Opinions Archives - Christian Rios' Blog

5 Reasons Why a Programming Job is the Best Career Choice for You

Programming is one of the most in-demand and lucrative careers in the tech industry. With the rise of technology, the demand for programmers has skyrocketed, making it a great time to pursue a career in programming. Here are 5 reasons why a programming job is the best career choice for you:

High demand and good pay: As technology continues to advance and more and more industries are going digital, the demand for programmers has never been higher. And, with high demand comes good pay. Programmers can expect to earn a high salary, with the average salary for a programmer in the US being around $80,000.
Constant learning and growth: Programming is a field that is always evolving, and there are always new languages, frameworks, and tools to learn. This means that as a programmer, you will never stop learning and growing, which can be very rewarding.
Flexibility and remote work: Many programming jobs offer the option of working remotely or having a flexible schedule. This allows you to work from anywhere and have more control over your work-life balance.
Variety of industries and roles: Programming is not just for tech companies. Today, programming skills are in high demand across a wide range of industries, such as finance, healthcare, and retail. This means that as a programmer, you can choose from a wide variety of roles and industries to work in.
Ability to make a positive impact: Programming skills can be used to build and create software that helps people and businesses. With the ability to create and develop software, you can make a positive impact on the world and make a difference in people’s lives.

In conclusion, a programming job offers a range of benefits that make it an excellent career choice. From high demand and good pay to flexibility and remote work, there are many reasons why a programming job is the best career choice for you. So, if you’re looking for a rewarding and fulfilling career, consider pursuing a career in programming.

Codility as a tool for filtering out bad developers

Earlier this week, a headhunter approached me for a Java back-end developer position. She tells me as you might expect that she has a vague understanding of Software Engineering and that they have two tests to give me before a technical interview. These were a psychological test and a Java Codility test that consisted of three tasks. They gave me three hours to finish the exam. The tasks are usually variations of common programming problems used in academia and programming competitions.

The first and second tasks were very similar just varying in complexity. Codility provides a good web interface with great feedback on what is asked of you. This is definitely a step up from coding on a whiteboard interview. You get two tabs where you can quickly generate test data that is passed into a function in the coding tab. Boilerplate is mostly filled out which is great. Most IDEs do this for you nowadays anyways.

The third task is about finding a bug in the code. The way they test this is checking closely on your reading skills. This is key in modifying a couple of lines of code. The interface did not let me add or remove lines. The solution I came up with require me to add a line so I appended it to closing brace. The interface has no way to allow for debugging so you might need to have your own handy.

My C+ result for a Java Test, saw what I did there? :p

Should you filter out developers that do average in these tests?

Probably not. A developer with a decade out of college has already forgotten this kind of coding. Many have never used an array in production. This is part of the reason I got 0% in performance for the second task. I added the array to a list and used methods on the list to solve the task. I did not realized I was being rated on performance and that I had to produce a log n algorithm until I read in the third task that this task will not be rated on performance. At that point, I had no chance to go back. As you can see from my result, performance is 62% of the grade.

CONCLUSION

Codility is not bad but it should not be your only way to measure a developer skill. If a developer is doing data analysis or someone straight out of college, it is probably a great tool since it is more closely related to their experience. However, I was given the impression that if I do bad on these I was not going to a technical interview. I will probably have somebody write a CRUD site or create a cascading drop down, but these things require several technologies which is probably harder to develop a tool to test for. In the mean time, there is not really a good way to measure a developer talent or algorithm to rank them. Use Codility as part of your score, and not the comprehensive examination.

Gator Tears

Crying Gator

I was helping a friend migrating his website from HostGator.com to another web hosting company. I couldn’t find a easy way to cancel the account from their Dashboard. So, I googled “cancel Host Gator account” and ended up in the following site: https://www.hostgator.com/cancel

Here I met a crying alligator which has a similar anatomy to crocodiles. I don’t know if you all heard the expression Crocodile’s tears that was regularly used by Shakespeare. But, I was under the impression that HostGator.com didn’t really care much for my friend’s business.

My Robinhood experience so far…

I currently trade using ScottTrade and I have been pretty happy with it. They have terrific customer support, but they are about to be acquired by TDAmeritrade. So, before just letting my account rollover, I went to Fat Wallet to research other options. I learned that my experience will remain almost the same. However, I also learned something interesting. There is this new free stock trading site called Robinhood.

Robinhood caught my attention at first because their marketing said: “Stop paying up to $10 for every trade”. I kept reading and realized that they manage this by skipping any research tools and they are only available on Android and iOS. I figured this works for me. Free definitely beats $6.95 per trade. So, I went ahead and started the application to open an account.

They sent me a verification email and then I waited for them to approve my application. A week went by and I did not hear anything back, so I wrote them an email. Apparently, they put my application on hold and didn’t bother to let me know. Then, they asked for a Permanent Resident Card to verify my U.S. residency, so I emailed them a copy of my U.S. passport. A couple of days went by and apparently, that was not enough. They then asked me for a Bank Statement which I promptly emailed back to them. Three whole weeks have gone by and my application has not been approved, yet. The only thing all this emailing back and forth has achieved is a series of customer satisfaction surveys asking for feedback. Well, here it is.

