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Posts with tag programmer

Filed under: Business, Developer, Google

The fight for programming talent, Google vs VMware

The fight for programming talent, Google vs VMwareVMware has their sights set on programmers. This comes in the midst of VMware's IPO last week, and has upped the anti to make sure they get the best possible computer programming talent around.

After VMware's first day of trading their shares jumped 76%, making it the biggest IPO since Google. Now with Google being the top company that programmers are hunting due to their compensations and lifestyle, VMware has stepped in and flashed the green. Reports are that the company is paying out between $130,000 and $160,000 plus stock options and compensations. With Google being the only company on the block that can even come close to these salaries and benefits, there is war about to start in Silicon Valley.

VMware, a virtualization solution company, realizes how Google made it to where they are today, with smart people. And the only way to lure top talent is to offer them competitive compensations.

DLS asks, Who would you choose to work for?

Filed under: Design, Developer, Internet, Utilities, News, Productivity, Freeware, Social Software

Toggl, free web-based time-tracking

togglSo you use basecamp for project management or Google's apps, or something else, but how do you track your time on a project? basecamp offers time-tracking, but you have to pay a bit for that feature. Any cheapskates out there who like to get something for nothing, even if it means remembering yet another logon to yet another website? Many of us would jump at the chance, it isn't like any of us have a problem with web accounts, how many do you have again?

Toggl is an excellent solution, offered in a completely savvy web 2.0 interface that gets you where you want to go. The site tracks time and lets you hit a toggl (whoa, go figure) button to start and stop your "billable hours" timer. I was a bit wary at first that toggl wouldn't offer a way to change the time it had recorded, leave you stranded with pushing the button every 108 minutes until you got the right amount of time, but my worries were completely unfounded. I was ready for something much harder than clicking on the box and reentering my own length of time.

If you think pie is easy, toggl is easier. Complete with a reporting feature and multiple projects, toggl's goodness clocks in (pun somewhat intended) at the right price of free. As you know, our motto here is one more happy cheapskate, or wait, I don't think we actually have a motto. I'll have to get back to you on that. meanwhile check out toggl, and you will never wonder if you charged your client enough for the hours you spent on that killer project.

Add "toggl" to your spell-checker, jack, and you won't be disappointed.

Filed under: Business, Internet, Video, Web services, Google

Google Announces TV Ads, users get watched

google tvEveryone knows its America's number one pastime, and now Google has announced their entrance into the TV ad market.

There has been a lot of speculation recently surrounding the fact that Google's been nosing around the TV market to extend their offline ad experimentations, and it was just a matter of time before the news officially dropped. With this new TV Ad trial, Google hopes to improve user experiences and bring value to both advertisers and publishers. They are currently working with EchoStar and Astound Cable to deliver ads to viewers, as well as helping advertisers and programmers buy, schedule, deliver and of course measure ads on television. We also dropped news this morning about how Google and Dish Networks will be announcing a deal to serve ads over their network.

The ads will be purchased through an automated interface auction model, pricing based on a CPM basis with ads then targeted by demographic, time of day and channel. The ads will be delivered with all reporting and statistics done through set top box technologies. The boxes will report on how many times an ad was viewed and whether it was watched in completion.

So needless to say, if more advertisers buy into Google's technology and take the statistics into consideration when planning campaigns, we might never see boring, useless commercials ever again! Then again, it sure does feel a little like big brother is watching us.

Filed under: Developer, Google

Google Code Jam Winner

google code jamIn the massive fourth annual Google Code Jam competition that began in the beginning of September, Google managed to attract 21,000 registrants from 100 different countries. Google's Code Jam competition is not only a celebration of the best in engineering, but it is also a way that Google can help bring together a community of people who will be building next generation tools.

The initial participants all went through a qualification round, which was narrowed down to 1,000 registrants who then went on to compete in a two round competition. The top 100 scores from the second round took a trip to Google's New York offices to complete in the finals. The talented programmers went on a wild ride competing to see who was the best in engineering using Java, C++, C#, Python, and VB.NET. This year Petr Mitrichev from the Russian Federation pulled in first place, and a win of $10,000 in prize money. The second place prize went to Ying Wang of the US, who walked away with $5,000. Not to leave out the top 100 finalists, Google gave them each a cash prize. Its great to see Google bringing together such talent, and pushing to see what can be done with such a diverse group of programmers from all over the world.

Filed under: Design, Developer, Internet, Web services, Social Software

DeveloperID: Social Network for Developers

developer social networkDeveloperID is an upcoming social network site designed exclusively for programmers, designers, engineers, system administrators, and any other member of the professional developer community. It's a pretty specific market niche. The network has not yet launched, but there is a slight little clue that it most likely was, and is being built with Ruby on Rails. Stay tuned in for this unique launch.

[Thanks, Mike!]

Featured Time Waster

Forumwarz - a potentially offensive time waster

I pwn UAfter spending the better part of an hour on Forumwarz I still can't decide if it's just sick or if it's kind of fun. It's a bit like a car wreck on the highway. I know I shouldn't be looking but I can't quite turn away.

It's sick, it's twisted, it's the internet on it's worst level and darn it, it's kind of fun. At least for a little while.

Forumwarz is a parody role-playing game that takes place on the internet - or at least the Forumwarz version of it. Your goal is to complete missions that are given to you through a mock up of GoogleTalk called Sentrillion.

Your first "friend" is ShallowEsophagus who begins giving you missions to pwn various forums by being a troll. Depending on the character type you are assigned at start up, you have tools like drooling on the keyboard or bashing your head on the keyboard that you can use to destroy forum threads and eventually, pwn a forum.

Future missions involve buying illegal software from the Russians, pwning more difficult forums and other internet oddness.

Completing missions gives you cash, called Flezz in game, and items that you can pawn or use in other missions. The game is NOT for those easily offended. It's crass, coarse and there are frequent f-bombs in the fake chat sessions.

This is also a game for a more mature audience as it requires you to shop at the Drugs R Fun store to get various concoctions to improve your playing, engage in certain cyber activities to get more Flezz and just generally use a more adult perspective.

If you can get past that, here are the more enjoyable and time-wasting aspects.

View more Time Wasters

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