My Google Phone Interview

A researcher in networking contacted my advisor a couple weeks ago requesting any leads on possible summer interns.  My advisor recommended me for the job based on the fact that the research that was being done at Google is very similar to my recent work.  I polished my resume and sent it off.  A day later I was contacted by a recruiter who took some more information and scheduled me for two technical phone interviews.  These are not the "where do you see yourself in 5 years" type of interviews.  These are the "prove P=NP and write up a C function to solve all the NP problems while you are at it" kind of interviews.  This meant that my immediate concern was preparing for the possible onslaught of questions.  

While preparing for the interview I was also preparing for a presentation in my networking class on "why use delay based protocols?"  One of the assigned papers (the one that I spent the most time working on) was the TCP Vegas paper, written by Larry Brakmo.  I found the paper very interesting and in fact there are a lot of similar issues in the paper that I worked on most recently.  So I know this paper, and I mean I REALLY know this paper well.  Guess who was my second interviewer of the day, and guess who was so focused on the interview that he failed to make the connection?  I had the opportunity to talk about  using delays to the guy who invented the idea!  Doh!

Both of my interviewers were exceptionally sharp, and polite.  While I would be supper excited to get an internship at Google I am flattered just to have had the chance to interview.  If I am not offered a position I think I will continue to try again, because the interview was challenging in a good way.  Not to mention the fact that you just may have the opportunity to speak with someone that you otherwise would not.

So Dr. Brakmo if you ever happen to see this, just know that when I said I didn't have any questions about Google that I should have taken the opportunity to ask at least one of my questions about Vegas.  No I am not going to list them here just incase I will get the chance to talk with him again.

The bottom line on the interview is this, as far as TCP goes I know my stuff, but that does not mean I know everything there is to know about networking and I will work hard to figure out the answer.  That being said, lets just hope that makes up for me pulling Null for my programming question.

OS X Time Machine Lacking in Options

My time tested method for backing up my laptop was to run a Bash script that would rsync various directories to my Linux server at home.  The nice things about this were:

• I was in complete control of what got backed up and how.
• I could work on things just as easily on the Linux server as I could on my OS X based laptop.
• Copying things back over to the laptop was a cinch.
• I could schedule it to run as frequently or infrequently as I wanted by using a chron job.

This method of backup worked wonders for me, but my wife did was not onboard with using Linux.  I was intrigued by the osX86, so I hacked a mac.  It works great!  It is stable, fast, and easy to use.  I had not been able to use time-machine for backups before, but I thought I would give it a shot.  I set it up on my laptop to backup to the desktop and when I say I set it up, there was very little to configure.  I know that is the idea, to make it dead simple for everyone, but at least give me an advanced options pannel or something.  Here are some of the things that bother me that I would like to change:

• It tires to backup my laptop when I am away from home, and this would not be a problem if it were not for the resources that it uses.  It seems to access the disk so heavily that it slows other applications.
• You can exclude some directories from being backed up, but that is about the extent of the options.

I am not going to be one of the people that complain about a problem and don't suggest possible solutions, so here are some things that I would like to see.

• Backup only when connected to my home network (can be recognized by subnet).
• Allow choice of how a directory should be backed up.  Some I would like to be backed up more often than others, and some I would only like a working copy (shorter history).
• Schedule backups to only happen durring certain times, or not to occur when the computer is very busy.
• Allow for backing up to a local temporary directory when I am away from home and then commit that when I return.
• Allow to chose a server based on location.  So it would back up to one server when I am at work and another when I am at home.

Again, this is just a list of ideas of features that would be nice to have.  I am sure that there are programs out there that do all of these things, and to that my original backup methods do just that.  I would like to see some of these options to be available for my wife's computer.  So Steve Jobs, I hope this helps.

Droid applications

Here is a list of the applications on my Droid.  I have been asked by a few people about recommendations for cool apps, so I thought the best place to start would be just listing the ones that I have installed on my phone.

