For those of you either hiring programmers / IT people or looking to get a job in this type of field you are probably aware there are tons of people available. So how do you recognize / know if you are a good one?

A great article to help answer this is “How to recogni[z]e a good programmer“. Although this article focuses on programmers, I believe the same points apply to IT people as well. To me, this article hits the nail on the head and I pretty much agree with everything here.

Side Bar / Rant Alert -

Personally, I have never been a fan of certifications (and I take it the author of this article shares my opinion). They do have their place and assure you the person has at least a certain level of knowledge, but this does not always translate to real world performance. I do not mean to take anything away from those with certifications, but I have dealt with so many “certified” IT people over the years that really were not up to snuff, which is where my cynicism is rooted.

I have written several tips in the past about the remarkable (and free) Visual Studio Express Editions made available by Microsoft. If you are a user of Visual Studio, then here is a great article pointing out some tips and tricks you may not know about.

Some points of interest from the article:

• Store Commonly Used Code Snippets in the Toolbox
• Using TODO, HACK, and UNDONE Comments
• Split Your Document Horizontally to Reduce Vertical Scrolling and Increase Productivity While Editing
• Macros

I use the second one all the time as it is a very fast and convenient way to mark what you need to revisit at a later time.

If you have any tips for using Visual Studio, please share.

So you want to be a programmer. But you don’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars in training. You want something you can learn that’s cheap, always in demand and can be learned easily.

Sound like you?

Then you want to be a Microsoft Access consultant.

MS Access consultants are always needed for companies both large and small. And the best part is that you really don’t need any official training for it. Download the software (there’s a free 60-day trial), learn what it can do, buy a few Access tutorial books, create a few databases and you’ll be Mr. or Ms. Access in no time. The software is designed in such a way where it’s relatively easy to use.

Should you decide to buy Access, yes the software has a hefty price tag at $229. But it’s more than worth it for the experience and self-training (and potential job you’ll get later).

For those of you saying, "What’s Microsoft Access?", it’s a relational database management system. And yes, it will run on your computer easily.

The reasons companies use Access is either because it’s cheap or as "an excuse".

Cheap example: A small-biz owner needs a database solution but doesn’t want to spend the cash on a full server setup. Instead he or she uses Access.

"Excuse" example: Someone in the Finance dept. of a large corporation has a monster-sized Excel spreadsheet that Excel can no longer handle. It cannot go into the primary database for the company because, well, it’s Excel. So instead Access is used. It is grudgingly allowed by the IT dept. on the promise that Finance will never call IT should there be any problem with it.

With the small-biz owner, the Access db is the lifeline for the company. Everything is in it. And when it breaks (and it will), panic happens and the consultant is called in.

With enterprise, a few of those several-hundred-dollar per-incident phone calls were made to Microsoft Support already, but they weren’t able to fix it, so the next step is to bring in an Access consultant. Either that or the consultant is brought in because it’s actually cheaper than per-incident Microsoft Support.

Your job as an Access consultant is usually to fix busted databases. Something went wrong and nobody can figure it out. You have to go in there, figure out the problem(s) and fix it.

I know, I make it sound too easy. It’s not easy. Access itself is not that difficult, but when faced with a sizeable database with little (if any) documentation on how it was made, it can be a bit trying on the nerves. For all you know, the database might have been created years ago and admin after admin just kept piling crap in it until it finally broke.

But at least you know what to expect. Being an Access consultant is not a glamorous job, but it pays well, it’s low-stress, and as long as Access exists, Access consultants will always be needed.

In addition, a help desk will kiss your feet if you can actually support Access – because that’s an instant upgrade to a Tier 2 (possibly even Tier 3) support job. And that’s more cash in your pocket.

I don’t want to give off the impression that you’ll learn Access overnight, because it does take time to get familiar with it.  But it’s nothing you can’t handle because a good chunk of it is point-and-click.

Where are the Access jobs?

The Monster way

Go to Monster, type in "Microsoft Access" or "MS Access" (make sure to use the quotes), punch in your ZIP code and you’ll see the jobs show up.

Bear in mind Access may not be in the title of the job, but trust me, the jobs are there. It’s almost a given that those who know Access will always get the bigger check.

You’ll typically see Access jobs for some type of financial responsibility because that’s where it’s usually most used.

The consulting or "headhunter" way

Ring up your local consulting agency like OfficeTeam, Computer Merchant, RHI or other local and ask about Access consulting gigs. They’re almost always available.

Don’t be surprised if they’re short 1-to-3 month gigs. That’s fine. They still pay well and there’s always another gig around the corner. You’ll find your best gigs at tax time when Access consultants are needed most.

One of the most beautiful things about the internet is that anyone can develop a program, post it on a web site and charge for it. And if the program is good at whatever it does, people will readily pay for it.

"But I know very little about programming", you may say.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist. All you need is a decent text editor that recognizes typical programming code (like Notepad++, which is free), and then choose whether to use an SDK or API for whatever it is you want to program.

SDK: Software Developer Kit. An example is the Microsoft Office Developer Center. Lots of stuff with plenty of how-tos. SDKs are available for almost any popular application out there. Just do a Google search for "[program name] SDK" and it probably exists.

API: Application Programming Interface. For most people this is easier than using an SDK. And the best part is that you can use your web site (via PHP, Perl, MySQL and so on) as the testing grounds.

APIs are what make new and interesting things happen with a lot of different web sites.

Two examples: YouTube API, Twitter API.

