When answering questions in a technical interview, the only thing worse than giving too much detail is giving too little. Sometimes it seems hard to know if you’re walking that line, but you don’t have to guess.

You just have to ask: “Would you like more detail?”

This does a couple of things:

1. It shows that you care about communicating clearly and that you want to know if you’ve answered the question adequately.

2. It lets you know where you stand. You either need to give a more detailed answer or… you need to shut up. It also helps you tailor future answers to match the interviewer’s expectations.

Good luck!

Among other common tasks, in order to change the resolution in your VM you have to install guest additions there. I found all kinds of suggestions for ways to do this. The easiest is to make sure you’re in the VM and hit “HOST + D” where HOST varies but is the right CTRL key by default.

So on my Windows 7 host installation, I just clicked into the Ubuntu VM window and pressed right CTRL + D. One-click install, restart the VM, and you’re done.

I’m running a fresh install of CentOS 6.5 in Vagrant for building a new app on the MEAN stack. My app lives in a directory on the host box and I’m syncing it to /var/app on the VM using the config.vm.synced_folder configuration in my Vagrantfile.

Trying to install jade via npm yesterday was giving me fits until I found this nugget:

npm install --no-bin-links

Symlinks in this scenario will have issues, so it actually made sense once I found the answer. Neat.

What a great explanation of big O notation. Nice examples and tips about overall strategy.

Always nice to see CS fundamentals well-presented…

Big O Notation: Using not-boring math to measure code’s efficiency

From a job posting by a company on the Fortune 100:

God himself couldn’t get this job

Just a really great essay/survey of many current and upcoming techniques, including lots of images, animations, and links.

From the article:

JavaScript has undeniably become an indispensable tool for frontend developers. Its usage is now expanding into other areas like servers and microcontrollers. It’s the language of choice for introducing computer science concepts by prestigious universities.

Yet a lot of questions on its precise role and usage on the web remain a mystery, even to many framework and library authors.

– Should JavaScript be used to replace browser functions like history, navigation and page rendering?

– Is the backend dying? Should I render HTML at all?

– Are Single Page Applications (SPAs) the future?

– Is JS supposed to augment pages for websites, but render pages in web apps?

– Should techniques like PJAX or TurboLinks be used?

– What’s the precise distinction between a website and a web application? Should there be one at all?

What follows is my attempt to answer these. My approach is to examine the usage of JavaScript exclusively from the lens of user experience (UX). In particular, I put a strong focus on the idea of minimizing the time it takes the user to get the data they are interested in. Starting with networking fundamentals all the way to predicting the future.

7 Principles of Rich Web Applications

Man, I just mentored several teams for Startup Weekend Columbia, MO and this idea would’ve killed there. There are definitely questions that need to be answered around implementation and monetization, but the idea is stroooooong.

Haven’t tried the browser plug-in yet, but that also feels like a natural way to bring this info in front of users right when they need it.

Terms of Service; Didn’t Read

Admit it. You’re a sucker for TED Talks where the speaker cries.

It’s ok. Me, too.

Speaking of which, this one on body language is really excellent…

Amy Cuddy: Your body language shapes who you are

If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel

Just a few days ago, I mentioned that new TLDs were coming soon. Well, now they’re here, so I thought I’d check out some of the 900+ that will be available.

Among reasonable, if not superfluous, options: .coffee, .camera, .plumbing, .vodka, .website (ok…).

One of my favs: .blackfriday. I don’t even leave the house on Black Friday, but this seems useful for both traditional shoppers and online-only (i.e. new traditional) shoppers.

And finally we get to the new domains that really make you say “…” Well, nothing really. I am not making these up: .sucks and .wtf.

These seem so obviously wrong that I don’t understand why they were even considered. I have nothing intelligent to say about this.