Friday, August 27, 2010

Out of necessity, tech startups are changing the way workers are screened and hired.

When Michael Glukhovsky and Slava Akhmechet, the founders of RethinkDB, a database technology startup that changes how people store and access data, received $1.2 million in funding earlier this year, they began looking for their first employee. They turned to job boards. They recruited from their site. They tried to poach talent. They even wrote a blog post on their hiring woes and entered the how-to fray.

Their efforts didn't end there. They briefed a recruiter on their complex technology, but ultimately that was a waste of time—and dollars. And in four months, the hundreds of resumes, dozens of phone screens, and numerous four-hour meetings with viable candidates yielded no one who fit their criteria. So they started their company with students and post-grads eager to tackle a computer-science problem rather than become founding members at a startup.

Unemployment is chronic in much of the country, but in Silicon Valley, employees have their pick of jobs. In an economic climate that is the near converse of a recession, talent is scarce and star programmers have the upper hand. Pressured to solve the dull hiring puzzle, founders have started reconfiguring the way people get jobs. The result? Americans, more and more, will find work not via recruiters, job boards, and resumes, but by showcasing themselves online and undergoing less subjective automated assessments.


read it all here


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Sunday, August 8, 2010

VIA’s world smallest motherboard, EPIA PX 10000 gets reviewed!


Still remember that VIA was gonna bring us the smallest motherboard in the world? VIA Technologies had introduced the smalltest form factor, Pico-ITX, which measures only 10cm x 7.2cm a few months ago. Here is the first product, the EPIA PX 10000 in VIA’s Pico-ITX line-up. Mini-ITX.com has done a review for this smallest mainboard in the world.

No doubt, its small size and quietness are definitely good for those UMPCs, systems and appliances. But not for those needing high-defination video output. This mainboard will fail if you expect it to power a high-def mini media box, due to the limitation of its 1GHZ CPU, which isn’t capable of running any popular video formats at an acceptable rate above 1024×768. Another short is it fails to work well with Linux, which you’re simply hard to find any compatible drivers for Linux. VIA needs to look into this to produce better support for Linux such as providing a central repository of drivers and also better documentation. This smalltest mainboard also fails to attract manufacturers to produce cases for it, which is mainly due to its limited market. Read more about the review here.


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Attention Kmart shoppers: $149 Android tablet on aisle 5


The Android OS isn't just powering high end smartphones, it also runs barebones tablets sold at Kmart for the price of an iPod nano.


Update (August 7th): It appears that Google hasn't licensed Android to Augun and as such the Android Market will not work on this product.

A Kmart circular came out last week with an uber-geeky product that perked up a few ears in the gadget community. Augen's 7-inch Gen-78 Android tablet which runs Android 2.1 --take that Sony (SNE) and Dell (DELL)! -- is on sale for $150 (normally $170). The tablet is as bare bones as it gets, but it does work and has some features which may interest those who can't reconcile the $500+ price of Apple's (AAPL) iPad.

  • Android 2.1 (no skinning) 800x480 Display
  • WiFi 802.11G
  • 2GB of storage +SD card slot (up to 32GB)
  • 256MB of RAM (same as iPad)
  • HDMI out for 720P viewing on an external display
  • Android Market access
  • eBook reader
  • YouTube app, Maps (is that Skype I see on the bottom left?)

I'll file this under i want one read the rest of the article here
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Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Using atomic-force microscopy to find new meds


Scientists at the University of Aberdeen in the U.K. and IBM Research in Zurich say they are the first to use atomic-force microscopy to "see" the unknown molecular structure of a marine compound taken from the deepest place on Earth, a result that could speed up the development of new medicines.

In doing so, researchers discovered that the pressure-tolerant bacterium sampled from the deepest place on the planet--the Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench, 35,814 feet below sea level--contains the molecular structure cephalandole A, which was originally isolated from a Taiwanese orchid.

The group's findings appear online August 1 in the journal Nature Chemistry.

A low-pass filtered three-dimensional representation of the unknown compound.

(Credit: Nature Chemistry)

Marcel Jaspars, director of the Marine Biodiscovery Centre at the University of Aberdeen, says in a news release that being able to see a compound's molecular structure so quickly is a major step toward determining whether previously unknown compounds have medicinal properties:

The Earth's natural environment is rich with a diverse range of unique organisms from which a vast array of chemical compounds can be sourced, many of which are entirely unknown to science. These compounds have the potential to be used in the development of pharmaceuticals and other novel biomedical products. But in order to harness this potential we must first understand these compounds in terms of their molecular structure in order to determine whether they are viable for use in medicine.
This reminds me of the book and movie Andromeda Strain make sure to read the rest here

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How 12 CEOs & Founders are Leveraging Web Video

How 12 CEOs & Founders are Leveraging Web Video
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Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Top five technical certifications by salary

As the global economy moves out of the Great Recession, technology and high-tech jobs will play a critical role in the recovery. But which skills and certifications can give you an edge on getting the job or promotion you want? Read more
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Top 10 tech skills for 2010

What areas should you focus on over the next year? This survey-based list highlights the 10 most sought-after IT skills. read more

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Monday, August 2, 2010

CareerBuilder.com 2010 Commercial - Worst Seat :30


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CareerBuilder.com: Tips


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Isn't It Time To Find A Job Already?!


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Impossible Times: Inspiration to Help Find A Job


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