel instead of 5 pennies for instance.

3) Write a program finding the first 500 prime numbers. You should try to use the least amount of code and remember the limits of how to check for prime numbers..hint square roots.

4) Write an assignment to the next person who responds to this blog. Please be nice and make it simple on the next guy or we wont get the next response!

Skip the ones you cant do, but #4 is a must!

Have fun

CS Folks Forgetting Basic Algebra

Jon Hermiz — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 03:46:47 GMT

Its been 10 years since I graduated high school so when this Math problem came up I had to look twice. My bro was given a little algebra puzzle which I helped him with. After finishing it up I decided to write it all up and ask fellow co-workers (without giving them answers of course) this same problem.

Whether they could do it or not I didn't really care..I just wanted an answer...any answer. It is amazing from our IT staff that rarely anyone got it right. How did folks who got MBAs in MI and BS degrees in various other colleges get stumped by a simple algebra problem.

I decided to post it here to see what others across the world can come up with. Its pretty straightforward and a lot of people do have an idea of how to solve it but they always end up saying well there is one piece of missing information..which is true however even with that missing piece you can solve it.

Ok so the problem:

You have a bath tub in which has 4 faucets (I know pretty odd). One faucet can fill the entire tub in 1 hour. The second faucet can fill the tub in 45 minutes. The third faucet can fill it up in 30 minutes. And finally the last one can fill the entire bath tub in only 15 minutes (note the number of minutes for each faucet is based on the faucet turned on by itself).

Now that you have this info the problem is how long would it take to fill the tub if all faucets are turned on at the same time?

Here is a photo to help :):

Bathtub (4 faucets)

Please no put downs on wrong answers, this is just for us folks who haven't done some algebra in a real long time!!! Tell us your answer, draw it if you have to, just give an answer even if you don't know it, post it!

PS: Mladen you are not allowed to play since you already tried. =)