It's been about a decade since I last had to look for a job. And, my oh my has it changed. At the time Dice and Monster were the (relatively) new hotness and when you applied there, you generally got a response pretty quickly. Nowadays, Monster is a brutal train wreck of excess. I haven't looked at Dice lately and LinkedIn and Indeed.com have sprung up out of nowhere. There are a massive number of jobs out there. For example, on Indeed if you search for "Los Angeles", you get over 60,000 listings. That's a lot of jobs. Unfortunately, I've found that applying for them is the equivalent of printing out your resume and putting it in the shredder. Actually, that would be more fun.
While I'm no fan of the consumer web sites that purport to help you get and stay connected, I have been spending a lot of time on LinkedIn. I've probably made mention of the forums there and other features in a post here and there.
However, all social networking sites are primarily a function in expanding your network, sharing information with them and so forth. This has given rise to the term "Super Conductor" which is considered as anyone with over 500 to 1,000 connections. Opinions vary on the number, but I really have to question why it's an issue of numbers at all. Where is the metric of quality?
It's not controversial to say that Windows 8 has not won the hearts and minds in the technology community. In fact, recently, Windows 8 and Microsoft were blamed for the slide in PC sales. While I personally think there are plenty of other reasons for said slide, IDC isn't exactly nobody in the tech business so people will take note. I am a pretty technically savvy person so my concerns and needs do not exactly mirror that of a more every day consumer. Nonetheless, people like me buy a lot of computers, advise others what to buy and often support those systems at home and in our business. What we think does matter beyond what our ownership or market presence bespeaks. Let's start with a few key issues. These arise from my use of Windows 8 over the course of the last month on my HP ENVY dv6 laptop. It is not touch enabled so this represents the vast majority of desktop and laptop computers in existence today was well as most new units shipped for the foreseeable future.
Or on your various devices? Do you have an app from your bank that remembers your username and password? Or your web browser? What about electronic copies of your credit card, bank statements, tax returns, social security, etc.? Our devices are increasingly mobile and increasingly powerful the perfect target for identity thieves. Identity theft is going nowhere but up. 2012 was a banner year for thieves making lots of money by pretending to be you. If they swipe your phone or your laptop they can re-write your life in short order. The financial toll is estimated at more than $50 billion annually by one organization. But that's nothing to say about how much disruption and time and effort it is going to cost you.
Closer to home, recently my in-law's laptop was stolen. As with most thefts of this type, it's relatively impossible to recover anything. He ran his household from it which meant it contained an extremely complete picture of their financial life. Wisely, they assumed the worst and started to proactively contain any potential damage by cancelling or changing accounts and setting locks and monitors. There is simply no way to eliminate theft or simply never lose a device - they are just too pervasive now and yet also in high demand. As our use of technology evolves, we need to get smarter about it. Here are three pretty universal recommendations for reducing the impact on your life when the inevitable happens.
Once upon a time, I used to begin my day with a can of Coke or a stop at McDonalds to get the even better fountain version. I didn't like coffee ass it tasted too thin, insubstantial for my tastes. Certainly, that was true versus the syrupy sweetness of coke. Eventually, my tastebuds matured a bit and that degree of sweetness became sickeningly sweet - especially so early in the morning. I moved onto coffee but then found the sweet spot in the latte. The blend of milk and espresso really gets it done for me. Unfortunately, they aren't cheap and you can really only get them at the local coffee shop. Perhaps I should say "shops" as the coffee wars continue to rage with Starbucks versus everyone else in a bid to seemingly achieve a coffee shop on every corner.
This growing ubiquity has led a trend of folks hanging out at the coffee shop as a social and work destination. Nowadays, the coffee shop is being hailed as a melting pot of creativity and caffeine by a variety of folks with recommendations to make it a normal working location.
It's been a few weeks since the HP ENVY dv6 joined the team. I've constructed a report card of sorts that puts some of my thoughts together to get to just how well this model performs. To some degree it should be noted that this laptop has dual graphics cards and advanced power management. That has the effect of really making it act like two very different laptops based on whether it is plugged in or not. Power Lets start with battery life. I have been very pleased on how well this unit performs even with just the 6 cell battery. It runs for a few hours with the regular battery and about another hour with the Long Life 9-Cell Notebook Battery. Overall, I would consider this very good. My last laptop had such poor battery from the built-in battery that I had to essentially permanently add a supplemental battery and always carry it around. No such issues with this one. I have been using the 9-cell battery quite a bit more because since it is larger it provides a more comfortable typing angle and also provides better bottom ventilation. This thing can run warm if you're getting into some extended game time.
If you've been following my recent adventures in networking you know that I recently transitioned over to an entirely new router from a new vendor. Some of the things that Asus emphasized with this unit was speed and range. Both were important to me since I'm running on a FiOS connection that provides 75Mb downstream and 35Mb upstream. I certainly want to be able to use as much of that pipe as I can. It's text book that if you want to see the results of a change you need to take a baseline. I also wanted to see the difference across devices. Speedtest.net provided performance information used below. I should note that I also run multiple tests on each device to ensure that no single result was out of a reasonable range.
. Overall, I would consider this very good. My last laptop had such poor battery from the built-in battery that I had to essentially permanently add a supplemental battery and always carry it around. No such issues with this one. I have been using the 9-cell battery quite a bit more because since it is larger it provides a more comfortable typing angle and also provides better bottom ventilation. This thing can run warm if you're getting into some extended game time.