Robinhood’s customer service is nothing compared to what I have right now with ScottTrade. They have proved useless in helping me open an account. I do not remember my experience opening an account with ScottTrade, probably because it was so fast. Also, when I email ScottTrade with questions, they answer in a jiffy. Robinhood, on the other hand, has a lot to learn. I guess you get what you pay for.

Word of Advice: Stay away from TradeKing

Dear Internet,

I recently had the displeasure of dealing with TradeKing’s customer support, and decided I no longer want to do business with a company with their policies. Sadly, I had to learn the hard way and I am hoping I can save a reader or two from this ordeal.

At the end of last month, I deposited some money to buy some stocks. Since it is an ACH transaction, it takes a couples of days. So, I forgot and didn’t log back in until this month. To my surprise, there is an outrageous $50 charge in my account for an “inactivity fee”. This is a fee they added late last year and they claim they emailed me about it during that time. I can not find an email to this effect and even then, why not notify me before charging me this time around? Would it hurt them to drop a line with all the technology available nowadays? A text, IM, tweet, or something like hey we are about to charge you this fee if you do not make a transaction soon. Instead, the first month there is enough money in the account for them to charge me a fee, they just charge away.

In the following chat, I tried to talk them out of charging me this fee but they will mostly just argue the validity of their fee that is hidden in a 100 question long FAQ that I only found after googling for it. I honestly recognize it was my mistake not to research the company further. But, since I though I was somehow grandfathered in from Zecco, Inc. which they merged with, I did not do my due diligence. I admit I snoozed. However, I don’t want to and advise you not to do business with a company where if you snooze, you lose.

Welcome to TradeKing’s Live Help service. Your chat is currently being routed to one of our representatives, you will be connected shortly.
Thank you for contacting us, I am ‘Donnie’ how may I assist you today?
Donnie: Good afternoon. Thank you for contacting TradeKing.
Christian Rios: Hi Donnie, I was about to place a trade and I realized my account have a $50 charge!
Christian Rios: After reasearching it, I am very upset. I did not have to worry about this with Zecco
Donnie: Let me check your account
Donnie: Please provide your full name and the last 4 digits of your SS number for account verification.
Christian Rios: Christian Rios, 1337
Donnie: Yes I do see your account was charged with an inactivity fee, and we apologize if this caught you off guard.
Donnie: All Zecco clients were notified via email regarding the introduction of the Inactivity Charge to their accounts, so they could take the course of action they felt best fit their needs to avoid the charge. Unfortunately it does cost TradeKing to maintain dormant and inactive accounts. In efforts to continue to offer our deeply discounted commission structure to all our clients, and to avoid having to change our commission structure to offset the increasing maintenance costs associated with these inactive accounts, the Inactivity Charge was introduced.
Christian Rios: I would appreciate it if you guys remove that charge.
Donnie: Unfortunately, this charge is a valid part of our fee structure. However, if you would like I can extend an offer to have this charge reimbursed if you can make a deposit to raise your account balance to the minimum of $2500 in order to avoid this fee.
Donnie: I see your account value is roughly $800 short of the minimum balance required in order to be exempt from the fee.
Christian Rios: I thought all you needed to do was to make a trade once a year?
Donnie: That is correct as well.
Donnie: You will have until August of 2014 to place one trade in order to be exempt from the fee for next year
Christian Rios: Well, can you remove it and I can place a trade before the end of the month?
Donnie: Unfortunately not, this fee was validly charged to the account.
Christian Rios: Look, I am trying to be reasonable here. But, if you are not going to play ball, I promise you, I will take my business elsewhere.
Donnie: We do regret to hear that, and we would not want to lose your business. However, this charge is a part of our structure here at TradeKing, and we do apologize if this is not in line with your intended trading volume in the account.
Christian Rios: Yet, you agreed to remove the fee if I deposit 800 dollars to comply, but not if I place a trade. Fine, I am done doing business with you. Btw, I have a blog and would to share how you treat your customers.
Donnie: We do apologize for your lack of satisfaction here, but if placing one trade per year is not something that can easily be met then it may be best to find a broker that does not have minimum trading requirements.
Christian Rios: Yes, one without ridiculous and outrageous fees and one willing to work things out with their customers.
Donnie: If you should decide to leave then we do wish you the best of luck with future investments.
Christian Rios: well, I already decided to leave, can we get started with that process?
Donnie: Sure, if you intend to transfer your account to another broker then this process will be initiated on the receiving brokers end, as they will have special transfer instructions for you.
Donnie: Once this process is initiated on their end, no further action will be needed from you on our end here.
Donnie: Do you have any other questions that I can assist with at this time?
Christian Rios: No, I am just amazed a what a terrible company you are
Donnie: We do regret to hear you feel that way, and if there are no further questions then I wish that you have a great rest of your day.
Donnie: I am happy to be of service, have a great day.
Thank you for contacting TradeKing today. I hope I was able to answer your questions or address your concerns. If you believe that this issue is still unresolved or you have additional feedback, please email a copy of this conversation to service@tradeking.com.

