Upcoming Open Source Reviews

Over the past few weeks I have downloaded Cake PHP, Scriptalicious, Aptana, and PHP Eclipse. Look for reviews and notes to be posted in the next few days!

Drawing a Blank

I tend to find myself as one confident individual - unless math is involved. I personally have a weird way of finding solutions (they work.. just not how its schemed to be solved). Also - when it comes to programming I can't exactly write down the correct syntax as well as I can type it out. Something about the comfort of a keyboard I suppose...

Point being, I found this recently when giving a programming and logic test. I highly recommend testing yourself and keeping sharp with brain teasers and some programming basics. When given the test I found myself drawing blanks on many questions that I KNEW the correct answers for. I also found myself literally stumped on how to correctly write syntax on various items I knew how to program.

Does anyone else have this problem at all sometimes?

15 Nifty Firefox Optimizations

I gotta say del.icio.us hooks me up all the time with awesome bookmarks.

Today I saw a link to an article on LifeHack regarding 15 cool Firefox tricks that people hardly use. I gotta say, I was delighted with a few of them as I had no idea they could be done.

Check it out now!!

http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/
15-coolest-firefox-tricks-ever.html

What can you do to build your confidence?

I got to say, the past week has been horrible for me because I have a crucial job interview coming up for a company I really want to work for.

Why should I be worried? My friends are confident I'll nail the job. My family is just the same. For me though, I know this interview will drill me on my knowledge as a programmer. Honestly I would say programming is a weakness of mine, whereas my strong points are interface design, optimization, and being addicted to the field.

How can one build their confidence about situations such as this? I've found over the past few years is to look at what relevant events you've been through that tie to your career field. As a web developer/designer I have seen a lot. I've come a LONG way since my days of programming horrid looking web sites on Angelfire. I've come a long way since last year's 1st place finish at the PBL NLC with Chris Pund (cheap plug, I know). My love for Web 2.0, aka the Semantic Web, was just taking off. From then to now, I must say that my PHP and MySQL understanding has increased tremendously and I have really gotten back into javascripting. I never really realized how important it's features can be to stabilizing the user experience.

Where am I going with this? I've come a long way and I'm still improving everyday. I have the upperhand against most students my age, in my location at least just because of my passion and desire to improve. I love this industry and it doesn't get any better than picking up something new.

You know, after thinking back on all of this - I should be worried afterall. I should just go, show them what I have to offer, and see how it goes from there.

It's something else I can learn from :).