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Résumé Advice for the Over-50 Crowd

Here’s a snippet from an article in The Christian Science Monitor titled Résumé Advice for the Over-50 Crowd:

Does your résumé look weathered? Has it grown to three or four pages over time? Is your first job after high school graduation still listed? Are you still displaying the date you graduated from college?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, she says, it’s time to redo your résumé.

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Putting Your Database Under Version Control

In his latest article on Coding Horror, Jeff Atwood talks about the importance of getting your database under version control and links to K. Scott Allen’s series of articles on the topic:

  1. Three rules for database work
  2. The Baseline
  3. Change Scripts
  4. Views, Stored Procedures and the Like
  5. Branching and Merging

Lucky me, I’ve got Rails migrations, which are suitable for small teams. Other development platforms will require different approaches, some of which are covered by Allen’s articles. If there’s a topic that’s screaming for a book or website, this is it!

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And the “Static vs. Dynamic” Battle Rages On…

After reading Bill Burke’s article, Dynamic Languages: Rationalizations and Myths, you might also want to look at Patrick Logan’s articles, Dynamic Languages: Should the Tools Suck? and Deeper Dynamics.

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TSOT Ruby/Rails Project Night: Tuesday, February 12th

TSOT Ruby/Rails Project Night 2

It’s a new month, which means a new Ruby/Rails Project Night at TSOT on Tuesday, February 12th!

The last one was a success — we had over 50 attend (you can see photos and a quick writeup here) and this one looks like it’s going to be as big a hit. Better still, based on feedback from the attendees, we’re going to delve even deeper into technical matters, because that’s what you asked for!

Several eager Rails developers have asked us about presenting their projects at our Project Nights, and next Tuesday, we’re proud to feature these presentations:

  • How to Avoid Hanging Yourself in Rails (or: Optimizing Your ActiveRecord Associations) by Rowan Hick
  • Helping New Businesses be Memorable with EasyBrandingTools.com by Mike Bowler and Steve Vetzal
  • Clinical Research Management System (CRMS) by Luke Galea. CRMS is a Rails and Prolog/XSB application used to manage drug and procedure trials at the some of the biggest hospitals in the US.

TSOT’s Ruby/Rails Project Night takes place next Tuesday, February 12th at our development office at 151 Bloor Street West (just east of Avenue Road), Suite 1130. Doors will open at 5:30pm with presentations beginning some time between 6 and 6:30. This event is free but space is limited; reserve your spot today by emailing corina.newby@tsotinc.com or joey.devilla@tsotinc.com.

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Facebook Developer Garage 3 Tonight!

Facebook Developer Garage logo

FacebookCamp Toronto logo

The third Toronto edition of Facebook Developer Garage/FacebookCamp (it goes by both names) takes place tonight at MaRS Discovery District (101 College Street, just east of University Avenue).

Here’s the agenda as of the time of this writing:

Time Event / Presentation
6:00 – 6:30 Social / Mingling / Registration
6:30 – 6:35 introduction and update from the last Facebook Toronto Gathering (Roy Pereira, Colin Smillie and Andrew Cherwenka)
6:40 – 7:15 Keynote by Dave Morin, Senior Platform Manager, Facebook
7:15 – 7:30 Website Marketing in Facebook case study (Tim Shore, BlogTO)
7:30 – 7:40 Facebook Pages case study (Andrew Cherwenka)
7:40 – 7:50 Bebo Facebook Application (Roy Pereira and Colin Smillie, Refresh Partners)
7:50 – 8:00 Facebook vs. OpenSocial (Jawad Shuaib)
8:00 – 8:15 Facebook Beacon (Jay Goldman, Radiant Core)
8:15 – 8:40 5-minute Demos:

8:40 and on Wrap-up and Social

If you were wondering what happened at the last Facebook Garage/FacebookCamp, you can see my notes at:

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Microsoft’s Bid for Yahoo!

On the very off chance that you hadn’t yet heard: Microsoft has proposed to buy Yahoo! at $31 per share, which translates to just under $45 billion. My fellow Canuck tech news bloggers Mark Evans and Mathew Ingram have weighed in, and — as Mark has astutely observed, the major snowstorm covering the northeast should have the blogosphere’s tongues a-waggin’. Keep an eye on Techmeme for the latest news.

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When “We Remove Vista” Becomes a Selling Point

Here’s a sign displayed in the window of A&D Computer in Milford, New Hampshire:

Sign in a Seattle computer store window: “We remove Vista / We install XP”

Here’s the relevant excerpt from Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog:

Shop manager Aaron Kaplan said they were prompted to put it up because so many people were having problems with Windows Vista, including compatibility issues with older software and trouble adjusting to the interface.

“A lot of people didn’t like using Vista, and a lot of the manufacturers forced people to go up to Vista,” he said.

What was the demand for the service? “We had a lot of people coming in and asking about it,” Kaplan said. “Of all the signs we put up there the last two years, at least, we probably got the most response out of that one. A lot of people coming in.”

Kaplan said they’ve since replaced it with a different message, but they’re thinking about putting the Vista removal message back up.