1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Alpha invites will continue to trickle out during the coming days and weeks.  If you want to keep up to date on our progress, be sure to follow the GoSportn blog.

The Googleplex

When I first arrived in California, I was greeted by nicer weather and friendlier strangers than I was accustomed to, coming from New York.  It felt like I was on vacation.  Moving into my Mountain View apartment and meeting up with Calvin Young, my roommate, was simple enough, and by Sunday evening, I was all ready to get started at Google.

My first day was filled with orientation, exploring Google, and meeting other interns and my host, Stefan Kuhne.  It was a fun day, and by the end of it, I was absolutely psyched that I was actually at Google.

1950 Charleston Road, My Office

The rest of my first week was filled with learning the ropes and getting started on my project.  It was kind of like the first week of classes during freshman year at RPI.  You get a good amount of work done, but you end up spending a lot of time acquainting yourself with the campus, Google culture, and your fellow Googlers.  It’s a great way to be introduced to a company as phenomenal as Google, and the Intern Team did a great job of making it happen.

My project, which helps broadcasters (CNN, NBC, ESPN) use Google Earth on their TV programs, was really cool and interesting.  I learned a lot and got to work with Google Web Toolkit (GWT), AppEngine, and the Google Earth Plugin for the the fist time.  However, I learned more than just how to work with new tools and models.  I gained a lot of valuable experience in working with a team at a company like Google, where there are many different projects going on at the same time.

One of my favorite things at Google are the Tech Talks, where someone knowledgeable in a certain topic gives a presentation on the subject.  The talks are a great way to learn more and meet people with similar interests.  With so many Googlers, it was hard not to find a Tech Talk that piqued my interest, and it seemed like that at any given time, someone was giving a Tech Talk somewhere.

A stuffed pepper, veal, sausage-stuffed quail, and seared ahi tuna with a side of salad.

The food was true to its reputation of being amazing.  With so many different meals being offered at the different cafes around campus, it was difficult to find something you didn’t like.  I was lucky enough to get to try all the cafes on the Mountain View campus (it’s tougher than it sounds), and only a few were less than stellar (but still really good).  If you’re ever invited to grab a meal at Google, I say accept and enjoy it.

On the weekends, when I wasn’t working for GoSportn, I got to travel around and see a bunch of California.  I went into San Francisco plenty of times, saw the Warped Tour, went down to Monterrey, went up to Point Reyes, biked and hiked in the Santa Cruz mountains, and a had a great time.  There are a few things I didn’t get around to doing, like Yosemite and paintball with the interns, but will definitely be on my list for next summer.

Near Pebble Beach on the 17 Mile Drive

Possibly the best part of the summer was when Larry Page signed my shirt on my last day, which was really cool of him.  It was awesome things like that which made Google a great place to work at.  Google is a very open company internally, something which is ingrained in the culture at Google.  It is this openness which keeps the company innovative, and it is the reason why Google is as renowned as it is.

The people I met out there were great.  I got to know a lot of cool people at Google, and got to hang out with interns from Facebook, Twitter, and TechCrunch.  I even got around to meeting a few Y Combinator startups (go check out Graffiti Geo).  It was a lot of fun, and another thing that was great about California and the Bay Area.

I miss Google.  I miss California.  Hopefully, I’ll be back next summer, but for now I have other things to focus on.  Classes start in less than 3 weeks, and in that time, I have a ton of work to do for GoSportn.  I’m looking forward to a great school year and another successful season with the RPI Ski & Snowboard Club.

I'm on a Boat!

PS- The complete set of my picture-a-day from California album is now available.  Go check it out.

• Cleaner layout
• HTML 5
• CSS 3

Just looking at the site, you’ll wonder where all the HTML 5 is.  All of it is under the hood.  I’m taking advantage of the <header>, <nav>, <article>, and <footer> tags to improve the mark up on my site.  In fact, by setting their display style to ‘block’ all of the elements render as expected, even in browsers that don’t officially support HTML 5.

As far as the CSS 3 usage goes, it’s just to improve the look of the site.  The site is still viewable in older browsers or IE8, but will lack the shadows and rounded corners defined by the CSS 3 syntax.  I think this is a good way to start phasing in CSS 3 on the web.

I have a few things that I want to post (including post-Google thoughts), and I’ll hopefully get to them this week.

If you’re not familiar with Cliqset, they’re a start up based in Jacksonville, Florida (home of the slightly jejune Jaguars).  They have a good self-describing page, but essentially they provide users with a method to unify their identities across the myriad of sites out there and are building a fully read-write platform for developers.  I joined the site back in March, when the launched their first beta.  More recently, they launched their second beta and raised $1.5 million from an angel investor.

In addition to giving you insight on the services you use, cliqDNA also provides you with little snippets about the topics you like to talk about or the type of music you like to listen to.  The more people that try cliqDNA, the richer the data becomes, giving everybody a chance to see what really are the most active services on the web.

So why not go ahead and give cliqDNA a try»

Download the Okemo layer!