Only FEDEX can destroy a TV this good!

With my dad recently passing, I finally decided to leave the country for greener pastures down south and to take care of family. So, my wife and I started selling all our belongings, furniture, electronics, and most stuff that won’t fit in 32″ duffel bags. More than 10 years living in America, you can rack up a lot of stuff. This included a Sony BRAVIA XBR Series KDL-46XBR9 46-Inch 1080p 240Hz LCD HDTV.

Right now, there is one same model TV on Amazon selling for $900 used. I had it listed on Amazon for less than that. I ended up just selling it to a childhood buddy of mine but before I could remove it from Amazon someone else purchased it through the Amazon website. I had to cancel that Amazon order and ended up selling it to my friend for $660. I figured it would cost me around 100 bucks to ship it to my friend, so I could get around $560 for the TV then. I started looking for quotes, and found out that USPS will not even ship it because it was so big. UPS would charge me $130 and FEDEX quoted me at $105. So, I opened up an account with FEDEX, gave them my credit card, printed a label, taped it to the side of box, and scheduled a pick up. However, when I entered all the shipping information, I left the declared value empty. I thought they didn’t need to know that. But, apparently they need to know that so that they know how much to take CARE of it.

I had kept up all the original TV packaging and boxes as I was planning on selling it in the future. So, it was as well packed as SONY would pack it. However, when the box got to my friend, it looked like FEDEX tried to destroy the TV as much as possible. Then things started to get weird, instead of FEDEX charging me the $105 they had quoted me, they charged me $50.17. Their customer support was just horrible, Continue reading “Only FEDEX can destroy a TV this good!”

They’ve made it too hard to watch stuff

Viacom and DirectTV are currently fighting over money while DirectTV customers are left without a bunch of channels. Today, on Hulu while watching Jon Stewart, a commercial came out asking folks to drop DirectTV. They even have a website now. In my opinion, this is rather childish at best. What is even more puzzling is that these companies don’t realize they are shooting themselves in the foot. Television viewers are already migrating from overpriced cable channel bundles to popular online options like Hulu and NetFlix and even piracy. Cable companies are very comfortable charging up the wazoo for a hundred channels where there might only be a few that you enjoy. They have failed to provide a la carte options for people to save money and give customers more power as to what they like to watch. On-Demand attempts have left much to be desired and it is not a solution. If I want to watch HBO, I should not have to get 80 other channels I will watch once a year.

However, the solution to piracy and the fleeing customer base to online only is quite simple. Convenience! They simply made it too hard to watch stuff. Contrary to popular belief, piracy is more of a service issue than a price issue. Take a look at Steam, the online game store, for example. It provides everything a customer can hope for. It is open 24×7, great prices, fast downloads, automatic game patches, cloud saves, huge selection of games, and a community. All a user has to do is to login with his or her Steam Account on any PC or MAC and with a couple of click is able to buy, download, and play games. Simple and Convenient.

In the other hand, Continue reading “They’ve made it too hard to watch stuff”

WP7 Windows Phone 7 Wish List

Nokia has recently released the Lumia 900 which is the WP7 flagship model at a great price. I had some time to play with it and overall the hardware looks and feels solid. However, I have a few complaints such as no memory card slot, no battery replacement, or the ability to change the Sim card without some sort of tool. On the software front, the OS has not changed much since I sold my Samsung Focus last year.

Windows Phone 7 has been in the market more than a year and has failed to steal the spotlight from Android and iPhone. To most power users, it still does not feel like a smart phone but more like an improvement from a feature phone. I am going to list several things I wish WP7 had but will probably not materialize until WP8 during the 2012 holiday season and very likely will never be on a Lumia 900.

Microsoft is pushing the cloud everywhere and WP7 is not the exception. You got 20GB available in your SkyDrive. Therefore, they decided to drop support for memory card slots. If it is up to Microsoft you are pretty much stuck with whatever memory came with your phone. The Samsung Focus came with an option to install one but it required formatting the phone and you would never be able to take it out without having to reformat. With Micro SD card prices constantly going down and increasing in size, it makes me sad that WP7 does not have this option.
This one is probably more for Audiophiles but it is not possible to store music in Lossless formats on a WP7 phone. On my Zune HD, I was able to store WMA Lossless songs. However, WP7 devices will downconvert your music files to a WMA Lossy codec when trying to copy Lossless files to it. Again, this is probably a space concern. Maybe they don’t want you downloading big files from the cloud. iPhones let you use ALAC and Androids and Blackberries will even let you play FLAC files. Continue reading “WP7 Windows Phone 7 Wish List”