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The 2010 20K: Day 45 - Even More Job Tips

I can feel it - the PHP flowing through my fingers as my templates come to fruition - it's good times over here in Caseyville as "the plan" starts to show a bit more of its true colours! I'm really glad that I have coding gurus like Kev and R.T. who can help steer me right when I make rookie moves like not declaring values in an array or forgetting to close a brace when declaring some properities in CSS. But I'm better for it, and things are progressing because of the helping hands, so thank you guys!

As usual, the t.o.night paper has plenty of good tips on landing that job you want, for all my seekers out there. Et pour vous who're currently employed, please note that it's never a bad idea to keep your skills honed and make sure that you're always marketable - you never know what nasty surprises could be around the corner!

References and how to answer "What is your greatest weakness?":

Add-value-to-resume-with-refer


Standing out in phone interviews and setting "SMART" career goals:

How-to-stand-out


Otherwise, just working in the lab. Though, earlier this week, my dreams of making my dream MacBook Pro system actually affordable were shattered by an old friend who informed me that I was completely incorrect in thinking that the student discount for Mac systems is at 10%. In fact, and I'm sure that everybody but me knew this - they take a fixed amount off of the full price for a system - about $100 or so. Factor in how much the upper level systems are and include tax, and BAM! That's about 3% at best. So, Stevie boy, I can wait. You're forcing me to be patient, and I don't like it, but for the sake of me buying a computer and not throwing a fit of rage when I find out a newer, faster model has come out the next month, I'm going to wait. I may as well get the other components I'm looking for while my discount's still valid, though...

I hope the posting less frequently, but posts with a point system is helping you guys out there - I want to make sure I'm giving you info that's both relevant and useful in your lives. But I guess the best way to really figure this out... is with a poll!

Righto, the bed's a-callin'. Drop me a line! Let me know what's on your mind!

The 2010 20K Running Total = $192.14 (as the dust's a-setllin' on the number)

Later all,

--case p.

Filed under  //   2010 20k   interviews   job   macbook pro   phone interviews   poll   references   tips  
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// Posted March 10, 2010

The good, the bad, the ugly.

So a little annoyed with Apple today.
 
I asked for people to give me Apple store gift cards for Christmas and birthday gifts over the last couple of years - this was so it would make it easier for people so that they wouldn't need to go online and get confused with getting a giftcard for the online store.
 
I went in to the Apple store today to see how customizable the computers are in-store, and they only do RAM and matte screens.
 
Which SUCKS, because I wanted to upgrade to a 3.06 GHz processor on the top-of-the-line 15" and a faster hard drive.
 
I guess the silver lining is that getting a replacement hard drive doesn't void AppleCare, so I can always change it down the road if needs be. Just a little annoying that I'm being hampered from getting my "dream machine", but I suppose I'll end up saving about $350 and still have a good amount of power (it'll be 2.8 GHz).
 
I also picked up some trades at lunch:
  • Usagi Yojimbo vol. 20: Glimpses of Death
  • Usagi Yojimbo vol. 21: The Mother of Mountains
  • The Boys vol. 5: Herogasm
  • The Immortal Iron Fist Vol. 5: Escape from the Eighth City
I foresee great reading in my weekend!
 
And in a total show of faith in customers, the guys at the Hairy Tarantula gave me a copy of Usagi vol. 19 to hold on to when I complained that the copy I had had 8 pages misprinted and put in upside down. All I need to do is bring the misprinted copy in the next time I'm in. That's pretty awesome customer service.
 
All in all, a fairly productive lunch. I'll eat later - my lunch is actually defrosting on my desk.

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// Posted November 26, 2009