• Advanced Task Killer Free - I used this more when I first got my phone, but after a while I have begun to realize that it really does not make that big of a difference in the overall performance of the phone.  I still give this a go every once and a while when it starts to feel kludgy.  <-- I am now using ES Task manager for this.
• Amazon - never used...
• Astrid - I use this all of the time with an online service that I thought I wouldn't like but have come to love RTM
• Barcode Scanner - I have used this a handfull of times and it works well.  I even used it at a big box store to look up a price.  It found their website and tada...
• ConnectBot - used for remote ssh sessions
• Detexify - draw with your finger on the screen and it gives you the LaTeX code for it.
• DockRunner - because I did't want to spend $30 on the charging dock.
• DroidLight - I use this at least twice a day!
• ES File Explorer - tool that I don't use often but is a must have when you need it.
• ES Task Manager - I use this to close down programs that are running in the background.  One of the flaws of the Android platform as I see it, is that there is not a clear way to close a program as opposed to having it run in the background.  
• GDocs - I hope to use this more as I move away from using MS office
• Gmote
• Goggles - cool concept but not very useful
• Google Sky Map - again cool but...
• gStrings - program for tuning a guitar, but I assume that it could be used for any musical instrument.  
• Google Voice - very nice
• GTalk Updater - wish I didn't have it
• IP Cam Viewer Lite - used for nanny cams when we are out
• IP Machine
• Key Ring - keep my vic card and such on it, and my wallet it thiner.  Now I don't even get odd looks from the cashiers anymore as I am guessing more people are using them.
• Labyrinth Lite - I found this after my family was talking about the old game at christmas.  Even my grandmother enjoyed this game.
• Listen - used on the bus to listen to npr stuff.
• Locale - handy for making sure my ringer is turned off and such  <-- No longer free and I don't feel like it is worth the $10 that they want for it now.
• GPS Plug-in
• Sync Plug-in
• Tweet Plug-in
• Maps - has the navigation that has been useful running around town
• Maverick Lite - cool, but unused as a compas
• Metal Detector - fun party trick
• MountUSB - used for adding music to droid
• My Tracks - cool for tracking exercise distances
• NetCounter
• NetTools
• OpenSudoku - fun
• Orienteer - allows to see raw GPS data
• OurGroceries - my wife has the iPhone/iPod version and this makes shopping a lot easier
• Pandora - I only use on wifi, but I love Pandora radio
• Photoshop.com Mobile - only used once, but it works
• Pkt Auctions eBay - might use more if I wasn't broke
• Places Directory - used to find food while traveling
• Power Save - nice widget that provides the same functions that are built into 2.1
• RTM - the official app for the RTM website, it is a pay service (yearly) but I am starting to think that it is worth it.  Their to do list is fantastic, by far the best I have ever seen.
• The Weather Channel - check for dress every morning
• Twidroid - used all the time.
• Whack-A-Droid

I am making this list for my own reference as I am going to unlock the phone and load the nexus one rom to it.  I will add a post to update on how that goes.

Suggested chat program...

A friend recently turned me onto a program that can intergrate many of the chat services that we use into one window. I liked that iChat does this somewhat, but it lacks some features that I would love to have... Primarily I hate having separate buddy lists for various accounts.

The program is Adium (http://adium.im/) and it supports a lot of differnt chat protocols, including Facebook. I think I may try it out in the coming weeks, but I welcome comments from anyone that is currently using it. If it means that I can use Facebook to keep in touch with people without having to see one more Mafia Wars or Farm update I am game to add another piece of software...

On a side note, I just figured out that I can block all posts from an app on Facebook! This may not be news to the rest of you, but I don't care that "a sheep wandered off of your farm while you were looking for the golden craps dice!"

One of the best T-Shirts ever...

I am not a big fan of Facebook, and more and more I find that it just highlights the aspects of humanity that annoy me. Today it did offer something good...


This site has a few more, and based on a recommendation from my friend Robert I also found a couple good ones here too.

Making my mac do what I want... NOW!

So I am going to have to come back to this later and add more to it, but the basic idea is this:

I used to use a program called Quicksilver to search for things on my mac and to launch programs that I don't want to keep lying around in the dock. I noticed that it made my machine slower to login and it could hog resources...