Using YouTube as an example, be examining the Getting Started page there are things just about anyone can do even with the most basic of programming knowledge. And once you get familiarized with that you can move on to bigger and better things.

Another example: World of Warcraft API.

If you play WoW, you’ll learn things about the game by studying the API that you never knew before. And you may be able to put together the "ultimate" add-on that players would be willing to pay for. You never know unless you try.

SDKs and APIs are by nature openly available because software makers want you to program stuff for their products. When you do, this increases sales/popularity of their software and can also make you some money in the process. It’s a win-win situation.

The only thing you truly have to spend is time. Programming, especially for the beginner, is a slow learning process. But once familiarized you’ll be able to do some amazing stuff.

You wanted "hands-on" learning without spending anything? Well, it doesn’t get any more hand-on than this concerning making your own programs/applications.

Said honestly it bothers me that most people think the term hacker in relation to computers means (loosely), "An individual with the intent to harm electronically", such as breaking into someone else’s email account, stealing files, etc.

The term has become so broad that it’s used as an excuse for people’s stupidity.

Example:

"My email account was hacked!"

"Wow, that’s sounds bad. How did it happen?"

"Someone guessed my password!"

That’s not hacking. Not in the slightest. If you were stupid enough to use a weak password, that’s your fault, and the person who "hacked" your account is simply a good guesser.

True hackers to me are programmers, be they beginners or advanced.

If you do something as simple as custom create your own WordPress theme with special PHP functions throughout, you’re technically hacking the code. You saw what WordPress had to offer, didn’t like it and wanted something better. So you sat down, wrote the code by hand, modified some functions, created a few of your own and so on. You hacked the code. There was absolutely nothing illegal about it.

All programmers by default are hackers by nature. They take code, shape it, mold it and do whatever it takes to make it do what they want it to. Maybe one will find some open source code for a program and say, "Y’know, I can make this better." And so it happens. A better program is built from the original source code, more features are added in, ones not needed are taken away, etc.

Just remember that hacker does not necessarily mean "The Bad Guy". And in fact it rarely does. Were it not for code hackers out there we wouldn’t have cool things like, oh, I dunno.. the internet?

Yesterday I posted a tip for people looking to get into programming, so today I am going to point .Net developers to a tool I have found incredibly useful: Exception Reporter.

ExceptionReporter is a .NET component (C#) that adds error reporting capability to .NET WinForms applications by displaying detailed information about an Exception (message, sysinfo, assemblies/versions, inner exceptions etc). It also allows the application user to e-mail, print or save exception information.

Exception Reporter is an absolute breeze to use and it works in both C# and Visual Basic .Net. There are numerous screenshots on the web page and the provided documentation explains how to integrate it into your code. From experience I can tell you, this tool is invaluable because it allows provides your users with a dummy proof way to send you the error information you need in order to troubleshoot.

All in all, this is a fantastic resource for handling exceptions in .Net. I have integrated this into several of my programs and couldn’t be happier with the results.

If you are looking to get started with programming, you will probably hear many different language suggestions as which one is the ‘best’ one to start with. While most people will probably say Java, I believe Visual Basic .Net is the better alternative. Regardless of which tool you start with, a full programming language can be intimidating because there are so many libraries and namespaces you have to be aware of. As an alternate, check out Microsoft Small Basic:

Small Basic derives its inspiration from the original BASIC programming language, and is based on the Microsoft .Net platform. It is really small with just 15 keywords and uses minimal concepts to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible.

The key here being 15 keywords. This allows you to focus on the most important aspect of programming (outside of documentation): design logic. You may think what is the point with starting here, but a simple ‘guess the number’ where you type in a number and see a response of higher or lower is key to learning the fundamentals.

While Small Basic will not be for everyone, it is based on .Net so it provides a gateway into a full programming environment where you can do just about anything.

OK, time to get a bit more technical. In order to customize your Wordpress theme, you will need to understand enough PHP to do a few basic things. Wordpress (and the themes it uses) are entirely based on the PHP scripting language. In this video, I will show you some basic PHP – concentrating on those concepts you’ll need most often in your Wordpress themes.

Video Length: 20:14

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If you’re administering your own web pages (or possibly WordPress themes,) it’s more or less required to know Cascading Style Sheets, a.k.a. CSS for short. In the video below I give a very basic tutorial on how to adjust font styles using CSS.

I must admit when I read this headline, I was thinking "About Frickin’ Time!". Windows is a bloated mess (as Vista proved) and I have been of the opinion for awhile now that Microsoft needs to get back to basics and stop trying to simply build more crap onto an already huge pile.

But, let’s not get too excited quite yet. Microsoft’s new OS is called Singularity and it is a prototype only for academics and researchers. Right now the new OS is geared toward testing software reliability and doing research in programming.

If you want the corporate-speak version, direct from Redmond:

Singularity is a research project focused on the construction of dependable systems through innovation in the areas of systems, languages, and tools. We are building a research operating system prototype (called Singularity), extending programming languages, and developing new techniques and tools for specifying and verifying program behavior.

This is not the next version of Windows. As one commenter put it on the Singularity website:

This is NOT the "next windows kernel". This is an experimental managed kernel that has little or nothing to do with Windows whatsoever. Its ideas may bring about fruition in Windows two or three major versions from now, but without either dual booting or a total hypervisor approach to Windows there is no possible way this could possibly host existing Windows apps, ever.

That said, Singularity is dang cool and makes me glad that Microsoft has an OS concept that they can show off to the computer science world.

That’s a shame. It had me all tingly inside – just for a minute.

Source: PC World.