February 24, 2010
Phone interviews are tough, especially for software engineering, user interface, and other tech positions. Background noise on either end, shoddy audio quality, and just the fact that you’re not sitting face-to-face with your interviewer make for a trying experience. Having gone through a bunch of phone interviews (4 with Google and 2 with Facebook) with success, I figure it’d be helpful to share how I prepare for those calls.
- Be familiar with the company. (3 days before the call) Knowing something about the company can help boost your confidence because it takes away some of the uncertainty regarding the situation. If you know the company’s culture, their mission, and how they’ve made news, you can get an idea of what a company or startup values and how you can help.
- Figure out how you can make a difference. (2 days before) Good companies hire people to come make a difference and introduce new ideas. If you’re interviewing for a user interface/experience position, find something the company’s made and figure out what you would change in the interface to make it better or a feature you would add/take away to make the product better. It’s important to have a few solid examples thought out ahead of time so that you can relay your ideas clearly and effectively over the phone. I always list out my ideas on paper that I have handy during the interview which I can refer to in case I forget for whatever reason.
- Get to know your interviewer. (1 day before) Companies often let you know who will be conducting the interview ahead of time. Take advantage of this information and do a little research on the person who’s going to be calling you. It can help ease your nerves if you know a little bit about the person calling you. It takes away another element of uncertainty and gives you an idea of what to expect of the person. Interviewers often take a few minutes at the beginning of the call to introduce themselves and familiarize you with the type of work they do at the company.
- Do push-ups (or anything active). (20 minutes before) It’s important to keep blood flowing and have a little adrenaline flowing to keep you alert. You’re going to need to think quickly during the interview, and before you can do that, you need to warm-up and get the juices flowing. I typically do 35 push-ups about 15 minutes before the interview and 10 more 15 minutes before the interview. Remember, don’t exhaust yourself, you just need to kick your body (and brain) into full gear.
- Listen to whatever music pumps you up. (15 minutes before) After your exercise, you want to keep your active so that you don’t lose energy you gained by doing push-ups. It really helps if you can sing along (however terribly) to your pump up music (I like Girl Talk). Singing works your speech center, warms up your vocal chords and mouth, and helps alleviate whatever anxiety you’re having.
- Don’t wait for the call. (5 minutes before) While still listening to music do something else. Sitting there waiting for the call can get extremely nerve-racking and might throw you off balance. Just do something else and let the call interrupt you. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, checking Facebook, reading something, or working on a problem, they’re all good; you just need something to distract you. As long as you’re not too distracted that you miss the call, you should be good.
I also like to have a few things easily available for me during the call:
- A glass of lukewarm water (so my mouth doesn’t get dry doing all that talking)
- A copy of the resume I sent in (as reference in case they ask)
- My pre-interview notes with my list of things I would change
- A notebook or something else to take notes with during the interview
Keep in mind, what’s worked for me might not necessarily work for you, too. If something above doesn’t work for you, find out what does. It’s important that you be at your best during these calls so you can get the job or internship you really want. If you have any questions or want some help preparing for your interview, feel free to talk to me about it.
February 6, 2010
Pulse of the Planet is a project of mine to visualize tweets in real-time on a map. It’s powered by Google’s App Engine (Python) and uses the Twitter Search API and Google’s Maps (v3) and Geocoder API.
Pulse of the Planet in action.
Besides looking cool, Pulse offers a way to visualize local trends and how many people talk about different subjects. As of this writing, Pulse is searching for tweets with the word ’snow’ and plotting it on the map. What’s cool is the high concentration of tweets coming from the northeast (especially DC) because of the impending snow storm. Additionally, if a tweet also contains ’ski’, a skier icon is displayed, and a snowboarder icon is used for tweets that mention ‘board’.
In the future, I’ll update the search terms Pulse uses to correspond to the Olympics and other talked about events. I’m also working on a feature to let people map the search terms of their choice, and I’m working on a few infrastructure pieces so that I’ll stay within my free resource quota on App Engine. What would be awesome is if I could get access to the Twitter’s public timeline which would allow me to plot everyone’s public tweets on a map, which would really demonstrate how Twitter is the pulse of the planet.
January 4, 2010
This fall, I took a psych class, Sensation and Perception, with Brett Fajen. The class focused on how our perceptions of the world (primarily through the vision system) are formed and altered. One part of the course involved designing and conducting experiments to measure the abilities and find the limits of human perception.
I designed two of these experiments using HTML5 canvases and JavaScript. I’ve modified them slightly to work on the web (as opposed to locally on my laptop), and so that they display the experiment results to the test subject (instead of storing the data).
Both experiments measure how well people count and identify certain objects under varying conditions. The first experiment constrains subjects to only a glance at scene, while the second experiment has subjects count objects in a fast moving stream.
Objects in experiment 2 are in a fast moving stream.
I’ve updated The Labs with a link to the main experiment page.
December 15, 2009
The Chrome Extensions Gallery opened up last week, bringing extensions to millions of Chrome users. Ahead of the opening, I developed an extension which answered a question I’ve asked myself almost daily while on the web: Where is this short link taking me?
Some web apps, like Brizzly, will automatically expand short links on their site, but what I wanted was a way to always know where short links would send me, regardless of the site I was on. Additionally, I wanted a way that wouldn’t break the normal flow of web browsing. So, I created Expand, an extension that determines the destination of short links and shows the user the destination when hovering over a link.
To test it, just install Expand and hover over this bit.ly link. You’ll notice a hover effect that looks like this:
Sample usage of Expand
Also, if the link location matches the link text, Expand will replace the link text with the short link’s destination. See what happens with this link after you install Expand: http://bit.ly/80Y4t5
Currently, Expand only works with bit.ly links, but I’m looking to increase the number of short linking services it works with. I’m also working on performance optimization because the last thing I want is for Expand to slow down a user’s browsing experience.
Update (12/18/2009): Expand now supports over 30 short linking services!
Get Expand from the Chrome Extensions Gallery
September 15, 2009
Vince, my roommmate, at night.
Since my grandma bought me my first point shoot camera upon my graduation from 8th grade in 2003, I’ve had an interested in photography. Even though I was only 14, the notion of being able to capture a moment with the click of button struck me as special.
I took a bunch of photos (most of which I can’t find), but my family vacation to Hawaii in 2006 was when I started approaching photography with a new approach. Being able to capture a moment was still special, but my new approach caused me to start capturing an interesting perspective on a moment.
Flower in Waipi'o Valley
This past summer in California, my roommate Calvin, a seasoned photographer, pushed me to the next level. He introduced me to the world of DSLRs. Seeing what he could do with his 40D, and eventually 5D, made me want to do the same. By summer’s end, he had sold me his old 40D and I bought myself a nice 17-55mm f/2.8 lens from Amazon.
During the past few weeks that I’ve had the 40D, I’ve been out taking photos nearly every day and night. The flexibility and control that my camera and lens give me is incredible, and the pictures I take look very sharp (for the most part). It’s exciting, and I still have a lot to learn, especially in the post-processing area to give my pictures a polished look.
Control Panel, House Lights Off
Anyway, check out my Picasa Web Gallery to see some of my most recent shots. Most of the photos I take don’t make it online, but those that do are pretty good, or interesting at least.