I decided to try out the native OS X solution, the spotlight, and much to my delight it was speedy and pretty well done. Since it is already running by default, it is not using any more system resources. Then I thought, what if I could search google and the web from it... So I found this:

Google Importer 1.0.1
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/spotlight/googleimporter.html

I will try and followup on how well it works...

WELL, that was short... At least the website saved me the trouble of downloading it, becasue when I tried it informed me that it was not compatible with OS X Leopard (Tiger only). So now I have to find another way to search quickly. I have heard some negative reviews of the google desktop search... Oh well :-(

"the U.S. and Canada are the third world of mobile phone networks"

I was just reading an interesting article on the NTY website about the overload that the iPhone is placing on the ATT&T network:

Customers Angered as iPhones Overload AT&T

I understand the need for a company to make money, really I do, but at a certain point companies need to invest in maintaining an advantage over their competition in the future. I would own an iPhone today if I had not had such a crappy experience with Cingular/ATT&T years ago (almost 10 years!), but with that in mind I will continue to use my palm with Verizon. My palm is fast and not without its flaws but it is a known, and I have heard that things have not improved much on the ATT&T network since my experience.

If you are not a frequent visitor to my blog then you may not know that I am a computer science graduate student, and that my area of research interest is in networking and distributed systems. I should be very clear in saying that there is no silver bullet and no perfect network. They all have their own advantages and faults. Take the home access to the Internet in the United States as an example. I have hear rumors that in parts of Europe and Asia one can get a network (Internet) connection that offers roughly 10 times faster download speed and an amazing 400 times faster on upload. This connection can be had for as little as $10 us and I pay almost 5 times that amount for a connection that is much MUCH slower. Am I angry because I want a faster connection? No, I am angry because I pay so much for a "slow" connection. For most of us, we don't utilize a substantial portion of the connection we have. Like my friend Mike J. says... As long as the tubes keep the [media] flowing ;-)

I don't want to get into a debate about why the US is a leader in innovation, but lags so far behind in implementing and deploying those innovations, but I would like to see us do a better job of doing things right. Maybe if we get our priorities strait...

So I guess its my own humble opinion that it is not the iPhone that is the adversary, but a network that is not up to global standards. Hell we invented the internet 40 years ago, you think we could get it right.

Tattoos, Piercings, Punk Music and Facebook Oh MY!

I am not quite sure what made me think about this, but one has to wonder what the future holds for our children. The most obvious is the house of cards that we have left for them. At some point we have to stop living as a culture with the hope that if we ignore problems that they will go away or that the next generation will come up with a way to solve the problem without any sort of sacrifice or real effort, but I digress.

My point is much more benign than the cooking planet or the flaws of greed based capitalistic society. I am just curious about what happens when a generation of parents have tattoos, and punk music? Have our peers not already pierced every imaginable body part? We have even embraced the cultural differences. So what is left for our children to do to assert their individualism? How do they tell the world that they are not their parents?

I guess if I have to look to history for any sort of clue one might expect something like the 1980's reaction to the 1960's and 1970's social rebellions. It brought with it a generation of social conservatism...

It makes me think that maybe I need to take out my earrings, cover my tattoos, and start Bible thumping so that my kid can have the joy and youthful pride of not being a carbon copy of his parents without having to resort to joining the young republicans or ending up with a job on Wall St.

The blur of life...

Does it seem to anyone else that our lives seem to accelerate and that there is no terminal velocity in sight? Granted I may have bitten off more than I can chew this semester...

A good friend of mine recently graduated with a PhD in mathematics. I am just getting ready to start my venture toward a PhD in computer science, so maybe he would have some better answers...

Check out his fledgling blog here

On top of the world...

Well I have now secured the top google search returns for my name :-D

Cooks and Programmers

For those of you who may not know I have a background as a professional chef, and I am now working on my PhD in computer science. The pastry chef who made the cupcakes for our wedding used to be a programmer, and I read an article today about a guy who was a programmer and is now considering a career change to being a food writer. Maybe I am going at this backwards, but at any rate, he has a very cool blog called No Recipes which is a nicely done site that should be checked out.

http://www.norecipes.com/

Maybe I should start doing some posts of my own culinary adventures...

