That competition is retiring and hard to replace because schools stopped teaching cobol.

Re: tech bubble, it certainly seems that way, HOWEVER, doesn't that mean there's a good chance it isn't as bad as we think (and/or is the opposite)? The thing about these things is that the mainstream is not supposed to have caught on to it. If everybody was so smart, there wouldn't have been a bubble or it would have already deflated/popped.

Yeah took me a bit to actually figure out you're supposed to long click. There's also no quick way to create simple textfiles (no context menu item for it at least). They also use strange names for stuff (duplicate or whatever it's called instead of save as for Keynote comes to mind)

Yeah move to background is what I meant. AFAIK I can't turn that off.

I've already secured some students for usability tests next semester. I'll use Windows only users and expose them to OS X vs. whatever I decide on for Linux (probably KDE) and see how they'll fare for a set of standard tasks.

That's exactly how it feels for me. Everything is non obvious. On top of that googling for stuff usually leads to ultrasnarky forum posts and generally mediocre results. Searching for Linux related stuff is tons better in that regard.

Lack of show desktop was frustrating (lol at those gesture thingies...design for all what is that?!). I have reverse mapped the function keys but show desktop is on F11...dunno how I eventually found it or if it was added recently.

Reading/writing mail and whatever instant messaging you use are the killer apps for me. Internet in your pocket (aka let me google that) is also useful even if I use it rarely. No need for a dedicated music player is also nice.
Maps is also a must have for me as I often use public transportation to travel to cities I haven't been to before/in a long time. Same for an app to check train connections etc.

Not sure what you're trying to gauge with that test.

Let's take people only used to windows and subject them to environments where the one's philosophy has been to emulate windows' UI behavior but based on open source software where the other has been following its own path ever since.

It's a bit like taking a group of western children to burger king and a traditional Indian food market to find out what they like more.

I've been very torn on this since they introduced it a few years ago.

On one hand, I'm irritated whenever Apple changes something that has become common knowledge by almost all computer users.

On the other hand "Duplicate", "Rename", "Move To" is clearly much better than just giving people the traditional "Save As" option that ends up confusing the hell out of non-computer people because they end up with 18 versions of a file all throughout their computer because they don't really get that "Save As" isn't a magic command that does duplicating, renaming, or moving depending on what they'd like to happen.

I'm let to understand that battery tech has been plateaued for several years now. The only reason our smart phones last longer now than a few years back is because the embedded software people made the phones more efficient. The same batteries, with the same mAh, are pretty much the same ones we were using 10 years ago.

http://www.cnet.com/news/why-batteri...etting-better/

Michael Sinkula of Envia Systems, an advanced battery startup in California, crunched the numbers and found the energy stored in a battery in 1995 didn't double until more than a decade later, in 2007. Since then, a battery's energy hasn't even risen by 30 percent. And Envia believes most batteries likely won't have doubled again even by 2021.

FWIW, you can just swap out a battery for an Android, but the batteries are very expensive, so may as well get a new phone instead.

Well when it crashed in 2000, there were a couple years where it was a little tough to get a job, then pretty much every year since the market has been white hot. So even if it's as bad as 2000 it's not that bad.

Of course that assumes a new catalyst will come along - like social internet did after the dotcoms crashed.

A battery for my note 4 is like 30 bucks on Amazon. A new phone is going to be between 6 and 20 times more expensive.

The trend of making phones without removable batteries should be illegal. It's essentially planned obsolescence.

Yeah, selling pacemakers should be illegal, too. :P

The Note 4 will be my last Note since the Note 5 moved to non-removable batteries

You can't imagine how much money Wintel has spent trying to reduce power consumption when resources go idle. They've been quite successful in reality. They have one hand tied behind their back so to speak with the x86 CISC type architecture.

What sort of software or web service do people/interviewers use to remotely examine code in real time/communicate with the coder?

Some folks at school are having issues in a class I'm in, but I'll be goddamned if I want to have to leave my house to go help someone out.

github?

TeamViewer is good for these kinds of things.

http://collabedit.com/. It sort of sucks but generally works.

I pray this is their motto.

thought about team viewer, but i hear that has lots of ads and nag screens these days.

and i worry github might be too advanced for this instance.

*edit*

I guess there is a github track on codecademy now though...

If github is too complex and teamviewer too naggy, then google hangouts should work

Cheers, thanks all for the recommendations

Ya, Google hangouts seems to be the lightest weight way to screen share out there.

We used google for our software project and i just dropped source files in their for my programmers, worked ok

I'm still blown away by how much worse screen sharing is on Lync vs Webex. Didn't they buy Skype?? I feel like I'm missing something if this is the best they can do.

Is it webex that offers the options of sharing control of the shared screen (as in both people can control the mouse and type)? That was a pretty awesome way to remotely work on code with someone but I haven't used webex in years.

it appears jj has figured out how to hack HN. trending right now on front page:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...ooms-1.3274903