A month ago, I saw an ad that had me frothing at the mouth. An Android for $25 a month, no contract, and unlimited internet. I bit. And haven’t looked back. It’s a Samsung Intercept. Small, and not the biggest screen, but it does everything I want in a smart phone. Thousands of apps and real time internet. A bonus is that I can also download Kindle compatible books and read them on my phone.

I did have to make some adjustments–I no longer use Outlook. I’ve replaced it with Gmail (I forward all my teebark.com mail to my gmail account). The Android app for gmail works great, and of course, I was able to import all my contacts with no problem. So, I have no more sync problems–it’s all done automatically, in the cloud.

I’ve also picked up some awesome apps that I would never have been able to use with my PDA (bless it’s little soul). Evernote is extremely useful–I now use my phone camera to capture handwritten notes, and labels of items I see in stores, and store them in Evernote. Then, at my PC, everything is automatically synced up and avalable for me to use there. And I can add tags to any notes or pictures, so I can find things very quickly.

So, as you can guess, I’ve retired my PDA. It was a sad day–it served me well. Progress.

When you install Dropbox, it adds a folder, My Dropbox, to your My Documents folder. Then, you just move your pst file to the Dropbox folder. When you restart Outlook, you will be prompted for the new location. After you’ve done that on one computer, add Dropbox to your 2nd computer. Wait a few minutes, and the pst file will appear. Then rename your pst file for the 2nd computer and start Outlook up. It will also ask for the location, and after you point it to My Dropbox, you’re in businees.

Dropbox takes care of syncing things automatically from that point on. I was dubious at first, but it works great.

Addendum

I kept getting extra PST files, named “conflicted.” After reading some more, I discovered that you have to let Dropbox download the latest PST file before you start up Outlook. Otherwise, Outlook may not pick up the latest version of the file, and when it’s in doubt, it writes an extra file, with the conflicted name embedded. Once I realized this, I now hover my cursor over the Dropbox icon until it tells me it’s through downloading. No more conflicted.

Here’s a sample. Let’s say you’re coding a very complex series of “if” statements. It works. And you understand it. Until two or three weeks go by, and you have to explain to the users why a report line is showing things the way it is. You try to explain to the user why it reflects their stinking business rule. You even resort to looking at the code, and you get lost in the complexity. Geez, it looked so simple last week.

Okay, here we go–this is a way to capture the business rules, and the program logic at the same time. It’s basically a table with decision questions as column headers, and actions for the rows.

Here’s the business logic: if a student is a senior, he is allowed to take Physics II, but only if he’s a senior. Here’s how it looks in the table.

Notice that every combination of logic for Junior and Senior vs. the two level of Physics are taken care of. No ambiguity. Now, let’s add a little more complexity. A Junior can get into Physics II if he has a letter from his adivsor.

With a big table (many decisions), the logic gets hairy, but the with a logic table, you can make sure that every logic decision point is covered. If you try it, I think you’ll find that it makes things much clearer. And it has great value in capturing business logic.

The two dashes denote that it’s immaterial whether a Junior has a letter or not.

On the upswing?

I actually got two local job interviews last month. Granted they were referrals from friends, but nonetheless, things were looking up. I was fully qualified for both, but I didn’t get either position.

Could SAS work?

So. Cobol doesn’t appear to be panning out. I decided to try the SAS market, as I’ve used it quite a bit over the years, and I think I could pass muster on a technical interview. I created a SAS version of my resume and posted it on Dice. I got three emails the next day for SAS contracts, but none of them have led to anything further, yet. I haven’t given up on SAS, but I’m going with another tack in the meantime.

Never thought I’d say it…

Government work is starting to look pretty promising. As unemployment has gone up in the public sector, gov’t jobs seem to be increasing, too. And I’m only two hours from DC, the mother lode of gov’t contracts. I’ve worked in DC before, so I know I can deal with working there.

I’ve had a search agent set up on usajobs.com for months, but have been pretty much just monitoring those leads, not following up on them. Time to get serious.

Only time will tell, but I’m hopeful. Hey, at least I have a plan.

Reality sinks in

At first, I saw lots of job postings in Dice, etc., even though I would apply and never hear anything back.  Then, about three months ago, even those meager tidbits dried up completely. I could bore you with more details, but let me get to the point of this article–here’s what I found worked, and what didn’t work.

Here’s the meat

1. Answering job postings on Dice.com. Not one ever panned out, all 70+ responses. 99% of the time, I never heard anything back.
2. Networking through friends. I have gotten jobs this way in the past, but no luck this time. I do recommend this route though. It works, and I’ve gotten my last three out of four positions through friends.
3. Professional organizations, like AITP. This will definitely help you keep the pulse of local activity, but I’ve never gotten a job this way. It will keep you out of trouble, and you’ll find others to commiserate with, though.
4. Networking through recruiters. Bingo. This is how I got this latest gig.
5. Tweak your resume. This is much more important than it used to be. In times past, all you did was load up your resume with your skills, and sit back and wait for the phone to ring. No more. Recruiters are flooded with resumes, and they’re just not going to sit down and read every word. Here’s what I think makes sense:

• Make sure you have a section for Experience Highlights, near the top of your resume. Have about 8 bullets that demonstrate things you’re really proud of. With metrics, if possible.
• For every position you apply for, omit the other bullets, and include just the ones that fit that position. For instance, if you’re going for a SAS position, include the bullet that shows how you created a SAS report that showed a slowdown in system response time, and that led the DBA’s to eliminate the problem, saving the company $4,000 in processing time per day. Delete the bullet that shows Easytrieve experience.
• Write a cover letter for every position you apply for, showing two columns, one column for the requirements, and the other column showing how your skill set  and experience matches up with each listed requirement.

You want to pay me what?

I also toyed with going into another career, starting my own business, retiring early, etc. But, unfortunately, programming is what I’m really good at, and everything else would have been a force fit. If you’ve had a secret desire to be a cook, this is the time to go for it.

There’s no place like home, there’s no place…

I was also fortunate that I was able to work out of town (even out of state). I don’t have young kids, or a sick spouse to worry about. My wife is very supportive, and while this isn’t fun, the name of the game right now is buy time until the economy gets better.

Let me know what works for you and we’ll compare notes, maybe help each other get through the next few years. It can be done–have faith.