My other pages

Well not that I have a whole lot of time to work on maintaining a presence on the internet, but I do have a few projects that get some attention now and then.

A good friend of mine is quite the photographer and I am in the process of putting together a small page for him to display some of his work.

http://www.kipamato.com

I have a page that is also in the process of construction for a small building maintenance company.

http://www.abbottservice.com

I have my own personal page.

http://www.gavaletz.com

My wife has her blog.

http://chrystal.gavaletz.com

I have a flickr page,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavaletz/

a Picasa page,

http://picasaweb.google.com/gavaletz

and there is a face book page out there too, but I am not a fan of how I have little control over what content is displayed on my page. I also don't see a way to lnk directly to a Facebook page.

Any who...enjoy!

IChat google Talk troubles

So I all of a sudden started having intermittent trouble logging into talk.google.com with Apple's iChat. Just before conceding I remembered a bug that I discovered in Leopard where any password with a '?' in it would be rejected. So I decided to change my very easy password to something different, when I did this I noticed that the new passwords had a minimum requirement of 8 characters. Once I changed it I no longer got the log in error! So If you are having iChat problems try updating your Google password, because I worked instantly for me.

Car that runs on water?

So I saw this and like most things that are too good to be true, this one probably is (too good to be true that is). The thing that surprises me the most though is how the media has posted it without any background work. It would be really cool if this thing did work but I would be willing to bet a lot on it. If this car can really do the things that it says it can do, we are going to have to rewrite a lot of physics books.

First check out the video...



Now that you are all excited and thinking about how you can buy a jug of water and run your car on it...

Check out the skeptics opinions on Wikipedia here.

Now we all know that Wikipedia is not the authority for what is correct, but these things are not so off base. I will be very interested to see what becomes of this little miracle car, and if it does work how quickly is it going to disappear?

Not to get all conspiracy theory, because theoretically this car is just as possible as learning to fly to work like superman, but Big Brother government doesn't like things that it can not tax. Think about it. Cigarettes are legal, but pot is not. They are both health risks, but you can grow your own pot and the government makes a lot of money off of those cancer sticks. All of our traffic infrastructure is paid for at least in part by fuel taxes. Hmmm...how do they tax water? According to that video I can refuel the car with salt water. That is going to make the return trip from the beach really cheap.

Look out Verizon you have competition...

So I was on the phone for 2 hours this morning with Earthlink support. To say the least they were rude and unhelpful. I have be an Earthlink customer since October of 2002, and whether it was a technical problem or an ignorant oversight my account was completely deleted or purged from their system.

I noticed that I had stopped getting the annoying forwards from some distant relatives that only had my old Earthlink email address. I have been using gmial and they were just fine using the Earthlink address, and since I had it forwarded to my gmail account I was just fine with that too. Then I decided that I was going to use one of those old addresses to sign up for an online offer, and was unable to get email conformation. SO I sent a test email, and it bounced. Ok no big deal I will just go to their site and check the account settings...

So the very long story kind of short is that the account was deleted and there was no trace record anywhere in their system. No one knew anyone about this, and proceeded to tell me that I was delusional and that I never had an account. When I asked to have the issue escalated to have someone more competent deal with the problem I was told that since I was a "free email user" I was not entitled to customer support and was promptly hung up on.

Is that any way to treat a long term customer? Apparently this was not the first time this has happened and a google search will show more similar cases that strangely started around the same dates.

Earthlink sucks...

The best thing to come out of a email forward...

So a friend of mine sent me a message today with the very enticing subject of "FW: Has it Come to This?" To anyone who knows me that is like a shiny quarter to a kid, try as I might I am not able to resist, and to top it off the name of the file was gas.wmv. After a nice leisurely lunch with my mathematician friends about the current energy problem the world is facing I could not resist.

There is one problem though, wmv is a windows format for movies and is not supported by quick time. As far as reasons why, I will resist the leap into that rabbit hole and go with "just because." So not to be outdone by Uncle Bill I started looking for my favorite kind of software solution, free!

