The Golden 80s

Jobs like journalism and technical writing require employers to assess a candidate's writing skills. While CVs and covering letters can be written by someone else, an on-the-spot test will definitely reveal the real writing skills of a candidate. So, you go to an interview, and you are asked to write a test. The test will mostly consist of a few stupid grammar questions, followed by a question to write an essay, or rewrite a passage. The biggest issue with such an approach is my poor handwriting. I do still keep notes, but the amount of writing done is pretty less. After a few minutes into the test, I really struggle to keep the words getting bigger and bigger on the answer sheet. Towards the end of the test, it gets really bad, with the letters getting bigger and fatter, and more sheets of paper required to completing the test. In IT, innovation is the buzzword (Since I am writing a blog post, I am not expanding the abbreviation as per the guidelines in innumerable style gui...

We, three kids, were not good in solving mathematical problems in school textbooks. There were no outside help, and  we were happily "stuck" with our inability and hereditary weakness in solving the problems. After a while, we never bothered to revisit why we were "stuck". But we never "struck" anyone. We were simply "stuck." And in the last few weeks I heard "struck" again, as the developer was finding it difficult to fix a "small" issue. So, developers will also get "stuck" somewhere. Candid admission anyway. "Struck" is the past tense and past participle of the verb Strike . As a noun, stuck meant "something causing delay or difficulty." Next time, when your tongue inserts an unnecessary "u" in before "r", just strike it off. Otherwise, you will be"stuck" like a door that got closed when the dog was half out of the door. And nobody held the door ajar for the...

The Environment was back in the news because of an oil spill at the Gulf of Mexico and the release of a report by US president Obama's cancer panel of the link between chemicals and cancer. Oil spills cause irreparable damage to fauna and flora, and people who depend on these resources for livelihood. The recurring episode shows that we have not yet learnt the right lessons from Exxon Waldez . The report prepared by Obama's cancer panel says that, "...Approximately 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in their lives, and about 21 percent will die from cancer...". The panel, in its 240-page report, suggests strengthening of research into environment chemicals and cancer. The chapter, Environmental Exposures Related to Modern Lifestyles, is a great read on how humans are being exposed to environmental carcinogens daily. After carbon footprint, the digital footprint is also affecting the environment or is going to affect the environment i...

If you are using Windows XP, try these steps: 1. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties. 2. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab. 3. In the Performance pane, click Settings. 4. In the Performance Options dialog box, click the Advanced tab. 5. In the Virtual memory pane, click Change. 6. Change the Initial size value and the Maximum size value to a higher value, click Set, and then click OK. 7. Click OK to close the Performance Options dialog box, and then click OK to close the System Properties dialog box. This is besides emptying the cookies, temporary files, and a system cleanup.

The different levels of computer programming are: 1. First generation-Language the computer can obey instantly. In the form of 0's and 1's. The command tells the computer what to do and the operand tells the computer where to find and store the data. 2. Second generation-Also called Assembly language. In this language 0's and 1's are replaced by symbolic codes written by humans. This include mnemonic codes and symbolic addresses. The instructions are of 3 parts;Label or tag (symbols defined by coders), OP code (code that tells the computer what to do) and Operand (tells the computer where to store and locate information). 3. Third- Also called High-level languages-More procedure and problem solving oriented. Language is written using alphabets, numbers and special characters. Rules called Syntax is developed. Eg: C, Fortran, COBOL, Java. 4. Fourth-Non-procedural, Very High-Level language. Applications can bew created and information easily gathered. Eg: IBM's Que...