When I come to the end of my degree, in June, I shall most likely be pursuing a job. Hopefully I’ll have the luxury of choice so that I can do something that I want to do and with a company who I respect and admire the operation of.

Unfortunately, without getting to an interview, finding out what some job roles entail is becoming increasingly difficult. Some companies seem intent on shrouding their job descriptions in a haze of what can only be described as bullshit. Myself and Matt have been browsing various graduate employment directories to discover that a sizeable handful of companies don’t seem to grasp that their pitch is being directed at fresh graduates - we don’t understand what “supporting the successful operation of international business practices” means, nor do we care that every role you’re offering us has “manager” in the title - everyone knows a graduate is very very unlikely to be plunged into a managerial role, we simply don’t have the experience or knowledge.

I can’t get my head around why multi-nationals, who must be doing something right to reach such status, can’t sort out graduate recruitment techniques - how these companies are going to recruit the necessary individuals to keep their company running in several years is beyond me.

It would be nice if all companies could be honest and clear with their descriptions - we do them the service of concise and to the point CVs and applications; I do Software Engineering, not “A complex understanding of the precise involvements of multiple components and policies through their implementation and review into small-large scale computer system programs.”

If you’ve not yet heard of ReviewMe, then you soon will. It’s a new service which plans to pay bloggers to write reviews on products and services that advertisers submit.

The service is two pronged - it allows advertisers to submit a product or service to be reviewed, optionally specifying which theme of blog they want to review their product (tech, politics, health etc.). The review then percolates down through to all the targeted bloggers, some accepting to do the review, some not. Read the rest of this entry »

I spent the most recent weekend galavanting around our good country’s capital - London. Driving up on the Friday afternoon, and public-transporting around the centre, gave insight into a few failings of the transport system established in London.

Read the rest of this entry »

CakePHP is a PHP framework which is turning out to be most useful, and very flexible. I’ve embarked on a few little projects with it, and thought I would spread a little understanding with regards to the session component - as I struggled to find a concise set of examples to help me on my way.

Read the rest of this entry »

Part of my Software Engineering undergraduate degree involves an optional final year unit - Genetic Algorithms & Neural Networks. Needless to say, I volunteered myself for said option. My main drive for choosing this unit is that it’s some of the most unusual, yet cutting edge stuff you can realistically explore as a Software Engineer - the subject matter is quite “out there” but remains in the domain of practicality and usefulness. As much interest as I might have in say, quantum computing, I am unlikely to dedicate part of my education to it as, unless I want to go into computational research, it’s not terrifically useful. (A narrow mind, I know.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Myself and the University chaps were out for a few drinks tonight - fairly harmless stuff, having a few pints, enjoying a bit of light banter; nothing untoward. All of a sudden a woman approaches us with a plastic-coin-collection thing, you know - where you slot the money in the top. I’d seen her come into the bar and observed how out of place she looked - far too old to be in the heaving student bar as she stood rather uncomfortably in the corner without a drink. We were first on her collection round - presumably after she’d picked up enough courage. She had a moderately convincing lanyard-attached charity ID badge - unfortunately the logo on the ID didn’t look a thing like her chosen charity (we’d had a flyer through the door from Great Ormond Street Hospital only a few days before). She proceeded to recieve two prompt “No” responses from us (presumably to be three, had Ian not re-invented the Universe en-route to the bar) and continued on around the bar - I saw at least half a dozen people slot their pound coins into her cursed collection pot.

Taking advantage of a charity which supports children with lukeamia to get a few extra pounds is one of the most sickening things I’ve ever witnessed. Absolutely horrendous - I can’t even begin to imagine how these people being to think about sleeping at night. I don’t really want to swear on here, in case my Mum ever finds it - but if I were to swear, this is the post in which it would be. Sickening.

Planet Europe has gone live! Admitedly it didn’t take too much work, but a little concentration.

Planet Europe uses the excellent Planet Feed Reader to collect, consolidate and re-publish the hottest Europe/EU news from across The Internet - providing an all-in-one, easy to read and subscribable European news source.

I picked up my shiny new iMac a few weeks ago, and have only just plucked up the courage to indulge in the iTunes Store.

What a pleasant experience, filled out all my details, clicked a button and a few seconds later I’m listening to my cracking new purchase - and only 79p for it.

Jose Gonzalez - Hand on Your Heart, if you must know. I’m a touch miffed that I only get a 128kbps AAC file though, would much rather something with VBR, but I’m guessing the copy protection might get in the way of that.

Matt and I have just finished publishing the first episode of our new Podcast - Let’s Talk Europe. We’re pretty excited about it all at the moment, despite being half a week late with the first episode going “on air”. In summary, it’s news, discussion, opinion, fact and humour based on the EU’s happenings over the last week - a European Hot Potato Observer, if you will.

If you’ve any interest in Europe and the EU, or think you might be able to develop an interest in it (we did) then I’d urge you to check it out. There’s a pretty basic, but functional site for the ‘cast over at letstalkeurope.eu and we should be appearing in the iTunes Store fairly soon.

Enjoy!

I’ve returned home after my year of working in Brussels, followed by a 2 month travelling stint drinking away as much of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia that I possibly could.

Moved into a new flat, where Matt was waiting for me with open arms to show me to the room I volunteered for. Unfortunately it’s rather a lot smaller than I had remembered, but within the few days I have been here the walls have been repainted, shelves have gone up as well as other small tidbits of DIY which are still waiting to be fully completed. The NTL man came this morning and gave us the gift of broadband which makes things a lot better.

Picked up a new iMac today - the excessively large 24″ model. It’s…huge, really. Not sure quite what one does with all the screen space, but I’m sure I’ll find something.