My Google search first brought me the flip-4-mac free version, but I really like to avoid the trial versions of things if I can help it. Then I happened to remember the VLC media player that I have used on Linux machines for years, and on their website they have the mac version on center stage. The installation was super easy (drag the app to the applications folder) and now I have watched the movie. The movie was funny, but now I am prepared for whatever procrastination inducing forwards find their way into my inbox!

Seriously, it is a great app and I recommend it for Mac or Linux, and I would wager that it would use less resources than QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or iTunes on the windows platform. It was a little heavier on the memory usage, but lighter on the cpu than QuickTime or iTunes on the Mac with an audio file.

Car flipped over on E Cameron in front of the Math Department...

Thanks to a hot text message tip by Mike, I was able to video the car being flipped back over. I feel bad for the guy but you have to be more careful. I have to think that you would need to be going faster than the 10 mph speed limit to flip the car over.





Here are also some still images of the after math...









I am not sure but I think that Mike talked to someone that saw it happen.

Bush rant!

This was the best rant on George W. Bush that I have heard in a long time. It was a video on the MSNBC website by Keith Olberman.





I just wish that he had not ended the segment the way that he did. The "goodnight, and good luck" detracts from the point, and makes it seem a bit less genuine. I am sure that more could be said, but it is a start. Can you imagine the looks on the faces of the white house staff after that message?

The big question is going to be... I wonder what is going to happen the Mr. Olberman in the upcoming weeks? Will he disappear? Have a freak accident? I don't know, but I can hope nothing happens!

Verizon fiasco update

All things considered I wish that Verizon had treated me better from the get go about this whole crappy phone thing, but I did receive two calls over the weekend from a Verizon regional director who seemed very concerned about me getting the phone that I deserved. He was apologetic and even went so far as to leave his cell phone number on my voice mail. It is just a shame that it takes a letter to the CEO of a company to get recognized. It almost seems like they put these policies in place that cause them to alienate their customers in the name of money, and then spend the rest of their time fighting against these policies to keep the customers they already have.

Why do you hate Verizon?

So you could say I spend a good deal of money with Verizon wireless. A $300 palm treo, $85 per month for the service and that is after my 20% discount that I get for working at a major university. One would think that this would at least make your monetary contributions to the Verizon empire at least worth acknowledging, right? Apparently not.

I have had a lot of trouble with my Treo 700p (I have had 3) and after doing some research found that very few people were having the same problems with the 755p. I thought that it was not to much to ask Verizon to replace my 700p with a 755p since they were the same price on the website and considering that I have been a loyal customer for so many years. They did not agree, and in fact they offered to let me "upgrade" early.

"So let me get this strait," I asked, "you want to LET ME give YOU another $300 so that I can have a phone with the same processor and memory etc?" Apparently that was what the salesman had in mind. At that point is became more about the principle of the matter than it was about the actual phone. I visited the store daily and called every Verizon number I could find trying to get someone to see things from my point of view. I even went so far as to email the CEO. In case you are interested the contact information for many of the Verizon executives is listed on consumerist.com. I never got a reply to my email and if it was not for a guy named Jason at my local Verizon store I think I would still be fighting with them over the phone.

That being said I can not believe that I even for a moment considered using their new fiber optic service. I tried to use their web page to see if the service was available in my area, but by this point I should know very well that service is not what Verizon is about. They have an applet that is worse than a bad phone tree...you give it an address and it gives you a wrong match...not even close...given the option to say "no that is not correct," it goes through the same loop again. You can type it in again (like me typing in the wrong address is the most likely error). Any engineer that was worth his salt would at least give the user the option to select from the closest matches, right? So I call the provided number to talk to a guy who wants my name phone number and address so he can tell me that he can't help me that I need to call a local number. Why can't that be the first part of our exchange? So I call that number, and I get a Lady who is rude and apaprently using the same website I was using in the first place!

I guess the article I read the other day where the CEO was ranting and raving about how miserable his customers made him should have clued me into the fact that Verizon could care less about their customers.

Verizon is the only company in the world that makes Time Warner look good! Their slogan should be "It's all about the network, and you...yeah we couldn't care less about you!"